I’m going to save you A LOT of pain.
But you will have to go through some pain at first (regarding your ego).
Nobody cares about your skills, interests, what you can build, or what you can help with.
People are selfish.
They only care about what those skills, interests, and help can do for them.
Specifically, what it can do to impact their direct human experience and quality of life.
To do this correctly, you need to understand where all burning, biological, and evergreen problems exist.
The Eternal Markets Health. Wealth. Relationships.
Those are the eternal markets.
Under one umbrella, the main eternal market is Happiness — in more sustainable terms: improving someone’s quality of life.
Drill them into your brain.
Stop thinking about your skills and interests.
Start thinking about how your skills and interests help solve problems in the eternal markets.
How can your skill or interest help someone:
Make more money
Free up more time
Increase their life enjoyment
End unconscious pains
Boost their self-esteem
What is the real-world utility behind your ideas.
Do you see where I am going with this?
Leaders are those that help others self-actualize.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said in the previous section — “As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few."
Solving problems relating to basic human needs and helping them self-actualize is the principle in this case.
Your method for solving a problem within one or multiple of those verticals is how you win.
I have seen too many creators and solopreneurs fail because they cannot practice and internalize this.
People don’t care about the method. If someone wants to make more money within the wealth vertical, they can:
Freelance
Affiliate marketing
Consulting
Take online surveys
Software development to get a job
Driving for Uber or Lyft
I could go on and on. When someone wants to increase their income, they will use your method IF you can provide a compelling argument for it.
We will go deeper into this when we talk about influence and persuasion.
I would encourage you to think about the millions of methods that can be used to solve problems within each of the health, wealth, and relationships verticals.
Your sole purpose with all of this is to present a persuasive argument as to why your method is best for that person.
Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Your content should be positioned in a way that targets a specific pain or benefit that lies within Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs.
Pains and benefits. Pains and benefits. PAINS. AND. F**KING. BENEFITS.
Act like I’m yelling at you because I am.
Do not write a single piece of content, create a product, or pitch a service without having these in mind.
This does not only apply to content.
This applies to every single touchpoint of your brand.
Your social media profile
Your free lead magnet
Your email opt-in copywriting
Your emails themselves
Your landing pages and sales pages
Your entire website
The teachings in your products
Your content, replies, and anything you post online
This is the foundation of persuasion and sparking behavior change.
Behavior change is how you get other’s to improve their lives. In turn, they will attribute their success to you. Win-win.
Keep in mind:
You have to experience these things before you can teach them to someone that is one step behind you.
If you want to make it in business (and the world) you have to pursue continuous personal development — especially in the areas of your interests and expertise.
Treat this as a seed and allow it to be planted in your head.
Be Mindful
Consider the content or products you have already created (or other’s content or products that readers have been exposed to).
What stage are they at? What are they aware of? How can you position your message to impact that specific person in their journey?
The Beginner Market & Mindset One of the biggest mistakes I see creators, solopreneurs, and other online business owners make (again, pertaining to ego):
(Side note: notice how I am introducing this topic with a pain — because it makes you interested and keeps you reading.)
They refuse to adopt a beginner’s mindset.
They subconsciously see themselves as “too smart” for posting beginner-level content.
Newsflash: 90+% of the market are beginners.
ESPECIALLY those that are on short form, top-of-funnel platforms like:
TikTok
LinkedIn (in some regards)
These are the easiest platforms to grow on for this reason.
If you can teach former you (that was a beginner) how to get to where you are now in a streamlined way, you win.
That is more difficult than it sounds (hence this course), but that is the key to success in a nutshell.
This is why beginner products sell the best.
Just look at a course website like Udemy or Skillshare.
(Seriously, go look at beginner products in an area you think you could teach. Buy one of the courses for cheap. If you used that product as inspiration to create one for your own brand, you could charge more and sell it to the loyal audience you build. Remember: saturation doesn’t exist when you are selling from a unique perspective to your Niche Of One audience. People buy from you because it’s you, not a huge centralized platform that they aren’t even aware of.)
This is why beginner content goes viral.
Just look at Twitter platitudes.
The problem with all of this is “standing out” from the crowd — which is where an impeccable personal brand, novel perspectives, and an education-based content ecosystem comes into play.
When those come together as you go through the course, you will win in the sea of creators that have no idea what they are doing in regards to marketing (in other words, they are beginners, you instantly surpass 90+% of your competitors.)
Here is a general, foolproof process for making a solid income:
Post beginner and intermediate level content from your unique perspective (based on research and experience)
Educate people and go more in-depth with longer-form emails, articles, and a lead magnet to raise them up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (THIS is where you can show how smart you are and build a deeper connection without having to worry about the algorithm).
Sell a beginner level product to filter out buyers from free-loaders
Again, you are educating them to the point of being a fit for your other products or services (creating your own customers in a sense).
Upsell another product, membership, or freelance / consulting service to those that purchased your product.
It is not optimal to build everything out in that order… but that’s up to you to discover by trying it out.
When in doubt — go beginner level.
You Probably Have Enough Experience
Don’t sell yourself short. If you are taking this course, I’m sure you’ve improved certain areas of your life.
Reflect on those times — did you know anything similar to what you know now?
Would your seemingly “basic” advice help your former self? Yes? Then it will help others. Zoom out.