In a world of over-complication, I am on a mission to simplify the complex. Business is one of the most simple things out there, but most of us never touched a business book during our childhood. We think that building a business is reserved for people with startup capital, a top 1% skillset, and/or a huge following + paid ads.
Let’s take a step back and see what you really need to hit the $5K, $10K, and even $50K per month mark.
The 3 point online business model is as follows:
- Social media account
- Email List
- Offer
They all interconnect, so stick to the end of the letter to understand the big picture of it all.
Point 1) Social Media Account
Your social media account is your new resume.
Your content displays your expertise, interests, and personality.
And with paid ads becoming less viable, your social accounts are a free organic traffic source that you can send to your offers (what you are selling).
Most people see social media growth as daunting. It is. But there are proven methods for growth and monetization. It would be silly to start growing an account if you have no idea what you are doing… that’s why it’s so daunting in the first place.
Side note: you don’t need a lot of followers to make 6 figures+. Yes, they help, A LOT, but you don’t need them. You can grow to build leverage while pulling in a decent income.
All of this is like learning to play a game (because that’s what it is). At first, a game is boring because you don’t know how to play. But you play anyway, learn the rules, the fundamentals, how to win, and eventually it becomes fun. You want to play the game more because it starts to become an art as opposed to a science.
The same goes for social media. The rules are the platforms terms of service. The fundamentals are the growth mechanisms (how you get maximum exposure and convert those readers to followers). The mechanics reflect in your content. In the case of Twitter, the mechanics lie in your ability to write punchy content relevant to your interests.
Since your social media account serves as the face of your brand, how do you get started?
Create A Content Pyramid
Your content pyramid holds all of the topics that you want to talk about, usually branching down from 2-3 main pillars. Mine are self-improvement, online business, and a spiritual take on performance.
Yours can be anything. If somebody is talking about it online and has grown an audience, there is no reason you can’t do the same. Another good metric: if you could talk to a friend for hours about a specific topic, why not talk to people online about it?
The Content Pyramid
Craft A Followable Profile
Don’t overthink this step. Everybody else already is. Have a good looking profile photo, a compelling bio that answers the question, “What’s in it for me?” (the reader), and have a link that leads to your offers to show readers that you are a creator — not a consumer.
A question to consistently ask yourself, does my account look like it should have 100,000 followers? No? Change something.
Understand The Current Growth Meta
Again, this is a game. You need to understand what content results in the most growth for beginners because that is when it is the hardest to grow.
Think about it, popular YouTubers did not post travel vlogs to get to where they are now. They played the game long enough to where they can now do whatever they want. At the beginning, they posted “how-to” videos and catered to the algorithm. Something that is popular right now are the “I Tried X For 30 Days.”
On Twitter, the current meta is punchy Tweets and Medium blog-style threads. Join communities, groups, and other places online that discuss what type of content is doing best, or just pay attention to what accounts are doing to grow.
Consistency
At the end of the day, you don’t have to pay attention to any of this. You SHOULD, but if you simply stuck it out and corrected your mistakes for a year, you’d have a 5 figure following.
Your social media account will be your way of selling your offers, making million dollar connections, and building leverage for the future of your brand. If you start a service business, build cashflow, and have a large audience — you can now start ANY business you want relating to your interests and make it a success. I plan on starting a coffee brand soon just because I f*cking love coffee.
Email List
The unfortunate truth is that you do not own your social media account. It also may not be the best place to sell ALL THE TIME. With that said, you should start building your email list from the start. You don’t NEED to email people or have a set schedule, but it would be silly not to start gathering emails. It will come in handy just in case you get canceled. You own your list.
Once you have the time, start writing a weekly newsletter. These newsletters can be turned into sequences, threads, blog posts, or YouTube videos down the road when you are ready to go down that avenue. For now, focus on developing your ideas and testing what resonates with your audience.
When you have your offer (product or service ready) you can create email sequences to sell them on autopilot. Then, all you have to do is post content to your social account, plug your newsletter, and make sales without doing any of the work.
Start with a welcome sequence. Have a welcome email that tells everyone what you talk about, your vision for your brand, and what they can expect in future emails. Then, have 2-3 emails that go over your story or the big problem you are aiming to solve. After that, you can put subscribers into a sales sequence for your offer. The emails should raise their awareness level of the problem you solve, show them the solution, and sprinkle in a bit of urgency so they buy.
With a social media account and email list alone, you can pull in a hefty income over time. This is an ultra-lean one-person business model. 3-4 hours a day (possibly less) of work — IF you have a solid offer / offer stack.
If you want access to the step-by-step email marketing roadmap, you can get it inside MMHQ.
Your Offer
For beginners, your offer is your product or service. It is what you SELL. You have to sell something if you want to make money, that’s a given (that not many people understand). Stop trying to make passive income when you don’t have active income.
“Dan, what do I sell?”
What are you interested in? What do you have experience in? What do you have results in? Have you solved a problem in your life through trial and error? Can you help people navigate that trial and error? What are the people that you follow selling and could you sell the same thing? (Buyers buy again, don’t reinvent the wheel).
I tried freelancing for 3 years, finally made it work, then wrote a book on how I did it. I knew that freelancing books were already selling, so I created my own and sold it to the people that trusted me over the competition (your personal brand eliminates competition).
I loved planners, got results from them, created my own, and sold it (some of you know it as the Power Planner).
After freelancing, I created a marketing consulting offer and targeted creators. Why? Because I saw other people selling it, knew how to take creators from point A to point B, and sold it for $8,000. This sounds absurd to some because you haven’t started yet. Again, like playing a game, you have no idea what happens later in the game because you haven’t taken the first step.
Now, there are a few things to take into account here:
- People don’t care about everything inside your product or service, they care about the SPECIFIC result that you can get them (and everything that helps them get that result)
- You can create a compelling guarantee even if you don’t have results. This is what will make you the most money.
- You must make the journey from point A (problem) to point B (problem solved) as simple and straightforward as possible. The easier you can make it for the buyer to implement it into their life, the better. Systems above all.
- Stop trying to solve every problem. Focus on one burning, biological problem. Test different angles and double down until you see your desired sales.
At the end of the day, you either have a traffic problem or an offer problem. JK Molina said it best:
If you can’t make money, that’s why. Anything other than that is a consistency and iteration problem.
If you want my Godfather Offer Framework and Advanced Marketing Roadmap…. again, it’s inside MMHQ lol (everything is inside MMHQ).
Ending it here. Have an amazing weekend my friends, make it count.
Dan Koe
