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I remember the first time I made $1,000 in a month from my website.<\/span><\/p>\n It felt like a breakthrough moment.<\/span><\/p>\n At that time I was selling <\/span>Magic: The Gathering<\/em><\/span> cards and I was 20 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n Five years later, with a different website, this time an agency selling essay editing services, I had my first ever $10,000 month.<\/span><\/p>\n Another revenue breakthrough, although a temporary one as my business was very seasonal.<\/span><\/p>\n Three years on, with my next business \u2014 this time a blog coaching company \u2014 I had my first $20,000 month, then $30,000\u2026 all the way to eventually a $50,000 month!<\/span><\/p>\n These numbers became far more common place and I was making really good money for the first time in my life as I hit 30 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n More recently we broke $100,000 a month with <\/span>\u200b<\/span>InboxDone.com<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a>, an email assistant agency (my current company), and we are still growing.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, it felt amazing\u2026 <\/span>another milestone!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n During my 20s, each milestone I set as a goal felt very far away when I fist thought about it.<\/span><\/p>\n Getting from $1,000 to $10,000\/month seemed near impossible and required I change businesses completely.<\/span><\/p>\n Even when I hit $10,000 in a month, it didn\u2019t stay at that level for long. <\/span><\/p>\n The idea of breaking $100,000 a year meant consistent $10,000\/months, and that seemed really hard to achieve!<\/span><\/p>\n Then there was my dream goal: <\/span>$1,000 a day. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n That is $30,000 a month, every month. Consistent, reliable, significant income.<\/span><\/p>\n When I finally reached this result, and maintained it for more than two years in a row, it had been such a slow gradual build up I forgot this was a goal I set long ago.<\/span><\/p>\n I remember looking back thinking \u2014 <\/span>this was not how I expected to get here!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Yet in hindsight I started to see the steps that led to the result.<\/span><\/p>\n Today I feel I have a much clearer understanding of the steps necessary to make your way to each money milestone, from that first $1,000 to your first $100,000 month.<\/span><\/p>\n While this clarity is nice, it\u2019s also come with a realization that it\u2019s <\/span>actually far harder than I thought!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n You have to get a lot of things right, and set up a lot of processes, ideally processes that other people run for you \u2014 and building a team is really hard!<\/span><\/p>\n To keep things simple, I\u2019m going to focus on high-level conceptual steps, so you can at least get a grasp of what you need to create to succeed as an entrepreneur.<\/span><\/p>\n I could create entire courses on each of these steps \u2014 in fact I do have many courses inside the <\/span>\u200b<\/span>Laptop Lifestyle Academy<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a> that go into more detail and cover more practical steps about these concepts, but I have only so much room in this newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n Here we go\u2026 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n This always seems crazy-obvious, but you have to be selling a solution to a problem compelling enough that people are willing to spend money to solve it.<\/span><\/p>\n The market needs to be large enough to have enough buyers, yet at the same time you have to find a way to specialize or niche down so you stand out.<\/span><\/p>\n It sounds so easy, but this is where most entrepreneurs fail.<\/span><\/p>\n They choose too small markets, or offer \u2018same-same\u2019 solutions, meaning you\u2019re losing out to the specialists, the big players who already dominate or the sheer volume of competition results in drowning in a crowd of options.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the biggest lessons I\u2019ve taken away in recent years is to <\/span>see positioning as an evolution, and a castle you have to build.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I had an idea to offer a virtual assistant service that specializes in email.<\/span><\/p>\n The market is big \u2014 companies spend billions of dollars on virtual assistants.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s also VERY crowded. One search on Google for VAs will show you the river of competitors in the space.<\/span><\/p>\n I was clear from the start what made us different: We specialize in email.<\/span><\/p>\n This is how InboxDone started and the core positioning hasn\u2019t changed.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet, the nuance of this specialization has evolved so much in the 7 years we\u2019ve run the company.<\/span><\/p>\n Our positioning has seeped into everything we do, from every piece of marketing we produce, to how we service our clients.<\/span><\/p>\n We reinforce it, we have specializations within our specialization, and we know how to present these ideas to people so we can justify our higher than average price.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s so much more I could write about this, but we must move on\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n This is the most overlooked step because it\u2019s not as much about making money as stopping from losing money.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet if you really understand it, stopping from losing money is HOW you make money.<\/span><\/p>\n All the growth in the world can\u2019t fix a broken product or service.<\/span><\/p>\n You need solid retention. You need life time value to increase. You need to use client success as a tool to get more clients.<\/span><\/p>\n Testimonials are brilliant marketing tools \u2013 they offer <\/span>\u200b<\/span>social proof<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a> and reinforce your <\/span>\u200b<\/span>positioning<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a> \u2013 but you have to have clients who get results if you want those amazing reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n This step is one of the hardest to get right because it involves less sexy things \u2014 <\/span>people<\/strong><\/span> and <\/span>processes<\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n You can\u2019t instantly have amazing processes. They must be crafted and refined over time.<\/span><\/p>\n To do this work, you need talented people \u2014 <\/span>and don\u2019t get me started on how hard hiring is!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Finding talent, training talent, rewarding talent, this is how companies grow.<\/span><\/p>\n The foundation of your next breakthrough income increase will come from improving your product or service delivery.<\/span><\/p>\n Customer satisfaction is marketing.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Reducing churn and increasing existing client spend is more money. <\/span><\/p>\n I believe people should be told this before they start a company: <\/span>You will never ever stop marketing.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n New entrepreneurs think that success is just one marketing breakthrough away.<\/span><\/p>\n If only you can get your ads to convert, or a video to go viral, or some influencer to pitch your product, then you will win.<\/span><\/p>\n All those things can lead to new money milestones, but they never work forever.<\/span><\/p>\n Marketing is a<\/span> lifestyle<\/em><\/span>. You can\u2019t stop testing NEW.<\/span><\/p>\n Whether that\u2019s new ad media, new channels, new formats, testing and refinement is the job that never stops.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve had to truly come to terms with this as the CMO of my company.<\/span><\/p>\n I have two tasks I work on:<\/span><\/p>\nDreaming Of Money Milestones<\/span><\/h2>\n
3 Components For Breaking New Income Milestones<\/span><\/h2>\n
1. Positioning\/Market Fit: Lots Of People Spending Lots Of Money<\/span><\/h2>\n
2. Product\/Service Satisfaction (Minimize Churn, Maximize Client Results)<\/span><\/h2>\n
3. Build An Infinite Marketing Machine<\/span><\/h2>\n
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