Part 4 - The Online Business Story Nobody Is Telling You About Right Now

You have the answers 

Remember, you already have all the answers in you, we just need to extract them (the first module of my Revenue Masters program is called “Extract”). It is not you who is the problem, it is the mechanisms, the tactics you’ve been using that is causing all of the issues you’re experiencing and clouding your judgement. It is the wrong tactics that are confusing you and overwhelming you.

If you’re reading this, then you must be wondering how to be a Strategically Focused Entrepreneur and not a “squirrel-entrepreneur”, the Tactical Opportunity Seeker.

Before we go there, let me say: congrats! You read through 4 long pages of text because you are hungry!

I went into details and examples and ranting on purpose. I wanted to make sure that whoever reads this last page sees the problem and wants to fix it. Most people who are drinking the “I’m just going to growth-hack this” kool-aid probably dropped out on page 1. So, congrats on making it through this.

Your life is about to change because when you stop being a victim of “shove it down your throat marketing” and fake scarcity and urgency and you become a Strategically Focused Entrepreneur, you will start to see results.

Results like Efren, who closed a new client 3 weeks after implementing this new thinking pattern...

Like Ariana, who closed 3 new (highest-paying-ever) clients in just two months. and almost 3x'ed her revenue in 5 months since she applied the strategies and approach...

Like Claire, who put her strategy in place to build new streams of income for her business...

Like Richard, who is on his way to 7 figures after being stuck in the 5-6 figures zone for years...

Like Daniel, who got his strategy built and finally has a business model that makes sense after years of struggling as a super talented artist and activist...

Like myself, having gone from running in circles building a marketing agency, selling physical products, selling consulting and online courses, to focusing on one thing and going deep and hard to build one solid bridge to success.

Proven path

It doesn’t matter what your industry or product is. All it took for those folks above to succeed is to go back to basics and build the foundations of their business. Here’s how we did it (on the inside of the Revenue Masters program).

Extraction

We started by auditing their business and their situation. I call it an Extracting Phase as we’re looking at what’s “below the surface”. This is a vulnerable moment where you need to be dead honest and transparent with yourself (and me so I can help you). If you’re doing shit that doesn’t bring revenue just because you like it, it won’t fly - not on my watch at least.

It’s funny. On one of my Revenue Masters coaching calls, one of the entrepreneurs said: “I identified I like X, BUT wait, don’t worry, I put it in the Pile-Up Zone* and will focus on Y as it also brings me revenue.”

*Pile-Up Zone is our way to stay on track and ignore the noise. Ignoring the noise is hard because you’re going “against the current”.

For this reason, I give my students access to me on Voxer, so I can beat some “tempting” ideas out of their heads. Ideas like, “should I buy this course”, “there is this amazing new idea”, “I saw a great deal on a tool.”

At the end of the Extraction Phase we have mapped:

• All past results
• All skills and competencies
• All good and bad about their business
• The current situation and the goal
• The reasons why they want to achieve the goal
• The elements that work and don’t work in their business

That’s a lot of uncovered ground. At the end of this phase, it all looks like a big construction zone with all the holes dug up, excavators (me! lol), trucks, and measuring tapes.

I have been a business consultant and an auditor for years (part of Ernst & Young and Deloitte teams) and one of my superpowers is quickly seeing and uncovering the problems in the business and offering solutions to the identified gaps.

Put It All Together

Now it is time to enter the second phase, the P.I.A.T. (“Put It All Together”). This is where we take all the uncovered pieces of the puzzle and start putting them together into a business strategy and a business model:

• What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
• What is the value proposition - what do we offer and how are we different from others?
• What are the problems in the market and how are we solving them?
• Who do we sell to and how do we get customers? Yes, we map out the tactics too, but it makes sense as we only apply tactics that support THIS strategy.
• We score the next steps to identify what to focus on.
• How do we make money, how much will we make, and how fast will we make it?

The Gold Pyramid

The final piece is the Goal Pyramid, but my students like to call it a Gold Pyramid (because, "oh. man! This is GOLD").

This is the final piece of the puzzle - a one-page document/drawing that shows your full strategy, with your main goal, the paths, and all the elements to get there - including to-do lists and tasks you put in your calendar so you actually implement. The Gold Pyramid is how you build your Bridge To Success.

The Gold Pyramid is what will save your life and your business. Whenever you have an idea or a new opportunity shows up on the horizon, you can take the Gold Pyramid and compare the new idea with the building blocks you have mapped out. If the idea supports them, great! You can go ahead and implement it. If it doesn’t, it goes to a Pile-Up Zone.

Throughout the process, we always look at three things:

• How to get customers.
• What the best products/offers are
• How to sell.

The whole process we employ in Revenue Masters of strategically looking at your business helps to REFINE your existing business and eliminate the unnecessary weight. It also helps DEFINE your next steps, and sometimes it’s like “dropping a bomb” and building from scratch after you realize what you’re doing makes no sense.

New you and your new business

You’re no longer a Squirrel Entrepreneur because you have a very clear path to build your bridge to success. It’s such a liberating feeling not to feel FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), not to feel like you need to do all those things, and not to feel you are spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere. 

Having a strategy is knowing EXACTLY where to go and how to get there - then you can choose the tactics because you’re working on building your business, not focusing on the gimmicks. 

You used to learn more and execute less. Now, you execute on what you already know and it creates momentum and progress. Execution trumps knowledge.

You are no longer on the consumption side, you are on the creation side.

I’ve seen a lot having worked with over 500 online entrepreneurs, great people with a variety of backgrounds, and a diversity of business models, dreams, and aspirations.

Sadly, most people I encounter are Squirrel Entrepreneurs full of confusion and overwhelm. They’re great people with good hearts and passion - and a whole lot of wasted potential.

In 2018, I asked myself, if I’m doing all the things gurus are telling me - following all the recommendations and tactics, putting all the hard work in, enduring 60 hour weeks - why the fuck am I not seeing results? Why are there businesses that make it, and some that are in constant hustle-mode?

I became obsessed with researching the root cause of what resulted in keeping people stuck in their businesses AND the solution how to fix it. It took me quite some time, and I didn’t even realize I had found the solution until I got my tax report from my accountant. I was like, “WTF just happened?” I went through all my notes and retraced the steps I took to get me that kind of growth. I put it all in the “flow” of actions, exercises, mind-shifts and epiphanies - the flow that took my business from -$20k to $180k.

I then tested the flow during 1-1 sessions to see if it was a fluke or a repeatable solution to a repeatable problem (of 500+ online entrepreneurs). It worked and this is how the Revenue Masters program came to life! Now I’m on a quest to help others who are where I used to be before my “2018 epiphany”.

Revenue Masters is a no gimmicks framework, no BS, vulnerable, transparent community aimed at getting off the hamster wheel of a Squirrel Entrepreneur and into the zone of Strategically Focused Entrepreneur.

I prepared a workbook for you- "How to be a strategic entrepreneur." But before we move forward, I want to make sure we’re on the same page. I don’t want you to download the workbook and let it gather "digital dust." I don't want you to download it and not do anything with it. I want you to study it and implement it and finally make an impact for you and your business.

Is that a 5x YES? If yes, (that would be a 6th yes, I guess 😉 ) then I want you to download the Revenue Masters Workbook below.

By this point you are probably realizing that Revenue Masters framework and my approach to starting, running, and growing business is different than what you “see on the Internet” - and that’s the whole point. I’m not taking you through a “from pizza boy to a millionaire webinar”, and I am not showing you bullshit bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I’ve even given you most of the elements we cover in Revenue Masters and the philosophy behind it. So, if you really wanted, you could sit down and try to put all the strategies and business models together yourself.

It’s really up to you.

If you’re here to “funnel-hack” my funnel, then hello! I hope you got what you wanted. I doubt it, because seeing what’s on the surface is not what makes any strategy successful.

If you’re here for entertainment and to kill some time, I hope it was worth it.

But, if you’re here to fix your situation and finally take control of your business, then this is it!

TAKEAWAYS