MBA1289 How to Get to $5K a Month as Fast as Possible

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This is kind of proof that you have something on your hands. Five to $10,000 a month is enough for you to kind of take care of your minimal expenses for the business and take home a very modest salary for yourself. If you can make five to $10,000 a month in in reoccurring revenue, it means you have something on your hands. You have something that people want, something that generates revenue. It's not just an idea that's not implemented properly. So how do you get to this point as quickly as possible so you're not grinding it out for months and even years to get to this point? And that's what we get into today's episode. It's really important because you don't want to be wasting too much time on something that doesn't have legs. You just don't have the time, you don't have the effort, you don't have the will, not to mention the money to run a business that's not making money. So I'll be sharing my best strategies when it comes to getting to Scape Velocity as soon as possible. There's gonna be some sacrifices on your end, but it's gonna be worth it because you're gonna get results quickly. Whether those results are, hey, this business is not worth it or I hit my 5 to 10k, let's rock and roll. And rock and roll could be, you know, quitting your full time job. It could be getting investors who could be really doubling down on this idea. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I've been in this position several times in my career as an entrepreneur where I was trying to get to escape velocity. That 5k mark, that 5 to 10k is really that sweet spot where things start to start moving. Where it's like, okay, this business has legs. This is a real thing. I actually am making money and I actually can pay my expenses. I can actually feel like this is worth my time and effort. And every time I would try something different to see if I can get to that more quickly. And I'm going to share with you what works. And I'm going to start with time. Time is your greatest asset when it comes to business. Period. I should say how you utilize your time because we all have 24 hours a day. That's time is set for everybody. We don't have extra hours. Right. Our competitors don't have 26 hours a day. Right. It's how you use those 24 hours, how you allocate your time. Now I totally get it. Many of us, when we're getting started with our business, we have a job, we have a full time job, we have obligations at home, we have obligations to our family and friends and things like that. You can't just use all your time on your business. Well, this is a differentiating factor for businesses that get to Escape Velocity faster than others. See, the thing you're trying to do here is find out as quickly as possible if there are enough people willing to pay for what you're offering. You could do some ideal validation in the beginning, which is great. You have to do this. If you want to check out our free idea validation course, go to100mba.net course. But when your business launches and you're actually charging for your services or your product or products, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you find out are people willing to pay for what I have. And you need to find out as quickly as possible. Because when you're open for business, you're paying expenses, you're spending your time, you're spending your effort. And if it's not being compensated with, you know, revenue, it's not going to be worth it for very long. You can't just keep spending money and time and hope for the best. So you need to carve out a good amount of concentrated time when you launch your business. You can build and you can work on it and you can perfect it. But once you open for business and you're done with the planning, you know, you're launched now, people are buying your product, right? They're open for sale. You need time to grow. You need time so you can actually make this a viable business. So for me, when I started building businesses, I was a teacher, I was a high school and university administrator. So I would open for sale, would start selling in my business as soon as I had a bit of time, like summer holiday. Right Now, I know all of you are teachers and have, you know, a couple months off during the year, but you have time off. You do have time off at some point, whether it's a couple weeks for Christmas, whether it's your holiday or vacation time that you can take off, or maybe you're in a position to take a leave of absence or something like that. But a good, solid, concentrated amount of time is like golden business. You can totally focus on it. So the eight to 10 hours, maybe even 12 with your commute that you spend at work can be dedicated to this business. When you're open, this gives you maximum velocity to spend time on marketing and spend time on perfecting the product and spend time on customer service and speak to your customers and try to reach out to them and get referrals. You're hustling so hard during this time so you can hit that 5k mark. But if you don't have the time to do that, if you're still allocating the same amount of time, a couple hours a week, maybe even eight hours a week or something like that, during the weekends, it may just not be enough time and it's going to just take too long for you to see results. So I highly recommend that when you open for business, spend some concentrated time on the business. Give yourself some time to succeed. My second tip is to experiment with pricing. In your first couple of months, even your first year in business, you're going to want to experiment with pricing to get as much revenue as possible. You want to see how much you can charge to get as much total monthly revenue. So even if you have less customers but make more revenue, that's fine. It's actually better because you're spending less money on serving these customers. But during this initial stage, when you're trying to get to skip velocity, get to that number 5 to 10K. You're going to want to experiment with price. Maybe you want to start low and increase the prices for new users or new customers. Offer add ons or upsells or other tiers. You got to play the numbers game. You got to make sure you're maximizing every dollar possible. And please refer to the lesson that we had recently on nailing your value metric. This is going to allow you to know what people are willing to pay for extra. So the second thing I recommend is experimenting with pricing. Don't just have the same price for the first few months or year. A lot of us are afraid to raise prices. You can always go and change them again. But you have to take that leap and experiment and raise those prices and see what gets you the most revenue. Total revenue again, less customers. More revenue is better than lots of customers and less revenue. Third tip I would give you a tip I wish I told myself when I was starting out in my first few businesses is is to get some help. You can't do this alone. You just can't. If you don't have a co founder, this is especially important. Join a mastermind group. If you can get some coaching, fantastic. If you can afford it, or maybe even just some informal mentoring network with some people that you look up to. Find the people that are in the position that you want to get to very soon that have gone through this path, have already reached escape velocity and get on a call with them, ask them, how can I get there? What should I do? They're going to give you a niche specific advice. If you're in the software industry, find somebody who's, you know, a software founder that has gone through this. If you're in the health space, same thing. If you're in the finance space, same thing. But don't live in a bubble. You're going to get there faster. If you get help, if you get advice, if you get tips, if you get strategies, if you're learning, if you're growing. This is not a time to be shy. This is not a time to be bashful. This is a time to seek out help where you can get it. Next tip. This is not the time to have an ego. You got to check your ego at the door. You haven't proven anything yet. You don't have real revenue yet. So you need to be open to all critique, all feedback from customers, from colleagues, from friends that are doing this, that know what they're doing, you know, that are running businesses, not People that have never run a business, people that their opinion actually matters. You can't get offended, you can't get defensive. This is not the time to defend your honor. This is the time to improve your product as fast as possible so you can produce the best results and get to that escape velocity. Be willing to change. Be willing to change the product, to pivot, to offer something new or different. You might realize that, hey, I don't have what customers want. I need to change it a bit. I remember watching a Creative Live course and the lesson was with Tim Ferriss and Noah Kagan and they were working with somebody in the audience who was trying to have a proof of concept and sell their new business or sell their new product, I should say. And the product was toothbrushes and he wants to sell toothbrushes and. And he has this whole thing where he wants to give money to charity with the money he makes in the process. He was showing a prototype of a toothbrush and it was a wooden toothbrush model. It wasn't the actual plastic toothbrush that they're going to have. It was just a model that he was using. But Tim Ferriss, when he held this toothbrush was like, I really like this toothbrush. I want to buy this toothbrush. I'll pay $50 for this toothbrush, if I recall. And the new business owner was like, no, no, no, this is just a prototype. I'm not selling this toothbrush. What I'm actually selling is this. And Tim kept on telling him, what are you doing? I'm telling you I want this product. I'll pay you top dollar for it. And you're saying, no, you won't take my money. Be willing to change. Be willing to modify what you're offering. Don't get stuck in your ways. Don't dig your heels. Check your ego at the door. No time for that right now. Remember, time is sensitive. We're trying to get to the 5k mark as soon as possible.

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To wrap up today's lesson, you really need to concentrate your effort on these things I mentioned in today's episode, soon as you open for business, to give yourself the best opportunity to get to Escape Velocity, to hit that 5k mark as soon as possible. Now, even if you don't hit that mark, at least you know where you stand. You know that, hey, this business is not for me. It doesn't have legs. It's not viable. I need to change it. I need to, you know, pack it up and start something new. The faster you find that out, the better, the more time you'll be spending on something that will work. You don't want to be spending time and money on something that's just not worth it. Because at the end of the day, your goal is to be a successful entrepreneur, right? The actual idea, the actual business, that's irrelevant. You want to provide something of value that people want. And when you discover that, you want to double down. All right, thank you so much for listening. That wraps up today's lesson. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to. Podcasts, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, Overcast, Himalaya, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe, you get access to our next episode automatically. It also gives you access to our archive episodes over 1200 lessons of the 100 MBA Show. Hit subscribe right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. While you're getting to the 5 to 10k mark, your job is to keep your expenses as low as possible so that profit makes sense, so that profit actually is worth something. You know, this number is based on the fact that you're very lean. You can start spending and reinvesting in your business. Once you hit this mark, once you're like, okay, I'm making enough money where it shows me that people are willing to pay for my service, to pay for my product, to pay for whatever I have to offer. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit Strayer Strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and its many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.