So tell me, have you already made up your mind? Do you want to start your own business or keep working a 9-5 job? Do you want to build money-making machines or slowly climb up the corporate ladder? Do you want to live according to your own values or just be “another brick in the wall”?
Consciously or not, you make these decisions daily. Over and over again. They’ve brought you to where you’re at today. And if you do nothing to change, they’ll determine your tomorrow as well.
So at the end of the day, there are only two categories of people on the Earth: big players and enablers (make-it-happeners). The former group is building value-delivering businesses worth millions. The latter, work 9-5 to make it happen.
And you know what? Your mindset is the one to determine which group you belong to.
Just as Henry Ford believed, you might think you can become a great entrepreneur, or you might think you can’t.
Either way, you’re right.
Great entrepreneurs are the ones who have a firm belief in their ability to bring value to the world – and so they do.
In today’s article, we’ll walk you through the main steps of becoming one of them.
The cornerstones of today’s article are some very insightful reads, like The Millionaire Fastline by M. J. Demarco, Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman, and The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert.
These books can take you into the underground of marketing and entrepreneurship. And if you seek to become a pro, that’s exactly where you should go.
But let’s start by understanding how marketing works.
How Does Efficient Marketing Work?
Real-life marketing has nothing to do with convincing people to buy what they don’t need. Why would you waste your time trying to convince them when they are already willing to pay for products or services that solve their problems?!
And the truth is that people have a lot of problems. It’s a normal part of life!
What’s important, though, is people’s willingness to pay for solutions to those problems.
Although people value solutions differently, these are precious to them.
So if you can identify people’s pains and then solve them, you can make big money by creating value for those people.
Now wealth is made when you apply this in the field at scale. But before going there, you must…
Step 1: Understand Where You Stand
According to M.J. DeMarco in his bestseller, The Millionaire Fastlane, there are two lanes, and you should choose which one to embark on.
The first one is the Slowlane. It means the regular life of working 9-5 until retirement. Slowly climbing the corporate leader and eventually becoming a gray-haired millionaire in your 70s, when you’re in a wheelchair. Does it make you tick?
The alternative is the Fastlane. By embarking on the Fastlane, you commit to building a business that provides value worth millions. And yes, you have all those Slowlane people working there for you to make it happen. So you work fast and smart to become free and prosperous at 30 instead of at 70.
But let’s face it. Although the reward can be immense, the stakes are damn high, too. Growing a business requires commitment and tons of hard work. It means falling fast and falling often.
To keep going further, you must have a crystal clear purpose. And it should be greater than just making money.
Otherwise, you’ll quit when things go wrong. And quitting is the last thing you’re allowed to do in business.
Now tell me, are you in?
If you belong to the ambitious, if you want to get yourself on the Fastlane, let’s get yourself into the right mindset.
Step 2: Get Into The Right Mindset
I can’t stress this enough: if you want to go big, start by mastering your mind. It’s your decision-making compass, and you’ve got to choose wisely.
Having a growth mindset allows you to question everything so that you come to see what others don’t. That’s where big profits come from.
The right mindset also allows you to embrace inherent failures, learn from them and keep bringing more value.
In business, you rarely get there all of a sudden.
They say, “Fake it till you make it”. I say, “Fail it till you make it.”
So just keep looking. Don’t settle. And eventually, you’ll come across a lot of opportunities.
Step 3: Spot The Opportunities
You see, opportunities are inefficiencies. By pinpointing and solving the most painful of them, you can extract huge benefits.
Remember: people are willing to pay more if you solve what pains them most. So all you’ve got to do is find what annoys your prospects. What do they struggle with? What keeps them up at night?
Well, join online groups and forums for your niche & find out. Empathize and talk with your prospects and extract ideas directly from them. You’d be surprised how many struggles they have.
These struggles are nothing but opportunities for you to create value by solving them. Here is how you can find them everywhere.
So let’s say you’ve spotted the right opportunities. What’s next?
Oh yeah, my favorite part.
Step 4: JUST DO IT!
Efficient entrepreneurs go into their markets. They interview their prospects & find exactly what bothers them. They take risks, test things, and question everything. So that ultimately, nobody else understands their niche as well as they do.
And until you do the same, you can’t find your prospects’ biggest pains nor the solutions they need.
But riches await those who get to trade what others need the most.
There are two ways you can do this.
The first one is to find a problem people have and solve it. So you’ve got to come up with the product or services yourself.
The second way is to find a problem, find a solution already out there, and bring them together.
For instance, if you buy a solution for $100 and help somebody make a $900/month profit using it, you could easily charge $250/month for bringing the key to the problem. Here is a $650/month profit for your client and $150/month for you.
Either way, it’s called value creation.
And that’s how huge profits are made.
If you’re just starting in marketing, here is our advice in a nutshell: DO YOUR BEST and invest in understanding the constantly changing needs of the people out there. That’s the key.
Starting Options for New Marketers and Entrepreneurs
From our experience, we know that the first step is the hardest to take. The first dollar – the hardest to earn.
So we’ve got you covered and listed below your main options to get down to real marketing:
1. Open a freelance account on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. It’s the easiest way to put your talent at work to solve people’s needs. Not the most profitable, though. And it takes time. Yet time is money.
2. Connect directly with people. It’s usually way more profitable to use online platforms and forums to approach people who have a pain you can solve. Take the time to listen and empathize with them. Then present your solution, highlight its impact and let them test it. Remember, the first client is the hardest to get. Once you bring value to them, referrals can get you growing way much faster than expected.
3. Partner with those who own your audience. Indeed, it comes at a higher cost than previous options. But you owe yourself fast growth. If you find an influencer or an online space where your target audience concentrates, do the partnership it takes to enable your solution to reach the right buyers.
Now you know what it takes to get started in online entrepreneurship, make it big & succeed.
So tell me, have you already made up your mind?
P.S. Want a shortcut? Get a proven system that shows you how to identify needs, fulfill them & make millions. Check out the 5 Steps to Create a Money-Making Machine.