SFB Newsletter #23

Hey 👋,

Today I wanted to share the principles for getting your business up off the ground.

I’m often talking about scaling businesses, but I also know that a large chunk of the people on the list are either preparing to start or trying to get things up off the ground.

First let’s talk on the goal…

In my opinion a great first goal for a new business is to get to $10K/month.

Why $10K/month..?

Because when you get there you will be able to support yourself and your lifestyle - in most cases you’ll be able to be full time in your business.

That’s item # 1 in your business.

The first goal of your business is to be able to support yourself. So many people miss this. The goal isn’t to innovate the most transcendent version of your product possible.

The goal is not to create a new market… The goal is to get up onto your own two feet.

Prove a simple model. 

Think of it like this. (a basketball analogy:) you can either score a layup from right underneath the basket or you can try and sink a half court shot.

It’s an unusual thing that so many budding and aspiring business owners are lined up at the half way line - launching ill advised shots…

Prove a simple model.

You’ll notice in my 6 Pillars process I break up the pillars into three levels.

Level 1 = Proof of Concept
Level 2 = Leverage
Level 3 = Scale

In essence what this means ist he way you approach the pillars and which ones you focus on should change depending where you are in revenue.

All of the mistakes budding and aspiring business owners make are from jumping up too high into the pillars. (taking long shots)

• Product: Creating new never before seen technology or an app - wait until you’re flush with cash instead.

• Marketing: Spending money on ads - wait until you’ve got proof of concept instead.

• Operations: Hiring staff - Hold back until high level 2 & level 3. Outsource it instead.

• Finance: Meetings with your lawyer / accountant - cancel them.

Here is the breakdown of what to focus on instead…

For those wanting to grow to $10K/month I suggest two things.

1. Growing your confidence by spending 50% of your time, effort, energy and resources on your learning, growth & personal development.

2. Spend the other 50% on sales - get in conversations with as many potential dream clients as possible - and sell them a time heavy, massively overdelivered version of your offer for maximum possible AOV.

Just this morning I had a conversation with a mentee - she was working hard to develop a new and innovative solution for her business - too hard in fact.

My advice was to put mindset & personal development first.

We all have a list of things we do that make us feel balanced, grateful & confident.

Find your list and try to tick off those things everyday.

For me it’s;

Daily:

• Daily Health Action - Gym, Yoga or Cardio

• Eating the Best Foods Available to Me - Doesn’t have to be expensive, but organic and quality yes.

• Drinking 2+ Litres of Water / Day

• Getting 8+ Hours of Sleep

• Journalling Out My Pains, Problems & Solutions with a Pen

• Keeping a Daily Checklist

• Personal Development Exercises (Learnt From Dr Demartini)

• Meditation

• Walking 10,000 Steps

• Reading 50 pages / day from a book

Weekly:

• Keep a Set of Weekly Goals

• Going Out for a Nice Lunch with My GF (Our favourite brasserie La Marine - just downstairs from our apartment here in Paris)

• Taking time to relax - Watch the EPL / other football games.

• See Friends / Family Once / Week.

• Call My Family Back in Aus.

Monthly:

• Set Monthly Goals

• Plan upcoming travels with my GF Gio.

• Check the progress of quarterly business projects.

This is a basic list of things that I’ve tested for me and that I know produce momentum. All of these activities are energy gainers for me. They drive my growth and productivity.

Now… Do I tick every single item off; every day, week and month?

No of course not. Some days I miss all of them, others 80%…

Some days I drink excessively, get take out and do various levels of nothing productive.

But the average is what’s important.

Over the course of the past 10 years on average I’ve ticked off more than half of these items day by day, week by week, month by month.

These are just the things I’ve tested and found to bring me momentum.

Your list will be different.

Start testing, figure out your list & aim to tick off those items on average every day, week and month & you will undoubtedly exponentially increase the likelihood of becoming successful.

Prioritise these things first before anything else you do - put them into your calendar first.

Don’t wait until your ‘successful’ to take care of yourself and build your confidence because that time objection will keep rearing it’s ugly head in your business & it will dominate you into submission.

Joseph Campbell once said, ‘The fates guide those who will - and drag those who won’t.’ 

Your fate is personal development.

Act accordingly.

Next it’s Sales.

First get clear on who, exactly is the person you want to help.

Next create an irresistible offer for that person.

Make sure your offer has, as high of an average order value that you can manage.

Don’t try to make 1,000 x $10 sales.

Try and make 10 x $1,000 sales instead.

You’ll soon discover that it’s not 100x harder to make a $1,000 sale vs a $10 sale.

Overall here you need to study sales.

If you’re not studying with someone or reading 25+ books on sales: to me you’re making things much, much harder for yourself.

Luckily for me, some of my early mentors understood this really well and taught me everything they knew about sales: That was 10 years ago and I still use much of their materials to this day.

Trust me when I say you can try and subvert this process of sales mastery… You can trick yourself into thinking you’re an entrepreneurial genius product innovator - you can try and partner with someone who you think has that skill…

But it will always come back around: As a business owner you will need to pay the piper here.

I hated, hated, hated sales when I first started.

I hated it because I had no idea what it really was and or how it worked.

I was incredibly ignorant, and I still am in many areas.

But through time I discovered the principles of sales which in turn unlocked the strategies and tactics and made my life a hell of a lot easier.

Today it’s a strength - so much so - that an old employee of mine who used to run my sales team now runs a business doing over $1 million per year teaching it to others.

Regards,

Ben Slater.

Ps… Getting your business to $10k/month and beyond can transform your lifestyle. My girlfriend Gio and I have been able to travel constantly because of my businesses and my understanding & application of the principles.

It’s worth the leap.

Whenever you’re ready here are two ways I can help you scale your business to $10K / month.

1. Want feedback on your business idea? Click below to send me your idea and I’ll flick you a message and let you know what I think you need to do to scale to $10k/month.
   
   Click here >
   

2. Want to get mentoring from me to help you scale your business to $10K/month. I’ve just launched a new community for business owners that comes with a guarantee that you’ll be able to get you there by the end of 2024 or it’s free.
   
   Want to learn about it?

   
   Click here to let me know about your business >
   
   & I’ll get you all the details.