founder's report - your business blueprint
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BusinessBlueprintMap to SuccessSalesIn the founder's report, he teaches you how to establish a foundation for your potential business with a solid business plan as well as steps to accomplish your goals and be successful in your business.TRANSCRIPT
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 1
Your Business
Blueprint Business Success By Design
“You read a book from beginning to end, but you build a business from
the end to the beginning.”
Read This Before You Go Any Further...The material you are about to cover in this introductory Founders Club report is going to open your eyes to a whole new way of looking at and thinking about business.
It's going to give you a totally unique perspective about your business aspirations. One that will put you on a path by yourself. A path to success and satisfaction that others will only be able to envy.
It's going to expose you to fundamentals others never consider – yet have been instrumental to every success that I've ever had. Every success that I've ever studied. And every success I've ever coached.
This is not just a simple “how-to.” These are the keys to the kingdom of entrepreneurial success!
You see, you're going to be doing much more than designing your ideal business. You'll also be designing your IDEAL LIFE. (You'll understand why that's so important shortly.)
With those goals in mind, this report will show you how to define your business. It will show you how to design your business.
What it won't do is show you what your business is.
Selecting a business niche is a personal decision. One that largely depends on your personal strengths.
I simply can't tell you what that is. It's something you'll have to discover for yourself.
BUT... if you pursue that goal in earnest, I promise you will.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to stop everything and figure that out first.
In fact, doing that is probably the fastest path to failure I can imagine. I've seen it before. A client puts everything on hold to figure out their niche. But they struggle or make little or no progress in their first attempts. They take that first roadblock as the final word that they have no direction. They sit
paralyzed. And they're done before they ever start.
I don't want that for you.
You don't have to have the answer now. You just have to have it. So here's what I suggest.
If you don't already know the business or niche you're going into, set aside some time each day to consider it. To think about what it is you want to do. What your personal strengths are. What the market you want to serve needs. And how what you bring to the table can uniquely fill that need.
The answer will come to you when it's ready.
In the meantime, get started on this report now. There's much to get done moving forward, and I don't want you wasting one precious second. So let's get started...
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 2
Warning: This Is Not Your Typical Report
I don’t anticipate you’ll see a lot of reports from me like this one. In other words, this one is special.
Normally, my reports will be tighter and shorter. But this one I wrote with a very big goal in mind. To
walk you through each and every step you need to take to build the business of your dreams.
And that’s exactly what you’ll have when you’re done with this report. A detailed plan to having the
business of your dreams.
In order to get you this result, I left no stone unturned, and made sure you had everything you need to
jump‐start your business growth and freedom. That’s why it’s longer than I expected it would be. But
trust me my friend, you’re in for some major light bulb moments here.
Here’s my promise to you: If you follow the steps I’ve laid out for you here in this report, you’ll be on
track to getting everything you ever wanted out of your business. Your chances of success will have
multiplied, and you’ll know exactly what steps you need to make it all happen.
A bold promise, but one you’ll see easily met on the pages that follow…
What We’re Going To Cover And Why
Boy‐oh‐boy, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover here in our first issue.
Why? Because almost every entrepreneur (or anyone who aspires to be one) has so many
misconceptions about business it’s scary.
It’s scary because these mistaken thoughts, false beliefs, and flawed points of view are certain to castrate
and shackle a business before it ever gets off the ground.
That’s why so few businesses ever succeed, and of those that do succeed, only a fraction of their owners
ever break free of them.
And so, in our first sit down together, we’re going to shed some light on the situation. We’re going to get
knee deep in what makes a business really work – and what you’ll need to do to design and build one that
can grow far beyond yourself.
I’ve got a special agenda with this report – so here’s the deal: Because this is the first issue, we’re going to
pinpoint and fix the single biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when starting their business that haunts
them for the remainder of the business’ life.
Your Approach Toward Business Is Going To Change
No matter how old or new your business is, what you are about to learn will immediately shift the way
you approach your business from now on.
More specifically: When you are done with this report… you’ll have your business designed and
blueprinted to grow faster, get more profitable, do better things and do it all in a superior way. A way that
gives you the freedom and income you need to live your ideal life.
Did you get that? Right here in this document I’m going to walk you through the initial steps to engineer
your business to continually grow without you.
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 3
It’s essential you believe that your business can do all this. That your business can give you both the
income and freedom you want. Based on my experience with thousands of entrepreneurs, I’ve come to
believe any business can. But what’s important is that you believe it’s possible for your business.
Otherwise, what’s the point?
Really, think about that… cause I’m dead serious… What’s the point of starting and growing a business if
you’ll never get free of it?
The Purpose Of Owning A Business
A crucial element of the founder’s philosophy is this: Owning a business is more than just a job – or at
least it’s supposed to be.
What I mean by this is a job is where you trade time and effort for money. So, by its very nature it
consumes your life by feeding on your time and attention.
But a business is an entirely different animal when designed and executed correctly. A business will give
you more of what you want out of life.
Sadly, almost every entrepreneur approaches building his or her business the wrong way. And that’s the
single biggest mistake any entrepreneur can make. They jump right in and start doing business, and
never consider for even a moment that they should have designed their business first.
The good news: You won’t make the same mistake. Because together, right here in this report, we are
going to design your business together so it can free you to do the things that give you the life you want.
One last caveat: Some entrepreneurs believe that the work they do in their business is their life‐work.
That they are in fact, living their ideal life by doing their life‐work inside their business.
If this describes you, here’s a word to the wise. Embrace the concept “if you love something set it free, if it
comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” You can do this in your business by being a
founder and building a business that doesn’t need your direct involvement (in other words it sets you
free). Then if you decide to continue to do the work inside your business, even when it doesn’t need you
(you’ve come back), you can honestly say you’re living your ideal life.
Designing A Business
You may have noticed the title of this report “Your Business Blueprint: Business Success By Design.”
So, what do I mean exactly when I write “designing your business” or “blueprinting your business?”
Allow me to clarify…
Very few entrepreneurs ever sit down and think through each element of their business and how they
should best interact to give them “more life” while giving their prospects and customers what they truly
crave.
Think about how tragic that is. You will invest more of your time and resources on your business than
almost anything else. Your success and dreams hinge on its success. Yet most never think through the
different approaches and create their business with the highest likelihood of success.
And that’s what I mean when I say designing your business. It’s about taking a step outside your
business and looking at it objectively. Then, I am going to show you how to think through and figure out
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 4
what your business is going to look like, what it’s going to do and how it can best deliver on your hopes
and dreams.
Next, we’ll create your business blueprint. Your business blueprint is your visual action plan that’ll
represent the simplest version of the business you are creating.
Your business blueprint will lay out the functions, responsibilities, and processes your business will need
to succeed and grow beyond you. It will also set up the game you’ll play to get free, by visually
representing your current responsibilities and dictating the steps to hand those off to others in your
business.
It’s The Design That’s Critical
It should be getting clearer – designing your business is critical to your business success. In case it’s not,
think about it this way: If your business is not designed to give you what you want… if it’s not blueprinted
to grow into a business that can provide you with so much more than a job… then in fact not only will
your business fail to give you what you want, but if you’re not careful, it’ll literally suck all the remaining
life out of you.
That’s why designing and blueprinting your business is critical.
You see, without the proper business design and a functional business blueprint, all the work that follows
becomes irrelevant. Do you get that? It simply becomes more work. Marketing work, website work,
writing work, etc… All work coming together piece‐by‐piece, frustration‐by‐frustration, building you a
job you’ll never break free from.
Remember this: If what you’re doing is not getting your business to rely on you less and less, over time
it’ll rely on you more and more. Then it’s all just a big job with no end in sight. And what’s the point of
that?
What You Need Right Now
Just in case you’re one of those few entrepreneurs (even after what we’ve already covered) who might
still think that designing your business and blueprinting it is not what you need right now… Let me tell
you, it definitely is what you need right now. More so than you could possibly imagine.
Why am I saying you need this more than you can imagine?
Because it’s typical for an entrepreneur to think designing and blueprinting their business is not as
pressing as the many urgencies they feel they need immediate help with… like raising some quick cash,
executing a new marketing tactic, or whatever else may be screaming at them to ‘fix me’ in the moment.
Therefore the thinking goes... spending time thinking about their business design and blueprinting it,
seems idealistic, unrealistic, and unnecessary.
A word of caution. Don’t fall into the trap of a typical entrepreneur’s thinking. Avoid it like the plague.
The typical thinking is what causes the vast majority of entrepreneurs to fail. The typical thinking leads to
working long hours with little to show for it. The typical thinking turns a business into a grueling job for
the lucky few entrepreneurs who get their businesses off the ground.
Believe me when I tell you, you’ll have a new perspective about your business by the end of this report.
You’ll see those pressing urgencies for what they really are. Distractions that will pull you down into the
minutia of details that only seem important in the moment. You need to realize that in the context of your
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overall business success they’re trivial, unimportant distractions ‐‐ no matter how much of a crisis they
may seem right now.
Remember this: Most entrepreneurs fail, not because they don’t work… the problem is that they’re
doing the wrong work.
Now, that surfaces a question, doesn’t it? How can you tell the difference between right work and wrong
work?
Well, when you are done with this report, your business blueprint will easily answer that for you.
That’s why this is mission‐critical work. You must focus on and do the right work. And that’s why
designing your business blueprint is an absolute must. It’s the right work to do right now because it will
make certain you are always focused on the right work in the future.
In case it isn’t obvious, this is something nobody can give you. You can’t buy it, outsource it, or employ
someone else to do it for you. It’s what you must create for yourself.
To successfully build your business you have to really want it. And for you to want it you have to be able
to see it, and know what the payoff will be for you when you’re finished.
Your First Steps To Freedom
So, here’s a quick overview of what we’re going to cover in this report.
First, we’re going to cover the Founder’s unique point of view. Because nothing good happens for you or
for your business when you see things the wrong way. You’ll make the wrong decisions, seize the wrong
opportunities, hire the wrong people, etc. Consider this grounding on a few important business
fundamentals.
Then we’ll roll up our sleeves and get to work on pre‐work that needs to be done before designing and
blueprinting a business. To do that, we need to uncover three key pieces of information. First, you’ll
clarify what your ideal life looks like. Second, you’ll do some research to understand how your ideal
customer thinks. And third, you’ll determine the far‐reaching purpose of your business.
Next, we’ll use your business’ purpose to design a business that will provide you with your ideal life and
your ideal customers what they truly crave. More specifically, we’ll cover your compelling promise and
the profit model that’ll drive your business forward.
After we have the design we’ll blueprint it to visually document the important details of your business
growth strategy.
To wrap up, I’ll show you some of the different ways you can immediately use and benefit from your
business blueprint.
SECTION #1
The Founder’s Point Of View
Ok, first thing’s first…
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On the next six pages we’re going to cover the essential perspective you need to possess in order to rise
to founder‐status.
In the process, we’ll discuss:
∗ Where opportunities come from – most entrepreneurs mistake their true source, becoming
opportunity seekers instead of Founders…
∗ What a business really is – once you get this you’ll make better decisions and have a clear path to
growing your business…
∗ The one area your business must excel at – it’s not sexy, but it’s vital to building a sustainable
enterprise that continues to gain more momentum as it grows…
∗ The secret to hypergrowth – a simple yet stunningly effective secret to phenomenal business
growth that almost every entrepreneur misses. Miss this and you’ll be doing all the work, have all
the frustration, and your business’ growth will be stunted at best…
All right, now you know what we’ll cover in this section, let’s dive in…
You Don’t Buy Opportunities – You Create Them
Lots of wannabe entrepreneurs are in a constant search for the hot opportunity. The type of opportunity
they’re looking for at any given moment in time is determined by where they are in the evolution of their
business.
If they’re just starting out – they’re searching for the hot business opportunity. You know, the perfect
niche, the best business in a box, or the new untapped method to making millions.
If they already have an online business – they’re searching for the hot traffic opportunity, the killer
conversion strategy, or anything else that promises the secret shortcut to eliminating what’s currently
holding them back.
Their thinking being ‐ I’d imagine ‐ that people who are successful in business are successful because they
know something that everyone else doesn’t. That somehow, they know how to be there at the right time –
picking the right thing to do before anyone else gets around to smelling the opportunity…Before anyone
else gets wind of it.
In other words, what most Internet marketers seem to believe about successful entrepreneurs is that
they’re opportunists. That they’re successful because they can smell opportunity before anyone else can;
you know… the hot deal, the cutting thing, the inside track, the search engine loophole, the backdoor pay‐
per‐click bidding strategy, the social media strategy that never fails, etc…
The Wrong Question To Ask
Well, to be honest with you I’ve never really trusted that thought. Because somehow the question
“where’s the hot opportunity?” smacks of naïveté even worse it smacks of greed.
It’s the kind of question someone asks whose never really had to, nor been willing to pay the price
necessary to create an opportunity of their own.
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Somehow these opportunity‐seeking entrepreneurs have grown to believe that there are nuggets of
success hiding out there in the world under rocks. That all they have to do is know which rock to turn
over and the nugget will be theirs.
They believe somehow that success is knowing which rock to turn over! That out there in the world is a
sure thing just waiting to be discovered. And that an entrepreneur is someone who has a nose for
discovering such sure things.
In other words, the thinking goes… sure things are what success is made of… find a sure thing and your
success is assured.
Founders Are Visionaries Not Opportunists
Well my answer to these people has always been the same. That the most successful entrepreneurs I
know aren’t opportunists. The most successful entrepreneurs I know are visionaries. And that a visionary
is someone who sees an opportunity not by doing something different than everyone else is doing… but,
by doing exactly the opposite.
The true entrepreneur sees the hot opportunity is in doing what everyone else is doing but doing it better
than everyone else is doing it.
Choose an ordinary business – just pick a business where there’s lots of competition. Where there are lots
of other people doing it like most people do business. In an ordinary, careless, perfunctory, unresponsive,
thoughtless way.
Then design your business to solve a bigger problem, an overlooked frustration, or the same problem as
everyone else but solved in better, faster, more convenient, or cheaper way. And then do that business
like crazy. I mean whole hog plus the postage. Do that business like no one else has ever done it before
you.
Choose an ordinary business and do that business in an extraordinary way – and that’s the hottest
business opportunity around.
And that’s what this report is all about – it’s about building a business that works. Because if the truth
were to be known, all it takes to build an extraordinary business is the knowledge, the will, the skill and
the just plain durableness needed to weather the resistance you’ll meet on the way. The resistance from
the world and the people in it who simply don’t want to do the work necessary to create a business that
works. And the resistance from inside you, and the personalities inside you, who simply don’t want to
rise to the occasion.
That’s what this report is about – it’s about work. It’s about the only hot opportunity around. It’s about
what it takes to make it happen in your business. For you, for your family, for your customers, for the
people who work for you. It’s about thinking in a totally new and original way. It’s about thinking like a
Founder.
It All Starts With A Vision
So, if Founders (the most successful entrepreneurs) are visionaries, what exactly do they see?
Founders see opportunities. Opportunities that exist because the world isn’t a perfect place, and all of
those imperfections that make this world less than ideal – are opportunities to build a business. To build
a business that makes a difference in the world by making a difference in the lives of potential customers.
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So, the hot opportunity isn’t under rocks, its right under your nose. Anytime you see a problem that cries
out to be fixed or a desire that craves fulfillment know that right there you have the found the seeds to a
great business.
In other words, Founders can’t help but see opportunities. Because they are all around us… Every time
you see a condition that is just dying to be fixed, or changed, or reinvented, or transformed – lies the
seeds of a business opportunity.
But understand what I said. The opportunity that launches a business isn’t about making your life better
(although it will get better if you grasp this). The opportunity is to make someone else’s life better, and
that someone else is your potential customer. To serve his or her desires better than anyone has ever
done before. Only then, when you do that, can you get everything that you want.
And this is the rule that’s most often violated with all the different opportunities presented online. They
claim that somehow you’ll benefit even though no one else in the world does. And of course, the world
doesn’t work that way in real‐life.
What Is A Business Anyway?
As an entrepreneur, you’re building something that has value in addition to what’s provided by your
individual efforts. You create an entity that takes on a life of its own. A living, breathing, and growing
organism that brings in money while you’re not there, allowing you to take vacations, got to your
children’s school and sports activities, or spend time with your spouse. So, you can spend your time
working on tasks that make your business better, because you don’t have to work on the activities your
business does (day‐to‐day), like working on your website, getting links, creating content, or developing
products.
I like to describe it this way. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to being God‐like in this one way. You are
designing and then building a living, breathing thing that when done correctly it’ll take on a life of its own.
So, it’s the closest you can get to designing and then creating something alive.
Ultimately, you’re creating this organism to make a difference in the world by delivering value to your
customers. Giving them what they want in such an effective way, you get what you want.
In fact, here’s a formula for you to consider: n(improvement)=your business success. Where n = the
number of people that receive the benefit your business provides. So, the more people that benefit from
the improvement your business provides the more successful it will be.
Your Business Must Work Better
Now if you were the only business in the world to
provide your customer with what he or she wants. If
you had a corner on a particular service or product. If
you were the only one who could provide that service
or product. And if your customer absolutely had to
have it – well, then you’ve got it made. You could
pretty much do business any way you want to
because the customer doesn’t have any other choice.
But the truth is in today’s world you don’t have a
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corner on the product or service you sell. No one does for long. And if you did, it’s probably because no
one wants to buy it. No, the truth is where there is a market there are people in business competing for
that market. And the only successful way to compete is to stand out head‐over‐heels above the rest.
Because the essence of effective marketing is the ability to attract the customers attention and once
having attracted it, to deliver an experience that will assure you that they will come back to repeat it
again and again.
Many would‐be entrepreneurs seem to forget that point. Instead they seem to conduct their business as a
stream of ongoing promotions. Promotions designed to get new customers while they forsake the
customers from the previous promotion. And that, my friend, is a recipe for disaster. Because the
business is only as good as what it’s doing right now, which then leads it to being more like a house of
cards than a fortress of future profits.
This is even truer today. Great customers are not expendable. In tough economic times you need to hold
on to every great customer your business comes into contact with. In boom times there may be a steady
stream of new customers but in tough times every customer becomes a lot more valuable and cannot be
taken for granted.
How A Business Grows Fast Without The Owner Doing More
Lots of successful entrepreneurs come to me when they’re at the end of their rope. They’ve been burning
the candle at both ends for so long they’re simply burnt out.
These burnt‐out successful entrepreneurs have been working so hard for so long they simply can’t take it
any longer. They’re convinced that they must work like a dog to build their businesses yet they are no
longer capable of working in this mode – so they come to me.
They come to me because I have a track record of helping entrepreneurs work far less yet make far more
all while building the business of their dreams. Most don’t believe it’s possible but the ones that come to
me are willing to suspend their disbelief in the hopes of finding a better way.
And there is a better way. There is a much better way to start, build and grow a business than the
common approach most entrepreneurs take.
You see, it’s not by luck, accident, or inordinate sacrifice on the part of the Founder that causes
businesses to thrive, grow and ultimately grow beyond their own efforts.
It doesn’t happen through inordinate discipline either –nope – business success happens by design. In
other words – design your business correctly and your odds of success skyrocket while your workload
plummets. Design your business incorrectly, or not at all, and your odds of success plummet and your
workload skyrockets.
A Poorly Designed Business Puts You In The Center Of It
My strong hunch is that if you and I were to sit down and analyze your business right now… The odds are
incredibly high you are doing all the work to grow your business. And that’s where the overwhelm,
overwork and frustration comes from because growing a business takes a lot of work.
But, if you, and you alone, are doing all the work to grow your business it means that your business is
designed wrong. Because while it’s true that growing a business takes a lot of hard work – it doesn’t mean
you have to be the one doing all the hard work.
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Now before you tell me you can’t afford employees, or the ones you have are unwilling to do the hard
work necessary – let me stop you right here because what I am talking about is much bigger and
exponentially more powerful than that.
What I am talking about is growing your business in an entirely different manner.
What I am talking about is designing your business so you satisfy, better than your competitors, the
essential needs, unconscious expectations, and perceived preferences of everyone your business
interacts with. That includes employees, outsourcers, affiliates, joint‐venture partners, prospects,
customers, suppliers and anyone and everyone else your business relies on.
In other words, a business that everyone is rooting for.
The mistake most entrepreneurs make is they neglect everyone other than themselves. They design or
default into a business where they are the only ones who truly benefit from it. And if that’s the case, it
shouldn’t come as any big surprise that they’re the ones who are going to have to do all the work to grow
it.
And what’s worse is if you do all the work to grow your business you end up with a job that owns you
instead of a business that you own. I’ll explain why a little later on…
An Incredible Business Gem
But if you truly understand what I am saying here – that a business thrives when all the people that
interact with the business want it to – then you should realize the incredible business gem I’ve just laid at
your feet.
Think about it…
Imagine how different your business would be, how much more likely success would be, and how much
easier growth could be achieved if everyone had a vested interest in seeing your business grow.
Listen, I’m not kidding around here, for your own sake… imagine… take a minute or two to really
experience the difference. If big joint‐venture partners and super affiliates eagerly promoted your
products… If your prospects gave you their undivided attention and passed on your marketing messages
to thousands of others just like them… If customers bought from you each and every time they had a
choice and consistently referred their friends… If the best employees and most sought out outsourcers
wanted to work for you instead of anyone else…
Do you see the power in that? Do you understand that you can either design your business to make all the
above true ‐OR‐ you can default to doing all the work yourself while complaining that none of the above is
true for you?
Look, I know it’s possible because I designed and engineered Strategic Profits to do exactly that – that’s
why we went from a complete standstill to 7.4 million in revenue in our first twelve months in business.
And I know the same can happen for you because I’ve walked hundreds upon hundreds of clients to
similar results.
This is one of the biggest shortcuts to building a business that gives you your freedom. And we’re going to
build that into your business design. But before we do, we’ve got some more ground to cover.
Let’s quickly recap what we’ve covered before pressing on. We’ve already covered:
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• Unsuccessful entrepreneurs are in a constant search for opportunities while successful
entrepreneurs, Founders, create their own opportunities.
• The seeds of successful businesses are problems crying to be fixed or desires craving fulfillment.
• A business exists to make your potential customer’s lives better.
• The essence of effective marketing is the ability to attract the customers attention and once having
attracted it to deliver an experience that will assure you that they will come back to repeat it again
and again.
• A business properly designed – meaning it’s designed to benefit everyone it interacts with ‐ is
more likely to succeed, will grow faster and requires less effort from the Founder.
Of course there’s more to the Founder’s unique point of view than what we’ve just covered. But these are
the essentials that you needed to know right now to design your business.
In future reports and newsletters we’ll cover more about this uniquely profitable perspective and
highlight the path to absorbing it in a way that it becomes a part of you, who you are, so to speak, so you
climb to the top the shortest and fastest way possible.
That stated, let’s move on to you, and what you want out of your business…
SECTION #2
Getting Clear About The Payoff
In this section we’re going to explore a topic that’s immensely personal.
Because if you’re with me so far – you understand a Founder creates a business to get more life, not less
life.
But what exactly does that mean? What do we mean when we say, “getting more life?”
Well, the answer will be different for each and every one of us. And that’s the reason for this section. To
determine what getting more out of life means to you in an immensely personal way.
One last point, and it’s important. There are three exercises for you to complete in this section. I’m going
to ask you to complete them immediately as you get to them. Please do, because the value is in your
answers, not in my descriptions of the exercises.
Also, you can spend an entire lifetime honing your answers to these four exercises – but that’s not really
the point of doing them right now. The point isn’t to have perfect answers, just to come up with your
initial responses. Nothing you do here is set in stone, and you can always go back and modify them later.
That stated, I’ve given you recommended timeframes for each exercise. Do your best to stick with them,
and don’t let any exercise get away from you by becoming more than what they are.
And what they are, what they should be for you, are your best answers to these questions right now.
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Your Selfish Reason To Own Your Business: To Get More Life
So, while the purpose of a business is to make your customers lives better, and it will grow faster and it’s
success will be more assured if everyone’s selfish interests are met, what about the Founder? What about
us? What do we get out of owning a business?
Well, the good news is the sole purpose for owning a business is entirely selfish. Heck it should be, most
entrepreneurs risk everything they’ve got, trying to make their business successful. There has to be a
payoff.
Your reason for owning a business should be to get more out of life than you would by not owning the
business.
In other words, a business is the means to an end, not an end in itself. It’s a means to getting more out of
life. And that’s vital to remember because many entrepreneurs forget this simple fact. To them the
business becomes the end in itself – and when that happens it often consumes the life of the entrepreneur
who birthed it.
To prevent your business from consuming your life – you must be clear, right up front, and know what
you want out of life. Unfortunately, few entrepreneurs are as clear as they need to be about what they
want their life to be like.
Living Life Intentionally Rather Than Haphazardly
So, what does more life mean to you?
The answer to this one question is what this section is all about.
Because when you know your answer, you’ll have the ability to live your life intentionally rather than
haphazardly. Meaning you’ll have the ability to consciously choose those things that are consistent with
what is most important to you.
Defining your ideal life is about thinking through your innermost desires and setting real priorities that
puts your business into perspective.
It’s about living a life that’s meaningful to you. One that feels right everyday – giving you a deeper sense
of satisfaction, fulfillment, and meaning with each passing week, month, and year.
That’s why your ideal life is unique to you. It’s about what you truly want your life to be like. So, for now,
while completing your exercises forget about any and all the obligations and responsibilities you have to
others. Think only about yourself and what you want your life to be like.
Knowing What You Want
So, let’s get immensely personal. Do you know what you want your life to be like?
I mean, really know, in complete detail – not just a collection of superficial statements that sound like
something but don’t really mean anything specifically.
You know what I mean, right? Hollow statements like “I want to be rich,” “I want financial freedom,” “I
want to have a successful business,” or “I want to be happy,” just won’t cut it.
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Statements like these just don’t have the power to create the motivation, perseverance, and just plain
durableness you need to overcome the resistance (both internal and external) you’ll face in growing a
business.
Lots of entrepreneurs have a vague picture of what it means to be successful that looks something like
this: The wealth of Warren Buffet, the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger (or Angelina Jolie), the
intelligence of Albert Einstein, the athletic ability of Michael Jordan, the business prowess of Bill Gates, or
the imagination of Walt Disney.
Don’t get me wrong, all those qualities would be nice to have, but it’s not reality based. And because of
that it lacks all the power you get when you really clarify what you want for yourself. I mean, really, how
do you prioritize a list like that? It’s impossible, you simply can’t.
You need to get really specific about what you want. What you really want, not what would be nice to
have. Some make the mistake of thinking that by having a long list of nice to haves they can avoid
figuring out what they really want – but this doesn’t work at all. This is the path of most people and most
people simply let life happen to them.
You need to be able to describe it in a way that paints a picture with that sort of clarity.
Without knowing exactly what you want from your business you won’t be able to erect the boundaries
you need to safeguard from getting totally consumed by your business.
One thing I've noticed among many of the successful entrepreneurs I’ve coached is that most of them did
not figure out what they wanted out of life until hitting rock bottom. Either their business failed, they
went bankrupt, or they sacrificed their health or their family. It was only then ‐ being sick and tired of
living a life they didn’t want ‐ that the lights finally turned on.
Experiencing what they did not want prompted each and every one of them to finally figure out what they
really did want. Finally they had enough clarity about exactly what they wanted and that clarity gave
them the motivation to go after it.
So, what about you?
Can you create a very clear picture of your ideal life, right now in your mind?
Can you see it – I mean really see it right here as if it were all true right now?
As a Founder’s Club member, I don’t want you to suffer through the life you don’t want… to finally realize
the life you do want. And you shouldn’t either – trust me, it’s not a fun wakeup call to receive.
Steps To Your Ideal Life
Clarifying your ideal life is a three‐step process. Here’s a quick overview of the steps we’ll take together:
Step 1: Determine which things you definitely don’t want in your life
Step 2: Determine which things you definitely do want in your life
Step 3: Define what an ideal day would look like for you
You’ll see how these all tie together and why they’re in the specific order presented as we go through
them together.
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You should be very excited right now. In less than one hour from now, you’re going to have greater clarity
about what you truly want out of life than you’ve ever had before.
And that’s going to help you more than you realize (right now) and when designing and blueprinting your
business.
So, what are we waiting for… let’s get the party started…
What You Don’t Want
We start the process by first thinking about all the things you don’t want in your life.
Does that sound strange? If we are trying to determine what we want our life to ideally be, why start with
what we don’t want?
Well, it’s simple really. Most of us are a lot clearer on what we don’t want in our lives than we are about
what we do want.
And by surfacing those things that we don’t want in our lives, we stand a much better chance of clearly
identifying what we do want. Plus, we can make sure that the life we do design for ourselves is absent all
these negative things you’re about to list.
That stated, here are your instructions:
Take 15 minutes to make as long of a list as you need, of
everything you don’t want in your life. Try not to think
too much, just write whatever comes to mind. A good
place to start is thinking about the things you currently
deal with that leave you stressed, frustrated, worried,
embarrassed and unfulfilled. (On the left, I’ve given you
some examples from my original list before I started
Strategic Profits to stimulate your thinking)
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What You Do Want
Now that you have greater clarity on what you don’t want in your life, it’s time to shift 180 degrees and
focus on those things that you do want.
For right now, it’s important that you steer clear of
money and material things. There will be time for those
things later. Also, realize that those things are just means
to an end and right now we’re focused on the ends not
the means.
So here’s what you need to do:
Take 15 minutes to make as long of a list as you need, of
everything you do want in your life. Once again, try not
to think too much; just write whatever comes to mind. A
good place to start is thinking about the things you’ve
experienced that have made you happy, proud, excited, blessed and fulfilled. Also, you can use the list
you just created of what you don’t want to spur ideas of what you do want. (On the right, I’ve given you
some from my original list to stimulate your thinking).
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Your Ideal Day
All right, now that you’re clear about what you want and don’t want, it’s time to use this information to
construct a perfect day in your dream life.
The reason being is that an ideal life is made up of many ideal days.
And you are going to be really glad you listed your wants and non‐wants because it makes this exercise so
much easier to accomplish. So, remember to refer to it frequently when going through these exercises.
Here’s what you’re trying to come up with: What would your perfect normal day look like if there were
no limitations on what it could be?
Let’s break down this question by highlighting certain words and what I mean by them:
• Perfect – a day that delivers as many of those things you’ve identified in what you want while
avoiding as many (if not all) those things you’ve listed that you don’t want.
• Normal – A day that isn’t a one‐time event, but a routine day in your ideal life. So, no meeting with
the President, or partying in Vegas or anything other than what’s routine.
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• No Limitations – forget about your current responsibilities, obligations, and any and all physical
constraints (money, business, job, etc…) leave all that behind you if you could live your life anyway
you want.
Now many entrepreneurs freeze up when attempting to write out their ideal day – so what I’ve found is
it’s easier to answer questions that lead you to having it all done. In total, it should take you less than
thirty minutes to power through this.
So, it’s time to play 20 questions…
When you think of this perfect day: (Be very specific. Be extremely detailed and clear)
Overall Lifestyle
Where do you live? (city, on the water, in the mountains, etc…)
What do you live in? (an apartment, a condo, a house, a mansion, a penthouse, etc…)
Who are your friends? (what are they like, what do you do together and what do you talk about?)
What hobbies do you have & how often do you do them?
What do you do for personal fulfillment?
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Describe your relationship with your spouse (and children if you’ve got them). What do you do together?
How much time do you spend together?
Your Business
How many hours a day do you work?
What are your primary responsibilities? What do you do while working?
What hours do you work? When do you start and finish?
What are your clients like?
Describe your work environment (home, office, etc.)
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Talk about your team – who are they? What are they like? How do they make you feel?
What about your work makes you most proud?
Your Day
What time do you wake up?
Let’s break up your day into four separate four‐hour intervals…
How, where, what and with whom do you spend the first ¼ of your day?
How, where, what and with whom do you spend the second ¼ of your day?
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How, where, what and with whom do you spend the third ¼ of your day?
How, where, what and with whom do you spend the final ¼ of your day?
Getting Clear On The Life You Want
By answering the above questions, you'll be able to create a very clear picture of your ideal day. That’s
important because an ideal life is made up of many ideal days.
Defining your ideal day gives you the ability to live intentionally rather than haphazardly. You’ll be living
a life of design, rather than whatever life throws your way.
A little later on in this report, I’ll show you how to systematically design your business to deliver to you
the ideal life you’ve just laid out.
Make no mistake – most entrepreneurs never take the time to figure out what they want out of life. And
because of it, the business takes over. Do not think you can skip this and everything will end up ok. It
won’t – unless you take the time to really figure out what you want.
And it should be obvious that one of the keys to achieving a life of freedom is to define what freedom
means to you.
Besides, all the great minds throughout the centuries have always said in one way or another to begin
with the end in mind. Life is funny that way. Life works better when we think backwards and then live
our life forward.
Think about this question: If you don’t have the will and desire to figure it out and write down what you
want, what makes you think you’ll have the will and desire to go after it?
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And while it isn’t necessary for our purposes here, you should take your answers from the three exercises
you just completed and actually write out a complete description of your ideal day. This way, you can
review the picture you want for your life each morning – to remind yourself WHY you are doing
everything you are doing.
Money Is Not The End… It’s The Means To An End
Another thing, when I ask clients about their financial goals most of them have arbitrarily picked
numbers that don’t really mean much to them. This is a big mistake. Money is an abstract concept – and
it’s incredibly difficult to get all juiced and motivated by an abstract concept.
You see, money is not the end it’s the means to an end. Meaning a heap of money by itself is just paper
and ink. How you plan on using the money… In other words, to obtain the freedom and lifestyle you
desire is what money allows you to have.
A Quick Tip: When you think in terms of how you would spend the money, it's much easier to come up
with what you need to make. More importantly, knowing what you plan on doing with it makes your goal
more concrete, more fun, more exciting and much more motivating to achieve.
So, now that you’ve figured out what you want ‐‐ how much will it cost to get and keep? How much does
the ideal life you just articulated cost to achieve and sustain?
If you were a personal client of mine – that’s what I would have you do right now. I would implore you to
figure out how much you need to make and what you’ll need to save to make the dream life you just
articulated become your reality. And while it isn’t necessary for our purposes here in this report, it
should be something you put towards the top of your to‐do list. This way you’ll have absolute clarity of
what you really need to accomplish to live the life of your dreams.
And here’s the good news: Once you define your ideal day you’ll immediately find being more aware of
your priorities puts things in perspective. Focusing on a brighter future, like your ideal life, pulls you
towards it. Focusing on an ideal future relaxes the mind and helps you to respond correctly (not react) to
whatever situations come up your way.
SECTION #3
Your Ideal Customer
In this section you’re going to get to know the most important person in your business universe.
He or she is most responsible for transforming your current life into your ideal life.
When you really appreciate their importance you realize that most entrepreneurs haven’t really begun
the real work they need to do to get their business really going.
Of course, we’re talking about your ideal customer. And the purpose of this section is to help you know
them better than your competitors do. In fact, you should know them better than anyone else you know.
Remember, they’re the ones who are going to give you the money you need to have the business of your
dreams, a business that delivers to you your ideal life.
Knowing your ideal prospects and clients cold will:
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• Dramatically decrease the cost of acquiring new customers causing your business to grow faster
and be more profitable at the same time…
• Make everything you do on a marketing level more effective, more certain to succeed, and more
profitable immediately…
• Create products that are sure to succeed because they address the needs and subconscious desires
of your prospects and customers…
• Make bonding with your prospects and customers a cinch, getting them to buy sooner, buy more
often, and spend more money with whatever you offer them…
• And so much more…
How To Make Your Ideal Life Your Real Life
Ok, now that you know how you want your life to be, let me tell you how you can get it.
In order to get what you want, you have to design a business to give you what you want while giving a
large number of people what they want. (Remember the formula I gave you earlier? n(improvement) =
your business success)
All business success comes from the person you’re trying to help, sell something to, or serve. And it all
starts with what that person wants.
This should be obvious, but I’ve seen way too many entrepreneurs go wrong trying to build a business
that sells something because they want to sell it, not because anyone wants to buy it.
It’s easy for me to spot an entrepreneur who’s made this mistake. Because they often go on a wild goose
chase trying to figure out what they can say or do to manipulate prospects into buying. And trust me, they
always come up short.
The Bait Your Prospects Crave
It’s far easier to get prospects to buy from you and customers to keep buying, if you’re focused on what
value, benefit, advantage or increased results your business can give your prospects or customers so they
won’t be able to do anything but buy from you – and buy constantly.
Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends
and Influence People, once said that he loves
strawberry shortcake. He would hate the
thought of eating worms. But when he goes
fishing, if he puts strawberry shortcake on the
end of his line, the fish won’t bite. They prefer
worms.
So, we always have to build our businesses
around what our prospects want to buy, not
what we like ourselves or what we’d like to
have a business doing.
Obviously, this mandates that you know what
your prospects want. And once again most
entrepreneurs mess up here. Far too many
entrepreneurs mistakenly attempt to build a
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business without first really figuring out what their prospects and customers crave. Big Mistake. It never
ends pretty – unless massive luck is involved.
With that stated, next let’s take a look at how you figure out what your prospects really want.
Knowing Who Your Ideal Customers Are…
And What They Really Want
Most entrepreneurs miss this point entirely, so pay careful attention here and really think through what I
am getting at.
Always remember, the most important knowledge you can ever have is to truly understand your targeted
prospects/customers. Seriously, there’s nothing more important than this.
Knowing your prospects and customers is vastly more important than knowing any marketing tactic or
selling process. And if the truth were told – the more you understand your prospects and customers the
less marketing tactics and sales strategies you need. Why? Because everything you do will be much more
effective because you are aiming at the right target, and you’re using the right bait.
It’s actually one of those counter‐intuitive secrets. The way to have a business that requires little to no
work on your part, requires that you alone do quite a bit of work up front, before doing anything else.
Many entrepreneurs are lazy and don’t want to do the work necessary to crawl inside the minds of their
prospect/customers. Instead they prefer to “wing it” and rely more heavily on selling strategies. But
selling strategies can never make up for this lack of understanding– and it’s a chief reason why so many
entrepreneurs fail.
And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what direct‐marketing legend Dan Kennedy had to say: “I do
not believe in ‘generic’ persuasion. In fact, my contention is that truly understanding the targeted
prospect/customer is more important than any other element in a marketing success.” Well said, Dan.
But understand this: knowing your prospects and customers cold, not only will make your marketing
more effective, but knowing your prospects and customers will also make your products better and more
sellable. It’ll help you exceed your customers’ expectations fueling word of mouth, or even better a viral
effect – basically it’ll improve the performance and results of almost every other area of your business.
That’s why it’s vital to have this information before you ever sit down and design your business.
Yes, Research Is Required
Needless to say, I am strongly recommending you do as much research as you need to – to know your
ideal customers’ frustrations, fears, dreams, desires, and problems.
Remember, you’re designing a business that’ll deliver to you your ideal life. Everything you just thought
through can happen for you.
But, your business will only be able to do that if you build your business around what customers really
want to buy. And the only way to know what your customers really want is to know them really well. And
that only comes from doing the research and thinking necessary.
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I have had the good fortune of having two world‐class Founders as mentors – Jay Abraham and Michael
Masterson. Both have shared with me important advice about knowing your customers. Here’s what they
told me…
Most Entrepreneurs Fall In Love With The Wrong Thing
From Jay Abraham, “Most entrepreneurs fall in love with the wrong thing. They fall in love with their own
company, or their products or services, instead of falling in love with their clients and prospects. Your
whole business success, your whole passion, your whole connectivity, your whole positioning, the way
you are seen, embraced and respected, will change massively when you conceive your business as
interacting and enhancing people or other companies lives and situations.”
Think about what Jay said. What would your business be like if you fell in love with your prospects and
customers instead of your company and its’ products?
Remember the last time you fell in love with someone. Do you remember how fascinated you were about
what made them tick? You could talk to them for hours and it never felt boring at all. Well, that’s exactly
how you need to be with your prospects and customers… in a word…FASCINATED.
To further your thinking about what you want to know about your customers and prospects, I want to
share with you a concept that Michael
Masterson developed called “The Core
Complex.”
The Core Complex of your ideal customer
are the emotions, attitudes, and
aspirations that drive their buying
behavior.
When you know this you’ll have the
second essential ingredient to build the
business that’ll deliver the ideal life you
articulated earlier.
In order to construct your customers’ core
complex you first must discover and
deduce their beliefs, feeling and desires.
Which is exactly what you would be
discovering about anyone you were falling in love with during all those long (late‐night) conversations.
While there are many ways you can go at getting this information, unfortunately, you can’t know where
you are going to hit pay dirt in advance, so that means you are going to have to do some work.
And to be clear – it needs to be you doing the work. You can’t outsource or delegate this work and still
reap all the benefits. Because when you create your ideal customer’s core complex yourself, you sift
through a lot of extraneous information that builds a gut understanding of them and what makes them
tick.
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Answers Vs. Clues
I don’t watch much TV, but I do have a few favorite shows that I watch from time to time. One of the
shows that make my favorite list is Forensic Files.
Forensic Files is a true‐crime show that starts with a serious crime, usually a murder, and then documents
how police solved the crime using the latest in forensic science.
I love the show because I am always fascinated by how the investigators can use the smallest little detail
they find at the crime scene to solve the crime.
So why am I telling you this? And what the hell does this have to do with your ideal customers?
More than you probably realize. Because the majority of entrepreneurs that do any research on their
customers (and most don’t even do any research) approach their research all wrong.
You see, what most entrepreneurs do when doing their research is they look for answers instead of clues.
The equivalent would be if investigators expected to know who the criminal was who committed the
crime simply by looking at the crime scene.
Of course, that’s not how crimes get solved, nor is it how you figure out the core complex of your ideal
customers.
Instead, when detectives arrive on the crime scene they collect every little piece of data no matter how
small or insignificant it may seem at the moment. They do this because later they’ll sift through all the
data looking for clues to determine their primary suspect.
In other words, first they collect, and then they reflect. And that’s exactly how you should approach
your research on your ideal customer: In other words don’t discount potentially useful data because
you’re looking for direct answers.
Here’s an example from my own research to clarify what I’m talking about:
I noticed that in a few forum questions about which marketing tactics to use first because there are so
many options, the questioner doesn’t know which ones to employ first. I also find similar questions on
Q+A sites as well.
Now, what do you think this tells us that we can use in constructing our core complex? More specifically,
what does this data tell us about the beliefs, feelings, and desires of our customers?
Actually it tells us quite a bit. Here, I’ll break it out for you by giving you three potential answers for each
component…
Beliefs
• Choosing the right marketing tactics to employ can dramatically impact my success
• There is a specific right order to using marketing tactics to grow my business
• Other marketers know things that I don’t
Feelings
• Confused about which tactic is best
• Unsure in my own ability to figure things out
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• Frustrated that no one has given me a step by step
Desires
• To grow my biz as quickly as possible
• To not make mistakes that lead to sacrificed performance
• To be told what to do, step by step, and in which order
Now, are all these correct? Maybe, maybe not. We won’t know until later after we’ve looked at more data
points and reflect on their meaning.
The idea is to deduce what you think each data point means. Then when you’re done you’ll look at
everything you came up with and determine:
∗ What’s definitely true
∗ What might be true
∗ What’s definitely not true
Approaching Your Research The Right Way
You can find so many golden nuggets of
information that’ll grow your business. But, only if
you approach your research correctly. You’ve got
to know what you’re looking for and organize
what you find.
So, lets talk about how to best approach your
research so you’ll yield the maximum business
growing nuggets.
First , here are just some of the categories that
you’ll want to remain on the alert for as you sift
through your research:
• Product Ideas
• Biggest frustrations
• Problems consistently experienced
• Biggest competitors
• Popular website + blogs
• Topics of interest
• The words they use and any special
lingo
• Their likes and dislikes
• Level of sophistication
• Common enemies
• Recurring themes
• Demographics (age, sex, education,
occupation, income, marital status,
children, etc…)
• Psychographics (hobbies, lifestyle choices, purchase behaviors, media habits, values, etc…)
• Etc…
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The ones I’ve bolded are the ones I strongly suggest you create a separate list for.
All right, are you ready to get started? Let’s dive in…
Surfing For Buried Treasure In Your Market
I am going to walk you through the ten steps I take to find out everything I need about a prospect.
Most of these strategies you probably haven’t heard of. And even the ones you might have heard of
before, you haven’t heard them described like I am about to.
Remember, this is some of the most important work you’ll do for your business. The better the
information you gather here – the more likely your overall success. So go full out on this – this is where it
counts.
That stated, here’s your map to the buried treasure in your market.
Build A Better Keyword List
If you’re unclear on which keywords represent 80% of your market then you need to get clear.
My two favorite resources for getting all the information I need are Google’s keyword research tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and Keycompete
http://www.keycompete.com/.
I first go to Google’s tool and type my most popular keyword to see what Google recommends and the
amount of traffic it receives. I choose the ten most popular, relevant keywords. Then I head on over to
keycompete.com.
Here’s the quick rundown of what I do at keycompete.
1. I use the keywords I got from Google and type them in the search box.
2. I’ll then see all the domains bidding for that keyword.
3. Next, I’ll click on one of the top sites listed and see all the keywords their bidding on.
4. Usually they’ll have some interesting keyword phrases (which I’ll write down)
5. Next, I’ll click on one of the best phrases I never thought of before to see what other companies are
advertising on the term.
6. Take the same steps from step 3 on…
And the cycle will continue to repeat over and over again – building a killer keyword list of all the efforts
of my competitors in the market.
Stand On The Shoulders Of Your Competitors
So much can be learned about your prospects right from your competitors’ websites. It’s tragic more
entrepreneurs don’t take advantage of this huge shortcut.
So go to Google and type in your primary keywords (one at a time) and check out the pay‐per‐click ads
(the sponsored listings). Are there any common themes? You should certainly pick up some clues on this
page; it’s a goldmine once you’ve done it a few times.
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I just sit and look at the page for two to three minutes, scanning over the ads and waiting until the ideas
and insights start percolating and then I record all my thoughts with good old‐fashioned pen and paper.
Next, stop at your competitors’ websites.
If they happen to have sales letters on their site, you’ve just hit a jackpot; if they happen to have great
copywriters writing those sales letters… then you just hit the mother‐load jackpot. Here’s why, if you read
a sales letter through 2 or 3 times, it starts to become familiar enough for you to now begin pulling out
lots of great information.
For example, you can easily reverse engineer the writing for the beliefs, feelings and desires the writer
was trying to harness. When first starting out, you might have to read each sentence and think about it for
a second. Do it anyway, because with a little practice, you’ll eventually be able to read the sales letter
faster and still get what you’re looking for.
You should also spend some time on their site, read the link texts, skim their blog (if they have one) and
try to notice anything that may be a clue about what this website believes about their visitors. When you
are done, head over to compete.com, do a site profile, and pay careful attention to their search analytics.
Then head over to quantcast.com and check out the sites’ demographics.
Just know, that while I would say I believe the site demographics are NOT 100% accurate, I do believe
they’re right more than they’re wrong. And if you look at the demographic data from each of the big
competitors you should get a very accurate representation of who your competitor’s prospects are. One
last thing, it’s so obvious it should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway – you should be opting into the
lists of all your competitors to study their emails and the sequencing of their messages.
Use Amazon To Reveal Your Buyers Thoughts
You can learn a lot about your prospects at the Internet’s favorite store – Amazon.
You want to use your keywords to search for the best‐selling books associated with your market. Then,
click over to the book’s page and read all of the customer’s reviews (both positive and negative) and pay
careful attention to the words they choose – and all the reasons why they either liked it or hated it. Once
again, you should be writing down any observations or evidence.
Jay Abraham taught me this strategy three years ago – and I just started using it about 1½ years ago.
Wow! Can this be powerful. Once I realized how powerful this strategy is I was mad at myself for not
heeding jay’s advice earlier. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Leverage Your Own Site’s Analytics
Do you already have a website? Does it get any traffic? Yes? Then you’re sitting on top of heaps of
highly‐prized information and data that’s guaranteed to grow your business.
In fact that brings me to a very important point. A hugely overlooked benefit to having great content on
your website or blog is all the free valuable information your visitors leave behind.
Such as:
Just segment between new visitors and returning visitors to discover:
What content repels first‐time visitors? And what content sucks first time visitors into your circle of influence? Just look at your new visitor segment, then look at the most popular pages in order
of their bounce rate. Those with the highest bounce rate aren’t working – since more people are
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bailing off this page than any other (by the way you should fix these as soon as possible). At the
bottom of the list (the lowest bounce rate), are the pages that are resonating the most.
Know which pages are most popular with visitors who’ve been to your site before. In other words,
visitors who return to your site, return to see what? Your analytics program tells you the answer.
An answer that gives you a glimpse into their core complex.
Want to know the keywords that bring visitors you resonate with? Or, the keywords that bring
visitors who come back to your site? Just sort the most popular keywords of return visitors and
compare them to the most popular keywords of single visitors.
And that’s just one beginning. Analyze the differences between these two groups on every metric you
study. You’ll be amazed at how much insight you’ll gain in such a short time.
There’s so much more useful information you can harvest from your analytics. Lots of books have been
written on this single topic alone. Obviously, I can’t be comprehensive here. But, here are two more
areas of analytics to pay careful attention to:
o Look at your keywords report. This will show what queries brought visitors to your site.
When you look at each keyword phrase, ask yourself “what are our visitors looking for?
What type of language do they use that brings them to our site? What does this tell me
about my visitors/prospects motivation and goals?”
o After that, look at your referring site report. This will answer questions like, where do our
visitors come from? Are they coming from search engines, other sites, or directly with no
referrer? What do these answers tell me about their online habits? And, what does that tell
me about who they really are?”
Find And Mine The Forums
As you’ve probably heard, there’s a goldmine of useful information to be mined from Forums.
Here’s a short‐course primer on how to extract some really juicy information at breakneck speed…
1. First, you need to find the popular forums in your niche. The easiest way to find them is to go to
Google and search “your primary keyword and forum.”
2. A totally overlooked, fast and easy way to get some overall market knowledge is to get the visitor
profile on each of those forum sites. What you’ll get when you group them up will be a very good
profile that wakes up the market. This is priceless information every marketer wants to know and
this is how you get it. I’m going to tell you how to go get this information, but first I’ve got
something even better for you. By keeping the individual profile on the forums, you’ll understand
the different pieces of the market, and when you go into each forum, you’ll find out what they
want and what frustrations they want help with. You’ll get to see how it differs with all the other
groups’ forums.
If you realize the power of what I just told you, then you realize what a gift this is. It’s worth more than
what you’ll invest in an entire year for Founder’s Club. A brash statement, perhaps, but the facts are the
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 30
facts. And with what you’ll know after this will make every marketing and product decision you make
better. Meaning more profitable due to greater accuracy.
Here’s how you do it. Just go to www.quantcast.com and get a profile of each forum you identified by
typing in the URL of the forum. Go through the forum’s demographics by clicking in the demographics
tab on the left. Make sure you print out the demographics and also, cut and paste it into a word
document.
To super‐charge your knowledge, do what I do. Before diving into each forum – summarize the visitor
and then put everything you uncover on that forum and put it on a list below your summary.
Here’s an example from the Warrior Forum:
Warrior Forum, a forum dedicated to internet marketing attracts more males (than typical sites) with
73% over the age of 35, and 32% over 50 years old. The forum attracts more African Americans than the
average site online. 78% of the forum’s visitors have no children, and 68% are making less than $60,000
a year.
Now the Final Step:
3. Drill down deep into the forum. Pay close attention to the threads that get the most action in views and posts. I’d even record the thread title as a great swipe file (for email subject lines) ‐
another priceless tip I don’t want you to miss or forget. There’s a lot to be found by spending time
sniffing around. Remember, you’re looking for clues, not answers. You should be able to identify
clues that’ll tell you:
Their purchasing hot buttons by identifying what the most common questions are, what they consistently ask for advice on, and the words they use to describe them.
The “subconscious” real benefit (and therefore real reason) they are buying what
they are buying. It’s easy – just uncover the posts that mention their goals. Pay
careful attention to both how they describe it and what you think they’ll get out of
achieving their goal – what might be different in their lives after achieving this goal?
Make sure to think about feelings – how would they feel after each achievement or
goal they accomplish.
The fastest and most certain pathway to bond with your market: If you pay attention and record the words and phrases they use, what gets them excited (most
active posts), how they refer to each, etc., you’ll now exactly how to engineer an
initial communication strategy to your prospects that’ll bond and get them to like,
trust, and most importantly, buy from you.
Truly, there are so many other profit multiplying insights you can gleam from a forum. Don’t just quit
after getting these first three. Keep going and explore.
If you identify another valuable insight, send me in the method you used as a case study. If I feature it in
an upcoming webinar I’ll be doing on mining the forums, I’ll give you full credit plus a free month of
Founder’s Club in return. Email them to my assistant: Janine Shea, at [email protected].
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 31
Use The Most Popular Blogs
This is another amazing resource. And once again, it’s overlooked by almost everyone. If you want to
know the topics your prospects get excited about, and the words they use when they are excited
(hmmm….how useful would that be when you’re selling your products or services), you can easily get it
all from blogs.
1. Locate the most popular blogs on your topic by going to www.technorati.com. First type in
your main keyword in the search box. Then filter your results (it’ll show up in a green box right
there on top of your results) by changing the first dropdown menu from “search posts” to
“search blogs.”
2. Next, run their visitors’ profiles by going to www.quantcast.com again. (If you’re game, the
same summary and list method I described in the forum section applies here and it is just as
powerful).
3. Here’s why you’ll hit pay dirt. Scan over their old posts and approximate the average number
of comments. Now, any post that has significantly more comments tells you a lot about what
turns these visitors on. Read those comments and you’ll know the words they use to describe:
a. Why it gets them excited; and
b. How they describe their excitement.
For example, if you were to study our site; StrategicProfits.com, you’d find that any time I write about
procrastination we get lots of comments. In other words, procrastination is a hot topic for our readers.
There are other hot topics – but you’re going to have to study our site if we are talking to the same
prospects.
Also, don’t dismiss the posts that have far less comments than average. They’ll give you a clear direction
on which topics fell flat, that you’ll most likely want to avoid.
Magazine Stand Magazines
This one is simple, so I’ll be quick. If there are magazines in your niche, then every month you should be
analyzing the covers. From the cover copy you’ll get a great swipe for email subject lines.
You’ll also be able to reverse engineer these benefits into areas of interest that turn them on, and insight
into the ultimate benefits these achieved goals would bring them. I try to make it a habit to go into
Barnes & Noble and shoot pictures of all the covers (for archive purposes) that are related to my niche
once a month. And, yes, you can also go to the library.
Just know some of the most sophisticated magazines have different cover copy for its subscribers. If you
can identify any of these advanced marketers in the magazines in your niche – I’d pay very careful
attention to both covers. What’s the same and what’s different? From this, you can identify the different
bait that attracts your prospects and retains your customers.
Delicious Search
Delicious is a great resource because of the type of site it is.
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You see, Delicious is a service that stores its user’s bookmarks. And, it allows others to see the most
bookmarked pages that users tagged with a specific keyword. I would read the top bookmarked content
carefully to identify what about it got it bookmarked so much. Just go to delicious.com and search under
your main keywords—it’s that simple.
Just to make sure you’re with
me… to the left you’ll see what
your results will look like.
Notice the number 1,321 that I
circled. This means that 1,321
delicious users bookmarked
this page and tagged it with
Internet Marketing. If you’re in
internet marketing, wouldn’t you agree this would be an interesting post to glance over? I thought so.
Q & A Sites
There are other great resources for finding out the problems and issues your prospects want advice on.
And there are tons of these sites. Below is a list of them. Just type your keywords in and see what you
discover. The information you find here can easily boost your profits. So, don’t confuse my brevity with
its power. Here’s a short‐list of just a few of the Q+A sites online:
Clicktale
This is such a valuable tool – it’s scary. It’s the closest you can (legally) get to being “Big Brother.” How
would you like to actually peer over the shoulder of each and every visitor to your website? Watching
what they read and what they skip over? What gets them to take a double‐take, and what triggers them
to start scrolling? And any other action you find profitable. Well, it’s easy to get all that and more. They
offer a free service to get started with and you’ll love it for everything you discover. You can learn all
about it, by clicking HERE! (Just for full disclosure – the link I’ve included is an affiliate link.)
Of course, there are many more tools and techniques. And, sometime soon I’ll do a webinar walking you
through many more. But for now, you’ve got more than enough.
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Here’s the big challenge for you right now. It’s what separates the super‐successful and everyone else.
You need to do this research now to get the full benefit of the context that comes next.
Remember, these are the people you must fall in love with. They are the ones who are going to pay for
you to live your ideal life. You owe it to yourself, to know as much about them before you design your
profit model and build out your business blueprint.
The choice is yours. What’s it going to be? Greatness or mediocrity? Only you can choose!
Who’s Your Customer
Knowing your customer is the central leverage point of all marketing, product development and
improvements, sales and profitability. It really is the primary determinant of your success in your
business.
So, can you answer the question now: who is my customer?
And realize this – you really can never know too much about them.
Consistently be on the lookout for clues that define your customers as accurately and precisely as you
can.
Try your best to know their age, education, income, position, background, etc… what do they value? What
are they willing to pay for? And how much are they willing to spend? And what does your customer want
or need that they feel they’re not getting from anyone in your industry?
Also, why do they buy from your competitors? And what you’d have to do to get them to switch to your
products and service?
Like I said you can never know too much about them, and keep whatever you come across or deduce as
well organized as you can and refer to it often.
SECTION #4
Your Business’ Ultimate Purpose
Before we can jump into designing your business we need to define the overarching purpose for our
business’ existence.
Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you were going to design anything, would it be necessary to know the purpose
of what you are designing?
Well, it’s no different when designing your business. You must know its purpose.
To clarify ‐‐ the textbook definition of purpose is: noun. The object toward which one strives or for which
something exists.
Think about that definition. Reread it. Now realize this, without a purpose, you can’t know (and neither
can anyone who ever works for you) what your business is striving to achieve, or more importantly why
it even exists in the first place. And when a business operates without this understanding, the business
will no doubt struggle.
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In a purposeless business everything feels a bit chaotic, harried, and maybe even meaningless. Meetings
can go on for hours with endless and arbitrary decision‐making criteria being thrown out by anyone with
an opinion. Without a clearly defined purpose in place, seeing the way forward is often a real challenge.
Your Purpose Defines The Business You’re Really In
It’s shocking how many entrepreneurs can’t clearly state the business they are really in.
That’s why defining your purpose is so vitally important. Because it’ll clearly define for you the business
you are really in.
You always define your purpose from the point of view of your customers. In other words – what your
products or services do for your customers…the effects your products or services have in the lives and
work of your customers… the specific benefits your customers enjoy from using your products or
services.
You’ve probably heard this example before but not as it specifically relates to your business purpose. So it
bears repeating…
At one time railroads dominated cross‐country transportation. But they never really defined their
purpose from the point of view of their customers. If they did it might have been something like this:
“To move people and freight over long distances in the very best way possible at the very best prices”
Instead they defined themselves as being in the business of running railroads. And because they didn’t
clearly identify their purpose – bus companies, trucking companies, shipping companies and eventually
airlines were able to move in and dominate the industry, especially in the most profitable segments like
moving people and packages.
So, if this were the only reason to define your purpose it would be more than enough. But there are plenty
more reasons, keep reading and I’ll tell you more…
A Purpose Stacks The Odds In Your Favor
But think about a business that has a purpose based on detailed research on their market and customers.
A purpose that’s sure to fill a real need in the marketplace. Doesn’t it make sense that a business designed
this way has a much higher chance of success?
And there are so many more reasons why the probability of your business succeeding skyrockets with a
clearly articulated purpose. Here are just a few of them:
1. Purpose improves your performance ‐ When you are clear about the primary purpose of the time and energy you spend working on your business, it will drive everything you do. Your productivity
will soar because you’ll have criteria to judge the effectiveness of everything you undertake.
2. Purpose draws to you Aplayer employees and outsourcers – We, humans, are a passionate species.
We want to engage in meaningful work. Yet most businesses are completely devoid of meaning. So,
when your business actively cultivates and communicates its’ purpose, the best employees and
outsourcers want to work for you because you provide more than something do to, you provide
meaning to their lives.
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3. Purpose deepens employee engagement and increases their commitment – When your business provides its employees and outsourcers with meaningful work, plus something to believe in, your
business benefits from highly engaged, passionate employees who are in it for more than just a
paycheck. Better yet, employees who work in the service of something they feel true devotion to
bring the most energy and vitality to what they do. Work is no longer a 9 to 5 job to be endured but a
meaningful source of fulfillment and satisfaction. And if your business faces a difficult, seemingly
impossible challenge, it’ll be your business’ purpose that’ll tap into the hearts and minds of your team
to make the impossible possible.
4. Purpose provides a road map for your team so your business doesn’t get off track – Remember, to
reach Founder status inside your business you need to build a business that continues to grow
without your direct involvement. Well, in order to not be needed in your business, everyone is going
to need to know your purpose. Think about it. Most people’s minds easily wander off track. It’s easy
for anyone to lose focus and get distracted. But a strong sense of purpose keeps everyone on track.
Your business’ purpose provides the roadmap for your team to chart their course along the journey. It
ensures that everyone stays on track and your business doesn’t end up in a ditch, stalled out with
everyone confused as to how the business got there.
5. Purpose drives successful innovation – In business we often distinguish between invention and innovation. An invention is something new, while innovation is something new that succeeds.
Without a purpose, business invents more than they innovate because there is nothing driving
innovation in a constructive and meaningful way. Innovation for innovation’s sake often results in a
lot of wasted time and energy. But, innovation designed to facilitate your business’ purpose is where
meaningful progress is made.
6. Purpose gives your business flexibility Products, services, and practically everything else in your
business eventually changes. By clearly defining your purpose you’ll know when its time to shift
direction, change what you offer, or anything else. Because the only thing that won’t change is your
purpose – but how you go about achieving it is always subject to change. That’s why knowing your
purpose keeps you flexible – because you know the one thing that won’t change while you remain
willing and able to change anything else.
7. Purpose builds your brand – by clearly and consistently communicating your purpose to your
prospects, customers and the world, you are consistently telling the world how to label and position
your company. Over time, this repetition will lead to building a brand in the minds of those who
matter most to you.
8. Purpose leads to personal fulfillment and happiness – With a clear purpose everything you must do
in your business makes sense because it’s clear why you’re doing it. You end up feeling good about
what you’re doing because you’re clear about how it moves your business forward. You’re excited to
get up in the morning because you have something big you are shooting for and it’s motivating.
For all these reasons plus many more, it’s ironic that defining your purpose is giving your business a
reason for being that goes beyond making money… Yet, it almost always results in making more money
than you ever thought possible.
Let me repeat that: Purpose almost always results in your business making more money than you
ever thought possible.
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For now just realize when you design your business to fulfill a purpose, it will drive the business and
ensure that something remarkable happens with your product or service. The thing about purpose is that
it starts with the leaders, works its way through everyone in your business, and finds its way into the
products, services, experiences, and, ultimately, into the marketing.
Why It’s A Good Idea To Focus On The Negative
Your purpose has the greatest chance of success if it removes a pain, frustration, or challenge ‐ In other
words, if your purpose removes a negative already in the lives of your prospects and customers.
Why? Because pain sells best.
Think about it, people spend an enormous amount of money, time, and energy avoiding pain.
They avoid confronting their neighbors, bosses or spouses, to avoid emotional pain. They gulp mountains
of drugs to suppress physical pain.
It’s the very same reason when we started to break down your life with what you didn’t want rather than
what you did – very few people can clearly describe what they want – which, incidentally, is why they
don’t get it – but everybody knows what they don’t want.
Short But Long Lasting
You should be able to articulate your business purpose succinctly, in one or two sentences. It should be
broad, fundamental, inspirational and enduring.
Don’t confuse purpose (which should last at least 100 years) with specific goals or business strategies
(which should change many times in 100 years).
Remember: you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, but you cannot fulfill your purpose; it’s like a
guiding star on the horizon – forever pursued, but never reached.
Oh, one last thing… your purpose doesn’t need to be unique. The primary role of purpose is to guide and
inspire, it’s not a differentiating factor. It’s entirely possible (although not probable) for two companies to
have the same purpose.
Companies You Know
Before we start digging to discover your business purpose – I thought it would be helpful to look at some
familiar companies and their purposes.
Here are a few you probably recognize:
• Google – To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
• Facebook – Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.
• Walmart – Saving people money so they can live better.
• Disney – Keeping alive the magic of childhood.
• Strategic Profits ‐ To guide, advise, and nurture entrepreneurs to work less, make more, while
building the business of their dreams.
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Discovering Your Business Purpose
Defining your business’ purpose helps you create a company that is capable of making a difference,
making money, and with a little luck – making history.
To discover your business purpose you must start with the customer. You need to find a deep‐seeded,
unmet need that you’re passionate about fulfilling in some unique way. Take a good hard look at the
people you are trying to serve and find something thrilling to do for them.
The pursuit begins with a question: what do people need or want that we have (or could create) that no
one else is offering them?
It should be obvious to you how useful all that work you did getting to know your customers better is
here. In fact, without that knowledge you’re prone to come up with a purpose that misses the mark, the
very same way the railroads did.
That stated, here’s more on discovering your business’ purpose.
Asking Why To Find Your Purpose
A powerful, yet easy method for getting at your business’ purpose is the “Five Whys.” You start with a
descriptive statement, “We make x products” or “we deliver x service” and then ask, “Why is that
important?” five times. After a few whys, you’ll find you’re getting down to the fundamental purpose of
your business.
For example, let’s take a look at Strategic Profits…
What does your business provide?
“We provide products and programs to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses faster while
working less.”
Why is that important?
Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the economy and most are unprepared for properly navigating
their businesses.
Why is that important?
Without proper training the entrepreneurs workload skyrockets while their overall chances of
success plummets.
Why is that important?
The entrepreneur ends up sacrificing friends, family, and fun for marginal profits at best,
bankruptcy at worst.
Why is that important?
For most small business owners the American dream quickly turns into a nightmare destroying
their families and finances in one fell swoop
Why is that important?
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When a business succeeds (the right way) everyone benefits – The owner and their family, the
employees and their families, the businesses that supply them, the customers that buy from
them…
What would the world lose if we ceased to exist?
A beacon of hope, freedom, and success for entrepreneurs worldwide.
So, Strategic Profits’ purpose is:
To guide, advise, and nurture entrepreneurs to work less, make more, while building the business
of their dreams.
Ok, now it’s your turn…
What does your business provide?
Why is that important?
Why is that important?
Why is that important?
Why is that important?
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Why is that important?
What would the world lose if we ceased to exist?
So, your business’ purpose is:
SECTION #5
Business Design
This is the section where the rubber really meets the road. We’re going to start pulling together all the
work we’ve done so far… and use it to make X critical decisions that’ll determine your business destiny.
Specifically, we’re going to:
∗ Define your competitive advantage and translate it into a unique compelling promise so your ideal
customers choose you over all your competitors.
∗ Construct your profit model so you maximize your business profits and clearly identify the steps
you’ll need to take to make it all happen.
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Design A Business That Fulfills It’s Purpose…
So Customers Get What They Want…
And You Get What You Want
All right, you’ve now got all the necessary building blocks to begin designing your business.
You’ve got your breakdown of your ideal life, you know your market, you know what your prospects and
customers crave, and you defined the purpose of the business you’ve created or that you’re going to
create.
What you are about to learn will change your business destiny forever. I know that sounds hyperbolic,
but the facts are the facts and I’ve seen the impact of what I’m about to share with you.
But before we jump into it, let me share with you two damaging effects of not designing a business. It’s
important to know them, because it’ll improve your ability to design your business…and show you
powerful ways to use it.
Damaging Effect – Doomed To Fail
Look, just because you know how to do something that doesn't mean you know how to run a business
that does that something.
You could literally have the best product or service in the entire world, but unless you create a business to
support that product or service, your business is not going to make it.
That’s why so many businesses are doomed from the very start. When an entrepreneur lacks a blueprint
of their business, the net effects are:
• The business is flawed because it’s close to impossible to build your business correctly in your
head, on the fly, as you go about doing all the other things you have to do…
• The business is handicapped because it makes mistakes. Each mistake sets the business back. And
most would have been caught during the designing of the business…
• The entrepreneur has no idea what he doesn’t know that he needs to know because he hasn’t
mapped out his business and discovered what skills he needs to have and when he needs them.
I could go on but I hope you are getting the point. Starting a business without a design is like throwing
darts in the dark. You’re really operating in the dark and the chances for success are slim to none.
Damaging Effect – Getting Stuck In The Business
When entrepreneurs do not design their business, they just jump in and by default they end up building
their business around themselves.
But building a business around the owner leads to the owner owning a job. A job he’ll never get free of.
He’s built a job, not a business.
Why? Because the business is designed (by default) to operate around the owner, which means that
unless he can find someone exactly like himself who is willing to do the owners work without the
rewards of being an owner, he’s trapped for good.
It’s important you get this. This is the single biggest cause for getting trapped in a business and having it
turn into the worst job of your life.
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That stated, I am going to explain this mistake in a different way: Entrepreneurs who haven’t designed
their business don’t hire the positions their business needs because they don’t know what their business
needs. The only thing an entrepreneur can do then is hire for his needs instead. And with each person
brought on (whether outsourced or full time) the entrepreneur gets a little more cemented in place.
What’s Your Advantage?
In order for your business to survive and then thrive you must develop and maintain a meaningful
competitive advantage of some kind.
Your competitive advantage is the aspect of your product or service that makes you superior in a
meaningful way to your competitors. And, of course, your competitive advantage is always defined in
terms of what your customer wants, needs, and is willing to pay for.
It’s the answer to the question: “what is it that your business does (or will do) really well that makes you
the best choice for your ideal customers?”
Every successful company has a specific and valued competitive advantage that customers recognize and
appreciate. Every company that gets into trouble is a company that has either lost its competitive
advantage, or never had one at all.
That’s why your ability to develop, maintain, and protect your competitive advantage is the absolute
critical prerequisite for business growth and high profitability. Once you identify it, it’ll be the foundation
of all your strategic and operational decisions.
Ultimately your competitive advantage answers the customer’s key question: Why should I do business
with you? What are you offering that the other businesses in your market aren’t?
For Founder’s Club it would be something like this: “Founder’s Club is the only community of like‐minded
entrepreneurs that provides the A‐Z training, guidance, and instruction to quickly transform any
entrepreneur into a personally and financially‐free Founder with a thriving and autonomous business.”
And you need to be able to answer that question in a way that instantly cuts through all the clutter, and in
just a few seconds clearly explains why they should choose you over everyone else.
The way to do this is to turn your competitive advantage into a unique, compelling, credible promise that
you can make to your marketplace.
Your Unique, Credible And Compelling Promise
So, what’s your promise that’ll get your ideal customers to choose you over everyone else?
Remember it must be unique (different from your competitors), it must be compelling (provide a benefit
they truly desire) and it must be credible (that you can prove you can deliver on the promise).
Since getting this right is so critical to your business success, I’m going to walk you through four leverage
points that can make your promise unique and compelling. Then we’ll talk about making it credible.
That stated, here are the four leverage points:
1. Who you’re promising… 2. What you’re promising…
3. When you’ll deliver on your promise…
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4. How you’ll deliver on your promise…
Now let’s take a close look at each leverage point so you can make your business’ promise the best it can
be and therefore your competitive advantage as strong as possible.
Who You’re Promising
This is an easy area to achieve distinction and therefore leverage. All you have to do is specialize who you
serve.
The more specialized your target audience is, the more unique and compelling your promise becomes.
You see, everyone automatically assumes that a specialist knows more, is more competent, has more
experience, and is a better choice for getting our needs met.
So, when you specialize in serving a very specific audience, it’ll give you greater leverage in attracting the
customers you want.
When I started Strategic Profits, I narrowed our focus to online entrepreneurs. This immediately made
our business growth advice more valuable to our target market. And made us the ideal choice for
entrepreneurs looking for the best advice to grow their online business.
Eventually, because we rose to the very top of the market – we ended up getting offline businesses as
customers too. But it’s never been a focus of ours, even though it now represents a nice segment of our
total business today.
So, what about you? Who could you focus in on to make your promise stronger? Write your answer
below.
What You’re Promising
The next area of leverage in your promise is what you are promising to deliver.
This is probably the most obvious way to separate your business from the crowd of competitors. And
your greater knowledge of your prospects pain and frustrations can be immensely valuable here.
This is exactly what I did with the Internet Business Manifesto. While everyone in the marketplace was
promising powerful marketing tactics or a complete business in a box, I promised expert business
knowledge through our BGS program (also known as our tycoon membership) as the most proven path
to online success.
Here’s another example – think of Whole Foods – what makes them different from the average
supermarket is that everything is organic and supposedly a higher quality.
Now it’s your turn. What could you change to what’s currently being offered to your market that would
immediately resonate with your ideal customer? Write your answer below.
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 43
When You’ll Deliver On Your Promise
In today’s fast paced, immediate gratification world the speed in which you deliver (on your promise) can
immediately separate you from your competitors.
This is the secret behind Dominoes Pizza’s legendary growth. They simply delivered pizza faster than
everyone else.
It’s also what enabled Kinko’s to dominate the local printing market. By staying open 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, 365 days a year they shifted the market’s expectations by allowing them to do business
when it was convenient for them. Plus, they promised fast service on top of that, which only helped them
even more to separate from their competitors.
This is the very same strategy behind the exceptional success of our GPS program. We made it a 30‐day
program and prospects bought in droves because they wanted to get results FAST!
Think about your market, and how you might be able to alter the standard “when” in your prospect’s
favor. Answer how you might make yourself unique in this area below.
How You’ll Deliver On Your Promise
The final leverage area is how you deliver on your promise.
I’ll use our GPS program again as an example. In the original 30‐day program I did live video streams
three times a day, each day for clients. As far as I know it was the first time anyone offered a 30‐day
program that was all conducted live through streaming video.
The marketplace certainly noticed, and it’s another reason why this program sold so well. (It’s also why
GPS clients got such phenomenal results too.)
In fact, in every one of our major programs we’ve ever delivered we did our best to alter the how.
Look at Founder’s Club as an example. In most inexpensive continuity programs, what customers receive
is merely an afterthought of the marketer who sold them. But Founder’s Club is very different. Here
you’re getting my latest thinking in reports like this one, on alternating months you’re getting a letter
from Todd on what’s currently working in our business and those of our best clients. Plus you’re getting
the two action‐oriented webinars each and every month. With all that it’s no wonder the Founder’s Club
is off to a very strong start.
So, what about your business? Take a few minutes to answer how you can make your ‘how’ uniquely
superior to your competitors.
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Make It All Compelling
A compelling promise is one that provides a big benefit that your customers really want.
Key number one is to make your promise as compelling as possible to solve a problem or problems that
your prospect already knows they have and desperately want solved. (Remember, we touched on this a
few pages back when we were covering your business’ purpose. You can refresh your memory by turning
back to page 36 – Why it’s A Good Idea to Focus on the Negative)
The second key is to provide the most dramatic and biggest benefit you can to your customers. In other
words, be bold, don’t just offer a little benefit or your sales and growth will be small too. Instead, offer the
most dramatic benefit you can that’ll solve the biggest problem(s) your customers have and your
business’ growth will be amazing as well.
Tying It All Together
If you’ve answered the last four questions, you’ve got everything you need to make you’re compelling
promise unique.
It’ll work something like this:
(Your business name) delivers/provides/creates (what your promising) to (who your promising) by
(how you’ll deliver on your promise) by (when you’ll deliver on your promise).
Of course, most won’t fit perfectly into that format. But once you fill in the blanks you’ll see how you
should rearrange it.
Here’s a fun example:
Hooters delivers hot, fresh bar food to male customers by overtly scantily‐clad, sexy waitresses whenever
you’re hungry.
Or…
Strategic Profits delivers business freedom to online entrepreneurs via our comprehensive marketing
and business building courses, coaching and community.
Now it’s your turn. Just fill in the boxes below and then rework it.
1. Who you’re promising…
2. What you’re promising…
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 45
3. When you’ll deliver on your promise…
4. How you’ll deliver on your
promise…
Quick SelfCheck
Just to make sure everything you’ve done so far checks out… I’ve got a quick thirty‐second test you can do
to make sure you’re on the right track.
Here it is: Just fill in the blanks and see if this makes sense:
In order to (your business purpose), (your business promise)
For example, here’s how it would look for Strategic Profits:
In order to (guide, advise, and nurture entrepreneurs to work less, make more, while building the
business of their dreams), (Strategic Profits delivers business freedom to online entrepreneurs
via our comprehensive marketing and business building courses, coaching and community).
If your purpose and promise work well together, you’ve got it! If not, go back and figure out where you
took a wrong turn.
Constructing Your Profit Model
Recently, my two daughters, Ava and Elle received an erector‐set as a present. For those of you who don’t
know, an erector‐set is made up of a bunch of metal rods and brackets that kids can use to build all types
of wonderful things.
When the girls first had at it, they were just attaching things that fit together with no rhyme or reason
other than the pieces fit. Under this approach it shouldn’t be too surprising what the finished object
looked like. It was an absolute mess with pieces protruding everywhere.
Well, the reason I’m telling you this is that Ava’s and Elle’s finished object unfortunately resembles many
businesses I come into contact with today. In other words, the entrepreneur did this and then that,
created this product, started that service, hired this employee and outsourced another project with no
overall plan dictating what should and shouldn’t be done. And what the entrepreneur ends up with is
nothing but a big mess on their hands.
An Example That Made Internet Marketing History
In fact, when I first started coaching Mike Filsaime he was in a similar place. He bounced around creating
this product, then doing that project without any far reaching plan that tied it all together and made
everything he did serve him better by leveraging everything else he was doing.
This was the very first area I helped Mike with. We created a plan that made use of everything he had
already done that also dictated what he’d do next, and the results made internet marketing history.
Well, for your own sake, I don’t want you to make the same original mistake Mike made. And like I said,
almost every entrepreneur online makes this mistake, so it’s important we go over it.
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 46
In fact, when just starting out online myself, I was guilty too. I made the very same mistake early on that
Mike did, and almost every entrepreneur makes. It’s the main reason I was working harder than ever
before, but making less than I was used to.
Instead I want you to have a profit model that makes everything you do work 10x harder for you. And
that’ll only happen for you if you clearly design your very own profit model to guide your business.
A Profit Model
So, what do I mean by profit model?
Basically, your profit model clearly lays out your overall customer acquisition strategy (what you’ll be
doing to get new customers) and your overall customer value strategy (what you’ll do to increase the
value you get from each customer you acquire).
It’s not complicated – although many entrepreneurs make it complicated by assembling it on the fly with
little thought of how everything can best work together to ensure monster growth and profitability.
To best illustrate, I’ll share with you a part of our profit model and how it relates to Founder’s Club.
This Is Privileged Information
Before I pull back the curtain and expose to you the nitty gritty details, let me say this…
This is closely guarded information that I am entrusting you with because I sincerely believe it will make
a profound difference in constructing your own profit model.
The reason I’m telling you this is that I expect what we share together in Founder’s Club will be kept in
the strictest confidence. Meaning I don’t want you to share what you are about to read anywhere with
anyone. The means you shouldn’t post these details in a forum, or on your blog. It also means you
shouldn’t share them in any of your products or programs or anywhere else for that matter.
I hope you understand. These are trade secrets and their effectiveness is certainly based on this not being
(or becoming) common knowledge. Plus, in order for you to get the biggest benefit, outsiders shouldn’t
know anything about it.
In a nutshell, please keep what you are about to read to yourself.
Strategic Profits’ Profit Model
There are several legs to our profit model. I am going to drill down deep into just one of those legs so we
can keep things simple, yet provide enough detail so you can truly benefit.
To that end, I am going to walk you though Founder’s Club and all the ways it serves Strategic Profits so
you can see for yourself all that is possible.
Our model is rather simple. Our goal is to acquire new clients with our front‐end products. These front‐
end products are all attached to the Founder’s Club, which increases the client’s value to Strategic Profits
through continuity billing.
Founder’s Club also gives us the opportunity to bond with members over time, share our unique
perspective, consistently over‐deliver and ultimately have the majority of Founder Club members
intensify their relationship with us by upgrading into higher levels of membership and participating in
our high‐end, exclusive programs.
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 47
Now, you understand the overall context. Next, we’ll break it down, detail‐by‐detail so you can see and
appreciate how it all comes together.
The Webinars
First we’ll talk about the two webinars you get each and every month. First and foremost they’re
designed to maintain high retention rates with our current members by continually providing action‐
oriented webinars that members can use and apply in growing their businesses.
But, the webinars are designed to accomplish much more than that. Here are some additional objectives:
1. To consistently acquire new members to Founder’s Club by aggressively marketing each webinar
to the marketplace.
2. To create new frontend products for Strategic Profits (after the webinars are over) that are tied
to Founder’s Club through forced continuity.
3. To provide real market data to guide Strategic Profits on which front‐end products should be
aggressively marketed through outside media (ppc, banners, etc…).
Now, let me explain how we accomplish these three objectives.
(#1) To Consistently Acquire New Members
Here’s how we leverage the webinars to continually grow Founder’s Club membership. First, we
aggressively market each webinar at a price‐point of $47. And each webinar is coupled with a free month
of Founder’s Club (of course, it’s not really free since buyers are paying the exact same monthly price of
Founder’s Club for just that single webinar).
It’s actually a killer deal for anyone who purchases just one webinar for $47 because now for no
additional cost they’re getting an additional webinar, the free front‐ends, plus a report from me or a
newsletter from Todd.
We use two primary channels to market and sell these webinars. First we go after everyone who is on our
own list. Anyone on any of our lists who isn’t already a Founder’s Club member gets hit with three emails
for each webinar scheduled.
The second channel is our large affiliate base. We offer our affiliates 100% commission on every webinar
they sell plus 25% of the continuity revenue from Founder’s Club. Affiliates benefit from this model in
many ways. First, by getting 100% of the initial sale, it’s the equivalent to having both Todd and I as their
personal product creators. Because we’re creating new products for them to sell and keep all the money
twice a month. And because our retention rates on average are more than three times longer than the
industry‐norm, the 25% they receive on Founder’s members is almost as profitable as their own
continuity program.
All‐in‐all this makes an incredible offer to our affiliates, which is why it’ll drive lots of new members into
the club month in, and month out.
It’ll also put the right type of members into the club – meaning members who are less likely to drop out –
because they spent $47 on their initial purchase which is the same amount they’ll be billed monthly.
Before pressing on, I want you to consider what I just shared with you. Do you realize how powerful it is?
Strategic Profits delivers to you two incredible webinars each month, and look at how we use what we
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are already doing for you to grow our business at an incredibly fast clip. But it gets even better so let’s
continue…
(#2) To Create New Products
Next, after each webinar is complete and we’ve packaged it as a video with a transcript and an action
guide, we have a new product to put on our website, market to our list, and have affiliates continue to
promote for us in perpetuity.
And, of course, each of these new products will be sold for $47 coupled with the first month of Founder’s
Club for free. This way each and every webinar becomes a product that continues to be an attraction tool
for new members of the Founder’s Club.
So, once again, we continue to get revenue mileage out of the deliverable we committed to for you. This
means each month we’re adding 2 new products to our catalog, all without any additional work.
But, the leverage we get from the webinars doesn’t end there; so let me explain another leverage factor….
(#3) To Provide Real Market Data For Rollout Of New FrontEnd Products
OK, I’ve already explained to you how we’re using the live webinars as a new client magnate for both our
own list and through our affiliates – but I didn’t tell you about how we’re also using it to provide us with
data that’ll dictate our rollouts. Plus, it’ll tell us which products we create that we’ll use as front‐ends.
Allow me to explain…
Let’s say the average webinar brings us about 400 new members. Well, then we can use that as a
barometer to indicate when a webinar would make a hot product (therefore be a new front‐end product)
that’s simply itching to be rolled out in a much bigger way.
Here’s what I mean: when we have a webinar that sells 800 new members (twice the average), that lets
us know this concept is hot. Knowing that we have a product that is really resonating with the market at
this very moment means we now have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the product for all it’s
worth.
They way we leverage a hot product like I’m talking about here is we begin to spend more and more
money buying traffic through pay‐per‐click, contextual advertising, banners and cpa networks. The idea
is that if it resonated so well through our standard channels, it can be a vehicle for us to open up new
channels since our list and our affiliate lists are an indicator at what’ll resonate with the broader market.
It bears mentioning, even though it’s slightly off topic. An interesting phenomenon exists in most
businesses that entrepreneurs don’t often realize, costing them millions in lost potential profits. And that
is most businesses get the majority of our growth from Home Run Products. I first noticed this when I
was in the clothing business and the hot product of the season was where much of the money was made.
I later noticed that same phenomenon at the 400 million dollar behemoth Agora Publishing. ETR (Early
to Rise) went from an 8 million to a 28 million dollar business on the back of one hot product. So, it goes
without saying you need to have a process in your business to produce many products, isolate the
potential home‐runs (your new front‐end products) and then roll them out to cash in on major profits.
Ok, so there you have it. I’ve given you a picture of how we use the webinars to attract, retain and grow
the front side of our business, next let’s talk about my reports like this one.
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 49
My Reports
I won’t go into the same level of depth I did for the webinars but the reports (like this one) work the same
way.
Meaning that we’ll be selling them individually for $47 coupled with Founder’s Club (of course). We’ll
give affiliates 100% of the sale price of the reports and 25% of the ongoing continuity just like we did
with the webinar. And when a report is unusually successful, we’ll be rolling it out as well.
With over one million downloads of my free reports, we have a built‐in audience who are great prospects
for Founder’s Club once they hear about a report that tickles their interest. And with our own efforts plus
the efforts of our affiliates, we plan on letting the world know about each and every one of them.
Now, before we wrap up this overview of how we are using Founder’s Club, I want to share with you two
other critical elements…
Retention
Now it should be obvious the great lengths we’re going to, to create a membership that you simply never
want to disassociate from.
Along those lines, we plan on consistently over‐delivering to you in ways that’ll make you eager to share
what you’ve learned with others. And for that we want you to be handsomely rewarded.
Take this report for example. It’s my sincerest hope that the material we cover in here, not only walks
you through the steps to blueprinting your business, but also gives you many light‐bulb moments about
business growth that you want to share with others.
In order to facilitate that desire to share, we automatically enroll every Founder’s Club member (this
means you) into an affiliate program for Founder’s Club. And the generous affiliate payouts apply to you
as well. So, if you get the value I believe you will from this report, then everyone who you tell about it
that buys it, we’ll give you 100% of the purchase price plus 25% of their Founder’s Club dues. And the
same applies for every webinar you participate in too!
What’s great about this approach is that everything we are doing to keep you happy with your
membership can very quickly make you money and make it so your Founder’s Club membership actually
makes you money instead of costing you.
While this isn’t our only retention strategy, it’s one of the strongest. To get started, telling others about
this report or the webinars you’ve experienced or upcoming ones, all you have to do is check your email
box for the information we sent you about your new affiliate membership.
Ascension
Strategic Profits has several incredible premium products and programs that we’ve sold very well over
the years. And we continue to sell them day in and day out, delivering them through the very same
platform where you access your Founder’s Club resources.
Programs like:
• The Business Growth System – our flagship product that walks you through step by step
everything you need to know to start, build and grow the business of your dreams. Covering
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 50
everything from marketing strategies, to hiring strategies, to product development – it’s all here
and covered in complete detail.
• Guided Profit System – take one of the most powerful business growth strategies (theory of
constraints) and customize it for entrepreneurs like you and you’ve got Guided Profit Systems (or
GPS for short). The results have been spectacular as entrepreneurs discover their own unique
constraint to building the business of their dreams. In this 30‐day program I walk you through
each step of the process as you discover and then eliminate the biggest constraint in your
business. Your biggest constraint is the single biggest leverage point and when you eliminate it
your business will immediately gain profit‐momentum and unprecedented growth.
• The Maven Program – The two men responsible for coaching more entrepreneurs to guru‐status,
Jay Abraham and I joined forces for this life altering program. Together Jay and I walk you through
each and every step you need to take to become the recognized expert, guru, thought‐leader, and
maven of your market.
And products like:
• The Business Acceleration Program – The most comprehensive course ever designed to help
you optimize your attention… so you learn much faster, eliminate information‐overload, and
quickly become the most knowledgeable expert in your market. Then this course shows you how
to seize the attention of your marketplace with viral strategies, product launch strategies, and
marketing techniques that always command attention. Industry insiders consider this the go‐to
resource for growing an online business and call it the complete online marketing MBA.
• Strategic Profits Live – Take the most well‐known, recognized experts in marketing today. Get
them to share their best strategies with no ulterior motive (i.e. pitching). And you have this
program. It includes Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime, Jay Abraham, John Carlton, myself and
many more world‐class marketing experts. This was the last big production seminar I ever did –
because I simply felt I would never be able to match the quality of expertise shared at this event.
As you can probably imagine it isn’t necessarily easy to sell $5,000 products or $400 a month continuity
programs to prospects who’ve never heard about you or even those who bought just one $47 product
from us.
The challenge was that programs like these can only be sold in two ways: (1) to entrepreneurs already on
our list (who know how well our programs deliver) or (2) through big launches to the entire market.
But Founder’s Club changes all that. You see, with Founder’s Club attached to all our products (both our
front‐ends and our entire product catalog), it gives us a chance to consistently over deliver, to further
bond and intensify our relationship with our clients, and ultimately get a large percentage of members to
take advantage of our higher prices programs and products.
This is what I mean by ascension – by continually providing the best information along with great
experience, we get a lot more buyers to upgrade into one or more of our premium offers.
So, Founder’s Club provides a proven path to take all our customers into a deeper, more meaningful and
more profitable relationship with Strategic Profits.
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Profit Model Overview
So there you have it.
What might have seemed
like a simple membership
program has many more
profitable legs to it than
meets the eye.
In other words, it was
designed to continually
grow our membership,
continually build new
products, continually
identify hot products to
roll out, continually get
clients to ascend to higher
end programs and products and even more. It should be obvious that a model like this doesn’t happen by
accident – it must be engineered and then executed meticulously in order to be effective.
In the next section, Blueprinting Your Business, I’ll walk you through how to make sure what you design
here gets executed flawlessly but before we do, it’s your turn to design your profit model.
Erecting Your Profit Model
Now, let me warn you up front: The odds of you perfecting your profit model right out of the gate is
rather slim. Instead, you should view it as a process that you’ll tweak over time.
What’s important right now is that you put together your first interaction, a first draft so to speak. Then
once you have it written down, you’ll be able to continually tweak and improve it until it’s just right.
I’m telling you this so you don’t put undue pressure on yourself right now. Your job is not to get it
perfect; your job is just to get it written down.
That stated; let’s get cracking…
Getting Attention
Your profit model starts with getting the attention of your ideal customers. And truth be told, this is the
most difficult step of the entire process. In fact, it’s so challenging I wrote a series of reports three years
ago about how attention was quickly becoming the scarcest commodity in online marketing. If you
haven’t read them you should – they’re titled The Attention Age Doctrine I and II.
So the bad news is – this is difficult. The good news is once you overcome this uphill battle to get
attention, it’s all downhill from there.
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Now, when I was going over our profit model with you, the two sources of attention we’re leveraging are
our list and our affiliate base. The odds are high you are not starting with as much strength in these
areas, so we need to back track a little to get fully up to speed.
Every business must be able to get enough attention of their marketplace or they never achieve the initial
momentum that stimulates the rapid growth almost every entrepreneur craves.
So let’s stop right here for a second and discuss what really captures peoples’ attention. This way you’ll
be able to more easily discover your own opportunities for seizing the limelight.
Here’s a short list of factors that get attention:
Anything unusual or unexpected
Anything novel or new Anything unique or distinctive
Anything visually appealing or well‐designed Anything bold or daring
Anything risky or challenging
Of course there’s more…and you should be aware of anything that instantly gets your attention and ask
yourself “what about this grabbed my attention?” Think about this the next time an email subject line
gets you to quickly open the email, or a twitter tweet gets you to click on a link or anything else that
immediately calls out to you and gets you focused. I promise you this: your experience will be your best
teacher if you remain aware enough to realize what gets your attention.
Basically, when it comes to attention you can either buy it or build it (or some hybrid, combining both).
Buying attention is when you pay others for sharing the attraction they already have with you. Examples
of this would be Google Adwords, affiliate promotions, or any other marketing channel that costs you
money. Building attention is more grassroots and organic. This is done by leveraging as many of the
attention factors I listed above.
In my opinion, the hybrid approach is your best bet. The idea when using a hybrid approach is to ramp
up quickly by leveraging the attention others have and then quickly build on it to start generating lots of
free attention.
This is what we’ve done consistently at Strategic Profits. We start with some initial attention that was
paid for in some manner, while leveraging as many of the attention factors I discussed to quickly build up
from that paid base.
For example, each of my reports was marketed using this hybrid approach. Each of my reports started
with attention that was paid for through our JV partners (it’s paid for by sharing the proceeds of any sales
that get generated). But in each and every report, we ended up getting more opt‐ins, write‐ups, and
overall buzz for free from the initial prospects our affiliate partners generated for us. Case in point – we
generated an additional 63,000 opt‐ins from our tell‐a‐friend page for the Attention Age Doctrine II (and
that’s just one tactic!)
And we’ve followed this overall hybrid approach time and time again.
Here’s another two examples…Four years ago when we were the first to stream video live from a seminar
a few select JV partners got us 2,000 viewers, but these 2,000 who initially registered got us another
8,000 viewers for a grand total of 10,000 viewers by the time we broadcasted.
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A year ago when I did a 26 hour live video stream, our JV partners brought approximately 3,000 viewers
– but these 3,000 viewers brought over 25,000 additional viewers for a grand total of over 28,000
viewers, the highest viewed Ustream, even beating John McCain that day (during the presidential
campaign).
I could dedicate a whole new report on just attention getting tactics, and sometime in the future I just
might do that for you. But for now, let’s keep moving your profit model forward. So here’s a quick recap
before you decide your attention getting strategy.
Getting attention is the most difficult step in your entire profit model. The best attention strategies are built on a hybrid approach where you pay for initial attention,
but you’re able to generate your own attention off the smallest base possible.
At Strategic Profits, we’ve primarily leveraged the traffic from JV partners and then built our own
through reports, video streams, and over‐the‐top contests.
Oh, one last point. Nowadays, Strategic Profits doesn’t need to rely on paid attention to get the attention
momentum going. The reason? Because when you’re able to convert the attention you get into a list
(which is basically stored potential attention) you eventually have everything you need to ramp up
whenever you want. We’ll cover converting attention into a list in the next section. For now, here’s a
recent example to illustrate my point.
When Todd and I shot Founder’s video #1 and posted it to the blog we placed just one “retweet this”
button on the page and then mailed to our list. Over the course of two weeks we had over 116 retweets
that generated an additional 4,500 video viewers.
By the way, this is a strategy that we use all the time and it continues to work like gangbusters. If you
have a blog you should use “retweet‐this” buttons too!
Now, finally it’s time to pick your attention‐getting approach. What you need to eventually figure out, is:
1. How you’ll get the initial attention of your marketplace 2. A vehicle that will make what initial attention you get multiply
So for now, we’ll just focus on #1 – your initial attention. Here’s a list (obviously, not all inclusive) of
some possible choices:
Existing Assets
• Email list
• Organic listings
• Twitter followers
• Facebook friends or fans
• Blog readers/RSS readers
Paid Channels
• PPC (Search, You Tube, Facebook, contextual)
• Solo email purchase
• Affiliate
Strategic Profits – Founder’s Club – Report #1 54
• JV partners
• Media buys
• CPA
Free Channels
• Articles
• Press Releases
• Blogging
• Twittering
• Forums
• SEO
• YouTube
Now, here’s the inconvenient truth about getting and leveraging attention: Without it nothing else
matters!
Which means if you don’t get attention, everything else you do, is simply just a waste of time.
This is the single biggest reason entrepreneurs fail online...no attention = no revenue = no business.
Far too many make the mistake of not figuring out their overall attention‐getting strategy until after
they’ve created or sourced their product and built out their website. Big mistake – you need to
consistently be thinking about it every step of the way if you’re not going to fall victim to this
entrepreneur destroyer.
Next, we’ll cover what you do with all the attention you generate….
Conversion
So, once you’ve got attention, what are you going to do with it?
Ultimately, you must convert that attention into a sale and to do that, you basically have two options:
1. Attempt to convert the attention into a lead, or….
2. Attempt to convert the attention directly into a sale
And while there are no hard and fast rules, in most markets, most of the time, going for the lead first
works out to be more profitable in both the long and short term.
Here’s why, when you convert attention into a lead (like an opt‐in) you turn a suspect into a prospect and
you now have the ability to get that prospect’s attention time and time again now and into the future.
But like I said, it all depends on what you’re selling and whom you’re selling to. There are simply some
markets and some products where going for the opt‐in too soon will hurt your sales.
For a rough guideline on which route is best here is an overriding principle – if you’re selling information
of any sort you can almost always go for the opt‐in first (as long as you promise something sweet in
exchange). If you’re selling a commodity type product (auto‐parts, iphone accessories, electronics,
sneakers, etc…) you’re almost always better off going for the sale.
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There are more differentiating factors, but to include them all could take an entire report in itself. And
you don’t want every differentiating factor anyway; all you need to know is what works best for your
situation. So, my best advice (for now) is if you are still unsure, go study the top competitors in your
market and start by doing exactly what they are doing.
When you’ve got it figured out – meaning whether you’re going for the immediate sale, or opt‐in first –
write it below:
With this choice behind us, let’s discuss a few more factors that affect conversion of any sort (into a lead,
into a customer).
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, “all buying is emotional.” But do you really understand the implications of
this common phrase? I can tell you it’s very UNcommon to find entrepreneurs who really grasp the
implications, so it’s worth stating them here.
To shortcut the process I’ve pulled five slides from one of my GPS sessions and made some parenthetical
comments about each one.
You’d be wise to go through each of these slides slowly. Do your very best to grasp the implication of each
of these five slides. Then take a fresh look at your marketing and notice what needs to change.
Are you really clear about your
prospects desires and frustrations?
If not, it’s going to be difficult if not
impossible to get them to do anything
let alone give you their email address
or their credit card number.
That’s why all the prospect research
you did earlier is so vital to every step
of your business growth.
So, what emotions do you believe will stimulate your prospects’ and customers’ desires to buy and opt‐
in? And of those, which will you focus on in your marketing?
Below is a list of the ten most common buying emotions (from copywriting school AWAI). Circle all those
that apply that you can work into your marketing:
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1. Curiosity. For some reason, we just can’t stand to turn aside from new, fascinating information.
This is why the “news” industry is a multi‐billion‐dollar business.
2. Vanity. Most people have a strong, almost uncontrollable, desire to be better than everyone else in
some way ‐ physically, socially, mentally, spiritually, etc. And not just to be better, but to make
sure everyone knows it.
3. Fear. Decades before I was concerned about things that really pose a threat to health and security,
I worried about what was hiding in the pitch‐black abyss under my bed. Fear makes us feel that
danger is imminent, and we will do almost anything to avoid it.
4. Benevolence. The negative emotion of fear is countered by a drive for the positive emotion of
happiness, even euphoria. And the quickest way to achieve that feeling is by doing good for
someone else.
5. Insecurity. Are you good enough to be a top‐notch wage earner? Parent? Lover? Are you good
enough to live in the prestigious neighborhoods? I bet you’ve wondered. (We all have.)
6. Power. Think politicians, here. Corporate CEOs. Generals. Dictators. Wave the fact they’ll be the
top dog, control large masses of people, conquer their enemies… and they’ll eat out of your hands.
7. Wealth and Abundance. This applies to everyone on the planet: the desire to have the jet set life,
luxury and leisure…the boat, the house on the beach, the friends in Paris.
8. Security. Life insurance ads do this really well. Or Onstar. It’s rooted in fear, because when this
hits a person in the gut, it is usually from fear that something bad will happen to them or their
loved ones.
9. Belonging. This one is huge. In every single person God has planted a need to connect with other
humans. That’s why the family is foundational to God’s plan. Showing someone how they can be
part of something important or exclusive gives them a good incentive to do what you ask.
10. Guilt. Not too many appeals come straight out and condemn you. What happens usually in a guilt
appeal is you are allowed to connect the dots. And when you do this, there’s that quiet ache in your
soul that says, “If I turn my back, Fluffy the ferret is going to die!”
Remember; pain, problems,
frustrations and everything else
negative will always be a more
positive force.
Look at the list you put together of
all your prospects’ frustrations and
goals. You’ll find your answer
there.
What pain, problems, and frustrations will be resolved by your product or service that you can focus on?
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What pleasures does you product or service deliver?
Procrastination is a conversion
killer and business destroyer.
While immediate gratification is a
conversion multiplier and
business exploder.
Make sure you leverage
immediacy and banish
procrastination to the fullest
extent possible.
What reasons can you give your prospects and customers to take action immediately?
What can you add to what you currently offer that would make taking action more gratifying
immediately?
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This one is a biggie – but it’s easy
not to fully grasp this slide. Read
it a few times and then ask
yourself the tough question:
“Does my marketing and sales
material really ignite and fan the
flames of the desires of my
prospects?”
Describe how you’ll translate your prospects current wants into a burning desire for your products here:
Whether you’re selling an opt‐in or a
product/service these four steps are always
what works best.
Remember, far too many entrepreneurs think they understand that their conversion process must hit the
emotional hot buttons of their audience. Yet, their marketing and sales material proves they really don’t
get this distinction whatsoever.
If you’ve got any doubt where you stand with what we just covered, do yourself a favor and read these
slides again.
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Retention & Ascension
This next step is really what separates the real business founders and the wannabes who will never get
there.
You see, it’s infinitely easier for you to break free of all daily responsibilities in a business when you have
long‐term relationships with your customers. The reason is your business gets stronger and stronger as
time passes because you build long‐term relationships with more and more customers.
This is another one of those vital distinctions you really need to take to heart. And because of that you
need to build it into your profit model.
My mentor, Jay Abraham has said, “Most businesses are nothing more than a series of promotions strung
together.” And based on my observations, he’s dead on. So, if your business success is reliant on the
success of your next one or two promotions you fit into Jay’s classification.
There are several problems with a business that’s really a series of promotions.
1. If a few promotions don’t work well you might be out of business. 2. Your business doesn’t grow in value because it’s’ projected earnings in the future is totally reliant
on your future promotions’ success.
3. Because each promotion is so important to you, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to head off many of
these responsibilities which keep you trapped in the business.
4. You miss out on the majority of profits (which are easier to generate) from repeat customers.
There are many more negatives associated with a promotional driven business, but let’s move on…
What you want instead is a business that does promotions, but relies on them less and less as the
business grows. You want to rely more and more on intensifying the relationship with each and every
customer you get.
And by intensifying, I mean getting your customers to buy more frequently, buy more expensive
products, and keep buying from you as long as possible.
So, once you’ve made a sale, your retention and ascension functions move into action.
Let me ask you this: Do you continue to treat customers as your most valuable asset or do they feel
they’ve dropped off the face of the earth as soon as you have their money?
The goal of all your marketing and sales functions is to build long‐term profitable relationships with each
and every customer or client you get.
You do this by:
1. Over‐delivering in a way that’s meaningful to your customers
2. Bonding with them by sharing bits and pieces of your personality while enjoying them in a dialogue
3. Giving your customers lots of opportunities to buy from you
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And as the slide says, “it’s everything after your first sale
that counts.”
I covered this in great detail in my free report, The Final
Chapter, and if you’ve never read it, I highly recommend you
read it sooner rather than later.
But for now, let me share one critical point…
New customers (the front‐end) are the lifeblood of any
business. But most of the profits come from the additional
sales you make to those same customers (the back‐end). And
here’s the thing – the more money you make on the back‐end,
the more you can afford to spend to acquire a new customer.
And whoever can spend the most to acquire a new customer,
will ultimately dominate their market and competitors. (Like
I said, read The Final Chapter for a thorough explanation).
So, the big question you have to answer for your business
success is – how are you going to turn each sale into a long‐
term, profitable relationship?
I’ve already shared with you how we’re doing it in Founders. We’re using forced continuity into
Founder’s Club on all our front‐end products, and then do our best to get as many Founder Club members
to ascend into our premium products and services.
So, here are some different options to consider….
∗ Continuity programs (like Founder’s Club)
∗ Developing back‐end products that you can go back to your customers with
∗ Endorsing other business’s products to your customers
∗ Running special events such as “customer only sales,” limited pre‐releases, etc.
∗ Programming customers by communicating what you’re doing to earn additional sales from them
(similar to what I did in this report with Founder’s Club and ascension into our premium products
and programs)
∗ Price inducements for frequency
Enlisting Others
Remember how earlier in this report I told you your business would grow much faster if everyone who
interacts with it wants it to?
You say you do? Good.
Well, do you see how the Founder’s Club affiliate model I shared with you serves our affiliate’s interests?
And, do you see how our focus on over‐delivering to achieve retention and ascension serves you, a
Founder’s member? Even better, do you see how working so hard on what we deliver to you makes it
easy for you to talk about what you’re receiving from us in a way that makes you money?
If you do, you now have a reference model for what I meant.
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So, what can you do? That’s the big question isn’t it? How can you over‐deliver to your affiliate and joint
venture partners? What can you do that will make your customers and clients’ feel they always get a
great deal from you?
Spend a few minutes right now to brainstorm a few ideas.
Recap
OK, I’ve shared with you the Founder’s Model and I’ve walked you through the steps to start building
your own model.
Just to make sure we’re on the same page – at this point you should know or have plans to know:
Your attention‐getting strategy and whether it’ll be based on buying attention, building attention
or a hybrid model.
The specific existing assets and paid channels you’ll use to get the attention you’ll need.
Whether your conversion strategy will be a single step (immediate sale) or you’re going to build a list.
The emotions you believe will trigger conversions, the pain you’re going to eliminate and how you’ll overcome procrastination.
How you can apply the online selling process to your specific business. A plan to turn first‐time buyers into long‐term profitable relationships so you avoid becoming a
promotional‐driven business.
A way you can enlist others to help you grow your business faster and with less of your own effort.
Not too shabby. But transforming your profit model into a business that’ll give you the financial and
personal freedom you crave is what comes next…
SECTION #6
Your Business Blueprint
We’re heading down the home‐stretch. And we’re about to tie everything you’ve learned and done in this
entire report into your very own action plan to freedom.
No matter where you are with your business right now, if you’re doing all the work yourself or you’ve got
hundreds of employees…a business blueprint is the way to growg your business in the least time, with
the fastest growth, with the least effort, that’ll give you the freedom to live the ideal life you identified
earlier.
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A Business Blueprint
So, what is a business blueprint?
Your business blueprint describes the functions your business must have to run smoothly and well. You
can build it to look like an organizational chart, but instead of the boxes being filled by people they are
filled with the different functions your business needs.
Personally, I prefer a mind‐map style. I find it’s a lot easier to fit everything in and move things around.
So, for the remainder of this report, I’ll show you the blueprints in mind‐map form. Just know, you can do
it differently (like any organizational chart). It’s not the form it takes that is important.
Remember – it’s not filled with people; it’s filled with functions. Later on you’ll figure out who is doing
what, or if you are doing it all yourself.
This blueprint shows the general categories of functions that need to be handled in any business. For
simplicity sake we’ll reduce business down to three primary functions.
Important point: When designing a business, less is better.
My experience coaching and consulting some of the
most successful entrepreneurs and some of the biggest
corporations has proven time and time again that those
with the simplest models are always the most
successful.
Therefore you are attempting to design the simplest
version of your business that will continually strive to
achieve its purpose.
In order to do so your business will need at least these
three functional areas:
1. A Marketing Function ‐ to attract potential
customers, convert them into buyers and retain
them so you can keep selling them more.
2. A Fulfillment Function – to make the product, to deliver the product, and continually improve the product.
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3. An Operations Function – to take care of everything else.
Now, take another look at the sample blueprint to make sure you’ve got your bearings.
Branching out from the functional areas (Marketing, Fulfillment, and Operations), you have the major
responsibilities that make up that functional area. From there you’ll have sub‐branches for the processes
that must get done to fulfill those responsibilities. I didn’t include the process level in the sample
blueprint because every business will have different processes.
Of course, once you begin to list out the number of processes required to run your business you will soon
realize you’re going to need help. Since most start‐up entrepreneurs can’t afford to hire anyone when
first starting out, at first they’re responsible for all the functions, responsibilities, and processes.
But it doesn’t have to be this way for very long. Because, right out of the gate you can partner to lighten
the load. When the business starts to generate enough cash flow you can then start to outsource some of
the processes. When the business gets a little stronger you can then start hiring employees to take over
either certain responsibilities or entire functions.
From Template To Well Oiled Machine
Before we customize your blueprint, I’m going to walk you through an example. This way, you’ll know
the ins and outs of the process before ever putting your pen to paper.
My goal is to make this as simple and straightforward as possible for you. I’m going to take the profit
model I shared earlier for Founder’s Club and use it to customize the template. We’re going to pretend
(for the sake of simplicity) that Founder’s Club is the only thing Strategic Profits does – so we don’t make
this more complicated than it needs to be.
We’re going to take each function on‐by‐one and drill down as deep as we need to, so let’s begin…
The Game You’ll Play To Get Free Of Your Business
Your business blueprint will also identify who’s responsible for each and every function, responsibility,
and process. It’s real simple to do; all you have to do is assign each person a separate color. Then
everything that person is responsible for will be made his or her color. Then when you look at your
blueprint you’ll immediately know who’s responsible for what.
Now, when you first get underway in a business, most, if not all the boxes are going to be filled with your
color. But as you bring on new team members they’ll take more and more off your plate.
In this way, achieving Founder status in your business becomes a game. A game where the goal is to get
free from daily responsibilities and live your ideal life. Your blueprint will be your official scorecard.
Because when your color can no longer be found on your blueprint… Congratulations you’ve become a
Founder. You no longer have any day‐to‐day responsibilities in your business.
Having said that, my example, Founder’s Club, is still not going to be simple. Heck, we expect Founder’s
Club to bring in several million dollars in its first year. And while the profit model is simple, everything
that we do at Strategic Profits to maximize its performance isn’t necessarily as simple.
Now, when I construct a blueprint, here are the steps:
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1. I start a new mindmap; create branches for the main functions (marketing, fulfillment and operations) and sub‐branches for the major responsibilities (for example, in marketing – customer
attraction, customer conversion, customer retention and ascension, etc…).
2. I then go through each part of the profit model several times, each time asking myself, “What do we need to get done to do this?”
3. Everything that I identify as needing to get done, I put on my mindmap in its appropriate place.
4. Next, I’ll ask friends, colleagues, co‐workers, etc., “What do you think needs to get done to execute
this profit model?” – just to make sure I did not miss anything.
5. I then group similar items together. For example, grouping squeeze page creation and sales page creation together under the new heading Page Creation. I do this to help simplify the mindmap.
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Here’s a copy of the mindmap I created for the Founder’s Club:
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One last point – no matter how comprehensive you try to be, you won’t identify everything up front. So,
any time you recognize an important activity you aren’t doing ‐ just add it to your blueprint.
Designing Your Business Blueprint
OK, are you ready to document the business that’ll give you the freedom you crave? Let’s get started…
For Marketing
Your marketing and sales provide the consistent pipeline of business that will keep your doors open and
your websites functioning. The key word is consistent.
You might get business without any marketing or sales systems, but your sales will definitely be
inconsistent. And inconsistent sales do not make for long‐term business. So, as you answer the questions
below – keep in mind you’re shooting for activities that’ll be done consistently to keep your business
growing and profitable.
1. Take the attention strategy you pick on page 53‐54 and think through everything that you will need to get done to achieve the results you want.
2. Based on the conversion vehicles you chose on page 55 what will your company need to do to
create and leverage them?
3. Based on what you’ll offer for conversion to an opt‐in, or a sale (pages 55‐58), what does your business need to do to offer them?
4. Based on the retention strategy you identified on page 60, what will your business have to do and
how will it get it done?
5. Based on the strategies you brainstormed for enlisting others support, what does your business have to do to pull it off?
Fulfillment
Think of marketing as the promises you make to your market. If marketing makes the promise, then
fulfillment keeps them.
In other words, fulfillment is everything you do to fulfill the promises your business made to prospects
that converted them into customer or clients. This will include both what your customer experiences
directly, plus, everything you do behind the scenes to make it happen. Make sure you remember “on
stage” and “back stage” activities as you answer these questions:
1. Think through everything your business must do to either create or source the product or service
you sell and list them.
2. Think through everything your business must do to deliver your product to your customers and
list the activities that’ll need to be done.
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3. What data could your business get that’ll help you improve your products or services? How will you get that data? And how will you use it to improve your products?
Operations
In the same way, your customers probably will never see everything your business does in the fulfillment
function, they won’t see what you’re doing in operations. But your customers and prospects will see the
results of problems with your employees or your billing or your computers or your telephones, and
everything else that happens behind the scenes.
1. The Finance function includes accounting, billing, making and receiving payments, payroll, taxes, budgets, etc. What will your business be doing in these areas? Or how will you work with a
provider you outsource to?
2. The HR function includes everything your business does (or will do) having to do with employees
and outsourcers, including recruiting, hiring, training, managing, motivating, evaluating and
terminating. What will your business do in these areas?
3. For IT and Systems, what technology and software will you use to power your business? How will
you maintain, update and protect them?
4. For Customer Service – how will you handle customer problems, complaints, refund requests, etc.? What will your business have to do to turn these problems into opportunities to over deliver and
win back the trust of these customers?
Remember to circle through these questions a second time. Then think through as much as you can, what
your business will be doing? And, how it will be doing it?
When you’ve got your first draft, keep reading…
Color It Up
OK, now you’ve got your business blueprinted. Next, you need to go through each and every box and
determine who’s going to be responsible for getting that box done.
Notice, I didn’t say who’s going to do it. I said who’s responsible for getting it done. And there’s a huge
difference between these descriptions.
Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of having people who work for them “do things”. The problem
with that is the responsibility still resides with the entrepreneur.
Here’s an example to clarify – Ken Leonard in our office is responsible for split testing. Meaning any page
that goes up on our website that’s attempting a conversion, it’s his responsibility to make sure we’re split
testing it. And if we’re not testing a page, he better have a good reason for not doing it. Contrast that
with an entrepreneur who has an employee do split tests, but the entrepreneur needs to tell the
employee which pages to test, the entrepreneur still, on an ongoing basis, owns the responsibility and he
or she is no closer to getting free.
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Here’s an even easier example – Janine Shea, my assistant, is responsible for taking care of my health. So
she schedules teeth cleanings at my dentist, checkups with my doctor, etc…. I don’t even have to think
about it – I just show up when I am supposed to.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is no big deal! Because it is a huge deal when you total up all of
your responsibilities.
Why? Because right now as I write this, my mind is completely clear and I am able to focus 100% of my
complete attention on you. In other words, I’m not schlepping around lots of mental luggage stuffed with
responsibilities to every task. This makes a huge difference in my performance on the task at hand, and
I’m able to go on vacations, spend time with my family, consult
clients with nothing else to worry or think about.
The diagram you see on the right is what you are trying to avoid
‐‐ a business full of people who assist you, and look to you to be
told what to do. By assigning responsibilities, you avoid this
ever happening to you. And that’ll clear your mind and
ultimately set you free.
So, here’s what you need to do:
1. Pick a color for yourself, and if you have anyone else working for you or that you’re outsourcing to, assign a
color to each and every one of them.
2. If you’re all alone in your business, then just make all the
boxes your color and you can skip over the next step.
3. Go through each box and if right now you have someone “doing it,” ask yourself this question:
“Who would be in trouble if this didn’t happen without me giving any orders to do it?” If your
answer is nobody, then temporarily fill the box half with your color and half with the other
person’s color. (You’re not supposed to have any boxes with mixed colors – so this will be a
reminder to yourself to speak with the person and figure out together how you can remove your
color).
Nobody is Superman
Scan over your blueprint – look at all the boxes that have your color in it…. think about what’s involved
with staying on top of it and getting it all done.
Considering all that, ask yourself this question:
CAN YOU DO EVERYTHING YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO?
If your answer is “yes” – than good for you!
If your answer is “no,” that it’s physically impossible for you to do everything on your blueprint, don’t
worry because all hope is not lost.
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Making the Impossible Possible
You basically have five different strategies you can use to make an impossible blueprint not only possible
but doable too. And while each strategy stands on their own, most of the time entrepreneurs will use a
few of the strategies at the same time to make their blueprint doable.
The five different strategies are:
1. To simplify your model 2. To outsource certain responsibilities and processes
3. To hire an employee or two to immediately handle certain functions, responsibilities and processes
4. To learn how to do some of the pieces yourself 5. To find businesses or other entrepreneurs you can partner with to take more off your plate
So, let’s take a closer look at each of these five strategies in greater depth. It’s incredibly important that
you make your blueprint doable. So if right now it’s not – think about each strategy as I discuss them and
how you might use it with your blueprint.
Simplify Your Model
If your blueprint cannot be fully executed, simplifying it must be your first step. Obviously, as your
business grows, your business will be able to add additional resources to do more and make more. But
you’ve got to get to that point first.
To simplify your model, here’s what you do: Go through each and every branch of your model. For each
branch, ask yourself is this process, task, responsibility absolutely essential right now?”
If you’re being truthful with yourself, you’ll find there are many branches that aren’t absolutely essential
right now. Sure, you might make more money if you did them, or your product or service might be better,
or you’d grow a lot faster….but the hard cold reality is that you can’t do it all, so you must do what’s
essential.
So, when asking yourself that question, “is this branch absolutely essential right now?” ‐ For anything
where your answer is “no” you should color code with a reference to someday/maybe. Then, later on,
when you’re growing you can add them back as you’re able to do more.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing (if done the right way) is another strategy that’ll make your blueprint doable. I wrote about
the right way to outsource in my very first report, The Internet Business Manifesto.
The biggest distinction that I wrote about in the manifesto is the difference between outsourcing and out‐
tasking. Many entrepreneurs confuse the two so it’s worth mentioning.
Out‐tasking is when you hire an outside party to handle a specific task for you. It’s usually a one‐time gig
and the criteria is often whom can I get to do this for the cheapest cost.
Out‐sourcing is when you hire an outside party to consistently handle a specific task, responsibility or
process for you. Because this is an ongoing relationship for your business, the criteria are often different
from simply out‐tasking when choosing who or what company to outsource to. You’ll also consider
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reliability, performance level and ease of working with, etc. Of course, you’ll still consider cost too, but
it’s no longer the only factor.
Like I said, I go into more detail in the Internet Business Manifesto, and if you haven’t read it, or it’s been a
while, it’s worth reading (again).
If you are contemplating outsourcing – when you go through each branch – consider how much time the
task will take you, how often it needs to be done, is this something you can do yourself, and is this
something you should even be doing.
Let me give you two different examples from my previous business to show you two different things I
outsourced for two very different reasons.
Back before I started Strategic Profits, I had a company that published ebooks and the like, for new
parents. We put out at least an ebook a week. To maintain that speed, we had many outsourcing
relationships – here are two of them:
1. Customer Support – this was the first big responsibility we outsourced. The reason for doing so
was that it took quite a bit of time, it wasn’t a contributor to our overall profit, and we could have
others do it cheaper than we could do it ourselves.
2. Site and Page Creation – while I was okay at using Frontpage, I certainly wasn’t a pro at setting up
a website (we had a different site for each ebook) or making beautiful pages. So, I out‐tasked the
job until I found Peter, who was the ideal candidate to outsource to. We settled on a deal where he
got $25 to set the site up, link it with Clickbank and get the opt‐in boxes to populate our auto‐
responders, etc. He also got paid $15 a page to layout and code. This was significantly cheaper
than what I was paying – but Peter agreed because we guaranteed he’d get at least one new site a
week. The reason for outsourcing all this was different than outsourcing customer service. The
reason for outsourcing this role was I wasn’t skilled enough to do it as good, as quickly and as
professionally as I could. That coupled with how cheaply it could be done made this a no‐brainer
to outsource.
Keep these examples in mind when reviewing your blueprint to see where outsourcing might make
sense.
Hiring
Hiring employees is a vital step to one day getting absolutely free of your business. Many entrepreneurs
mistakenly believe they can build a business they’re free from with just outsourcers. But based on my
own experience, plus the thousands of entrepreneurs I’ve coached, it almost never works out that way.
If you have employees already, having your blueprint completed can ensure you’re getting the most
mileage out of each and every one of them. What you’ll need to do is go through your blueprint and begin
to assign as many responsibilities you can to them. You might have to recreate their job description (this
is almost always the case when you create a blueprint) to encompass the changes your blueprint
requires. But, trust me, it’ll be incredibly liberating as you begin assigning them the responsibilities that
matter most to your business.
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If you don’t have any employees right now, for now just know this: Before you decide to hire anyone you
need to have absolute clarity on what you want that employee to do for your business. That means going
through your business blueprint and picking out all the tasks, processes and responsibilities that fit the
position. This way, you’ll start employees off right, completely focused on taking responsibilities off your
plate, and growing your business.
If you are ready to hire your first employee, but you’re unsure which position to hire for, I’ll give you
more guidance on who and when in a few pages from now, in a section titled “The Cycle of Growth &
Freedom.”
Learning
Now, if there are certain activities on your blueprint that you’ll want or need to do…. right now, you don’t
know how to do them. But, you will now know exactly what your business needs you to learn.
All you need to do is go through your blueprint and identify those things you’ll be doing (but don’t know
how) and then prioritize those activities based on their importance to your business and the profit
potential they’ll deliver.
You see, you shouldn’t ever buy a product or program because it’s got limited supply, or because so‐and‐
so is doing a big launch. That’s what I call Just‐in‐Case learning and it’s almost never what’ll have the
greatest impact on your business growth.
Instead, you should practice what I’ve labeled as Just‐In‐Time learning. And, having your prioritized list
of what your business needs you to learn is absolutely necessary to do it. Just‐in‐time learning is when
you know exactly what you need to learn right now that’ll have the most dramatic impact on your
business…and then you make it your mission to learn those things.
The difference between Just‐in‐Case learning and Just‐in‐Time learning is night and day. One of the
biggest reasons entrepreneurs fail online is their reliance on Just‐in‐Case. But you won’t make the same
mistake with the prioritized list you’ve built from your blueprint.
Partnering
The last strategy we’ll cover for making an impossible to execute blueprint possible is through
partnering.
This is another one of those topics I could write a whole report on. In fact, I created a product on it and
you’ve been given it for free as a bonus for joining Founder’s Club. It’s called “The Complete Guide To
Highly Successful Internet Joint Venture Partnerships” and you can find it in the bonus area of your
virtual clubhouse.
Since I’ve given you a complete product on this one topic, I certainly can’t do the topic the justice it
deserves in this small section. But, I do have one very important concept to share with you.
There’s a lot more to partnering then simply the marketing partnerships like joint ventures and affiliate
relationships. You can partner with anyone for anything and your only constraint is your imagination.
You can partner to get access to products, people, resources, you name it.
So, as you go through your blueprint, be creative and think about who or what companies already
perform this activity and how you might be able to partner with them. Then simply reach out and see if
there’s a deal that is doable.
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The Cycle Of Growth & Freedom
There’s one final piece of advice I have for you relating to your blueprint. And it relates to the role you
play in your business as it grows.
The primary role you must play in your business in its initial growth stages is that of a rainmaker. And by
rainmaker, I mean you’re the chief marketer for your business – in other words, you’re responsible for
generating revenues.
While it may be necessary right now for you to spend time in operations, fulfillment, and marketing – you
ultimately want to eliminate the rolls you play in operations, limit the time you spend in fulfillment, and
maximize the time you spend on marketing. Making this shift is mandatory. You have to transition your
number one responsibility from ‘operating the business’ to ‘growing the business’.
What causes a lot of entrepreneurs to get trapped inside their business is what I call the feast or famine
cycle. It looks like this: The entrepreneur has no customers to serve, so they market and sell like crazy.
Then with the influx of new customers they get so busy taking care of them they no longer have time to
market. So for a while, the entrepreneur feasts off the new customers with little marketing taking place.
Eventually, the business doesn’t have enough customers again (a famine) and the entrepreneur goes out
to bang the drums once again. And the cycle repeats itself over and over.
It should be obvious that it’s almost impossible to get free of your business if you operate this way. Not
only will this “feast or famine” approach to marketing and operations cause your business profits and
growth to suffer, ultimately so will your personal freedom.
The one activity…of all business activities…within a growth‐oriented business that can never…ever…be
reprioritized or relegated off to the side is marketing. And Founders’ understand this fundamental
concept.
To illustrate this point, it only takes a quick scan of one of the critical axioms almost all Founders operate
under within their companies – “Operations must always mold to marketing; marketing does not mold to
operations”. Meaning: Marketing must always remain as the number one priority of the growth oriented
enterprise.
Does It Align With Your Purpose?
Once you know you can execute your blueprint, you’ve got two self‐checks to make sure it’s all kosher.
The first self‐check we’ll cover here, the next one we’ll cover in the very next section.
Earlier in this report, I walked you through an important element of your business that we’ll use now to
make sure your entire blueprint is aligned with it. The element I’m talking about is the overall purpose
you defined (on page 39).
So, as you think about your profit model, and the blueprint you derived from it, ask yourself this: is my
business the way it’s represented in my blueprint, serve and in alignment with the purpose I defined
earlier?
If your answer is yes – good job…you can move on to the next self‐check.
If its no – you’ve got two choices: change your purpose or change your blueprint. Just make sure before
you finalize all the work you’ve done here in this report, that it all fits together and is aligned with a
purpose you truly believe in.
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Will It Deliver Your Ideal Life?
Listen to me: TIME is the irretrievable, irreplaceable element and…. YOU ARE RUNNING OUT! Face it:
You had a short time on this earth the very moment you were born.
Do you really want to waste 25% of your most precious commodity staring into a computer screen?
Another 25% sweating all the miniscule details of your business? Sacrificing another 10% studying,
learning and keeping up to speed on the latest online marketing tactics? (Remember, you sleep away
25%‐33% of your life right out of the gate).
I sure hope not. No way! That’s not what I want for you. But that’s exactly what’ll happen to you if you
don’t take this next step. Think I’m kidding? Just ask any ordinary business owner and they’ll set you
straight.
So, here’s the deal…. scan over your blueprint…. and ponder one of the most important questions of your
entire life. “IS IT POSSIBLE THAT EVERY BOX ON MY BLUEPRINT COULD BE HANDLED BY SOMEONE
OTHER THAN ME?”
If your answer is no, you’ve got to rework your blueprint, maybe change your profit model, or scrap the
business all together. Sure this is hard news to take. I know that. But face it – you’re better off knowing
this now rather than later.
If your answer is yes, you’ve still got one more thinking exercise to complete. Look at the ideal life you
defined for yourself on pages 17‐20, compare it to all your colored boxes on your blueprint. Think about
what boxes need to change to someone else’s color for your dream life to be your everyday life. Next,
figure out which boxes you’ll change to someone else’s color first and how you’ll do it.
Here’s what’s going to happen. Every time a box of yours changes color, you’ll be one step closer to your
ideal life. It’ll create a freedom‐momentum that’ll make you attack your business with more intensity
than the day before. And before you know it, you’ll be FREE!
How To Use Your Blueprint
If you’ve been with me every step of the way… I envy you! Because what you now hold in your hands is
more valuable than you realize right now. And I only wish I had this map earlier in my entrepreneurial
journey.
Sure…. You know what you need to do, learn, possible outsource, hire or partner with. And that’s more
than you probably thought was possible to figure out in 76 pages.
You’ve also engineered a supped‐up profit model designed to attract, convert and retain those (ideal)
customers certain to grow your business.
And you’ve done it all for the only reason that matters. To Get More Out Of Your Business Than You Put
Into It!
But it gets even better. Seriously…
Because your blueprint will also:
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• Determine what you know and what you need to know so you never waste time practicing Just‐In‐
Case Learning anymore… this way every time you spend time learning, you see an immediate
jump in your earnings too…
• Help you hire the right people at the right time because you have absolute clarity on the roles and
responsibilities your business needs… this way with each and every job you outsource, or
employee you hire you’re one step closer to reaching Founder status and the freedom that comes
along with it…
• Keep your marketing endeavors tightly focused because you see clearly what must be consistently
done and can easily spot opportunities to optimize what you’re already doing as opposed to
rushing blindly to the next whiz‐bang marketing tactic or strategy…
• Lay the foundation to systemize your business. Once you’ve got the activities mapped out on your
blueprint – the very next step is to take each and every one of those activities and create a system
documenting the way it should be done so your business gets better and better and the headaches
and fire‐fighting quickly disappear…
• Develop accurate job descriptions. Because you now have clarity on exactly which responsibilities
you need to hand off, you can create job descriptions that clearly list the all of these
responsibilities. It’ll make hiring the right person easier, and then managing those same people a
breeze…
• Make sure nothing falls in between the cracks. In almost every business that isn’t run by a
blueprint ‐‐ tasks, action‐items, and processes frequently fall between the cracks and are left
undone. And every time this happens it costs your business money in lost opportunities and
disappointed customers. But this won’t happen anymore now that you have your blueprint…
• Plus so many more uses that will make your business grow; there simply isn’t the space to cover
them all here. We’ll be covering more uses in future issues, but for now, you’ve got lots of new uses
that will certainly help you grow your business
And with a business blueprint you can have one person handle many functions, but you also can ensure
that someone is handling all the functions, even if that someone is you the owner.
Was This Report Written For You?
Transparency is king. Especially nowadays where no secret remains a secret for long.
In the spirit of transparency, I’m going to share my private motivations for what you’ve just gone through.
There are three types of entrepreneurs who will read this report.
1 ‐ If you’re reading this after having done each exercise in this report, know this: You’re well on your
way to reaching Founder‐status. Why? It’s simple, each and every entrepreneur I’ve coached to
stratospheric success thinks like you do! They do all the work necessary for success – so… lo and behold…
they succeed! Massively!
2 ‐ If you’re reading this section after having done some, but not all the exercises… my friend, you’ve
come to the crossroads in your entrepreneurial life.
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Why? Because you’re closer to success than you realize, but further away than you want to be. Here’s
what I mean: You are already doing more than the masses. But you’re shy of what really needs to get
done for success. So, what’s it going to be?
Will you roll‐up your sleeves and go back through this report, doing what you avoided…OR…will you
simply cast this report aside…clearing time so you can skim through something else ‐ Something that
promises success faster and easier just like it should be in business fairytales (although never occurs in
the real world)?
3 – Last and (as expected) least. You’ve lied to yourself through each and every page of this report.
Promising yourself you’ll come back later and do the exercises. It’s the same promise (or should I say
excuse?) you’ve used before, every time you’ve come face‐to‐face with having to extend yourself in any
program, product, or service – you rose to the challenge in your mind…but never in your actions.
It’s time you were called to task. Understand, almost everyone else will avoid telling you the truth.
They’re willing to play a role in your charade. That is; as long as they profit from you while you’re doing
it.
Am I being tough, you bet! But only because I care. I simply refuse to be another one of the many voices
you hear that tells you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear. As my mentor Jay Abraham
has said many times – “I don’t want to be your intellectual entertainment, but instead I want to be a
catalyst to you having the business you’ve always dreamed about.”
With that stated, listen; all I can say to you is this:
What’s it going to be? Are you going to continue to trade your hard earned dollars for nothing more than
false hope? OR… Are you finally going to put in the effort it’ll take to have everything you want in your
life?
I wish I could choose for you. But I can’t. This is just one of those things you can only do for yourself.
The CrossRoads Of Your Entrepreneurial Life
It’s my sincerest hope that you’ve grasped the importance of everything we’ve covered.
That you fully appreciate doing the exercises I’ve laid out for, because you will skyrocket your chances of
having the successful business you’ve always dreamed about.
If you do, then there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from doing what needs to be done. If you’re
serious about your business success – you’ll treat the concepts I laid out for you in this report with the
respect your own success deserves.
I’ve Invested In You!
I believe the smartest thing I could do was go to the greatest extreme possible to over‐deliver. To give
you an action guide to give you everything you ever wanted (but never articulated) for your business.
And after giving this report my final read through – I feel I’ve delivered in spades.
But, truth be told, while this report lives up to my own strict standards… what really matters is what you
think. And along those lines I’m curious to hear your feedback.
So, now that you’re done… tell me what you think.
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You can share your thoughts by emailing me at [email protected]
One Final Point
If you’ve gotten the value from this report that I think you have ‐ I just want to remind you of the goal I
shared with you earlier in this report.
I wanted to put such a powerful action guide for growing your business that you couldn’t wait to talk to
others about it. And we don’t want your positive buzz to go unrewarded. So, we’ve already enrolled you
in the Founder’s Club affiliate program.
All you have to do is share your thoughts through whatever platform you currently have – and use the
affiliate link to drive your circle of influence to getting their hands on this valuable information.
I believe it’s possible to double our membership (with each report) with this straightforward approach.
But what will determine whether or not I’m right or wrong will be entirely based on the actions you take.
So, I’ve written the best report I was capable of and I’ve given you a financial incentive to spread the
word… the rest is in your hands.