Growing your business to $500,000 revenue
Yesterday I introduced the three levels of growing your independent business: beginning, intermediate, and advanced.
I defined beginning as working toward a consistent $12,500 / month (or $150,000/year).
If you’re a white collar professional with 5+ years of experience, you can get here simply by converting your skillset into a consultancy.
The process is simple: meet people, listen deeply, and solve their problems.
This process is IDENTICAL for growing your business to the first $500,000 in annual revenue.
The only addition is that when you start crossing into the $250,000+ range, you’re going to introduce marketing into the equation.
And guess what? Great marketing is just about meeting people, listening deeply, and solving their problems in new formats.
When you first start out, 95% of your efforts should be focused on 1:1 conversations with people you know or with your extended network.
When you start crossing into $20,000/month in recurring revenue, you’ll start branching out and doing some marketing.
WARNING: Do not let your brain overcomplicate this. Also, do not let your brain suggest that you copy other people (like me) who are sending out daily emails.
I send daily emails because I’m currently in level 3 of my growth – advanced. I’m scaling into multiple millions of annual revenue.
If you’re not in this place, don’t copy what I’m doing in 2024. Copy what I was doing in 2020/2021.
During that time I got some nice headshots and built a beautiful website that communicated my offerings.
I had perfected my sales process (deep conversations, crafting proposals, and making irresistible offers).
My delivery was ON POINT. I knew how to over deliver in half the time that clients expected. This freed me to take on tons of work without ever being stretched.
I had personal 1:1 coaching clients as well as multiple large corporate accounts. I was also offering group coaching.
I didn’t have ANY drama about whether I should call myself a coach or a consultant. I just kept selling and delivering the things that people were buying.
At one point I had two separate websites and two separate instagrams – one for consulting and one for coaching.
My personal and professional social media accounts blurred together.
I wasn’t consistent AT ALL in how I described my services.
But unlike most of my peers at this level, I didn’t get distracted by the lack of cohesion across my profiles and offers.
Instead, I kept meeting people, listening deeply, and solving their problems.
I got hired over and over to do this.
I worked a 4 day week for a portion of the time, and I’d disappear for hours at a time in the middle of the work day.
It was an extremely low stress, high-reward way of operating.
The trick is that you can’t get distracted by all of the things that you’re **supposed** to be focused on at this stage of growth.
It feels so damn good to bring in $500,000 / year working a ~30 hour week from home.
You can do this too if you avoid the traps and focus on what matters.
It will require you to reign yourself in and not worry about certain things.
You’ll also have to ignore A LOT of voices of people who have no idea what they’re talking about but who are super eager to offer their insight / perspective on how you should run your business.
That was the hardest part for me, truthfully – ignoring other people’s great ideas (like the number of times I’ve been told to open a TikTok account or start a YouTube channel).
TikTok and Youtube will be great for my business when I’m ready. But since I guard my time and focus my energy into the most essential tasks only, they will remain on the back burner for now.
And speaking of growth, I know that a lot of you are looking to grow into this intermediate level with your businesses.
I would LOVE to have a direct conversation with you if that’s the situation you’re in. Or even if you’re more toward the beginning of your journey, now is the perfect time to have a conversation with me.
Reach out, and we’ll find a time to chat.
You’ve got this!
Chris
Thanks For Reading!
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