#104: How to Build a Seven-Figure Business Teaching Something You Already Know

Jan 22, 2020

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Do you want to learn how to build a seven-figure business teaching something you already know?

If so, stay tuned to hear my conversation with Luisa Zhou about how she built her business teaching people how to quit their day jobs.

Luisa shares the failures she experienced when building her business, and how much time it took her to figure out what she was going to offer her audience.

She also shares how she got started, and her decision to serve her people without worrying about how pretty everything was at the beginning.

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Now, on with the show!

Learning from Your Mistakes

Luisa had been trying to start her own business for several years before she began to build the one that would ultimately allow her to quit her 9-5.

Learning what works and what does not work early helped Luisa launch her business successfully once she knew what she wanted to offer the world.

One of Luisa’s biggest mistakes was not getting to know her audience before she started trying to sell her knowledge.

A second mistake was making a beautiful site but not working to get traffic to her page or building a connection with her audience.

Once Luisa began doing things in the right order, she was making six figures in less than 4 months because she had learned what worked and what didn’t.

That was only possible because of the past 3 years of failures Luisa had gone through.

Failure is not a setback, it’s a lesson on how to move forward.

The Need for Flexibility

After those four successful months, Luisa left her day job to focus on a Facebook ad coaching business she was building.

But Luisa began getting questions on how to build a business while still employed in a 9-5.

After getting all of those questions, Luisa realized she could take the opportunity to coach people on how to start their own businesses.

Luisa didn’t start out with a plan to coach others, but when the opportunity presented itself, she knew she had the skills and experience, so she thought, why not?

If you hold too tightly to your dreams and plans, you could potentially miss huge opportunities that might not fit in with your plan for the moment, but could ultimately prove to be more lucrative and more satisfying.

Creating A Group Program

When people started reaching out to Luisa about building a business and leaving their jobs, she already had experience creating a new business.

So, Luisa worked with a few clients before ultimately deciding to create a group program.

A group program is a hybrid of a course and a coaching program. There is course content, but it’s not completely self-paced. Luisa also comes in and answers questions, holds coaching calls, etc.

Luisa created the content as she went along. The questions and comments she received each week helped her form the content for the next week.

The people in Luisa’s group were shocked that she somehow always answered the questions they were going to ask. It was because she listened and learned what her audience needed.

Luisa also made sure that she was involved personally with everyone in her group. Reaching out to the ones struggling, messaging them, having calls, and investing in everyone who was part of her group.

Scaling The Business

After the huge success of her first group program, Luisa built up more content to be able to offer a larger, six-month group program.

She knew the number of people she needed in order to make X dollar amount because she had been experimenting with smaller groups.

She invited more customers this time around and increased the price of her program, and she had a six-figure launch.

Luisa used a combination of Facebook, Periscope, and webinars to get clients for the new group. She created a 5-day challenge to pique interest and drive sales.

She took the income number she wanted to reach and worked to drive that many sales for the group program. And she hit it with a $100K launch.

Educating Yourself

Luisa took many courses over the years as she prepared to start her own business.

When she became successful, she hired coaches of her own.

Luisa knew that she needed to be willing to learn anything necessary to run her business.

Even if you don’t use the strategies that you learn, you will broaden your perspective and have ideas that are not your own.

It can be hard to invest in something and only get one piece of the puzzle you need. Luisa was often discouraged by learning all the things she didn’t know she needed to know.

Focus on One Product

Some people want to sell everything under the sun, and this simply doesn’t work.

The work that goes into building your knowledge, building the product, gaining an audience, and earning testimonials is incredibly time-consuming.

And you must do this for every service you want to offer.

Once you’ve built a product, focus on making sales rather than always having to build the next thing.

You’re going to be learning as you go, so spend your learning time fine-tuning what’s already working for you.

Biggest Next Step

If you want to quit your 9-5 and be a successful entrepreneur, this is what you need to do:

Figure out what you have to offer

Luisa says you can’t just offer anything and expect to replace your income. The best thing you can offer is some kind of premium consulting or coaching.

If you are selling your knowledge for $1K per client, you will be able to support yourself in quitting your regular job.

If you are selling a $100-500 course, you must sell many, many of them before replacing the income of a steady job.

Once you know what you can offer to the world, focus on going out and connecting with potential clients

Figure out where your potential clients may be online. Find them and mark on your calendar when you will take the time to connect, share value, and engage with them.

After a couple of weeks, people will begin recognizing you and you can offer free coaching calls.

After the call, you can pitch what more your clients can get from you for a fee.

Once you have three to five clients, you can start getting testimonials, and figure out the best way to help others.

Use the revenue you’ve made to set up your website so you can reach the audience you know you want to reach
Set up an email list for your audience.

After this, go back to focusing on getting potential clients.

The key here is to do the things that move the needle and stop doing the things that don’t matter. Connecting with people is the thing that moves the needle more than anything else.

If you don’t make connections with others, you will never build a successful business.

Luisa has a free offer for my listeners so be sure to grab that and get started building your own successful business!

And while you’re over there, be sure to check out her blog. She has a ton of great articles and amazing content to help you grow.

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