What can you learn about creating a strong and profitable online business, from three of the greatest entrepreneurs in history, whose combined personal wealth, is well over 100 billion dollars? Well, we’re going to find out and you’ll get some fresh ideas, motivation, and inspiration that you can use to move your business forward, especially if you’re thinking about creating and selling digital information products. This will show you how to find your passion, so you can build a business that you love and a brand that you can be proud of.
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Today we’re going to look at advice from three of the most successful and most recognised names in the business world, and draw a common parallel between each of them, so you can see what their number one secret to success is, and how you can use that knowledge for yourself to produce the biggest long-term rewards.
Then, I’m going to show you how to actually implement that advice, because it’s ok learning this stuff but if you don’t use it, if you don’t do anything with it, then it becomes useless, right? So I’m going to give you an exercise that will help you to take the action you need to get the results you want and build a strong business you can be proud of.
So today we’re going to start off by checking out a few short clips and we’re going to learn a single ‘lesson for success’, from three entrepreneurs, and see how it fits into the bigger picture of your online business. Let’s start with the legendary Warren Buffett, who is one of the most profitable investors of all time and one of the richest men on the planet.
We’re also going to see if that lesson resonated as true with the late, iconic Steve Jobs, whose lasting influence has changed the way we use technology forever, and turned Apple into the biggest company on earth as a result.
And finally, we’re also going to see if the multi-billionaire, Oprah… Winfrey who’s been labeled the ‘Queen of ALL media’, and is frequently listed as the most influential woman in the world, shares the same perspective as Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs. Here’s a hint, when it comes to success, they all say the same thing.
And because their approach to business obviously works, I’m going to give you a hands-on exercise you can do, to pull it all together.
But listen, as usual, this stuff isn’t for everybody, this isn’t for the people who want something for nothing. Just like anything else worth having, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take hard work.
So with that disclaimer out of the way, I’ve selected three of the most successful entrepreneurs that I believe we can all learn from. So you’re going to learn what they all have in common and how that enabled them to grow their businesses, and how you can use that knowledge to make your business more successful too.
You see, when we study the masters, in any practice or discipline, we look to those who’ve blazed a trail before us, in the hope of finding golden nuggets of valuable information that might help us to achieve similar results. The truth is, the titans of industry all have one thing in common. They all focused on delivering value to their markets, first and foremost, above their own needs.
And as a reflection of that, the great thing about the global business community that we are in right now, is the majority of successful people understand that ‘success breeds success’, that means when we share and exchange knowledge and ideas, it’s actually good for everybody.
So the great thing about entrepreneurship is, successful people actively encourage other people to become successful. They focus on serving other people first, they focus on delivering absolute value to their market. And that’s why people like Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffet share their knowledge. Each one delivers absolute value to their industries. So let’s see what we can learn from them.
Let’s start with Warren Buffett and find out what he has to say. Just check out this short clip and see what he says.
Ok, Warren Buffett believes that finding your passion is key. So let’s see what Oprah Winfrey has to say.
Right, as we can see Oprah believes that success starts with finding your true calling, which is very similar to what we’ve learned from Warren Buffett, right?
So now let’s find out what the late Steve Jobs had to say.
Ok, so Steve Jobs also said that we need to have a passion for what we do. Now we’ve got three of the wealthiest and most influential entrepreneurs, of all time, all saying the same thing.
It’s pretty clear that, in order to become successful, we have to start doing what we love. Finding something we believe in and building a business around it, that seems to be the starting point.
That’s actually how I started Profit Copilot, you see, years before I started this website, I built another site that I believed in. Some of you probably know it, that site exposed corruption and injustice, things like modern day slavery and that kinda stuff. And that website made me feel good because I was contributing something positive back into the world.
Anyway, over the next 15 years or so, I noticed that I also felt passionate about the marketing side of things, that, my interest had shifted into the technical and psychological stuff, so things like getting traffic, copywriting, figuring out how to sell without being weird, creating products, shooting videos, and all that stuff. I’d noticed that those activities turned out to be a lot of fun, I’d become equally as passionate about the marketing side of thing and because I’d already grown a website from nothing to millions of hits, I felt qualified to share what I’d learnt over the years, and the end result of that, is Profit Copilot.
I’d noticed that those activities turned out to be a lot of fun, I’d become equally as passionate about the marketing side of thing and because I’d already grown a website from nothing to millions of hits, I felt qualified to share what I’d learnt over the years, and the end result of that, is Profit Copilot.
But what if you don’t know what your passion is, what if you’re stuck for ideas? Well, I’ve got a quick exercise you can do right now that will help you to unlock your passion so you can start to move forward.
I’m going to ask you to answer a few questions, and when you answer them, you’ll have the building blocks you need to discover what kind of information product to make, or what kind website to make, or what kind of videos to shoot, or the type of podcast to start.
And then once you know that, we’re going to drill down and find out EXACTLY who should be targeted, we’re going to find out exactly who wants to buy the product YOU WANT to make.
You’re going to find ways to deliver value to your marketplace and deliver reliable information that works, that genuinely helps people to improve their situation and genuinely helps people to solve a problem. I’m going to ask you just four questions, and when you answer them, you’ll have found your passion.
So this exercise will help you to find out HOW you can do all of those awesome things. Ok, so think about all the things you love doing, maybe you love cooking, or writing, or teaching, or maybe you love talking, maybe you love creating things, maybe you enjoy surfing, or playing guitar, maybe it’s sewing and stitching, maybe it’s running, or working out, maybe you enjoy maintaining a fish tank, or playing golf. Think about how you spend your time, what you’ve invested your time into, think about the activities that make you feel happy, the things that you love talking about.
So make a big long list of all the activities that matter to you, and now ask yourself this question:
Of all of these awesome things, which topics do you feel like you can help other people to learn more about? And you don’t have to know a lot. You don’t have to be an expert, you don’t have to know everything about it, you just have to know enough to help someone get started, to just help someone understand the basics.
Ok, once you know what you’d like to help people with, ask yourself who are they? Who are the people you want to help? They might be people just like you. They might be people who are now, where you once had been. Think about the circumstances they’re in, what questions they have, they problem they need to overcome.
Then ask yourself, WHAT do they need that will help them to overcome that problem? What’s the solution, how would you solve the problem?
Ok, now ask yourself, once you’ve given them the solution, HOW do they change? What happens afterward? What’s the end result they’ll get once they apply your advice?
Now write down the answers and have a look at what you’ve got. You now know what you feel passionate about, you know who needs your help, you know how to help them, and you know how it changes their lives.
So you’ve got the outline, the formula, the template you can use to build a business that you’ll enjoy, that makes you feel complete, and that gives you a purpose. And that’s amazing, but what makes this so powerful? Well, out of these four questions, only one is about you. The other three questions are about other people.
Most of the questions are about the people you can help. They are: who are the people you can help? What do they need? And how they change? These questions force you to look beyond yourself and your own needs, and they force you to look for ways to deliver value to your market. Just like we learned at the beginning, the most successful people, all put their own needs aside and deliver value to their market first.
Now before I go, I’ve got an extra bonus for you here. I’ll show you how to find your ideal customers. So, let’s drill down and find out specifically who’s going to buy your stuff.
Here, we’re going to narrow down the number of people in your niche, we’re going to reduce the number of people in your marketplace. And I know this might sound counter-productive, I mean, why would you want to limit the number of customers, right? Well, there’s a very good reason for that, you see, the Internet is so big we only need to target the people who are most likely to buy. Online, we do better by selling to a specific group of people.
I’ve got three more questions you need to answer to help you do that. So for this exercise I want you to decide, inside your niche, of all the people that exist in it, and there’s probably millions, – ask yourself; are there a lot of people who are motivated to buy a solution? Are they spending money?
Then ask yourself, are they actively looking for the solution? Are they motivated enough to start searching for help?
And finally, ask yourself, are they having trouble finding a good solution?
So what’s happening here, at each stage, we’re narrowing down, we’re only targeting the people who are more likely to buy from us.
And when we do this, it means we don’t have to use any marketing hype or high-pressure sales tactics because you’re only dealing with people who already want a solution. And we also cut out a large portion of the competition when we do it like this too. And we save money on advertising because we’re only targeting a small group of highly motivated buyers.
Ok, so today you’ve learned a lot from this. And now you should have a roadmap on how to deliver value to your market because when you do, you instantly become more attractive to the people in your niche. When you demonstrate that you can help them, by actually helping them, you create trust, which in turn creates profit, and happy, loyal customers who become repeat buyers year after year.
You’ve also seen what three of the world’s most iconic business minds all have in common. You’ve learned that the strongest businesses all start with a passion and you’ve answered the four vital questions every responsible entrepreneur needs to ask themselves.
So you know which area to focus on, which area will produce the highest reward for you because it’s something you believe in and something you feel passionate about.
You know who your customers are, you know who needs your help, you know how to help them and you know what kind of result you can give them.
Then, as a bonus, we figured out how to narrow down the marketplace and find out who’s most likely to buy your stuff – and as a result, you don’t have to worry about competing in crowded markets or having to use weird sales tricks.
Ok, so that’s a lot of stuff and I think I’ll leave it there for today guys, I hope you’ve found this to be immensely valuable and I hope you’re filled with fresh ideas, motivation, and inspiration.