Some people will say “off with his head” for that headline.
This article isn’t for those people. They’ll be triggered by anything because that’s what they’ve always done.
This strategy is for people who can see through get-rich-quick schemes and want a practical strategy anyone can execute.
I’ve seen this blueprint executed repeatedly among my online creator friends. I’ve done it, too, as many of you know. The other day I even met a 14 year old doing it — no joke.
Here’s the realistic way to hit 7-figures online in the next 365 days. No bullshit.
Pick a topic you give a crap about 🔗
The biggest mistake people make is they try to make money online doing something they don’t give a crap about. It’s too hard. Why?
To make money online you have to be:
- Patient
- Ruthless
- Obsessed
- Show personality
- Give a damn about a cause
It’s impossible to do all those things if what you’re doing online feels like work. You’ll just give up when it gets hard. Simple.
That’s why all those “how to make money online” tweets help nobody because they focus on the means to do it, not the topic to do it in.
Choose a topic you can get lost in for ages and make $0 from.
Publish stories and tweets 🔗
All forms of making money online now require content.
Even if you run an eCommerce store, you need copywriting for your products and a company story to inspire people.
When you use social media to tell stories related to your future online empire, it sounds less like paid ads so people will listen.
Obviously you have to be interesting, helpful, and entertaining to capture people’s attention. I like to say “just act how you would if we went to the pub for a few beers.”
For 99% of people that’s interesting and differentiated enough.
Run polls, surveys, and ask people questions 🔗
The difference with the internet is you have access to billions of people.
That means even if you choose some tiny topic or live in a rural town of 20 people, you can still find enough of an audience to make money from. The part people screw up is they guess:
Wrong. People who succeed online are data-driven. All this means is they run polls on social media. Or they ask questions to people on Reddit. Or they send surveys to their email list (or a list they borrow).
The first response to a question often doesn’t give you the insight. You have to dig deeper, otherwise, you draw fake conclusions and try to monetize them, dooming you to failure.
Chuck ’em in a free Slack community 🔗
Publishing free content online is great.
If that’s all you do, though, you become a slave to the algorithms that’ll ruin your life. Take the people you chat with in the previous step and add them to a free Slack channel.
Then informally ask them even more questions, the way you would if you were to chat up the opposite sex on a date to see if they’re marriage material.
The free Slack community becomes your marketing channel later on. It’s a direct way to pitch offers without any middlemen or ads.
Find out their biggest problems 🔗
The whole point of all this data collection and chatting with random people on the internet isn’t to become popular. No.
It’s to work out what the heck people’s problems are and then solve them with a solution you can ethically make money off and feel great about.
The key isn’t to uncover desires.
Why? To fulfill desires doesn’t have the same urgency as administering a vaccine to a painful problem. Especially in a deep recession (like the one we’re in) you don’t want to offer nice-to-haves.
Turn it into a system 🔗
Finding customer problems is nothing new.
You’ve probably heard about it or done it in your job. The part most people miss is solving the problem with a system. I like to find problems others have, that I also have, and then solve the problem for me first as the MVP[1].
As I solve my own problem, I document the journey and capture it in my Roam Research note-taking tool.
Now I have a system. I then validate it and strength-test it. I give it to others so they can test it, too, and then use the feedback to iterate on the system.
The reason systems are so powerful is that they’re easier to implement than random lessons or platitudes. People want to be told what to do and how. They’re smart enough to then customize your system to their tastes.
Solve the problem for free 🔗
This one pet-peeve makes my blood boil. I see it all the time.
Some wannabe make-money-dude wants to earn 7 figures online. Good for them. So they build a product or service and then try to sell it.
It never works though.
Why?
We need social proof to believe you’ve successfully solved the problem for others before we bet on the solution with our own money. It’s piss-easy to do too.
Giveaway your solution (aka system) for free to those you spoke with in previous steps. All they need to do is give you a video testimonial if what you’ve built successfully helps them. They win, you win.
Make the next round of people pay an impulse buy price 🔗
Some smart people know the free strategy in the last step. What they don’t do though is go from free to a decent starting price.
Once your free offer is validated the smartest thing you can do is price your product or service at an impulse buy price, which means under $100 USD.
The goal in this phase isn’t to make money, it’s to validate if people will pay at all for what you’ve got to offer.
Raise prices like a motherfucker 🔗
As you get more validation you’ve solved the problem, raise prices.
$100 USD can become $200, then $500, then $1000, then (if you dare) $5000. This is the phase where all the money is made, and most people never get there because they sell an offer that’s not data-backed and is poorly priced.
If I was to sum up the whole offer and pricing stage I’d say this: take baby steps the whole way.
Let data and customers make decisions for you, rather than your discombobulated monkey brain that thinks it knows everything.
Get so good your customers word of mouth does the selling for you 🔗
Marketing is bullshit. So are personal brands.
I have never marketed a single thing online & don’t plan to. And I especially hate giving dumbass companies like Facebook money to buy ads.
The goal is to sell awesome stuff with proven systems people can implement that solve their problems. It’s so rare that when you do, they’ll be so damn happy they’ll tell people about you.
That word-of-mouth effect does all the future selling for you.
Then all you have to focus on is continuing to deliver on your promises and supporting customers.
Final Thought 🔗
What I have just presented may sound overly simplistic.
That’s because it is. Making 7-figures online in the next year isn’t hard if you implement it. 90% of people won’t though. The skepticism virus trapped in their brain full of fear will tell them it’s not possible.
So they’ll give up and never realize their online potential.
As I’ve learned the hard way, you can’t help everyone. My promise to you is if you try this realistic formula above you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Making money online isn’t hard when you solve humanity’s problems with systems.
