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The MAIN difference between someone who makes 100k /year and someone who makes 1m?

MJ DeMarco

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Scale and the mathematics inherent in the business.

The $1M dude is probably also a slightly better marketer.

However my bet is that BOTH ENTREPRENEURS work EQUALLY as hard.
 
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To have a crack at this myself I would say - scale.

The three friends closest who are multi-millionaires all made/make their money through massive scale.

- One made 100,000s of sales of a product
- The other has 10,000s of monthly users
- The last works with massive businesses to help protect 10,000s of assets.

They all have massive maths on their side that makes their income easily reach 7 figures annually.
 

MTF

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Interesting question.

Besides for all the business differences like scale or the right business model, I'd say that it all starts with something deeply personal: your standards and beliefs.

I don't mean it in impractical, wishy-washy self-help terms, but more about how you view the world and yourself. The difference between those who make 100k/year (from business) vs those who make 1mm+ IMO comes down to these three aspects of one's life philosophy and perspective:

1. Whether you even need it
- most people from this forum are from the US, and many of them are from expensive cities where 100k/year isn't enough to live comfortably. Even if they make 500k, in some cities this is only slightly above middle class, which is probably not in line with what people have in mind when they think of hitting the Fastlane.

This is related to the beliefs you have surrounding financial success. If it means being among the richest of the richest, then obviously you'll have to earn a LOT more in those places just to keep up. If you care only about how you feel subjectively (not in relation to others), then your location is less of a factor.

Still, you need much less money to live very well in plenty of countries and cities around the world. For many people it's just not that important of a goal to make over a million if you can have a 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, or even better lifestyle for the same or lower price than people in the most expensive cities and countries.

If you don't have expensive materialistic goals, then once you hit a satisfying income level (and this happens sooner in a cheaper location), why would you invest more of your time and energy into something that wouldn't provide a noticeable improvement in your life? This ties in with the second thing...

2. What is money to you? - for some, it's just a tool for freedom. Once they reach it, they're done. According to their worldview, what's the point of working more if you've already made enough (or secured sufficient secure passive income streams) for a comfortable lifestyle with a margin?

Then there are people who think of money more in terms of personal fulfillment. In a way, the numbers reflect their growth and whether they realize their full potential. They can't be satisfied with "enough" because they need to make more and more. There's no end goal.

A related concept here is the fixed and growth mindset. A person with a growth mindset will probably want to continuously increase their income (and be willing to risk more) just for the sake of growth, even if they don't need more money - unless they find a different endeavor to focus on where they can achieve more growth.

One more factor I'd add here is your motivation. Unless you're addicted to luxury goods, at one point the motivation to make more money so you can buy a new toy will run out. Stronger internal motivations as well as motivations that do with other people and causes (making money so you can support your favorite charities or generational wealth) are thus more conducive to becoming a multimillionaire.

And lastly, IMO the most important:

3. What are your mental financial limits? - this comes down to your beliefs and standards. Some people consider anything above, say, $10k/month big money. For some, it's nothing. Some people believe they can make as much money as they want - including hundreds of millions. Others think that it's impossible for them to make more than $15,000/month from their own business.

Some people, because of the beliefs they have, don't engage in any pursuits that won't lead to multimillion results because to them, there's no difference between working on a small project vs a big one, so why not make more than just pennies? Others, less comfortable with big amounts of money, sabotage themselves by setting low limits and worrying about cutting insignificant costs over seeking new, big income streams.

I just spoke with a guy who believes that when you're over 60, you stop having enough energy to live a satisfying life. Guess how likely he is to enjoy good health and be vibrant and happy when he's over 60.

In the same way, those who believe that it's impossible to make more than several hundred thousand dollars a year are unlikely to accomplish it - regardless of the business model, industry, product, skills, experience, etc. This would be incongruent with their beliefs, so they'll always find a way to screw things up.

I haven't hit a million a year (yet), but based on my personal experience, as long as you continuously shift your mental limits higher and higher, over the long term you'll naturally continue growing your income, even if you'll deal with temporary downs (I'm dealing with one now, but I know that I'll eventually climb myself out of it).

You get what you tolerate, so continuously raising your standards is key here (Tony Robbins stresses this often). For a common example, obese people clearly have low standards regarding their bodies, while professional athletes have incredibly high standards few people aspire to. Money is exactly the same.
 
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MTEE1985

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Leadership.

The 7 figure earners are exceptional at 1 or 2 things. They work those skills like crazy and delegate the rest.

The 100k person tries to be well rounded and do it all. Very hard to scale that way.
 

Envision

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Timing, Business Model, Scale

The guys that I know that make 1M+ have a different view of business. They also own infinitely scalable companies.

A guy who owns a storage facility may very well earn over 100k/year and be a millionaire but he's limited to his one facility and local area.

The guy who owns a storage facility holdings company and builds a operating company to infinitely buy storage facilities and plug them into his systems and optimize them for profitability and operating efficiency is only limited by how many storage facilities he can find.

Thats the same for apartments, franchises, ecommerce businesses etc.

Own the infrastructure and build a system that can scale infinitely.
 

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First thing that came to mind was also: scale/leverage.

I work about 5h / week on my main business and make more money than many small business owners that grind +50h per week.

In the meantime I can put my time in finding other streams of income.
 

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Question for the forum...

What is the MAIN difference you see between someone who makes 100k /year and someone who makes 1 million plus?

It is a bit of a simplistic question but I am curious how people on here would answer this...

- Habits, discipline, mindset?

- Systems and scaling?

- Value in the marketplace and demand?

- All of the above and more?

This question isn't meant to be a "what is the one thing that will make me a millionaire" but rather when you look at REAL examples of people making a million plus a year what trends or common characteristics of them or their businesses do you see? (if any)
 
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Andy Black

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I think the main difference could be as simple as picking the right business model. E.g. Subscription vs one-off sale. Easy to scale vs not easy to scale.



For knowledge workers like myself, another consideration is encapsulating our knowledge and removing ourselves from the coal-face.

Hitting the $100k/year mark as a consultant/freelancer is common enough. Hitting 10x that is rarer.

I’m not going to hit $1m/year doing what I’m doing the way I’m doing it. I’m too much a consultant bound by my time. I could charge more, but that’s still not breaking out of the time-for-money model.

I figure I can scale using one or more of:
  • People
  • Processes
  • Technology
I’ve no desire to build a big headcount, so I’m focused on finding models that allow me to encapsulate my knowledge and scale via Processes and Technology.


EDIT: I’m wrong. The MAIN difference between a business doing $100k/year and one doing $1m/year is the jockey (because they’ll know which horse to ride and when).
 

Bekit

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Boldness.

Since the timing of this thread coincides with the bump to @Kak 's ecommerce thread, I couldn't help but notice the boldness of his move.

Side note: Realizing that there was a time when @Kak made $30k/year was an eye opening epiphany. I felt kind of the same way a little kid feels when they first realize that their mom was once a kid haha...

The reason Kak made big strides forward was this:

Within one month my personal income had jumped by $1300. Second month I did 2500. I started in April and by July I was was nearing my first 4000 dollar month. I had beaten the monthly income that took me 3 years to build in... You guessed it... 3 months!!!

I did this because I had the balls to just keep deploying money when stuff was working. I was super uncomfortable sending that first 2k. Then 3k. Now to be quite honest sending 5k to a supplier is something I can comfortably do from my phone at a stoplight without a second thought. I view it like I just traded up in a huge way.

I want to emphasize this. I was scared shitless. If you aren't scared you aren't doing enough.

Others have made similar comments ...

When I was looking into things I was super excited to find something to get started with.

I felt great finding the product and negotiating price/quantity but when I had to open up paypal and hit "send" on $400 I paused in fright and uncertainty as well. Was this really the right product, the right supplier, the right niche, the right price, was I paying too much for shipping, what would the duties be, was my business entity setup right? A ton of questions flashed into my head saying "Whoah! Stop!"

Luckily I ignored it, hit send, and like yourself am comfortable with higher dollar values now without much extra thought.

If you are getting started - don't stop. Listening to any hesitation you may have is fatal. There are always a million good-sounding reasons not to do something that will help you - ignore them and leap.

It also seems that the size of the success is proportional to the size of risks taken

You have to basically go completely against the grain and do something so bold + ambitious that you're the only company in a market space that even has the balls to do what you do.

So I think it's a combination. Yes, you have to have a business model that can scale.

But there are a lot of people who find a scalable business model and then hesitate. They fail to act.

The difference between the $100k players and the $1M players is that the bigger players faced all that scary stuff and DID it - and they executed fast.
 

AgainstAllOdds

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100%. I am stupid for not seeing this. I even had data points from my Dad's business...... hire well, fire quickly, only tolerate exceptional work!

We lie to ourselves that it's better to not have employees since it's more aligned with subconscious goals. Less employees typically equals more freedom in the short-term. They're an additional component that needs to be managed, even if you're outsourcing. So our preference is to not hire them and stay small vs hiring them and adding on short-term headaches that can eventually be delegated.

Eventually those headaches are worth it, but it's something that I see myself and other entrepreneurs avoiding as much as possible. Even in this thread I'll bet that my reply gets less likes and replies since it's not aligned with the culture of "online, automated income". However, if you look at any billionaire, almost all of them made it there by having a lot of people under them. Same if you meet with multi-millionaires - it's an extrapolation of that.
 

million$$$smile

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I don't agree that the main difference is Scale.

I think there are plenty of examples where businesses have scaled first in preparation of sales and they never materialized, for one reason or another.

I believe the difference for the most part is MARKETING.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be from you marketing the product , but just some form of medium that has the ability to market the product/commodity or concept. Viral marketing has proven that.

Even many bestsellers without some medium for getting it exposed to the masses, would doubtfully become a bestseller. Amazon has the market. Scaling up and having 1000 books without some form of marketing won't move them out the door. Amazon will.

You can make millions even with a lousy product if it has the right exposure or marketing.

And if you create or find the right marketing, it will force you to scale --
or open doors for competition.

Just take a look at Shark Tank. Anyone that has even a half decent presentation and walks out without
getting a shark will still see an immediate increase in sales.

Getting in front of more eyeballs no matter how, will force you to scale and not the other way around.

I'll take mass marketing first over scaling any day of the week if I had the choice. The market will force me to scale, and if you're prepared, you'll be ready for it.
 
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Agreed with those above on scale, but add the mindset to desire, build and maintain that scale. I think the 100k guys settle in on what they built, don’t dream big enough or perhaps are too comfortable because 100k is nice. In a sense, they’re high level wantrepreneurs, they went 90% of the way and set the cruise control.

When what I’m doing caps after optimizing and exhausting every possible effort, bet your a$$ I’m building second, third and fourth income streams. In fact, I’m counting on it, learned too much in the past 2 years of process to settle in at 100k and not build more systems with the knowledge.

100k is job money. I want FU money. That’s the mindset difference.
 

G_Alexander

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So much of what has been said here is great, and relevant! What I'll say is... *all other things held constant (desire, ambition, work ethic, etc.)*: The big thing that separates the $100K from the $1M earner... and the $1M from the $100M is DELEGATION.

Our first brick and mortar deal, we did almost everything. Sourcing, financing, hiring, firing, construction contracting/rehab, etc. We also needed to go to the location and manage 10 employees for 4 days a week once we were operational (while at the same time still running my online business). 7 months in (once we had cut our teeth) we hired a great General Manager and paid him handsomely. I no longer needed to be on site anymore (my time was now freed).

For locations #2 and #3, I still had to do the deal-side stuff (source, manage the construction/rehab, and handle the financing), but this time we hired in more managers right away on the operating side. I never had to be on site once we opened. So the money rolls in... and 30 employees take care of themselves across 3 locations.

Now for location #4, on the deal side I only visited it once to make the acquisition decision - and answered about 30 emails and a few bank phone calls. That's it. My GM managed the rehab/construction. The systems are in place, the team growing, and things are starting to shift to the business perpetuating itself.

My eCommerce business has 6 full time employees and also needs nothing from me except SEO maintenance (which I can't/won't farm out at this time). Some months I work 5 hours on it, some months I work 60 hours. Depends on what I feel like doing.

Delegation is scary (at first). But realizing there are other people out there who can do things as well (or better) than you is paramount to growing your business. And providing people with a job they love and BIG opportunities for growth in their career is more rewarding than any Lamborghini or fancy dinner.
 
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eliquid

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Very few people have touched on it, but I feel it comes down to belief.

Belief knowing you can and will do it.

As someone with no team, no soft skills, and limited scale.. I was able to go from one extreme to the other.

I also dabbed in many industries and ideas.

The one thing that glued it all together, I knew I was going to make it and that belief helped me through thick and thin.

I guess you could also label it as grit and determination, but I feel you have to have the belief for that to even work out too.

.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Leadership.

The 7 figure earners are exceptional at 1 or 2 things. They work those skills like crazy and delegate the rest.

The 100k person tries to be well rounded and do it all. Very hard to scale that way.

Good point on the delegation and the "jack of all trades". Amazon wouldn't be Amazon unless Bezos hired.
 

rpeck90

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I don't agree that the main difference is Scale.

I think there are plenty of examples where businesses have scaled first in preparation of sales and they never materialized, for one reason or another.

I believe the difference for the most part is MARKETING.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be from you marketing the product , but just some form of medium that has the ability to market the product/commodity or concept. Viral marketing has proven that.

Even many bestsellers without some medium for getting it exposed to the masses, would doubtfully become a bestseller. Amazon has the market. Scaling up and having 1000 books without some form of marketing won't move them out the door. Amazon will.

You can make millions even with a lousy product if it has the right exposure or marketing.

And if you create or find the right marketing, it will force you to scale --
or open doors for competition.

Just take a look at Shark Tank. Anyone that has even a half decent presentation and walks out without
getting a shark will still see an immediate increase in sales.

Getting in front of more eyeballs no matter how, will force you to scale and not the other way around.

I'll take mass marketing first over scaling any day of the week if I had the choice. The market will force me to scale, and if you're prepared, you'll be ready for it.

My sentiments exactly, except instead of marketing, I'd say "demand".

If you can generate demand for a product/service, you have the ability to scale. Whilst demand can be generated through marketing, mass-promotion alone won't guarantee success (just look at Fyre Festival).

If you want to win long term, you need a blend of both good product (doesn't even have to be "great"), with the ability to trigger demand for it. I'm obviously biased towards my own ideals, but it's how I see things.

Question for the forum...

What is the MAIN difference you see between someone who makes 100k /year and someone who makes 1 million plus?

It is a bit of a simplistic question but I am curious how people on here would answer this...

- Habits, discipline, mindset?

- Systems and scaling?

- Value in the marketplace and demand?

- All of the above and more?

This question isn't meant to be a "what is the one thing that will make me a millionaire" but rather when you look at REAL examples of people making a million plus a year what trends or common characteristics of them or their businesses do you see? (if any)

Demand.

The best companies don't work to facilitate products, but to create demand. They don't even worry about the scaling aspects, as that's generally an afterthought. Without people wanting your product, you have nothing.

Selling websites? As a one-man band, you can do that and make a good living. But to scale, you need $50k+ projects. Most companies will never consider spending $50k on a website. If you're able to generate demand for them, that's how you make the big bucks. What's ironic is that most one-man bands will often produce better work than the larger incumbents, but make nowhere near the money - mainly because they're forever doing $500 projects.

If you want to know how to generate demand, the answer is you don't. You have to basically go completely against the grain and do something so bold + ambitious that you're the only company in a market space that even has the balls to do what you do. Franchises, licensing, building out a quality team, handling transactions all come as a means to facilitate that core offering.
 

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Headcount.

Leveraging your employees' time is the easiest way to multiply your efforts. Even though we like to pretend that we can do everything ourselves, and search for examples of entrepreneurs that did it all by themselves, it's a lot more common to make 7 figures while managing others.
 
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Belief knowing you can and will do it.

Definitely this.

I've noticed that the millionaires are the people who take risks that others won't. Those who dare travel down the road less traveled.

Also I firmly believe that creativity is key. Being presented with a problem, and finding a unique and valuable solution every time.
 
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I'd say scale. For what I understood by reading your threads, you have a lifestyle business selling/building websites, which is quite hard to scale unless the focus is products that scale and are detached from your time. Unless you can sell 100k websites every month, it sounds hard to me to reach 1m/year.

Correct, it's not a hard business to make 6 figures in but very hard to make seven figures.

My main options are
- scaling my web and sales school
- or using my web skills in another area to grow and scale my own product or service.
 

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In my opinion the most successful people I have seen have an active income from their business pursuits and a secondary income from another industry.

The most common one is somebody owning a business and then funneling the profit they make into Real Estate. That's where you get the saying that Real Estate makes the most millionaires.

You focus on growing your business during the day and then in the evenings/weekends seek out property deals, financing to leverage debt etc...
 

eliquid

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Did you have this belief right from the beginning or did you develop it?

No lie, I always had it.

My mom dug out a cassette tape where I recorded myself singing at like 8 years old. On this tape I was singing a song I made up and in the lyrics I mentioned over and over again how I was going to be rich and successful.

Besides that, I had a lot of other experiences where I just knew my time would come.

Not trying to brag or sound conceded. Just wanted to show the belief was always there. Sure, it could have all been coincidence too. Regardless, the belief was something I feel I did not develop.

.
 
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As MJ said, it is scale and mathematics of the business. But, I would also add desire. I know plenty of people who had successful businesses who could have scaled into a 7 figure business but they didnt want to add to their plate. Their six-figure incomes were more than enough for them and they had no appetite for more.
 

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With all due respect, you can reach $1 mil. there are many gurus doing those sorts of figures.

Just emulate them. From my (little bit of) research on them - what I've found is that they build ever-green webinar funnels (basically a recorded webinar that makes it seem like its live), they provide free value in the webinar and towards the end they sell a $1000 product. They then upsell their consultation for around $2500 - $5000.

With those figures its def. possible to reach $1 mil.

If you have those webinars played daily (just in time) and sell 3-5 of those $1000 value packed information products, and you upsell 1 person for every 10 people that buy the $1k product. Dude, you'll hit a million bucks easily.

You just need to hire the right agency that's familiar with building these sorts of funnels and invest $50k (half towards building the funnel other half towards ad spend for the first month).

There probably compnents I'm missing, but that's like the 10,000 feet overview of how they do it.

Ask @Lex DeVille I believe he's worked with some of them.

The coaches I worked with did use that process, but they didn't sell a $1,000 product at the end. They sold $15,000 to $30,000 products at the end. You can definitely hit the mil mark with that.

We do have to make the distinction between a coach and a consultant. They fulfill different roles. A consultant is in the trenches a lot more than a coach, especially a high-ticket coach.

High-ticket coaches spend $15k+ to learn the funnel system. Then they spend money to hire a team of people to build the system and get it working properly.

Once they have a proven system and they start earning sales, then they expand their sales team so they can scale that part of the process.

After that they turn their coaching into courses or group programs so they aren't exchanging 1 for 1 time. Later they bring on "breakthrough coaches" or whatever they call them. These are sub-coaches who do the coaching for them.

They also usually have a full-time assistant, business manager, copywriter, web designer and several other members of their team who may be traditional employees or just freelancers.

Coaches are supposed to help people work through problems and find their own solutions. Consultants, on the other hand, are specialists who work directly with a business to solve a specific problem in a specific way. So I'd say it's much harder to scale a consulting business, but definitely can still be done. Mainly it's a matter of charging the right amount for your time to make the numbers work.
 

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Question for the forum...

What is the MAIN difference you see between someone who makes 100k /year and someone who makes 1 million plus?

It is a bit of a simplistic question but I am curious how people on here would answer this...

- Habits, discipline, mindset?

- Systems and scaling?

- Value in the marketplace and demand?

- All of the above and more?

This question isn't meant to be a "what is the one thing that will make me a millionaire" but rather when you look at REAL examples of people making a million plus a year what trends or common characteristics of them or their businesses do you see? (if any)

 
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The-J

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Business model + belief, which begets one another.

The multimillionaires I know personally started their businesses with scale in mind, because they believed the business model allowed for great scale.

It also seems that the size of the success is proportional to the size of risks taken (nominally, not relative to the effect of the downside on the person taking the risk). Not just the initial outlay: you could start a business with $100 and make it into a multi million dollar business, but not before taking bigger and bigger risks (risking $10,000, $100,000, $1m, etc as the business grows).
 

Andy Black

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they executed fast.
^^^ This as well. Iterate fast and you’ll find what works. Iterate slow and you may well give up before you find what works.
 

srodrigo

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I'd say scale. For what I understood by reading your threads, you have a lifestyle business selling/building websites, which is quite hard to scale unless the focus is products that scale and are detached from your time. Unless you can sell 100k websites every month, it sounds hard to me to reach 1m/year.
 
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Headcount.

Leveraging your employees' time is the easiest way to multiply your efforts. Even though we like to pretend that we can do everything ourselves, and search for examples of entrepreneurs that did it all by themselves, it's a lot more common to make 7 figures while managing others.
100%. I am stupid for not seeing this. I even had data points from my Dad's business...... hire well, fire quickly, only tolerate exceptional work!
 

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With all due respect, you can reach $1 mil. there are many gurus doing those sorts of figures.

Just emulate them. From my (little bit of) research on them - what I've found is that they build ever-green webinar funnels (basically a recorded webinar that makes it seem like its live), they provide free value in the webinar and towards the end they sell a $1000 product. They then upsell their consultation for around $2500 - $5000.

With those figures its def. possible to reach $1 mil.

If you have those webinars played daily (just in time) and sell 3-5 of those $1000 value packed information products, and you upsell 1 person for every 10 people that buy the $1k product. Dude, you'll hit a million bucks easily.

You just need to hire the right agency that's familiar with building these sorts of funnels and invest $50k (half towards building the funnel other half towards ad spend for the first month).

There probably compnents I'm missing, but that's like the 10,000 feet overview of how they do it.

Ask @Lex DeVille I believe he's worked with some of them.

The coaches I worked with did use that process, but they didn't sell a $1,000 product at the end. They sold $15,000 to $30,000 products at the end. You can definitely hit the mil mark with that.

We do have to make the distinction between a coach and a consultant. They fulfill different roles. A consultant is in the trenches a lot more than a coach, especially a high-ticket coach.

High-ticket coaches spend $15k+ to learn the funnel system. Then they spend money to hire a team of people to build the system and get it working properly.

Once they have a proven system and they start earning sales, then they expand their sales team so they can scale that part of the process.

After that they turn their coaching into courses or group programs so they aren't exchanging 1 for 1 time. Later they bring on "breakthrough coaches" or whatever they call them. These are sub-coaches who do the coaching for them.

They also usually have a full-time assistant, business manager, copywriter, web designer and several other members of their team who may be traditional employees or just freelancers.

Coaches are supposed to help people work through problems and find their own solutions. Consultants, on the other hand, are specialists who work directly with a business to solve a specific problem in a specific way. So I'd say it's much harder to scale a consulting business, but definitely can still be done. Mainly it's a matter of charging the right amount for your time to make the numbers work.

Thanks @100k @Lex DeVille

What Lex described is totally not the vision I have for my business. I even have a filter that any email mentioning "webinar" gets deleted. I'm not a coach, I'm a consultant/practitioner. I prefer getting it done rather than coaching people to do a half-arsed job in 10x the time it would take me to do it. If I was to ever create a marketplace ad it would be to hire me to do the work, not to get coached by me. I don't want to sell shovels, I want to be in the mine digging the gold out. I’m allergic to the shovel selling guru world.

However, I do want to setup some info-seeker funnels, get people onto a short automated course delivered by email, and take it from there. I'll just use Google paid search to send visitors to a squeeze page (as we do for some clients funnily enough). To scale I have to put a money nozzle on the end that is NOT dependent on my 1-2-1 time (like my course, paid email newsletter, a plugin I have in mind, signing up to a directory or some other productised service, etc.). I’d be embarrassed to put an automated webinar up on a sales page that pretends to be live. Just call it a video and let people watch it ffs.
 

biggeemac

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You didn't specify net or gross 1m a year plus, which would be a huge difference.

Scale + team building. Our business is sitting right at around 600k a year gross. I could scale (double) it, but it would mean hiring another small team of folks that are as good as the team I have now.....and quite frankly, finding the good people to do what I need them to is the challenge in my business line.
 

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