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When I got a six-figure salary when I was in my twenties, I think I’d made it. After all, it was all I had dreamed of (and my immigrant parents).
So when I started a business to quit my job, I made a promise to myself: I was going to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, I would have given up the career I’d worked on all my life, for nothing.
Fortunately, the resolution paid off. In less than a year, I had built my business at over $1 million in sales and since then I have continued to grow year after year. Here are the maximum 4 steps I’ve taken to get there.
“Build it and they’ll come” can happen in the movies, but it’s not the way to create a successful business.
An unusual mistake made by many new marketing specialists is to create a beautiful website, return and wait for consumers to approach them. Since there are more than a billion web pages on the Internet, these are complicated opportunities.
So if I waited, I went out and discovered my clients.
My first online business was to do virtual advertising consulting for commercial homeowners because of the skills of my work. When I asked small business homeowners where they spent their time online, I knew my prospective consumers were part of Facebook groups. (The forum will possibly be replaced over time, but the precept is the same. Over the years, I have helped academics locate their clients on the Internet, adding on Reddit, Instagram, Youtube, podcasts, industry-specific forums, etc. )
Within those groups, I looked for terms that my ideal customers would probably communicate on, such as “ads” and “campaigns.” Most of the time, I was asked about the things I might be with, so I answered their questions, for free and without expecting anything in return.
I didn’t know exactly how this would translate into getting customers, but I knew that if I led in value, I would at least start building my online reputation. Besides, I think there’s going to have to be other people who need more help than I can find my loose answers.
When I asked for something in return, it only took them a few minutes to ask some market research questions, such as “What are you struggling with?” and “What would you like to get help for?” so I can figure out what I’m probably going to sell.
I kept an existing list of about 10 Facebook teams and answered all the questions I could locate every day.
And that’s how they gave me my first client.
After jumping into a call from market research, I thanked him for answering some questions he had about advertising. After our call, he continued to send me follow-up questions, to which I answered. After about two weeks of this, she emailed me about how much I appreciated what had already helped her, by loose, and asked me how I could rent myself for better results.
I couldn’t do it when I saw your first payment pass via Paypal. I was in business! After seeing how well it worked, I continued to do so until I got my first clients.
I need to make it clear that the procedure hasn’t been easy. I had to communicate with over 50 people this way to get those customers. More than not, I was told it was too expensive (although I charged the same rate as my salary).
It was incredibly disheartening and I was tempted to give up. However, each time, I remembered that successful marketing specialists see rejection as a springboard, and I also had to if I wanted to grow my business.
Although this is the most productive way to start my business and update my salary, promoting coaching/advising necessarily severely limited my business perspective, as it depended only on my limited time and energy.
That’s why, after working with about 20 clients, I took everything I learned about helping my clients get the most productive effects and incorporated it into my first virtual course. (Note: this after my transition to help others start their own online business after several other people asked me to help them do what I had done with my virtual advertising consulting firm)
Even though I was able to create a perfect course the first time and get smart testimonials because of my pleasure in running with customers, I was not satisfied. I sought to create the most productive course of its kind on the market.
So I spent three years perfecting it.
That didn’t mean I sat in front of a computer and worked alone. No, many academics have taken the course. Every time a student had a consultation or felt that something in the course was unclear, they would return and update that content.
It’s a lot of work, and it’s possible that I would have stored a few years if I’d been willing to create a smart course instead of a fair one. In t.
However, the result is something I can be proud of. Not only that, but the paintings were worth it. Now I have a lot of testimonials for my flagship course and it is considered to be the most productive of its kind.
As soon as I gained the testimonials of my first visitors and demonstrated that I was doing a smart task for my clients, I started testing tactics to grow my business as temporarily as possible.
I knew the key to standing in front of more people, which can historically be a very slow process. Thank God for facebook ads. (Again, my advertising experience is helpful).
For the launch of my first course, I invested about $1,500 in advertising. As a result, I made $8,000 in sales. This allowed me to gather enough knowledge to verify that paid advertising would be profitable, and gave me a concept of how much every dollar spent on advertising would likely generate sales.
Armed with this data, I invested about $10,000 a few months later for the launch of my momentary course. As a result, this release generated $100,000 in sales. The effects of the first release would probably have been a coincidence, but the timing of the launch showed that it had nailed my advertising, marketing and sales strategies.
After two successful releases, I’m able to go even further. So, for my third release, I invested about $80,000 and ended up with final sales of about $800,000.
Again, it’s not easy.
Every time, it was incredibly scary to make those investments while I wondered if this would be the moment when something “broke” and would end in red numbers. Also, every release was a lot of work, which involved long days talking to potential consumers and nights behind with my operations and visitor groups to make sure everything was going well.
Without this step, none of the others would have mattered. Because no matter what your industry is, it’s still a small world. Word gets out if you do a smart job. And it spreads even further if you make a bad one.
Given the competitiveness of my sector and the number of players established, I knew I had to go beyond that for my clients if I wanted to stand out.
For example, for my first visitor call, even though I knew my business, I tried to make sure everything went well. So I spent more than 3 hours writing each and every word I would say during a one-hour call. And I did it back for my call at the moment.
Once I started promoting courses, I kept giving too much. I dealt with many clients, so it meant spending several hours each day answering my students’ questions to help them get the most productive results imaginable.
This meant that I worked much more than my competitors, however, it was worth it thanks to a mountain of testimonials and very happy customers.
As you can see, none of these procedures have been easy. However, what I have achieved through my own business career and after helping more than thousands of people start their own online business, is that it’s a dream that everyone can achieve.
If you’re willing to do the job.
Luisa Zhou is the author of the Employee to Entrepreneur system, which teaches others how to give up their daily jobs and start their own six-figure business running on their own. He has appeared in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur magazine, Success, etc. Get your flexible plan to create a successful online business that loses you from 9 to 5.