Step by step 0 to 8000$ per month: A Complete Marketing Guide for Solo Entrepreneurs

5 min readNov 16, 2020

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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.

40+ solo entrepreneurs & contractors pushing each other to double our monthly income together in 30 days. https://jfbrou.com/30-day-abundance-challenge/

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.