So you missed out on the crypto/NFT gold rush. What now?
Don't just watch everyone tweeting about A.I. and Chat GPT. Only Less than 0.0014% of the world have tried Chat GPT. NOW is the time for you to get in on the ground floor:
It’s likely people doing the exact same thing as you made more money than you did by working in crypto/NFT if they did it during boom times (i.e. if you were both copywriters, them in crypto would have found it easier to get big fees than in a more established market with more competition such as coaching/consulting).
That is a hard pill to swallow, but there is much to learn here.
The lesson is timeless:
More people got rich selling the shovels to gold miners then from the gold itself.
The people they sold the shovels to likely did not even find that much gold, but
They sure as hell raised the money to buy the shovels and equipment.
Crypto/NFT was (and is) venture capital on steroids.
You can’t launch either without a significant budget.
So whether you build websites, grow social media, or any number of other services,
They are not the one-man band paying you from their full-time wage to help them.
Sending a few thousand dollars your way is little more than a parking ticket for a company that has just raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a launch.
Bonus: They pay faster and have less “rules” than corporate clients.
When there’s a gold rush and you become known for doing a “thing” well in that space, you can have a lot of clients very quickly.
If there’s more money around, there’s more money for you.
If you’re in a market where the typical client does not have much, you normally have to go downmarket, charge less, or tell people what to do rather than doing it for them (doing it for them generally pays you more).
I saw more friends of mine become millionaires from crypo/NFT’s than any other industry/wave in the past ten years.
The lesson is: Be in the market. Know what might be “next”.
There is always money around when there’s the potential for quick money if it succeeds.
In my opinyion, it’s Chat-GPT or A.I. enabled companies that will get all the investment money and need to hire vendors this year.
Maybe VR/AR will finally do…something?
If you’re in the Chat GPT/A.I. market, you’ll be the first to be the service provider/product maker to serve that niche.
I know many of you read these posts for marketing ideas, but remember:
It doesn’t matter if you’re working hard if you’re working on the wrong things.
This week me and Carl Hitchborn (check out his great Substack here) were consulting with a friend of mine who was starting her own business.
Carl said something that sent a chill down my spine:
“There’s an easy way and a hard way to do everything”.
It chilled me because honestly I’ve done things the hard way and worked in fields that are way too competitive over the years.
So yes, use my marketing cheat codes, but point them in a field that you can earn from easier!
Caveat: If you have a “secret sauce” in distribution or getting traffic, this works as a great advantage and makes existing industries more interesting to work on.
Sometimes it’s the hardest thing to stop doing what you’ve been doing because the unknown/new is scary.
It hurts to see my entrepreneur friends struggle to get ahead while at the same time seeing them sell copycat services in crowded markets.
Spend some time this weekend brainstorming industries and clients which have money.
It could be the most important “growth hack” you do all year.