After 15 years working with online businesses, I’ve discovered you only need 4 core pillars to build minimalist, one-person businesses that generate mid six-figures.
I say "embarrassing" only because I basically do a whole lot less activities than most other successful online business owners tell me I should be doing…
…While making as much (or almost as much) as they do with less time spent working.
Before I jump in, let me stress that at the very heart of everything is an email list.
It’s why I often refer to my business as an "email-based business".
An email list is like the central hub that connects all other parts of the business.
Without an email list filled with several hundred buyers who think, “I freaking love this guy/girl/company”, I’ve found it insanely difficult to reach into the mid six-figure range.
(Note that I said only several HUNDRED buyers. Not THOUSANDS, not TENS OF THOUSANDS… just HUNDREDS. We’ll be coming back to this concept this week – that you only need a tiny base of customers who LOVE your stuff to have a top 1% business.)
I used to overcomplicate EVERYTHING and still do at times, but now I’ve stripped it all down to these essentials:
PILLAR 1:
Traffic via Affiliates & Word-of-Mouth
You need ONE solid traffic source to start – just one way to “pay” for traffic.
When you hear "pay" for traffic, you probably first think of buying ads on Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. That’s what most people push & talk about.
Personally, I pay with affiliate commissions.
Meaning:
- I network with & recruit affiliates with similar businesses to sell my stuff to their email lists.
- I pay them 50% commissions for all sales.
- And that’s the bulk of my income-generating traffic.
The rest of my traffic comes simply from word-of-mouth referrals – in other words, having products that work so well that my customers talk about them commission-free on podcasts, discussion groups, social media, masterminds, etc.
And while it may seem unsustainable at first to rely on word-of-mouth traffic…
It’s done very well for me for 10+ years.
And I’ve actually seen it work the same in a variety of businesses across countless niches.
So how do you generate it reliably & predictably?
That comes from the other three pillars.
(NOTE: before moving on to the other pillars, you might be wondering, "But what about paid ads, Derek!?"
I’ll cover my opinion on paid ads in more detail in the next few days.)
PILLAR 2:
Email List
Again, EVERYTHING revolves around your email list.
My first ever email subscribers came from selling a simple product. From there I started adding other ways to opt in – but the most successful first step to starting ANY business for me has always been making a simple product, slapping together a basic sales page, and then getting traffic to it.
Once I have subscribers, I nurture my email list and treat it like gold – and as a result, it delivers gold ($$$) back to me.
But what exactly does "nurture" and "treat like gold" mean?
What am I actually sending to my list?
How do I actually make money from that list?
We’ll cover all that in detail in the coming days.
PILLAR 3:
Simple Sales Pages
When you build relationships via email, your sales pages don’t need to be complicated.
No crazy promises. No 10,000-word epics.
Just straightforward pages that convert because your audience already trusts you because you email good sh*t that’s actually helpful to them (you really solve real problems – build trust – before you sell more things to subscribers).
PILLAR 4:
Courses/Products
Start with ONE flagship product, then add complementary ones.
You don’t need 100’s of products but you can’t really just stop at 1 (especially if you sell courses) if you want to reach into the mid six-figures.
Your products need to genuinely solve problems people have – that’s the best way I’ve found to build a hyper-responsive list.
When your products genuinely help people, those people tell others & affiliates want to promote your stuff – which feeds back into Pillar 1 (traffic).
It’s a beautifully simple cycle:
- Traffic builds your list.
- You email your list to build trust.
- Your list sees your sales pages.
- Your sales pages sell your courses.
- Your courses generate happy customers which generates more traffic through word-of-mouth and affiliate promotions.
I’ve used this exact framework to build multiple six-figure businesses. My flagship course, CopyHour, has generated millions in revenue alone over the years with just these 4 pillars.
The strange part is that I generally do worse (generate less revenue) when I try to do more things than just these 4 pillars.
The beauty is in the simplicity as they say.
When your business has clear pillars like this, you know exactly what to focus on and what to ignore.
What I’ve shared in this email though is just the overview of my framework. There are obviously more details to each pillar, which we’ll be covering this week.
Tomorrow I’ll start by diving deeper into Pillar 1 – Traffic. I’ll share exactly how (and why) I use affiliates to generate consistent, quality leads without spending a dime on ads.
Talk tomorrow!
— Derek
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