EP. 2 I Could Have Grown to $10M If I Took Advantage of This One Thing With My First Company

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.

My name is Boysie Gordon, and welcome to Boysie Talks Business.

For listeners: Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson

For those who don’t know me, from 2021 to 2023, I operated a small (<15 employees) logistics brokerage from the comfort of my home. By the time it was all over, we had made around $5 million in total revenue and hit a high of $450k MRR over that span. In this episode, I want to discuss one basic concept that I failed to exploit as a CEO that could have doubled our results.

Photo by Alexander Tsang on Unsplash

Building in Public

Yup, you heard me right: not building in public wasted tons of hidden revenue.

Here’s why.

• We were building business differently than the competition!

• We were small and had the time to dedicate to it!

• Our customers loved us, for the most part!

Screenshot by the Author | This was our brochure with testimonials

How I Do It Now.

In trying to build my online business, I can’t help but notice where I could have done better with my previous one.

Just think about how even a one-person creator business can generate millions a year. I had plenty of employees who absolutely loved working with me (I only know because they still ask me when I’ll start another business, haha).

I can only imagine if we all leveraged building in public. Giving people multiple inside perspectives on working for a startup.

If I had a do-over, I would better leverage social media marketing.

Social Media Funnel

It wouldn’t have to be a complicated process, either!

• LinkedIn Posts

• A Newsletter

• Meetings

• Closes

Leveraging our success, our struggles, our culture… everything that made us special would definitely attract business!

Heck, we were already getting referrals pretty frequently without asking. I can only imagine what would happen if we had a social platform.

Free money!

For anyone interested, below is the process I used to create this very newsletter/podcast from scratch in only 4 hours.

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My 3-Step Process to Create a Newsletter in 4 Hours

I. Clarity of Concept

This is the most important part, and I’ll be honest: if you aren’t clear on your vision, this process can take way longer than four hours.

I received my clarity a while ago, I just didn’t have a process to get this started.

Here’s a few questions that can help:

• What is your endgame? I want to be free in most facets of life, at least financially free. And that doesn’t mean debt paid off—it means money is no longer a barrier preventing me from doing what I want within a reasonable time. That will cost me around $23,000 in monthly household income.

• How will you achieve your endgame? When? For me, I plan to make the bulk of my earnings through business consulting. It’s a Wi-Fi job and can be very lucrative once everything is established. I estimate it will take me 2 years to attain my goal (I'm already 4 months into it).

• Why is that the vehicle? I always save the funniest question for last. You can have a plan, but without a strong enough reason, it won’t ever be executed. For me, I have already scaled a legitimate company and feel my knowledge is transferable. I have also acknowledged that my journey has changed my life, and I hope to help others achieve that same level of self-development and fulfillment while leveraging my expertise.

• Are you creating or documenting? This is a big key to increasing the sustainability of your newsletter. I think of creating as pulling concepts out of thin air. It’s not going to be easy once things get busy. Documenting, however, is simply talking from experience. You don’t have to do any work other than deciding what experience is relevant to your audience and your vision.

Put it all together! Here’s an example:

I am documenting and sharing my experiences of self-development and fulfillment within entrepreneurship to help others grow their online business.

That’s how I created the concept for this newsletter.

II. Branding

Now that I know my concept, coming up with branding was fairly easy!

I used various tools for my brand kit.
I pay for some of these, but they all have free options

• Need a description (You can list your concept)

  I listed my credentials first, but now I am going to change my bio, haha

• Need a BIO (Copy it from your other bios or use ChatGPT if you are stuck)
  3 sentences: a high-value accomplishment, my offer, and something personal

• Need Color Pallet (ChatGPT can create a hex code color pallet for your brand)
  Put in your brand values or favorite color and see what it spits out

• Need Profile Photo (took a selfie on phone and used remove.bg to edit colors)

  You will want to use your main color as your background, even if vibrant

• Need Word Mark (Canva has tons of templates)
  I searched word mark and just went with one that resonated with me

• Need Logo (Canva has tons of templates)

  I looked up chat bubbles and scrolled until I found one I liked

This process can take a while, but I recommend trusting your first or second choice. Remove FOMO from the equation, you can always update these later.

You are just starting, so no one will care in the beginning.

III. The Imperfect Start

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much about my first episode.

In fact, I originally told myself, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Don’t do it tomorrow; do it today.

At least write a makeshift title, anything works.

Remember, this is about building in public!

Your first episode is supposed to be your worst!

If it’s your best, you’ll make all the other work you do going forward devalued.

If you listen to the recording of my first episode, the sound is choppy.

I could have fixed it and re-recorded it, but I didn’t.

Instead, I just got more prepared for this episode and found the problem.

Here are a few tips for your first episode or newsletter:

• Tell your story

• Don’t sell anything

• Tie everything together

• Share it on other platforms.

• State the newsletter’s purpose

• Put a 1-hour timer on and go crazy

Just get the first pancake out the way!

Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to talk with me about how I scale your online business, reply or comment with “scale,” and we can start a conversation.

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