Micro Education Businesses Are The Future & How To Start With Zero Dollars
I'm building a software company but I'm taking a different approach the common route would be to build the product test it and Market it to a specific audience this works but I want to skip the sync or Swim phase of this business I'm well aware that churn developer costs and ingraining software in people's daily lives will be difficult instead I plan to take the company to 5 to 10 million in its first year this is a lofty goal yes but how am I going to do it by leveraging the experience I've gained in modern business I know the power of a personal brand I know the power of digital products and how a 10 million dollar digital product business is more profitable than most 50 million dollar physical product businesses I know that I can use both to create an education product as the main driver of Revenue in our first year of business with that product operating at 95 profit margins we will build the company's social media like we would a personal brand with an avatar as the face of the brand most businesses have no idea what it takes to build an actual social media audience so they rely on Creator sponsorships when we want to create a Creator we will use that audience and a plethora of Creator audiences to fuel a cohort based course around the subject of our software at that point it doesn't matter if the software itself is profitable in the first year we can play long term and slowly inject it into the Creator economy as the one true software I can't give too many details yet on what it's going to be because we're still doing legal stuff and just want to make sure we have all of our bases covered before we actually reveal what it is so stay tuned for that but this isn't a video about the software it's a video about how you can start a hyper profitable education business with the knowledge in your head you don't need to build a software to make this work of course you can build software based around the profitable education product you sell to enhance your business results if you want to go down that road because you'll have the money to invest in one but here's what to expect in this video one is why a social media audience is the highest leveraged business asset to how to create your own customers rather than trying to find them with boring market research three realizing that you have a one hundred thousand dollar product stuck in your head and how to extract it let's talk about why audience building is the greatest skill stack of our decade personal brands are the new wave that won't die out it's not a phase mom the digital world is expanding faster than the physical and personal brands are the avatars that occupy the space everyone has a personal brand everyone is in the Creator economy but few realize that their contributions posts and products aren't contributions at all consumers are too busy posting about their lives to impress friends who aren't really friends creators are learning building and Distilling valuable information that makes life better for everyone so to understand this we need to dive in and make the realization of what own distribution is and how powerful it is because I'm connected with and follow many high-level entrepreneurs some in private Equity some in agency work and some in software for related fields in almost every single conversation we have the point of owned distribution comes up I don't know why I didn't start posting content sooner it's insane how much the marketing world has changed in a few short years a personal brand is becoming less and less optional those are a few things that people have said directly to me and those patterns keep coming up when I talk to business owners that know they need to start posting content or just get in to Virtual Reality by displaying their character as a personal brand but of course this doesn't eliminate the need for other types of distribution there's manual distribution like cold email cold calls or cold direct message campaigns there's bot distribution like purchasing Facebook ads or Google ads there's borrowed distribution like paying for podcast YouTube or newsletter sponsorships and then there's own distribution like building an audience newsletter Community or list of product buyers the lines are blurred between them all and I know I missed a few things like SEO but they all have their use cases the first three are incredible for testing they're good for beginner business owners and having some form of control over your outcomes own distribution is a long-term game that scares most people away let's imagine I spent two years building a 100 000 follower audience if I promoted my product every day for a month in a smart way I would get at least a million impressions how long would it take me to direct message a million people a long time how much would it cost for me to reach that many people with ads around seven thousand dollars a month based on a seven dollar as an average CPM not to mention own distribution compounds you can get to 10 to 20 000 followers in a year 50 to 100 000 in two years and millions after four to five years that is if you know how to iterate on your best content or even write content in the first place it only makes sense to systemize your audience growth with time and leverage other distribution methods to make your desired Revenue this is something that I teach in my course to our writer for building a readership so that you can eventually have traffic to send to whatever it is you want to monetize relating to your life's work once you see the power of Personality own distribution and flexibility of a personal brand there's no going back to become a good audience Builder you can't just study audience building this is the case for most skills that get abnormal results it's not as simple as looking up a video on the best skills to learn in 2023 because that's what everyone else is doing it's a great way to commoditize yourself and be replaceable audience building is a stack of today's most profitable skills graphic design content writing copywriting marketing and sales human nature psychology self-awareness networking and more and it demands multi-disciplinary study and expertise audience building is a lifestyle it is the act of capturing curating connecting creating and distributing valuable information resources and products in a way that impacts positive behavior change so I know I mentioned the software earlier but that last sentence is what the software is so maybe that's some like pre-hype so you guys can start to think about out what it actually is that I'm building if you don't pursue a better life for yourself you will fail a better life demands the habits of learning building and distributing so now let's go over some rapid fire tips to start learning building and distributing because those are the main things that you need to be doing in your life as a way to provide value so that you can get what you want because if you want to get something from someone else then you need to give them something so they give you something that's just value Exchange in general that's communication that's everything you can't do this alone you have to develop yourself alone but then you have to bring that self into the world so that you can exchange with other people here is exactly what you must do without the fluff these must become habit that means a part of your everyday life if you can spend eight hours building someone else's dreams you can spend one hour building your own if you don't have one hour a day to invest in having two hours a day and so on you need to get your priorities straight so first is learning with intention learn the principles of Marketing sales writing in social media binge watched 30 or 50 hours of free content and paid courses build your personal brand along the way so you can actually apply what you learn study what interests you do not limit yourself if you have the goal of building a better life for yourself anything you learn will be from that lens you are still focusing on one thing even if you aren't focusing on one thing focus on one thing long term and focus on the multitude the thousands of things short term that will allow you to get there that's not shiny object syndrome that's being smart and diversifying your study when you feel the excitement or dopamine that comes from discovering a novel idea write it down refine that idea and post it to your profile this is just one huge content hack in general is sharing what excites you when you read something that's what you're hunting for right and this is modern hunting is you finding something new it exciting you and you being like I need to share this with someone else because that's how you track the people that are interested in the same thing as you so you need to capture that's the first step in value creation is capturing an idea so that you can make it your own and give it to someone after learning with intention comes building for yourself so pursue your goals and document the process by document I mean to keep running notes logs successes and failures somewhere safe physical or digital from your journey you gain a knowledge of 100 from that you can create a path of one this is how you pass down a unique system that markets itself and gets better results than those looking to make a quick Buck along the way post the advice lessons and authentic successes and failures you've experienced this is called building in public don't do it for others do it as a digital Journal it will pay off so after building for yourself comes Distributing a purposeful product most people don't realize that products are Authority catalysts they think they are selling out by selling a product but don't realize that it adds perceived authority to their brand and they gain more loyal followers create a product that you need or needed in your life something that would have helped you achieve where you are now or something that will help you achieve something faster this can be closed for style courses for knowledge a journal for productivity or anything in between sell to yourself and you won't have to worry about competition another thing that people get wrong here is that they rely too much on the algorithm or looks and they start playing that game rather than building something for themselves that is innately valuable because you've already validated it and how you use it and if it's actually helped your life and then Distributing that to other people because you know it will help other people if you don't feel like a sellout by building something for yourself that's actually helping your life and you enjoy you shouldn't feel like one if you're giving it to someone else that just shows that you have more inner work to do or you need to have a perspective shift around money now we need to talk about customer creation through education and why education businesses are so important and why almost every business can benefit from adding a layer of Education to their business so that they create customers create remember that create customers I don't agree with 99 of business gurus out there most of the hyper successful ones are old and out of touch most of the young ones never question what the old ones say and Forge A New Path it is common advice to build a product for a starving market then attract that market as your audience yes obviously this works but it also comes with the downsides of hating your customer base and not feeling motivated to work second not having autonomy over what you write and build third not being able to Pivot into whatever topic or interest you are curious about and fourth being forced into a specific identity which spills over into the entirety of your life when you prioritize education in your brand through courses content cohorts and coaching all of them being optional you unlock the ability to create your own customers but how and why first thing is that humans are learning machines why does a starving Market desire what they desire why are they willing to pull out their credit credit card and pay for something they perceive as valuable why are you told to Niche down so you can get specific on the problem you leverage in your marketing because of social conditioning learning and education you target a specific person because they are educated to have that identity before they even come across your brand people are educated to a specific point to wanting to buy something right and so this is what most marketers are trying to do is they're trying to incept someone at a specific level of Education rather than attracting the a much broader Market at the bottom and educating them into the specific and hopefully holistic and purposeful worldview that they are putting across in order to sell their products so you're extending the journey and the nurturing of the customer or just reader that you have you're changing their life on a much deeper level because you're guiding them through the entire actualization Journey so in terms of identity and incepting them what most marketers do is incepting them at a specific level of Education their identity influences what they desire because of who they surround themselves with and what they see as opportunity when you create identities through education by Leading people towards your vision through your narrative people grow to desire the product that will help them Reach that goal there is a concept called the levels of awareness that will change your life it is a simple copywriting framework popularized by Eugene Schwartz in his book breakthrough advertising it doesn't only apply to marketing but everything evolution is about solving problems in the macrocosm personal growth is about solving problems in the microcosm business is about solving problems to bridge the gap between the two business is your contribution to humanity it is how you fill your life's purpose of raising your Consciousness or awareness and letting that impact the world like a ripple in water there are five levels of awareness the first is unaware so they're unaware of the problem the second is problem wear so they're aware of the problem the third is solution aware so they're aware of a solution to the problem the fourth is product aware so they're aware of your solution to the problem the fifth is most aware they're aware of the vast impact that problem is having on their quality of life this is where they're most ready to buy this is where they're most educated on the problems benefits goals and everything else that relates to what they want in life or the problem they want to solve your job as an education brand is to hit all of these you must make your audience aware of the problems you solved in your life and how that problem impacts their life you must give advice lessons and tips to show that there is a solution you must Market a product that solves the problem faster just by the nature of invested attention people don't log on to social media to solve their problems it isn't a learning platform and most people can't focus research and figure out a path for themselves that is why products are valuable because people know they are investing in a solution then their attention and behavior follow suit free education only works for the one percent that have been conditioned to be motivated invaded and ambitious even they still see the value in aggregated information and will probably buy out of convenience remember that where it's like oh why isn't this information available for free it is you just aren't ambitious enough to go and find it and do it for yourself people that want to pay for something that is convenient which you do at almost I would argue every day if you order something off of Amazon rather than going to to the store to get it then you have no business talking about free versus paid content so in terms of the levels of awareness we also need to understand the delicate balance of short form and long-form writing or content for the uninitiated there are two main types of content and communication the first is long form so podcasts videos articles newsletters conversations movies and sometimes long social posts like threads and then second is short form so tweets shorts reels texts emails Big Ideas and your favorite quotes each has its pros and cons but long term they are both necessary to build an audience that trusts you trust is the new sales hack that people are starting to catch on to short form is for capturing attention building a large audience and funneling that audience to deeper sources of value like long-form platforms products and services this is the one thing that I realized when I was first starting on YouTube is that I wasn't growing very fast one because I didn't understand YouTube sure my content game wasn't that good but then I got on something like Twitter now x i so so stupid why'd they change the name whatever but once I started seeing how much easier it was to grow on the short form platforms just by understanding how content was shared and being able to be polarized and confident and just good ideas in a short amount of time without investing so much in like a 10 to 20 minute YouTube video that goes nowhere I could build a large audience I realized that and eventually I could funnel it into YouTube because that's what I wanted to do down the road so my path to get what I wanted changed when I gained more experience and understood the social media game more and so now we'll go over what you should do in this case so that's short form but long form is for holding invested attention segmenting your audience and building trust through expertise the balance of both forces you to have value to deliver if you don't have a habit of self-education building products or systems and using writing as a way to clarify your thoughts and ideas you are delaying the inevitable you need to build something my best content came from when I was either building a product writing my book or just having a lens to view everyday experiences from and extract the lesson related to that thing if you don't have a project or something to build or just a goal to apply what you are learning too all of the information going into your mind is noise you're not able to filter out the signal by having a frame of reference for that which you're trying to apply it to so you need that balance of self-education and building if you're not doing either or you're building for someone else and they've assigned you projects that you don't care to learn about those two things have to match you have to build your own thing and learn your own thing and that's how you create this flow of information that makes life meaningful I am aware that most of my readers are beginners for you I recommend starting with one long form Channel and one short form eventually when you do this full time and systemize your process you can repurpose those to all platforms for long form I recommend a newsletter first why one you can practice when nobody is watching two you can build a database of content to repurpose into blogs YouTube and solo podcasts three long form builds depth and connection with your audience so you don't have to rely on pushy sales tactics to make a living four you are forced to develop original ideas that spill over into your short form content for short form I recommend a writing platform like X why you don't have to show your face or body having a headshot as your profile picture helps of course you learn to monetize your mind instead of your looks your income depends on your creativity you can test multiple ideas each day and repurpose your best ones to other platforms like Instagram and Linkedin to grow faster you can use your writing as scripts for shorts reels and tick tocks I teach this entire process into a writer start with 30 minutes of writing each morning write a long form newsletter use the ideas you write about as short form posts eventually let your engagement data act as a compass for what you write more about so you understand the importance of content and education but you have a one hundred thousand dollar product trapped in your head and I made a video about this previously literally called you have a hundred thousand dollars trapped in your head or in your brain whatever it is you can look that up or go to the one person business playlist but first let's handle the prime objection of information products in general it's not real it's not tangible it's just words on a screen if the root of your existence and quality of life is your mind and your mind is an information processing machine and the information you consume heavily influences where you end up in life in the people's lives you impact information products are the greatest product one can sell anyone who tells you otherwise has not thought it through or experienced the business model they're conditioned by their favorite guru's world view and can't escape it I am moving toward the belief that every single business should have a foundation of Education every single business should have an information product to distribute positive behavior change at scale not to mention the fact that they have a 95 plus profit margin is a sign that the economy will continue to favor the education Market to technology and evolution have led us to this point and who are you to question mother nature but Dan how do I eliminate competition and saturation build a product for your past self or current self one that accelerates the progress made toward a meaningful goal your marketing will revolve around the universal principle of human behavior which is purpose path and priority purpose being a compelling reason to move toward a better future path a process system or steps that bring Clarity to their actions and priority the burning problem they face at their level of awareness this is everything purpose path priority this is an entire section of my book but it is a principle that applies to everything human behavior related people buying a product is human behavior right you need a problem you need a goal and you need to bounce between the two your product is the path that helps them get from one to another from point A to point B that's what people buy think of all the products you bought and if you can apply that principle then you know is a good product if you like productive activity create a workflow with education around that if you like spirituality create meditations and education around that if you like Fitness create a program with education around that you can't improve what doesn't exist so don't stress the first iteration this is a long game of improvement but Dan what about my customer Avatar and market research it's you you are the niche you are the customer Avatar write the content and promotions that would speak to you there are a lot of moving pieces to this it will take a year or so to actually feel like you're getting the hang of it but don't make the mistake in thinking that this is a unique case every single thing you've done in life has been a process of trial and error just because you are older and have psychological barriers built up doesn't mean you can't build a business like you learn to walk that's it for this one I hope that last line hit hard because learning to walk is arguably the hardest skill we've learned in our lives and up until this point we've just adopted all of these psychological barriers these limiting beliefs that prevent us from thinking that everything is just as easy as learning to walk we look back and it's like I don't even remember learning to walk but I can walk just fine me 10 years ago had no idea how to build a business now I could probably spin one up and make however much money I wanted in the course of a year if I did things right of course but that's it for this one uh to our writer is also Link in the description free Power Planner free seven days to genius ideas challenge something else is free down there I don't know look in the description have a good rest of your day peace
