“People say you need to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true... Because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up.” - Steve Jobs
Today is the final day I’ll be accepting applications for one on one coaching.
So I thought I’d rapid fire a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned from:
- 16 years in business
- Generating 8 figures in revenue
- Privately coaching 6, 7, and 8 figure founders for the past half-decade
Let’s roll.
0 to 6 figures is about experimentation.
At zero, you have no idea what works, so getting to 6 figures means trying a ton of sh*t until you make something click.
Experiment → iterate → repeat (as fast as possible).
6 to 7 figures is about subtraction.
The goal is to find...
- One market
- 1-2 offers
- And one marketing channel (YT, IG, paid ads, cold outreach, etc)
...That work for your business.
Once you do, ruthlessly eliminate everything else until you've hit at least a million in annual revenue.
7 to 8 figures is about team & finances.
Getting to 10M+ usually requires adding one more offer and one more marketing channel, which requires building a team while -- most importantly -- not running out of money.
This is where profit margins get razor-thin, hairlines recede, and you either earn your adult pants or lose your shirt. Attempt with caution.
But 2-3M per year is often the ideal goal for most founders.
At this level, you're making enough money to not have to think about money anymore, while running a relatively lean, simple business that still gives you lifestyle freedom.
(assuming you build it well)
Beyond this level, scaling can become more complicated than it's worth...
Unless you're a savage hell-bent on building an empire -- in which case, go get 'em boss.
How to pick the perfect first business.
If you don’t have expert-level authority in a topic:
Learn a skill (lead gen, media buying, copywriting, etc) and offer it as a service.
If you do have expert-level authority:
Start an info or coaching business teaching what you know.
Do not:
Mess with SaaS or E-Com until you have serious skills & capital (they are far harder & more expensive than the internet wants you to believe).
Paid traffic is the holy grail.
My first business, EGTBasketball, did multi-7 figures from paid ads before we made a single social media post.
Even when we had 600k+ YT subscribers, 80%+ of our revenue still came from paid ads.
Making paid traffic work is like building your own digital ATM:
Put $1 in, and get $3, $5, or $10 back — on command. It’s worth the struggle.
It is nearly impossible to scale without a high-ticket offer.
Info, coaching, and service businesses rarely work without a high-ticket offer (between 2k-10k+) either as your core product, or on the back-end.
This one move can make the difference between struggling to survive and generating life-changing wealth.
Not having a Unique Mechanism is shrinking your conversion rate.
A shocking number of businesses don’t have a Unique Mechanism; a branded, signature method that makes your offer unique from others.
At EGT we had one for every offer:
Micro-Drills, Player Typing, Deep Game, etc.
Identifying your unique method and giving it a clear name can radically improve conversion.
A well-crafted origin story is a marketing weapon.
The most successful offers are usually backed by a unique origin story, and it always goes like this:
- The creator had the same problem as their customer
- And discovered a unique solution
- That helped them achieve the result their customer wants to achieve.
Find yours and tell it everywhere.
But your audience doesn’t give a sh*t about your story.
They only care about seeing themselves in your story.
Your story needs to perfectly match their current experience; their pains, struggles and desires. Or it won't land.
Working 4-6 hours per day is undefeated.
After 16 years, I am 100% convinced that the sweet spot for high-quality deep work is:
3 x 90-120 minute work blocks per day (with full focus & rest in-between).
Anything more usually leads to low-quality work and wasted effort.
(this isn't theory; it's backed by cognitive science done by Cal Newport, K. Anders Ericsson, John Pencavel, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and many others)
Use the extra time to build capacity.
So, what do you do with the rest of your day?
Train, meditate, and read / learn.
Build your overall capacity, so you bring a bigger, sharper mind and stronger energy to your work.
Mastering the internal skills will give you superpowers.
Very few founders ever develop:
- Control of attention
- Nervous system regulation
- The ability to override impulses & stress responses
- The ability to clear residual emotions that cloud clarity
- Intuitive intelligence
- Systematic thinking skills
Which is why those who do appear almost supernatural.
Meditation & internal practices, when done correctly, can develop abilities you didn't even know were possible.
Financial systems separate the amateurs from the pros.
Amateurs usually guess at how much money is coming in and going out, and they’re usually wrong — which is why they usually run out of money and go broke (even if their offer is successful).
Pros, on the other hand, know their numbers inside and out.
Implement a financial system like Profit First immediately, and track it meticulously.
Play the game to beat it.
The purpose of your first business should be to accumulate 5-10M in invested assets as quickly as possible.
If that 5-10M earns 5-10% per year, you can live off of passive income and be free of the need to work to make money — which opens up the next level of entrepreneurship:
Building businesses for reasons beyond money.
(that's when the game really gets interesting...)
Business in one sentence
Solve a painful problem for a specific person in a unique way.
Bang.
I'm realizing we could keep going all day, so I'll stop it there for now.
I hope you enjoyed.
Let me know if you want more of these, and maybe we'll do round 2.
- T
P.S. One last time:
Here’s the link to apply for one on one coaching before the doors close tonight.