Over 99% of companies stall out as “micro” businesses.
Most people invest money, energy, stress, effort, time away from family, and years to build something that, at best, replaces a well-paying job’s salary.
The crazy thing is…it requires no more work, effort, or time to build a business that gives you complete freedom than to build one that barely scrapes by.
The REAL FREEDOM you crave is achieved when you get to around $10 million in annual revenue.
At that level, your business produces enough profit to 1) pay yourself well, 2) pay for a team of high-caliber people to run your business, and 3) retain additional profits for new growth opportunities and to cover inevitable unexpected problems.
Whether you’re just starting a business, already own a 6- or 7-figure company, or already own a $10M+ business and want it to stay that way, here’s a quick checklist for building an 8-figure company:
- Enter a big market. Avoid tiny niches. Enter only markets that can support your ambitious goals. It’s much easier to build a business with 1 product in huge market than 10 products in tiny markets.
- Offer a unique, differentiated product. For your product, you must be able to answer this question, “What’s different about this product than everything else I’ve seen?”
- Create demand, don’t just capture it. The best business is one that generates its own demand rather than hoping it can siphon off search traffic to produce a few measly sales. Today, Meta advertising is the easiest and most scalable way to generate demand (followed likely by organic social media and influencers.)
- Face reality. As my dad, a Vietnam War veteran has said, “It’s hard to remember why you got into the swamp when you’re neck-deep in alligators.” You must remember what you originally wanted when you got into business. Then compare that to where you’re at today. If you don’t like what you see, change something, such as your product, market, team, or entire business.
- Build teams, not systems. Nobody builds a $10M+ business writing SOPs (standard operating procedures). They get there by hiring good people. Hire the best people you can afford, work with them closely, and make them even better.
- Know that building a $10M+ business is possible for you with the right strategy. Most owners of $10M, $100M, and even $1B companies aren’t smarter than you, they just pursued a better strategy. With the right product, right market, right marketing strategy, and right amount of persistence, you too can build a wonderful business.
There’s one final item on the checklist that causes more people to stall out too early than all other reasons combined…
We know it when we start, but we forget it after years of toil and stress.
Yet it’s the secret to turning building businesses and wealth into a never-ending, fulfilling, enriching game we love.
Watch this free video to rediscover it >>
—Matt