I put this training together as a free course because most founders are missing the same handful of lessons I had to learn the expensive way.
I spent over $3M on coaching, courses and agencies. Roughly 80% of the courses I bought were bad. What follows is the part that actually worked, pulled into one place.
If you are doing six or seven figures, some of this will feel basic. Read it anyway. The basics are where most businesses leak money.
Start with something you know and sell it before you build it
Your business does not need to be original. Start with something you know or like, find a problem you can see, and solve it.
I started an online fitness coaching business because I had played sports since I was 12 and played Division I football. That was my unfair knowledge.
Then I did the thing most people refuse to do. I sold coaching to my Instagram followers before I had any materials. I promised a meal plan and workout program within 72 hours, built them in Excel, and moved clients to an app later.
Selling first gives you proof of concept. If you cannot sell it, you have a sales problem to fix, and you found that out without spending years building something nobody wants.
Build an offer people actually value
I use the value equation from Alex Hormozi’s book $100M Offers. Value goes up with the dream outcome and the perceived likelihood of getting it. Value goes down with time delay and effort.
Fitness coaching is hard to sell for this exact reason. People want the outcome, but they doubt it will work, it takes a long time, and it takes real effort.
Liposuction is the opposite. Near certain results, instant, no effort from the buyer. That is why people pay for it.
Your job is to push the first two factors up and the last two down, honestly and in a way you can deliver.
Get one consistent lead source working
You need to know where leads come from. Organic content, paid ads, Instagram shoutouts and YouTube are all options, but you need at least one that is consistent.
Here is how I think about the four main methods:
- Content. Hit or miss, and it mostly suits experienced owners. I have about 1,500 YouTube videos and 24,000 subscribers, and the return is poor without a team. If you post, make content that handles sales objections instead of chasing viral.
- Organic outreach. Message your followers in batches of about 100. Expect roughly 30% to respond, about 5 calls booked, and 1 or 2 closes. Cold outreach through hashtags gets about 10% to 20% response.
- Referrals. Ask happy clients for introductions once they get results. It is the cheapest way to scale.
- Paid. Shoutouts on large Instagram pages are cheap for beginners. Boosted posts should land around $0.10 to $0.20 per profile view and $1 to $2 per follower, so $1,000 can bring roughly 500 followers and about 3 sales. For regular B2C ads, aim near $10 per lead with a 10% close rate. B2B usually costs about double.
Track every number. When a metric drops, it tells you whether you have a messaging problem or a sales problem.
I grew mostly through boosted posts, shoutouts and regular ads because the results were predictable.
Keep the clients you win
Clients decide how they feel about you in the first 24 to 72 hours. So I front load the experience:
- Send a personal video of about 30 seconds within moments of the sale.
- Book the onboarding call immediately.
- Send a handwritten letter. Almost nobody does it, so it lands.
- Use an intake form of about 30 questions so your account managers can tailor the strategy and you avoid refunds and chargebacks.
There was a period where I neglected clients while chasing sales. Do not do that. A client centric culture is how word of mouth starts.
Mindset, focus and staying in the game
Expect business to be about 10 times harder than you think, though it can happen about twice as fast. Expect to work twice as hard for half the results at first. Low expectations keep you sane.
Setbacks are a cost of doing business. I lost over $100K to a hacked ad account. Accounts get deactivated. Lawsuit threats show up. None of that defines you unless you let it.
Most of my early competitors were out of business six years later. The people who stay in the game longest usually win.
On focus, I am not working harder than competitors. I am more efficient:
- Phone silenced and in another room.
- Every day blocked on a calendar, including workouts and about two hours of personal time.
- Low distraction living. I moved back home to a suburb of Houston instead of paying $3,000 a month in rent while I was building.
I also had to burn the boats. My first million only came after I dropped my backup plan. If you do not sacrifice for your goals, your goals become the sacrifice.
Systems, one platform and the right team
Automate the repetitive work: ad metric sheets, email filtering, scheduling. When automation is not enough, hire a VA. Build email sequences, text flows, funnels and pixel setup once and reuse them.
We used to pay about $3K to $4K a month across ClickFunnels, SimpleText, ActiveCampaign and more. We moved everything onto one platform, GoHighLevel, which we now offer as our own white label product, Elite 360.
On hiring:
- Attract talent with a big mission.
- Hire for experience. A seven you can get to a ten beats a three you train to a seven.
- Vet with open questions like “describe your past jobs and a typical day,” not yes or no questions.
- Be careful with phantom equity. I know of a billion dollar company that had to pay $20M to buy out an executive who stopped working.
- Document your systems. I once ran about $300K a month out of scattered Google Sheets.
Most people do not need a co founder either. Treat it like a marriage, and only do it for a complementary skill and shared values.
Sales, marketing and mentorship
Sell the outcome, not the steak. Sell to people who need and want it, be likable, and protect your reputation.
In marketing, map your customer’s pains, fears and desires and build your message around them. Expect seven or more touchpoints before a sale. In my experience 80% to 90% of revenue comes from follow up.
And pay for mentorship. On the free route I made about $2K in my first two years. In the six years after I started paying for coaching, I did over $100M.
The takeaway
Pick something you know, sell it before you build it, and get one lead source working that you can measure. Then protect the first 72 hours of every client relationship, run your days on a calendar, and hire for experience.
None of this is complicated. It just has to be done consistently while everyone around you quits.
Want to know what’s capping your business right now? Take my free 90 Day Ceiling Plan. Answer 18 questions and get a written plan, built on your own numbers, that names the one thing holding you back and what to fix first.
