A friend messaged me that they were struggling with money.
I wrote them back these 10 points. If you need to pull money out of thin air right now, (and don’t have money to spend to make it happen) this article is for you:
1. You need TEN pitches/deals going on at once as eight or nine are likely to fail, no matter how good they seem. Get busy.
2. Don’t overcharge.
This is the Number 1 reason potential clients ghost you.
Undercharging (at the start( is great as you gain experience, pay your rent (!), get testimonials, and can add services to the main client as you deliver value.
3. On that note, making a “mafia offer” one that carries NO risk to the client is the fastest way to get in the door.
e.g. “We run your ads for you, only pay me if you make money or we do better than your last ads person” - My agency offers a money back guarantee if the ads you run after using our service are not cheaper than your usual top of funnel traffic - we are that confident.
4. If you’re really at a loose end (and don’t have kids!), don’t be ashamed to take drastic measures to get your costs down.
It was almost ten years ago now, but until the day the cheque for $250,000 for my first company cleared, I was on welfare/benefits in the U.K.
There is a lot of stigma attached to being on “handouts”, but for me?
One of the best things I ever did.
Rather than getting a dead end job (no one would hire me, the only job I could get was Telesales) I decided to get welfare/benefits and give this “business” thing a try.
It allowed me time to breathe, paid my rent and my basic (discount store!) food.
I red books all day, went to my first ever meetups, found my first mentor, brainstormed with my co-founder.
When the time came to start a business, I paid it back (and still do!) to the UK with all the tax I paid, many multiples over what I got in those welfare checks.
Until I went on welfare I was always too busy/tired to seriously work on my startup. Sometimes you need space.
5. Tied to that, moving back in with your parents or staying on a friends couch (again, if you don’t have kids!) in order that you can focus on your career without a dead-end job is something I highly recommend.
Good podium story too.
Richard Branson moved back in with his parents twice - after starting Virgin!
6. Resume’s are okay and it’s worth having a bullet-point one-pager, but a better idea is to call up ten friends who are doing well at business, tell them what you do and want to do, and ask them to suggest what you should do or people who might want your services.
7. Semi-related: When and if you can, live in London, LA, NYC, SF, Austin, Chicago, or some other major city.
Opportunities just come to you. I used to ask people who bought my higher-ticket coaching where they heard about me, almost all was either through me giving a real-life talk, or they had seen me talk in a major city.
LA made me 5x more successful than I was in London even though my skills weren’t any more, there was just more opportunities there for me, as there is for everyone.
8. Everyone hates selling. Do this-it’ll help.
The more you hate “selling” the more you NEED to producing a LOT of content to get your name/brand out there.
Great content brings buyers to you- you build trust by showing expertise, then make an offer, and people comment or DM if interested.
Build your network online (mainly through creating relevant content) and make friends with many people.
Your personal Facebook account is the best place for this.
Become friends with someone then post some fire content - They’ll see it over and over and eventually Dm you about opportunities.
It’s really all I do, and I always have more people who want to work with me then I want to work with :-)
9. A quick and dirty business anyone can run is connecting people with money with people with services.
So if you know someone who needs ads being ran and you know an ad buyer, tell the ad buyer you’ll bring him x number of clients for a percentage of lifetime revenue, they’ll see yes as everyone always needs clients, and you just have someone who needs ads. Keep your eyes out online!
10. It seems like a very hard problem, but it’s one everyone goes through so it has been solved thousands of times already.
If you haven’t been told no twice before lunch, you ain’t doing it right.
Please forward this piece to anyone who might benefit from it…
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Dope advice!