How can creators like us, who are new to building online businesses, who have high-value skillsets, how do we scale our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) to get us the freedom we desire? That is the question, and this newsletter will give you the answers. Be sure to subscribe if these are the type of answers you seek.
My name is Boysie Gordon, and welcome to Boysie Talks Business.
Welcome to episode 10! (I skipped episode 9 hahaha… whoops)
We have now reached double digits and in celebration of that, I have now submitted my podcast to be distributed in the Spotify AND Apple Podcast directories! Youtube is coming tomorrow… stupid Google!
Welcome new listeners and/or readers!
A quick shout-out before my life turns to dust!
My fiancee’s birthday is today. She listens/reads these every day on her way from work! I love you so much; these past 8 years have been the best parts of my life, and I hope to continue this journey with you. Thank you for being my number 1 fan!
Also, my first-ever fan’s birthday is tomorrow! Well, technically, it’s today since she’s in Japan! I love you, Mom! You are the reason I am who I am (is that good or bad…idk, depends on who you ask). Without your sacrifice, I don’t know where I wouldn’t be!
I love you both!
Pheww… okay, birthdays are mentioned, catastrophe avoided, let’s move people!
Last episode, I shared a little bit of my philosophy on social conformity and the concept of a critical path. In today’s episode, I want to expand a bit on the concept of critical path by sharing how I would start my business consultancy if I had to do it over.
A Do-Over?
A critical path is a project management term.
It is the shortest path between a project’s start and completion. Last episode, I said I would review my current critical path to my current goal of $15k+ MRR by August 2024.
But in order to do that, I needed to review my past journey and lessons.
“AHA”—my brain lit up
So here we are… building in public.
I want to share with you a revision of my strategy for my Business Consultancy!
This will be based primarily on what I know now vs. what I knew back then.
What Do I Know Now?
I started this journey in November 2023
But I didn’t actually dig in until Christmas 2023
From this point, I finally started to commit to the grind. I was doing all the little things every single day. Writing articles, making newsletters, building community… everything! Even now, I am still committed to that same grind, and it has taught me a few valuable lessons.
Here are 5 (I explain more in narration):
Everything is content
Your offer is the key to it all
You get what you work towards
It only takes 30 days for results to compound
Consistency beats effort, but consistent effort beats all
With these 5 things in mind, I will craft my revised plan.
The New Critical Path!
No need for filler, let’s get to it!
The Tech Stack
My original tech stack was random and incomplete, this one is lean and simple.
Marketing
X (formerly Twitter) - authority and traffic conversion
Substack - newsletter and email list nurturing
Senja.io - customer testimonials
Operations
Carrd.com - webhosting and landing page
Microsoft 365 - email and document creation
Microsoft Word
Outlook
Google Suite - client communication and deliverables
Google Voice
Google Drive
Google Meet
Google Business Profile
Financial
Stripe - payment processing
Bank Account - do I need to explain?
New Process and Timeline
This is my new and improved process!
Steal it if you like!
Phase I. Create Business Foundation
Prerequisite: Death of the ego
Timeline: 1-2 weeks
In the beginning, my journey was filled with a lack of clarity.
I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, and it showed in my sporadic efforts showed. I felt as though I needed to do it alone to prove that I could consult businesses. I had my big ole ego to thank for the first two months of minimal progress.
Finally in January, I put my pride to the side.
I began watching videos.
I began reading books daily.
I began mimicking the successful.
This was great… but I was still missing something.
My ego was still in the way. I was still trying to figure it out on my own.
I was missing REAL guidance!
Sure, books and videos helped me, but the material wasn’t tailored to what I needed. I was learning the things I thought I needed, but in reality, I had no real clue what I needed.
So, the content I was absorbing couldn’t be applied strategically.
This meant wasted effort and inconsistent results!
So what did I do?
I hired a content marketing coach!
Someone who had experience in ALL the areas I was lacking the most.
The first thing we did was get clear on my vision.
Once we did that, all the puzzle pieces I had gathered on my own began coming together. The funnel creation, the content marketing, the copywriting, the offer refinement… everything in the 16 books I read could finally be used strategically!
Knowing all of this, I’d start again by working with someone to help me set my foundation properly.
Then, I could read ONLY the books I needed and make the process more efficient!
Get clear on the vision first!
Phase II. Learn How to Copywrite
Prerequisite: None (suggested: Clarity of vision)
Timeline: 1 month→Continuous
I didn’t have too much of an issue with this.
The first platform I created was a publishing site called Medium! To succeed there, you have to be able to capture the attention of your audience for 30 seconds or more. With the heavy competition, I was forced to become better at copywriting!
This is the book that helped me the most — Several short sentences about writing
It changed my writing trajectory!
Why is it important?
To build a business online through any channel, you will have to become a dictator of attention. If you lack this skill, it is unlikely that you will generate enough traffic for your offer… unless you want to work for free (don’t suggest).
The good news is that you can start learning from day one. The best way to learn is to just start writing. But just so you have a few bits of advice, here are some of my philosophies on writing to keep in mind.
Be open to change
Publish first, edit later
State everything as a fact
Talk from experience or opinion
Keep sentences as short as possible
The best advice I can give is to just get as many reps as you can.
It took me about a month before I found my unique writing voice!
Be patient. It is a forever phase, so you will be here forever.
Phase III. Community Building
Prerequisite: Clarity of vision
Timeline: Continuous
Business as we know it is changing.
It’s no longer about the business, it’s about the person running the business. The companies with real, genuine people backing them will have all of the market share! Even if you are just starting out, you can build a community.
And if you have already established yourself, that’s fine too!
I have built and participated in several communities myself, mainly out of love for my hobbies: basketball, video games, and photography! Even though I haven’t entertained the last two as much, I still have people in my communities awaiting my return. That’s what communities do! They provide a safety net for your business.
Customers come and go, but communities last a REALLY long time!
The best advice I can give for community building is to be authentic in your content and engage with content that resonates with you.
Be a beacon for like-minded people!
Phase IV. Obtain Social Proof
Prerequisite: 1 Happy client
Timeline: 1-2 months
All you need is ONE happy client for this phase!
Once you get that, you just leverage their success story in your content. There are plenty of strategies to turn ONE client into FIVE clients! One is simply testimonials and content marketing.
Those tend to require an established community to pump out your message, which is why the last phase is important!
I’ll be completely honest with you: my business consulting can get you through the first 5 phases in under 3 months!
When I was creating on Medium, it only took me 3 months to close my first client! The main reason I didn’t talk about it or attempt to scale it is because it was for the wrong offer for what I wanted to do. Now, I have modified it to be more fulfilling for me and valuable to my audience.
But that process of discovery gave me feedback on what works, and I know what I am doing now!
Phase V. Scale The Offer (The Danger Zone)
Prerequisite: A scalable business foundation
Timeline: 3 months→Continuous
This is the easy part!
You have clients, social proof, and a community! Scaling is about leveraging the best parts of your process while increasing the quality of the worst parts! Again, there are plenty of methods to get this done, but the easiest one is to increase traffic to your offer!
The more eyes you get on your offer, the more customers you will get!
Now, this is a dangerous game to play, and unless you have prior business experience, I do not recommend doing this part alone… Honestly, even if you have business experience, it isn’t wise to do it alone.
I scaled my first company from $0 to $1.4 Million in 8 months, and it ripped us apart!
We lost millions in possible revenue.
Sure, we scaled again from $1.4 Million to $2.5 Million over the next 4 months, but we had to use a more sustainable system. Also, that second scale still left holes in our business that even I couldn’t see until I finally dissolved it in 2023.
Whether you choose to work with me or not…
Please work with someone!
It is almost impossible to see a birds-eye view of the battlefield when you are in the war! Even the billionaire CEOs that we all praise had a second opinion in the beginning.
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk had the same mentor, Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle
Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, and Jeff Bezos also shared a mentor, Bill Campbell, known as ‘The Coach of Silicon Valley”
I could go on, but I won’t find anyone who didn’t have a mentor/coach/advisor… it’d be kinda redundant (look it up if you don’t believe me)
Fun Fact: In most examples, I found that the student’s net worth ends up higher than the advisor’s (Jobs was an outlier as he didn’t care about collecting wealth—my type of guy. Per celebritynetworth.com, it’s estimated his estate could have had $0.6 trillion today if he had held his investments, so I count that too!)
The point is, everyone needs help, even the greats!
Had I gotten help, I would have made it to the best phase with ease!
Phase VI. Freedom
Prerequisite: Removal from operation
Timeline: 1-5 years
“You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” — Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, in The Matrix (1999)
Okay, so this quote is a little dramatic, but the point still stands!
Once you get here, you have a choice of repeating phase five with your business to see how big you can grow (red pill) or removing yourself from the focal point of the operation and having it run itself (blue pill).
The blue pill is where most people are trying to get to:
A self-sustaining business that runs itself!
The way you do this is a minor tweak to phase 5.
The only difference is that you have to hire and appoint a new executive to handle everything—someone who will care about your business as much as you do. Then, just set up the infrastructure and backfill any holes in it to make the process easier for your new executive!
That’s all, folks! My new process: start to finish.
I am currently in the third phase. I am focusing primarily on growing my audience and attracting my ideal customers: entrepreneurs who are looking to scale their online businesses!
I hope this episode has been valuable to you!
Thanks for reading!
P.S.
If you want to work with me to help scale your online business, reply “scale,” and I’ll schedule a free strategy call with you.
Starting from scratch? I scale your presence.
Starting from experience? I scale your profits.
Tried to reply in the past? I didn’t get the emails. I am sorry, it was not setup properly. It should work now!
EP. 10 I Have Been Building Online for 126 Days, Here is How I'd Shortcut My Success!