In the spirit of the Holidays and our upcoming Black Friday special…
This week, I’m sharing the story of how I made my first million dollars…
Plus the 7 steps I discovered, then repeated over and over again, to help me sell another $53 million worth of products and services.
I shared a short video about some of this yesterday…
But there’s a LOT of valuable insights that had to be left out.
So today I’m kicking off a short email series to tell this story in the most helpful way possible:
“Warts and all”
Let’s get started…
*****
In April 2001, I made the move from my little University town to the big city, Toronto.
I shared an apartment with two high school friends and began work as a personal trainer to Canada’s rich and famous.
That year I put up my first website CBAthletics.com… I don’t do anything with the site anymore, but it’s still online and features over 120 weekly fitness, nutrition, and sport science newsletters.
(It even still makes a few thousand bucks in Turbulence Training sales every year — completely on autopilot!)
During that time…
From 5am to 5pm, I was either at the gym or schlepping through Toronto’s weird and wet weather to uptown mansions, training the smartest, wealthiest, most fascinating, and (some of) the nicest people I’ve ever met.
But I hated it.
My introverted tendencies yearned for me to be behind a computer, writing workout programs and email copy…
And so on every 10-minute break between clients I was behind the one computer at the gym writing sales copy…
Or writing workout programs on my Blackberry while sitting outside on the patio.
A year earlier — while still a graduate student in Exercise Physiology at McMaster University — I had a BIG breakthrough.
I began contributing to Men’s Health magazine, the biggest fitness magazine in the world, and that provided me the critical credibility I needed to build a superior, trusted online brand.
In 2003 I took another leap forward… purchasing a thick, mail-order manual called “Info Millions” by Bob Sperling.
While it didn’t address the internet specifically…
This manual of direct marketing gave me the insights I needed to take action selling my fitness expertise online…
And I made an extra $4,400 in 60 days.
I read it again… and made another $4,000. And again. And again.
That “proof of concept” was all I needed to make what turned out to be an exponential move:
I hired my first business coach, Tom Venuto, in 2006.
He helped me refine my Big Idea and prepare for a proper launch…
And we finally released my polished Turbulence Training product to the masses.
I think I made more in the 3-day TT launch than I did in those previous 3 years.
I kept working in the slivers of time I had available — 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there…
And in just 18 months…
I had a 7-figure business.
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that makes it sound…
There were a LOT of stumbles.
And even though I didn’t realize it until later…
It wasn’t until I’d completed the “7 Steps to 7-Figures” that the real money started rolling in.
If you were looking closely, you may have spotted a couple of them above…
But today I only want to focus on the first two.
Step #1 – Clarity on My Customer Avatar
My best customer was the typical Men’s Health reader.
I wrote everything for him… created every workout with his preferences and objections in mind.
My best customer was a 34-year old guy named Mark who lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Mark had gained fat and lost muscle from years of working 9 hours a day… and his 1-hour round trip commute.
He drove a beige mini-van and had two boys under the age of 8.
Mark was married to his college sweetheart, Jenny.
They lived in a medium-sized suburban house with a front lawn (covered in boy’s toys like bikes and toy trucks) and a backyard where the family played baseball.
You might have a picture of Mark in your mind…
He looks similar to Jim, from The Office (but with darker hair).
Like Jim, Mark hated his desk job and had a horrible boss — much like Michael Scott from Dunder Mifflin.
But when Mark arrived home each day at 6pm he came alive…
With a pep-in-his-step he ran up the stairs to his front door, two at a time. He opened the door and his boys yelled “daddy!” and ran towards him with open arms and their baseball gloves.
After an hour in the backyard…
Mark grilled dinner on the back deck, ate with the family, and then helped put the boys to bed.
At 9pm Jenny plopped down on the couch, exhausted, but Mark (also exhausted) went down to his musky basement with a copy of my Turbulence Training workout, used his old dumbbells, and did my workout 3x’s per week.
At 9:45pm he was back on the couch, sweaty, for a small amount of connection time with Jenny before they passed out in bed and did it all again the next day.
I knew how valuable minutes were to Mark…
So I emphasized the efficiency, the simplicity, and of course, the effectiveness of my workouts …
Which was exactly what Mark wanted to hear.
He wanted to gain muscle and lose fat and look like he did 15 years earlier while in college…
But WITHOUT having 3 hours a day to exercise.
Pretty thorough visual, right?
This allowed me to "Enter the Conversation in the Prospect's Mind"
Could you complete the same exercise for your best customer so that you can better communicate with them?
If you want a step-by-step guide for exactly how to do this…
The special deal I’ve got coming for you on Friday will have everything you need.
Step #2 – My Big Idea Formula
Imagine it’s 1999.
You go to the gym.
Every piece of cardio equipment is in use…
There were signs everywhere that said “Please limit use to 30 minutes.”
Why?
Back then, everyone thought you had to spend hours and hours per week doing aerobic exercise if you wanted to lose weight.
My average personal training client was telling me that — before me — they were in the gym 6+ hours per week! And they still weren’t getting results!
Fortunately, my research — from my Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology — found that short-burst exercise (resistance training supersets and interval training) delivered more fat burning and body transformation results than long, slow, boring workouts.
I had a Contrarian Idea (an idea that runs counter-intuitive to mainstream knowledge).
My idea stood out. Which is one reason it made me a lot of money.
Years later, in 2007, a guy launched a book that sold millions of copies.
His book followed what I called the Big Idea Formula.
a) Contrarian
b) Specific
c) Short
d) Catchy (particular articulation)
The book?
Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week.
One of the best big ideas of my lifetime… and one that has launched ten million side hustles and more.
Kudos to Tim for nailing the big idea formula.
So ask yourself…
How can your offer be more contrarian?
How can you sum it up shorter?
How can you make it catchier?
If you can see how important this is… and want to apply it for your business…
The special available this Friday includes a bonus training where I’ll be showing you exactly how to do this and answering your questions LIVE.
*****
Ok…
We’ve covered a lot already so I’ll leave it there for today.
Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for “part two” of the 7 Steps to 7-Figures in tomorrow’s email…
Where I’ll continue with steps 3 & 4.
Success Loves Speed,
Craig
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