10 Year Plan for Authentic Business (and to reach a semi retirement lifestyle)

About 12 years ago, I started to coach self employed people and entrepreneurs in marketing and then I expanded that to business development or business creation and growth in general. And I have noticed that after teaching and mentoring and coaching thousands of self employed people by this point, there is often a very unrealistic understanding of the timeline of what it takes to go from nothing, you don't have a business zero income to having a full time meaningful income that is recurring and some of which is passive income. So I want to share with you in this video a realistic plan and therefore it has a more realistic timeline. And I'm calling this the ten Year Plan for Authentic Business. All right, so what's possible with this plan, just to give you some, some hope and inspiration and I'm going to refer to my own notes as I, as I talk you through this, is that by the end of the second year you'll have a part time income providing a service that you enjoy and would love to share with more people. By year four, you'll have a full time income which includes one to one service and some group offerings. And then by year 10, you'll have definitely a full time, you'll still have a full time income by that point. It's recurring income and it's also by year 10, somewhat passive and possibly quite passive depending on how much outsourcing you do by that point and allows you for semi retirement and being one of the best in your field as well. And when I say semi retirement, the reason I say that is because I don't believe in full retirement. That's why my plan talks about this. But if you use the plan, you could technically create full retirement if you automate and outsource everything. It's just that in my viewpoint, to have a really authentic business, one that is providing genuine deep value for the customers and the clients, semi retirement makes more sense. Because if you completely take your hands off of the business, what happens is that you will surrender the innovation and the continued growth of value for your customers. You'll surrender that and your business will become more and more irrelevant. So yes, of course you can retire if you save enough money and decide to sell the business or close the business. But in this viewpoint, my personal goal is to never retire until I have to because of mental decline or physical decline. But to work as long as I can, at least in a semi, semi, part time way. Anyway, that's what this plan allows you to do. So let's get going. All right, so the first, the first year. And by the way, as I'M talking through this. Please think imagine yourself doing this. And if you have any blocks to following the plan, please go ahead and comment below and let me know what your question is. And I'd be happy to address it briefly and in whatever time I can. So thank you. First year. The focus in year one is authentic content marketing. And the reason is because to actually have an authentic business, a business where you're able to express your soul's calling or express your gifts and your talents and do the kind of work that you really enjoy working with the kind of people that you enjoy. It starts with building an authentic audience, an audience of true fans who actually care about your message, care about your journey, and really match your energy signature. And sometimes I talk about this and I don't talk about it often enough, which is that your energy signature is unique in the world. Nobody else has your energy signature. And it's hard to even for me to explain what that is, but it's some combination of your voice, the way you look, the way you move your face, the way you use your voice, the way you write, the way you think about thoughts and explain things, the way you solve problems, the way you interact with people. That whole combination and more your personality and everything forms what I call your energy signature. And that is really unique in the world. And there are probably tens of thousands of people in the world. Think about this. There are approaching 8 billion people in the world. 8 billion. All right, so what's 1% of 1% of 8 billion? That's very small number, right? Take, take, take 100 random people in the world, and let's just select one of them. It's quite special already. So 1% of 8 billion is 80 million, right? Yes. And then take those one. One out of 100 very special people in the world who more resonate with you. Okay, one out of 100 random people in the world resonate with you. Okay, now let's take. Let's put 100 of those special people in the room, and let's just take even one of those people who resonate with you the most. That's one. What's 1% of 80 million? 800,000 people. Okay, so 800,000 people. And let's say that you were only ever in your lifetime able to reach 1% of those 800,000 people. That's 8,000 true, true fans that you are able to definitely reach in your lifetime. So, my goodness, with 8,000 true, I don't even have 8,000 true fans. I have 8,000 fans. You know, maybe I don't know, 800 of them are true fans or something like that. I don't know. But I'm still long away from reaching those 8,000, right? It's taking. I've been this for 12 years and I have maybe 800 maybe true fans. Maybe it's more like 80 true fans. I'm not sure. But you certainly have something like 8,000 true fans. And year one, you start to reach some of those 8,000 true fans with authentic content marketing. So what is authentic content marketing? It is sharing of yourself, your passions, your learnings, your experiences in a way that you're not trying to pretend to be anybody else. You're sharing as if you're talking to future true friends, which your audience is your audience. The way I think about marketing is it's building true friends at scale. That's what marketing is. And many of you who have begun to work with me more closely, yeah, we're kindred spirits. We're like true friends, right? And now friends, friendships, that's. People can define it differently, but essentially you're becoming friendly with people who resonate with you just for who you are. So that's what authentic content marketing is. You can do. You can write a blog, you can do videos, you can make a podcast, you can use Instagram, you could use whatever social platform you enjoy using and communicate, whether in writing or in video primarily. That's what I recommend is writing or video. Let that be one or both. It tends to be better for building an audience that way. Podcast is okay, but I would recommend podcasts be a side, sort of like an addition to either your core method of content being either writing or video, or if you can do both, that's even better for nurturing and growing an authentic audience. So that's year one, is you're focusing on that also. Also, by the way, year one, you're focusing on then to content marketing, which includes, I should mention, content distribution. If you are just putting your writings or videos out there, but you don't know how to get it to the right people, it's going to be very difficult for you to reach those 8,000 true, true fans. And so my favorite way at this time of this recording of reaching the right people is through Instagram ads and Facebook ads. And in the coming year, I'm also going to be delving more into Google Ads and LinkedIn ads. But if you can possibly do Facebook and Instagram ads, I find that to be the cheapest and the easiest way to reach Google. Our 8,000, each of our 8,000 true, true fans. Yeah. Okay, I don't even have to say true, true fans, really, just true fans. Okay? You have fans and you have true fans, right? And then you have the rest of the world who don't either don't know about you yet or don't resonate with you. And we don't need the whole world. We just like I said, if you had 8,000 true fans, they're going to buy just about everything you create and, or many of the things you create. And that's much, that's more than way more than enough income for semi retirement or retirement. Okay? So, all right, part of year one and year two, very important I should mention, is also sincere work on your joyful productivity habits. Because if you don't know, if you aren't very skillful in managing your energy and your time, managing time is really managing your energy and your boundaries, your boundaries with yourself and with other people and knowing how to prioritize and knowing how to act on your priorities in a calm and joyful and consistent way. So that's joyful productivity. So year one and year two, you should be sincere in working on your joyful productivity habits bit by bit, installing really strategic and good habits. And if you do that, you will be setting yourself up for calm, joyful focus in the lifetime of your business, which is a very enjoyable experience. So year one, authentic content marketing and joyful productivity. Year two, you now bring in one to one services, meaning you are now open to working with clients on a one to one basis. Now why one to one services? Because it's the quickest way to create, to start creating a meaningful authentic income. Right? There's, you know, there's hardly anything more meaningful than being with somebody and serving them with the skills that you so enjoy helping people with. And with year one of authentic content marketing, you now have a bit of an audience, some of whom are probably interested, if not eager to work with you on a one to one basis. Because they've been seeing you on videos if you can, or they've been seeing your writings and now they're, they're saying, hey, can I, can I work with you one to one? So one to one is, is a really a great way to do it. I have a blog post called the Tapering Strategy for Getting Clients. So you might just want to Google that tapering strategy, getting clients. And you'll find my blog post about that. That's really my recommended way to start getting your first 50 clients. You might start with some clients that you are doing for working for free, to get some feedback and testimonials in the beginning. But then you'll start getting paid clients as well. So check that out. That's year two to focus on getting some one to one clients. Now, year three, year three. By year three, you've now created, you know, a part time income, maybe even more with some of your one to one clients. All right, now you're getting, you've gotten months or maybe even a year of working with one to one clients. Now, year three, I recommend you create a group program. Now by the way, I should say that if for any reason you are not wanting to work with one to one clients, maybe you are a busy mother or father, or maybe you're busy caretaking for somebody elderly in your life or somebody else and you have a full time job or whatever it is that prevents you from having enough slots for one to one clients. Then you can essentially skip to year four, which is online courses. But for those of you who do have the time to work with one on one clients, start with that first and then in year three add a group program and maybe also start writing a book. But year three, group program. What do I mean by group program? A group program is basically a really good alternative to a one to one service. You should think of it that way, really. A group program is when someone says, hey, I would love to work with you one to one, but maybe I can't afford to do that right now. Well, then you have a group program to offer them. And a group program can be anything from where you show up, you know, twice a month on a zoom call and you coach your clients or your customers or students. Or you could do it as intensively as the way I do my group program where I show up. Get this, I have three Q&A calls just for my clients every single week. Yeah, in my group program, I have essentially three times four weeks in a month I have 12 Q&A calls just for that group every single month. 12 just for that group every single month. Plus I have another community call that I facilitate once a week in that group. So essentially that group has the option of 16 calls a month with me just for that group. And so that's a very intensive type of group program. But your group program can be more casual, can be, can be less time intensive for you and for them. And that's maybe twice a month you have a group call, maybe it's 90 minutes, maybe it's two hours where you really serve them. And one of the common blocks for Group program creation. People say, well, I know what I do one to one with people and I can really customize my advice and my service to them. But then how do I do that in a group? That's where you, I don't know your work as well as you do, so that's where you need to be creative and figure out how can I deliver my knowledge in a way where it meets many of the group's members. And then I can customize my advice in a group call to one person at a time, knowing that as I customize my advice for one person at a time, others who are watching that call or listening to that call are probably benefiting as well, which chances are they are. And so in a group program, you're going to start to get creative and figure out how do you then deliver your knowledge to multiple people at once. That's your job, that's your work. But it's absolutely can be done. I mean, because imagine, have you ever read a book from an author and go, I have a question for this author and they need to answer me right now. I need them to customize their advice for me right now. No, you don't ever expect that. So think about a book. Well, a group program is much more interactive than a book because they get access to you on a regular basis. And in my group program, I have a private Facebook group and I respond there almost every day. And you can have some kind of group where they can message you and each other and stay accountable, stay motivated, etc. So group program in year number three and possibly also at this point start writing or publishing your first book. Okay? So year four, you now add online courses. And by the way, for those of you who don't want to do one to one service, you can skip directly to year four, so called year four, and do online courses right away. And similarly to what I said before, just like when you're reading a book, you don't expect the author to, you know, respond to you right now when you have a question and when you watch a video, right? Like right now you're watching this video, you don't expect me to drop everything I'm doing and stop talking and answer your question directly, right? It's not realistic. Most of you are watching this after I'm recording this, right? Many of you are watching this after, afterwards. So you don't expect me to drop everything. All right, you got a comment, I got a call. So online course is that idea where you deliver knowledge in a way where you record it you deliver it knowing that many of the people who are going to be watching it later and reading your, your course document later, and they might, you might decide to offer them a chance to ask questions, whether in the course document by adding a comment or by coming to one of your live Q and A calls you might like. I have a monthly live Q and A for my recent students. So online course, you deliver knowledge, okay. And you can create many courses and your courses can be for people at different levels of understanding, right? So online course is year, year four. And by the way, I have a blog post that goes into more details on these things. So feel free to read the blog post to, to find out more. So by this point you now have several streams of income. You have one to one services, you have a group program, or more than one. And by the way, group program, I should mention, could be a large group program, 100 people, 200 people. Sometimes you can call those membership programs. Or it could be a small mastermind of three people, five people, 12 people in a group. And you could have multiple masterminds going at the same time. So group program, be creative in how you structure that. You can have a mastermind. It's like, okay, these five people are at this level and those six people are at that level. And you can have separate masterminds that way or a larger group program and have different calls for different levels there. Okay, so now you have several streams of income, one on one services, group programs, online courses, and maybe even a book or two. Okay, year five. Now year five you're ready to scale your business a bit more with ads and automation. So let me explain. Ads is where you hopefully you've already been doing some ads in year one, experimenting with that. But year five you really focus on building a bigger audience than you have to to date, a much bigger audience with, with like Facebook ads or Google Ads. And, and, and also year five you focus on automation. So year five is ads and automation. You're focused because now you have a system for income, you have a system for one on one clients, group programs, online courses. And now you're, now you can kind of take your eyes off of creating those things so much and focus your efforts on scaling the sales of your courses and automating more using my favorite software for automation, Zapier Z A P I E R Zapier. And I, I am a solopreneur. I don't have any assistance. I really don't. The only time I hire assistants like on Fiverr is occasional like design a Book cover for me or process one of my audiobooks which I record every once in a while. That's it. And maybe some technical thing, but my day to day I do everything. And how do I do everything? I have more than I have, I think getting close to or more than 20. I've definitely created more than 20 online courses. Not all 20 are available on my website right now, but I'm selling multiple courses on a regular basis. And that's all done through automation. I don't, you know, it's, I don't fulfill each sale for sure. It's all, it's all done through automation. Everything is connected and I just answer questions as students have them or once a month in my call. So year five is ads and automation Year six. Now year six is really where I'm at now. Now you might say, George, I thought you'd been in business for 12 years. I have, but I didn't create this 10 year I. Those of you who know my story know that I kind of rebooted my business in around 2013, 2014, because originally when I started in 2009, I was doing business in a very mainstream way. Marketing was done in a very traditional way where it wasn't really matching my authenticity. And so I dropped all of that in around 2013, 2014 and started over. So really since 2014 and 2014 got me, it took me a while to kind of start over and figure out what I wanted to do. So 2014, 2015 was really when I started again. 2014, 2015, I started experimenting with authentic content marketing. I didn't know what that was before I just really started experimenting. So it took me two years to do year one. 2014-2014-2014-2015 was year one for me because I didn't know how to do it. Now of course I'm teaching that to you. And a lot of you don't have to take two years to do authentic content marketing. You could take one year to really learn it. So anyway, year six is where I'm at now and training mentees, training mentees to start to do more of the work in my business. So now I've already been, I've already gotten several mentees, several proteges who know my strategies well and are, you know, I refer clients to them because I don't do one on one coaching anymore. And so I refer people onto my mentees. So that's year six and that's a great thing. By this point of year six, you already have a bunch of clients, you already have A bunch of students and now you can basically know which ones are do you know, understand you and do good work and you refer people to them, right? So year seven is where you can consider hiring an assistant. You know, whatever you couldn't automate in year five and six, you hire an assistant to help you out in year seven, do the things that software cannot and really only humans can. Year eight is larger joint ventures. Now that you have automation really systematized, you have your assistant going and doing well. Now you can scale up even more with larger joint ventures, with companies and with bigger influencers to get your courses out to even more people. Year nine is systems documentation. So now your assistant and you are really focused on writing, step by step, your entire business process, step by step into documentation so that when your assistant leaves, not if, but when your assistant leaves, your assistants will always come and go. That's what I've noticed. I have in past hired assistants, multiple of them, they always come and go. So you need documentation to easily train, both written and video documentation about your business process, to easily train people as they leave and new people come in. And year 10 is what I call Kaizen forever. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means continuous improvement essentially, right? Small, particularly small continuous improvement. So you're always improving your systems, your processes and your own skills bit by bit by bit in a gentle and very doable way. So kaizen forever, at this point you are certainly you can be semi retired because you've got assistant or a team of assistants by this point you've got automation and you're really just doing the teaching. You might be, you're still continuing to create some content to keep yourself sharp and to add more value to your audience. But kaizen forever, year 10 and onwards, it's just continue to make the systems better and better. And by some point you get, you do less and less work in your business because you are able to systematize and outsource more and more of it as software gets smarter and as your assistants get more trained and get better. And now your assistant, your main assistant, may be hiring others to help you out. So by year 10 is where semi retirement is certainly not only possible, but very likely. And you may even move more and more towards working just a few hours a week on your business on the most high leverage things that only you can do. So I hope this is helpful and I hope you'll ask me any questions if you're stuck on any part of it. I can answer briefly, give you maybe a tip here or there. And so let me know if this helps. I'm looking forward to your comments on this. I hope this gives you a more realistic timeline and plan. Ah. To really breathe. And. And I think this is very realistic for most people. So I like to, I like to teach authentic business in a way that's, that's honest. Not like some of the marketing experts that say, oh, six figures in 60 days. Yeah. If even if that were to happen for a tiny percentage of people, it's not sustainable. This plan is certainly doable because I'm living it myself. So I hope this helps. I look forward to your comments and your questions. And until the next video, be well and continue to show up authentically and consistently and joyfully. Take care.