| My mentor Mark Ford just gave a KILLER presentation at our mastermind this week in Miami.
Mark is now in his 70s and has had a legendary career in entrepreneurship…
He’s built dozens of 7 & 8 figure businesses, a 9-figure business, and even one billion-dollar behemoth.
He also wrote the New York Times bestselling business classic Ready, Fire, Aim (confusingly published under his pen name, Michael Masterson).
I re-read this book pretty much every year…
And countless other self-made millionaires including Alex Hermozi, Ryan Deiss, and Jason Capital consider it one of the top business books of all time.
If you’re at all serious about entrepreneurship…
Ready, Fire, Aim is a MUST read.
The book is divided into sections that give specific advice for each of the 4 growth stages of business:
Stage 1. Zero to $1 million Stage 2. $1 million to $10 million Stage 3. $10 million to $50 million Stage 4. $50 million and beyond
Since most people reading this email (and about 70% of my clients) are in stages one and two…
I want to share some key lessons from the first half of the book today.
There are 5 basic steps to running a successful business:
I - Come up with ideas II - Selling products III - Manage systems IV - Develop superstars V - Take action
One of the most important lessons in Ready, Fire, Aim is that sales should be your primary focus when trying to grow.
The most deadly problem a business can face is being unable to acquire customers (and generate revenue).
“Money is oxygen to a business,” Mark says, “Without money, it dies.
Therefore…
In the first two growth stages (especially zero to $1 million), you should be spending 80% of your time on selling (sales & marketing).
By the time you’re moving onto stage three ($10 million plus) you should have installed an Optimal Selling System…
Which is essentially a customer acquisition machine.
And with the necessary lead generation, sales team, and processes in place — your attention can then shift to other things.
But for now…
Let’s focus on what’s most important to YOU (and where you should be spending 80% of your time)… Developing Your Optimal Selling System (OSS)
To launch a product successfully and get to a million dollars in sales you must identify your Optimum Selling Strategy (OSS) for acquiring new customers.
The best way to identify your OSS is to answer THESE 4 questions:
1. Where are you going to find your customers? - Who has your customers? “Go where everyone else is”... but do it differently/uniquely - Study & interview the competition - “A great ad in front of the wrong audience will fail. A mediocre ad in front of the right audience will do fine.” (They don’t sell beer at the Oscars. Budweiser saves its ads for the Superbowl)
2. What product will you sell them first? - Identify the BIGGEST problems of your potential customers... and solve them! - Test multiple offers (for my fitness business this was “Executive Lifestyle vs. Get Lean”... Get Lean then became TT) - “What you are looking for is an idea that excites you.” One that is similar to what is hot in the marketplace but with a different feature or tweak that makes it better and unique
3. How much will you charge for it? - Pricing is another strategy for another day... but always be testing price points!
4. How will you convince them to buy it? - This is often where you need to spend the majority of that 80% of your time - It can be as simple as putting X hours per day into drumming up business for your business — making warm and cold calls, DM’ing, old school prospecting in your community, etc.
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So those are the four questions to focus on for developing your Optimal Selling System…
Which is the key factor in growing any business from zero to $10 million in no time flat.
More to come from Mark Ford and our other Mastermind presenters over the next week or two.
For now I’ll leave you with that.
Success Loves Speed,
Craig
PS - If you’re ready to 2X your income (or more) while working 10 less hours per week...
... Just REPLY to this email with the words “2X 10 LESS” and we'll set up a time to chat with you to find out if we can help. | 