3 Secrets to WIN as a Startup!

How to sell to entrepreneurs. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube video viewers, love you guys, Josh, who's trying to start a new business that caters to entrepreneurs. So he wrote in with this question: Evan, I recently stumbled upon your YouTube channel. I must say I enjoy it. I love how you talk about hard work and passion for fellow entrepreneurs. I'm developing my business model. As you know, 70-90% of businesses fail according to who you get a stat from. Most startups don't have the money to afford a consultant. I was thinking of starting more of a startup assessment company My company charges a small fee to review your plan and idea. I think it makes sense to get a professional opinion on whether an idea is viable or not. It could potentially save a startup a lot of time and money. And then my company would basically provide a yes or no statement, a why. My company would then offer full consultant services if the startup wants to chase the dream. What do you think? Josh. So Josh, I love the passion of wanting to help entrepreneurs. It's something I can relate to. It's so challenging because entrepreneurs don't have money, right? Startup entrepreneurs, for the most part, don't have money. And I've seen so many people with great intentions start a whole vast amount of different kinds of businesses with different models, and they almost never work, mainly because the people they're servicing, entrepreneurs, just don't have the cash. And it's hard to get paid what you're worth, it's hard for you even just to survive if you're selling to market who doesn't have any money. So there are a few ways around it, and hopefully one of these strategies will work with you. The first one is go deep. And go deep means go find one particular niche that you can focus on that does have money. Most startups don't, but some do. And so I would look at— if you really want to get this consultant service business off the ground, I would look at retired people who are starting new businesses. I would look at people who are transitioning from from one successful career to another. You might look at a professional who's going from being a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist or an accountant and is sick of their job and now is wanting to start their business. Somebody who's made money already and now is launching a new business. But the new startup, you know, young people entrepreneurs is really hard. It's not that it's not possible, it's just, it's really hard because they don't have the cash. So how do you get paid what you're worth, especially consulting services, when your customer doesn't have the cash? Again, there are a few people, there are a few markets. Find them, go deep with them. Second one is go wide. And go wide means instead of helping people in a really one-on-one way, really specific, really deep, You're helping lots of people in a little way, and you're getting a mass audience. So the way to sell it is— and this is what I did for a long time on my site and still do— you have a popular website, you can sell advertising against it. You have worksheets or guides that you sell at a low price that entrepreneurs can afford. That's what I do with my Zuga guides. They start off at $7 each. That's an affordable price, but I'm not in detail helping entrepreneurs one-on-one. You're gaining my knowledge through a guy that you work through. You could sell to big brands like I work with Dell and American Express and Google and Microsoft who are trying to reach entrepreneurs. So those guys have the big cash where the entrepreneurs don't. Now this may not be the model you want to work with, right? Even look at this video. Instead of me responding to your email, I'm making a video so that you could benefit from it, but also other people can benefit from it. So the net that I cast is very wide, and I help people in a small way by them watching my videos, hopefully in a big way. But it's not me coming in to your business and helping you one-on-one, because for that I'd have to make a lot more money, and entrepreneurs typically don't have that cash. Okay, the third way is become an angel, and this is where a real opportunity may exist for you and something that I'm I'm getting into. The companies that you love, that you look at, the real opportunity to make money with a startup entrepreneur isn't to charge them a consulting fee because they already are strapped for cash and you're taking money away from them to be able to grow their business, right? Entrepreneurs need cash at the start, a lot of them, to get their things going, right? If you have a limited amount of money, then you want to invest in the things that are going to help you grow, right? And yes, consulting services do help you grow, but again, the real money to be made off a startup company is become an investor. So trade your services for a piece of the company. If you really believe in the team, if you really believe in the product or service, then help them grow. And this you have to be careful with because you're not getting paid anything at the start, right? You're taking their equity and you gotta work really hard and it'll take some time before this company takes off. So it has to really be the right opportunities and I turn away most of the deals that come to me and I look at a few and I've gone with a few companies that have worked. But that's the real way if you want to make a lot of money and have a real impact on a one-on-one scale is to become an angel investor with the business. So 3 strategies for you: 1. Go deep, target a niche, somebody who actually has money who can pay you. 2. Go wide, help tons of entrepreneurs, build an audience, and then sell advertising or sell guides and worksheets or sell 2) partnerships with big brands, and then 3) become an angel investor. Those are the 3 ways, the 3 models I've seen work to help entrepreneurs where most of the other models that I've seen just fall apart. And I want you to be successful. Anything that helps entrepreneurs, I wanna help you. I wanna see that thing take off because I don't think there's enough good quality information, resources, content, motivation to help entrepreneurs take their idea and take their dream and turn it into reality. So keep going, congratulations, if I can be of further help let me know. Believe. For those of you watching the video, give it a thumbs up below, it always makes me wanna do more videos for you. Let me know what you think in the comments underneath, leave your comments, let me know if you would pay a consultant to help you launch your company, leave that in the feedback. And you wanna see more videos like this, click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon.