The Only Two Things You Need To Make Money (And A Three-Part System To Get There)
Here’s the bottom line…
In order to make six figures, you only
need two things: an offer and a buyer.
Now there are a lot of different ways to approach this, so please don’t over-complicate it. We’ll focus on a three-part system that you can use immediately to start building a six-figure business and gain your freedom:
Build An Audience I’ll begin by unpacking this reality: every successful business is built upon establishing, engaging, and expanding a community of people who have a shared interest.
Build A Relationship Then, I’ll explain some keys to establishing a relationship within that community so people will “know, like, and trust” you enough to do business with you.
Build A Sales Machine Finally, I’ll briefly highlight some simple six-figure models that you can use to kickstart your own efforts to get to $100,000 per year.
This isn't a full-blown, step-by-step course... we walk you through this entire process in our 10-week Launch Intensive coaching program. You will have a signature program and be selling it by the end (we'd love to have you join us!).
But, this here is a primer for identifying a simple formula for a six-figure income that you can easily achieve.
Let’s take a look at each of these pieces in more detail…
Part 1: Build An Audience
Learn this principle from the beginning. It is paramount to any successful business…
Every successful business is built upon establishing, engaging, and expanding a community of people who have a shared interest.
Here are five options for building this audience:
- LIST An email database (list) of opt-in subscribers. Generally, you’ll create an in-demand free offer (AKA lead magnet) to give away to people who join your list. Then you’ll send follow-up emails to your subscribers.
- BLOG A website containing posted content. This may include articles, infographics, checklists, videos and more. You can get your own blog up quickly and easily using a free platform like WordPress.org.
- SOCIAL MEDIA This is a digital following via personal-relationship platforms. The most popular platforms are still Facebook and Twitter.
- PODCAST This is where you offer a downloadable or streaming audio series, such as a once-a-week podcast on a topic of interest to your audience.
- VIDEO CHANNEL Here’s where you create a collection of video recordings. Many people set their channels up on YouTube, where others can subscribe to the channel as well as rate and comment on the videos. For best results, put out videos regularly (such as once or twice a week).
Ultimately, you will put together a strategy where you’ll use every single one of these five platforms to build your audience.
But, not at first. You’ll focus on just one: building a list.
To get started with your list, you’ll need the following pieces:
- An email service provider such as GetResponse.com, Aweber.com, ConstantContact.com or similar.
- A lead magnet. This is an enticing freebie you’ll give away in exchange for an email address. (You’ll learn more about lead magnets in just a few moments.)
- A lead page. This is a page that includes your opt-in form, as well as sales copy to persuade people to join your list.
However, an audience alone doesn’t mean a whole lot. That’s because you need a relationship with this audience. Which brings us to the next part…
Part 2: Build A Relationship
Again, let’s look at a key truth about successful businesses…
People do business with those they know, like, and trust.
That’s why you’ll always get a higher conversion rate from your own list, versus placing advertisements in front of cold prospects on facebook, google, or a real world billboard. So, if you want to be successful online, you need to start building a relationship with your audience.
One way to start building a good relationship is by offering free content that helps your audience solve a problem.
You can offer a high-demand freebie as a lead magnet to help persuade people to join your list. Then you can continue to offer freebies as a way to build the relationship.
Your free offer can:
- Help your audience get to know you.
- Help you promote your offers and close the sale.
Sounds pretty good, right? So let me give you a few examples of free offers:
- Articles or blog posts You are engaging with one now. This might include how-to articles, tips articles, overview articles, or anything else of interest to your audience.
- Reports If you can solve one specific problem within a report, then you’ll have prospects who are very likely to become customers. For example, you might write a nutrition report that tells people exactly what to eat to start shedding pounds.
- Toolkits This freebie makes it easy for your prospects to take action on the information they’ve been learning about. For example, a business start-up toolkit might include template privacy policies, sample accounting forms, a start-up planner and much more.
- Webinars People tend to place a high value on live events, which make webinars one of the most attractive free offers. People get to see you, hear you, and interact with you which makes it very easy to know, trust, and like you... quickly. Best of all, you’ll be able to sell the recordings as well.
- Case studies The beauty of a case study is that they provide information for someone who wants to learn how to get a specific result, they provide motivation or inspiration, plus they help you promote a specific offer. For example, you can provide a case study showing how you (or another marketer) increased your traffic using one very specific traffic strategy.
- Worksheets Here’s another tool that helps people take action on what they just learned. For example, you might provide debt-management and budgeting worksheets to people who want to get out of debt.
- Audios Podcasts are hugely popular right now. These can be “how to” type audios, or you can create an audio to help someone with a specific task or event. For example, if you run a meditation website, you might offer a guided meditation that people can listen to while they relax, workout or commute.
- Email courses The beauty of offering a multi-part email course as a freebie is that you train subscribers to watch for and open your emails. For example, you might send out a 7-part ecourse called “The Seven Secrets to Doubling Your Dates.”
- Swipe files Sometimes it’s easier for someone to complete a task if they have a little inspiration. One good example is offering a swipe file full of headlines that business owners can use to craft their own headlines.
- Cheat sheets These are sheets that condense a complex topic down to about one page. These sheets tend to present a lot of ideas and tips, without going into any detail.
- Planners Here’s another “take action” tool that helps people get started and get better results. For example, you might provide bodybuilders with a three-month planner that details gym routines and menus.
- Checklists This is a great tool to provide to people who are undertaking a task that has many steps or is otherwise complex. For example, if you have a travel site, then you might provide your visitors with a traveling checklist for overseas travelers.
- Newsletters This is something you should be sending to an email list on a weekly basis. Your newsletters might provide a wide variety of content, including how-to information, tips, industry news, product reviews and more.
- Templates You can offer templates to any group who needs to create content. For example, you might offer sales letter templates to beginning web designers, or perhaps you kindle formatting templates for aspiring authors.
- Interviews There are two ways to do this: interview others, or have others interview you.
SIDEBAR: The benefit of having other people interview you is that you’re automatically viewed as an expert. It’s a good way to help further establish credibility.
The second method is to interview an expert in your niche via Zoom or even over a webinar. It’s a great way to get high-quality content created for free. As an added bonus, you also get a little “borrowed credibility” when you work with well-known experts in your niche, they may promote the interview to their list, and you can compile several expert interviews and make a new product or book!
- Resource guides. This is where you give your audience a list of gear, tools and/or resources they need to meet some goal. For example, you might provide online marketers with a list of your favorite email service providers, payment processors, WordPress plugins, scripts, domain registrars, web hosting companies, split-test tracking tools and more. It saves your audience a lot of time since they won’t have to research these items themselves.
Now before you start tossing these free offers in front of your audience, let me share with you eight best practices to help optimize your results.
1. Provide high-quality free content that is useful to your audience. Ideally, this content should focus on solving one specific problem, and your prospects should get fairly fast (and good!) results if they put your information to work. That way, you’ll have satisfied prospects who are likely to purchase your paid content.
TIP: Not only should your content be useful, it should also be something your prospects really want. That’s why it’s a good idea to do market research to find out what your market is already buying and consuming. Then you create something similar (yet better) with your own unique spin and method of teaching.
2. Tell personal stories so that your audience can get to know you. Even if you’re running a company, put a “face” and name to the company. That means letting people get to know you. It's what modern consumers want.
- But, make sure these personal stories tie in to what you're teaching or selling. Tell them about your vacation. Let them know about your hobbies. Show them pics of your dog, your restored car, you running that marathon. Show your vulnerability too, like how you cried when you read a Nicholas Sparks’ book. Tell them about a favorite childhood memory. But, always tie these stories back to a lesson you learned, or back when you felt like your potential customer feels, or why you started your business in the first place.
- In other words, show your audience that you’re human, but make it relevant to your people and where you are leading them. That way they can start the process of building a relationship where your prospects can genuinely grow to know, like and trust you.
TIP: Occasionally people will say that corporations don’t operate that way, but that’s outdated. Think about Steve Jobs (who headed Apple before he passed away). Or Bill Gates (Microsoft). And then there’s Oprah.
Those are just three examples of people who put a face on their corporations. We know so much about these three people, from their struggles to victories, because they let us get to know them. Likewise, you should let your audience get to know you too.
3. Empathize with the problems your audience faces. People don’t want to feel like they’re being “sold” to. Instead, they want someone who demonstrates that they really understand and empathize with their problems. One good way to do this is tell stories that show how you understand the pain of your prospect’s problem, and how you overcame that same problem.
4. Provide testimonials and case studies to establish credibility. Your prospects want to believe you. But you know what? They’ve been burned a lot in the past. Other marketers have made a lot of big claims that just didn’t seem to be true. So yeah, your prospects are highly skeptical of your big claims too.
- So what’s the solution? You need to establish your credibility. One good way to do this is to get OTHERS to sing your praises. This includes:
- Testimonials. The best testimonials are those that are specific about some good result that the customer received.
For example, a testimonial for a diet book that says it’s a “quick, easy read” isn’t a very strong testimonial. That testimonial doesn’t tell the prospect anything about the information inside the book.
A better testimonial is one that mentions specific benefits of the product or, better yet, results the customer received. For example, “The recipes inside the book are delicious, and I lost 10 pounds in the first month using this diet!”
- Case studies. This is where you or someone else uses a product for a specific amount of time (or to complete a specific task), and then track results. Generally, this sort of proof includes a lot of data, pics or screenshots when appropriate, etc.
For example, someone might do an eight-week case study to see if a diet plan works.
Another example, a marketer might do a one-week case study to track how well a traffic method works. A case study should provide proof of your claims, instructions for how to get the same results, as well as a dose of inspiration.
5. Interact with your audience by asking and answering questions. You can’t really deliver a monologue (one-way communication) and expect people to know, like and trust you.
This is especially true now since social media platforms are so popular. People want to interact with you to get to know you. That’s why you should ask and answer questions on your blog, on social media or in forum communities. As an added bonus, answering niche-relevant questions helps you establish your expertise.
6. Personally respond to comments, questions and emails. Every once in a while, you’ll see a leader asking their people questions on their blog, their newsletter, or their social media. Plenty of people will answer… but the leader doesn’t respond to any of the comments.
Don't do that. It turns people off. They might wander over to a competitor who makes them feel more respected.
Your prospects and customers are real people out there.
Show them how important they are to you by personally responding to comments on blogs, forums, in groups, on social media and via email. Be sure to respond promptly too, which helps create a good experience for your prospects and customers.
7. Ask your audience what they want to learn more about. When you make a program or create a product, you should always be doing your market research to find out what topics are popular and selling in your niche. However, don’t forget that you already have one very good source at your fingertips: your people. Ask them what they want to learn more about, and then give them both free and paid resources to solve their problems.
TIP: This is also a great way to make your readers feel special and important. For example, if “Jane” tells you she wants a calorie-counting formula, then mention her first name and thank her when you provide an article on that topic. These little things help bond your audience to you.
8. Regularly send out both fresh content and fresh sales offers. Think about how you developed a relationship with your best friends. In the beginning, you saw these people regularly, and over time you developed a great friendship.
The same goes for your prospects and customers. You can’t develop a good relationship unless you get in touch on a regular basis. That’s why you need to send out content on a weekly basis at a minimum, which will help build “top of mind” awareness with your audience.
But don’t just send any ol’ thing out. Send your audience fresh content and fresh sales offers. And always send them GOOD stuff (some of your best stuff), so that they’ll eagerly look forward to every email, podcast, video, or webinar you send them.
So at this point, you have an audience and you’re building a relationship with that audience. Now for the final part…
Part 3: Build A Sales Machine
Every business needs to create revenue in order to exist. Now there are plenty of profitable paths for you to take, but one of the best things you can do is create your own signature program (you can create your own in our 10-week program).
You start here. Your premium program is your surest path to big profits in your business. Create a signature system first and figure out how to enroll people in that higher-end program.
Then, you can explore some of these options.
Take a look at these five examples to see just how simple it is to make six figures a year with your coaching or wellness business…
- Example 1: Making a $2,997 6-month coaching package. Get just 17 clients twice per year to make $101,898. (Just 34 people a YEAR to work with you - about 3 clients per month)
- Or, get 34 clients to enroll in your program at $500 per month. ($6,000 per year each). That's $204,000 per year!
- Coaching packages are high value and you need far fewer customers (and therefore advertising) to get those clients.
- Example 2: Sell a $97 course. You only need three sales per day to make $106,215.
- Example 3: Offering a $20 monthly membership site. You need just 417 monthly members to earn $100,080 per year.
- Example 4: Creating a $497 4-week coaching course. Get 17 clients per class (12 classes per year), and you’ll earn $101,388 per year.
- Example 5: Provide a $197 “done for you” service. Generate ten sales per week, and you’ll make $102,440 per year.
The point is, you don’t need to over-complicate this— you too can make six figures using any one of the sample paths above. Or, crunch other sales numbers to create your own path.
What’s more, you can dramatically ramp up your income by taking consistent steps every month to get more traffic, improve conversions, and create programs & products.
For example, if you create one new $97 course every month, then in one year you’ll have 12 courses. Now imagine if you made three sales per day of each of these courses.
Look at the numbers:
12 courses X 3 sales of each per day X $97 = $1,274,580 per year!
Now let’s wrap things up…
You now know the three pieces you need to snap into place in order to build a six-figure business.
These pieces include:
Part 1: Build an Audience
Part 2: Build a Relationship With That Audience
Part 3: Build a Sales Machine
Now go create something awesome.
