Step by step 0 to 8000$ per month: A Complete Marketing Guide for Solo Entrepreneurs
How to start living out of your personal brand
There are 3 levels in a bootstrapped business for young entrepreneurs:
1 — Reach 100k$ of annual sales. You need to master Sales and Marketing which include product-market fit, branding, social media management, boosting word to mouth
2 — Reach 500k$ of annual sales. You need to master Operations which include managing a team of 5–6 members, delegating tasks, building Standard Operation system, start a company culture, track KPIs on each business dimension.
3 — Reach 1m$ of annual sales. You need to master leadership skills which include active listening, giving mental support, being an inspiration, coach team member, generate enthusiast, build a strong company culture, give credits, show how its done, high achiever, constant learner of life, reached high spiritual level releasing emotions, takes responsibility, says “we”, problem solver, fix breakdowns, stay strong during a crisis.
In this article, we’ll talk about the steps to reach your first 100k$ annually.
This process for a new entrepreneur can take 1–2 years. I've listed a monthly scale of revenue, type of service/product and time of execution as a reference but don't fully rely on them it also depends on many other factors.
Type of service/product scale:
1. Selling Low Ticket Service/Product: Value of 10–100$
2. Selling Medium Ticket Service/Product: Value of 100–500$
3. Selling High Ticket Service/Product: 500–2000$
Step 1: Build a product-market fit
0–500$
Selling Low Ticket Service/Product
1–3rd months
- Take action, launch a product an invite your friends
- Offer your service/product a few times to at least 100 customers
- Constantly improve, tweak your service/product toward total satisfaction and genuine life-changing customer experience
Resources:
Understanding Product/Market Fit: From Start to Finish
Step 2: Learn deeply about all your customer’s needs
500–1000$
Selling Low Ticket Service/Product
3–4th months
- Create a customer avatar and business model canva
- Find unique communication channels to find your audience
- Start building a community, detailed database and find new customer needs you could satisfy with a freebie or giveaway contest or collaboration
Resources:
Create a business model canva
Customer avatar and journey template
Step 3: Create an appealing brand
1000–1500$
Selling Low Ticket Service/Product
4–5th months
- Find an attractive name and slogan
- Create a logo and core social media pages with trendy banners (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube). Write a first article presentation and vision for your brand
- Build the marketing of your service/product while customers are interacting with it. (photos, video trailer, video interview, poster, flyers)
Resources:
26 Companies With Really Catchy Slogans & Brand Taglines
4 Ways You Can Create a More Memorable & Appealing Brand
How to Choose Your Brand Name in 5 Simple Steps
Step 4: Build Social Proof
1500–2000$
Selling Low & Medium Ticket Service/Product
5–6th months
- Collect customer reviews (written and video) that you’ll link on your website, social media, and a review platform like Trustpilot
- Build a first landing page with a lead magnet
- Create second level social media pages to help your google first-page reference (Unsplash, Reddit, Pinterest, Quora, LinkedIn)
Resources:
17 Ways To Social Proof Your Brand
The Ultimate Guide to Get Results With Social Proof Marketing
Step 5: Automate sales with a website
2000–3000$
Selling Low & Medium Ticket Service/Product
6–8th months
- Create an eCommerce store (Shopify is by far the best offering out there but can lead to 500$/months with all the apps so starting with wordpress.org with WooCommerce is a good option)
- Start connecting your store with automation apps for newsletters, SMS, popup, urgency incentive, upsell, discount promotion on specific holidays, etc)
Resources:
How to Sell Online — Shopify Blog section
WooCommerce Marketing Blog Section
Step 6: Create content to drive traffic toward your site
3000–4000$
Selling Low & Medium Ticket Service/Product
8–10th months
- Choose one marketing channel of choice and go all-in on it (create high-quality videos for youtube or articles for Medium and Linkedin or consistent photos and short videos for Instagram)
- Create a content creation calendar
- Reach out to potential collaborators to cross-promote your content
Resources:
Weekly content planner template
How to Build a Personal Brand with Content Marketing
11 Steps to Create a Content Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business
Step 7: Develop a word to mouth strategy, growth hacking
4000–6000$
Selling Low & Medium Ticket Service/Product
8–10th months
- Create marketing affiliate referring commissions and find 2 other creative growth hacking techniques pushing the word to mouth.
- Create a Loyalty Plan
- Build a team of 5–8 ambassadors
Resources:
13 Word Of Mouth Hacks For Making Customers Love You (& Tell Everyone About Your Brand)
Word of Mouth Marketing in 2020: How to Create a Strategy for Social Media Buzz & Skyrocket Referral Sales
How to Create a Successful Brand Ambassador Program in 5 Steps
Step 8: Build visibility exchange partnerships and collaboration
6000–8000$
Selling Low & Medium & High Ticket Service/Product
10–12th months
- Research and list all potential small partnerships in your industry (brands, businesses, influencers)
- Hire a business developer, build an exchange of visibility agreement. Create a B2B sale funnel tracker to follow the work your Business Developer
- The best strategy is to create interviews for podcasts or other communication channels. The interviewee will share with his database and you are building content you can adapt for different channels. You are also creating a deep relation with this person opening up personally about his life.
Resources:
11 Free Tools and Apps Every Business Developer Should Use
How to Make Your First YouTube Collab Happen
General Marketing Resources
Books
10 Best Marketing Books of All Time
Top 10 Best Digital Marketing Books To Read In 2020
Influencers
The Top 100 Marketing Influencers to Follow in 2020
Youtube Marketing Channel
8 Marketing YouTube Channels You Should Follow to Keep Learning During Quarantine
