$10K Months As a Solo Entrepreneur: 3 Ways To Get there

Solo business owners, listen up. If you are running your business as a team of one and it feels like you're working on way too many things, it's really hard to focus on anything or even really know if you're focusing on the right thing. What I'm about to share with you, you have got to hear, because it's going to help you get focused and it's going to help you get to consistent 10k or more months every single month. I personally made this mistake when I got started with my business and for the first couple years of my business as well, I jumped from idea to idea thinking that I totally failed on each idea if I didn't make this elusive six figure, whether that was six figure income or a six figure launch, I just assumed I failed at business if I didn't hit that magical number. But I also didn't have a guiding light or a plan to know what I should be focusing on and what numbers I should be focusing on. I knew I just needed to make money to basically keep the lights on in my business and prove to all the people that looked at me with a side eye when I said I was quitting my job that I could do it and I would be successful. So what happened for me those first couple of years in business is I saw somebody on Instagram doing a challenge and they were talking about how awesome it was. Okay, I needed to stop doing what I was already doing and now do a challenge. Or I heard somebody say they were launching a digital shop and how awesome it was. Okay, go away from the challenge now. I needed a digital shop. And instead of actually completing and following through and rinse and repeating on these projects, I just kept leaving them in the dust and picking up another project, which seriously caused so much more work for me than I needed to be creating. I wasn't making decisions wisely because I wasn't making them based on the bigger plan that I had created because I didn't have a bigger plan in place to to be my guiding light until recently, over the last eight years, and more specifically over the last three years as my schedule was really thrown upside down with kids being at home in lockdown, is that there are three ways every solo entrepreneur can get to consistent 10k months in their business, and that you need to have some type of combo of all three of these things to actually get to consistent 10k months without burning yourself out. So these three things all start with a solid business model. And this is actually the first exercise I make all of my coaching clients do inside of 10k on replay, they must go through the lesson, they must fill out the worksheet and submit it to me for review. And if they want to talk more strategically and deep dive into really how to build out their business model, they can then book a 20 minute hot seat call with me so that we can have that conversation back and forth. But if I'm going to help somebody in 10 count replay get the consistent 10k months, we've got to have that guiding light. And your business plan, your business model is that guiding light. So I'm going to show you what this model looks like, talk about what actually happens in this business model and then how you can utilize this business model to get people paying you money to get to that 10k month. All right, so you see how we have three separate steps here in this business model. This can also be called a value ladder. In 10K on replay, we call this ladder. This is phase one, your toe dippers, phase two, your waiters. In phase three, your cannonballers. Now I came up with this process over the summer with my kids, so you can really see where the pool and swimming analogy came into play. But it really, it just boils down to your toe dippers are those people that want to try something from you. And so this is your low ticket offer. Your waiters are your mid tier offers, a couple hundred dollar course. Maybe people did your low ticket offer, they dip their toe in with you and now they're ready to wait a little bit more and try something else from you. And then this cannonballer is basically your high ticket offer. Maybe they've worked their way up the ladder and they're ready to jump all in with you. Or maybe they watched a YouTube video of yours or saw you on Instagram and binge watch a lot of your content and they're like, I'm sold, I need to work with you. And they jump right in at the cannonball phase. I have people entering my business model at any given step, at any given day, but I have these opportunities available. So no matter who these people are, toe dippers, waiters, or cannonballers, they have an opportunity to get into my paying universe. This structure also allows you to have a journey for your client or your customer so that they have a next step to go to and you know where to push them to. Now, it doesn't have to be a straight up or straight down. They could go from toe dipper to cannonballer. They could go from waiters down to toe dippers. But at least you have this structure and you can communicate that with people in your paying world. Basically on which step would be best for them next. This is how you're going to create reoccurring customers. Because the hardest thing that you can do in business is get people to spend $1 with you. Once they've made a purchase with you, it's easier to get them to make another purchase and another purchase. But they need to understand what that next purchase should be. When you don't have this plan mapped out, that's where your business can tend to stall out. Or where you can find it hard to get to that next level in your business. For example, Maybe you're making $5,000 every single month in your business. That is amazing. But you're ready for that next step. You're ready for 10k months, but all your time right now is taken with your high ticket offer. Maybe you're done for your service, maybe your retainer services, and you don't really have any time in the day to work on something else to make more money in your business because you have traded time for money. You have X amount of time, you've put all that time into the pot and you're making 5k back. Unless you can come up with another workday or you can find more time in the day, you cannot get more money unless you increase your prices. And not everybody is going to be ready to work with you one on one or in that high ticket offer in that cannonball phase, right? People are going to want to tip their toe. People are going to want to wade in with you for a little bit. They may not be ready to cannonball in yet. And because you possibly don't have an offer for them, or it's not clear what offer is for them, you're going to get stuck or you're going to Plateau at $5,000 a month. How do I know, you ask? I've totally been there. When I started my YouTube production agency, which still have to this day, I created it for people that wanted to get all the YouTube stuff off their plate. Basically I did everything for them other than film the YouTube video. But I only had so many hours in a day, so I could only take on so many one on one clients. So if I'm working with a client 10 hours a week, say it takes me 10 hours to do their strategy, their video editing, all of that, and I only wanna work 40 hours a week. I can only take on four clients and that eats up my entire work period throughout the week. And I Can't work on anything else. I can't work on another way to make more money in my business that doesn't involve my time unless I want to work more hours. Who wants to do that? I needed to create another way to bring people into my world that didn't involve my time, so that they could start to see what it's like to learn from me, learn my strategy, and for me to build trust with them, to get them higher up on the ladder. Because here's where the problem happens. If you're spending all your time doing client work, you're not spending any time marketing you promoting your business. So let's say in April, you're booked out with clients. That's great. But what happens in May if they are not retainer clients or they're not reoccurring clients? How are you going to backfill those spots if you aren't talking about what you do or promoting your services? Because all of your time is spent doing the work and not actually marketing your business. You want to have a wait list of people ready and willing to sign the contract to work with you as soon as you announce open spots. And that's why you really got to have these different options for people to test you out, to have that wait list at that higher level ready to go. Or let's say, for example, you don't want to spend all your time working on client work. You want more of a flexible schedule. You want to be able to run to the grocery store on a Thursday afternoon. You want to go get a massage. You want to be able to go get your nails done. You need to replace that $2,500 from a client with $2,500 of passive income. And I air quote passive income, because no income is actually passive. But I'm talking about, you know, a digital product or a course so that you can have a more flexible schedule and so that you can have more time to market your business and work on these digital products and work on funnels that can streamline getting people through your value ladder or your business model. Because I'm going to say again, if you aren't marketing your business or you don't have time to market your business, business referrals are only going to go so far until they dry up. And then it's going to be really hard to find consistent clients and get that consistent revenue. You need to be visible and have an audience around you that knows what you do, what you sell, and you're selling every single day, week, month. So I want to walk through a couple business model examples so you can see these three different ways that you get to consistent 10k months. So for me, the toe Dipper phase is my digital product going video. It's created specifically for my audience. Solo entrepreneurs needing to get on video, needing to drive more traffic, needing to market more of their business. Right? Then the waiters are my course video strategy academy that teaches really how to build a solid YouTube strategy that builds your audience, gets you visible so that you're sending more traffic to your offers. And then my cannonballers are my 10k on replay coaching clients. This is really the program that bridges the YouTube strategy with the business strategy so that you're maximizing the leads and the visibility you're getting from YouTube into actual sales and consistent sales in your business. This entire ladder or business model is built for a specific audience, solo entrepreneurs and a problem that they are having getting to consistent 10k months. Let's do another example. Like a graphic designer. Let's say their toe Dipper phase, they have social media templates so that again they can make their brand really stand out and look elevated because they're going to utilize that to get people up to the next phase, which is the waiter. And let's say they have a DIY branding course where they teach you how to really create a sophisticated brand, how you can do that, how to pick the colors, how to make all the designs, all of that. Now let's say they're high ticket or their Cannonballers is a done for you brand build. Right now somebody could literally go up this ladder, right? They could have tried the social media templates like oh, this was really good, I really like her style, let me try the course. And then they DIY it. And because they DIY it and they elevated their branding, they started to book more clients, they started to see more traffic to their offers and they're ready to go next level and have this particular person actually do their entire brand and take it to another level. So you see how we can progress people up that value ladder. Let's use another example, specifically a YouTube creator and let's say they talk about frugal living on YouTube and they're ready to build their business model off of YouTube. Their Toe Dipper phase may include a mini course on how to save money at the grocery store with specific lists and recipes included so that now this person in the to face started to save some money at the grocery store, they start to have some extra money and they see how this literally works and they're like, wow, what she says is true. What else does she have? So now they're looking at the next level, which is a full course on Frugal Living, like how to save an electric, how to budget, like everything you need to know about Frugal Living. So let's say they do that and they're really getting momentum and they're super excited and they're like, I want to go all in. So maybe this particular business model, they have a coaching program or maybe they work with you for 12 weeks to really solidify your entire game plan for Frugal Living. So you can see how this literally can take people up the latter. But maybe you have somebody that binge watch all your YouTube videos and like I am wholeheartedly believes what she says. I'm ready to cannonball now. So she does have that offer available. So I want you to understand that people are going to come in at different areas, but you also want to have that plan or that guiding light to get people up or down this business model to make you more money. Let's do one more example here and let's say it's a social media manager. Let's say your toe dipping offer is social media swipe copy or social media post ideas because let's face it, we could all use that. Then the waiter. Once people start using the swipe copy and they see like, oh wow, she really helped me simplify posting on social media. What else does she have? Next you have a full on course that includes like workflows and templates and a posting schedule that really builds out a full social media strategy that is doable for your audience. Right? It's not just the swipe copy now, it's you know, images and the whole algorithm explanation, like everything that you need to know. Then let's say your high ticket offer is a done for you agency. So these people are utilizing the toe dipper and the waiter and they're starting to make more money because their social media plan that you're teaching them in these phases is driving them more traffic because you're driving them more traffic. Your offers are, they have more money to now spend on your agency. So again, you can see how this really gets people on a wait list wanting to work with you while still making you money money and you're not returning time, your time for money. When you have these core offers in place, you now have this guiding light and you can really start to realize what you should and shouldn't be focusing on. So let's say the Idea of a challenge comes up and you're like, I want to do a challenge. Take a look at your guiding light, right? Your business model. Where does this challenge fit in in your business model? Will this challenge be leading people to your Cannonball phase phase? Will it be leading them to your Toe Dipper phase? Is it not leading them to any of those offers? Maybe not the best thing to focus on right now. Instead, maybe you should focus on creating more YouTube videos or more Instagram reels that get more people to your Toe Dipper offer because that's going to get more people into your paying universe and help you make more money to ultimately get people up to your Cannonball offer. That's probably going to be worth more of your time. Even though you may be creating free content, you know where that free content is going and it's still serving the purpose of your guiding light. So the key point here is, do you have a strategy to move people up or down or in between your value ladder? Because the easiest way to get them in is obviously the smallest price point, which is a digital product. I just literally wrapped up an entire series about digital products that you can check out here. But, but once they pay you $17, $27, $37, they are an incredibly hot lead. They've already spent money with you and they're more likely to buy more from you if it's clear what they should do next. And you've built that strategy in because now you know the bigger picture of your business. You can now create a digital product knowing that people that join the digital product, you want to get into your mid tier offer, your, your waiters, or maybe the people that get into your to to get them to your high ticket or your Cannonball offer, right? You can start to prepare and plan for that. For example, my toe Dipper, like I said, is Going Video. When I built Going Video, the whole strategy behind it was to get people then up to Video Strategy Academy. I wanted to show people in Going Video how they could get started with video. So it kind of rips that band aid off. So now they're ready to build that strategy and get consistent on YouTube, which would be Video Strategy Academy. We built lessons into going Video about Video Strategy Academy about having a YouTube strategy. We have emails that go out that bread crumb, the importance of YouTube and the strategy behind having videos on YouTube. And we also, at the end of our onboarding series for Going Video, mention how they can now build a YouTube strategy inside a video strategy as well. And we literally tell them we have this next step available for them. Another added secret that we do here as well. We incentivize them to move up the ladder too. So what this could look like, it's like a hundred dollar off coupon for a certain amount of time. If they come in at going video for $37, we say here's a coupon for the next 14 days for you to save $100 on video strategy Academy. Because even though I may be discounting Video Strategy Academy, I've already made $37, so it's not that much of a difference. But I'm taking a $37 offer and getting people to then buy an 8-97-offer. Right? Much more valuable. Now again because I have my value ladder or my business model, I now can start breadcrumbing and talking about 10k on replay inside of Video Strategy Academy. I actually do incentivize people in Video Strategy Academy to join 10K Replay by giving an alumni discount. A video Strategy alumni discount. If you purchase Video Strategy Academy, you get a thousand dollars off of 10k on replay. Now I've potentially taken a $37 customer to an 8, 9, $700 off coupon to now a $6,000 coaching program. You see how important it is to know what this bigger picture is so you can strategize and really maximize the paying leads that you are getting to spend more money with you. And we can have people skip steps and they do skip steps. They into 10k Like I said, they can come right into Video Strategy academy and then one going video, they can do going video and then 10k on replay. But I'm giving them options. I'm talking about my offers. And all of my offers are made for that one person with that one problem. The solo entrepreneur that's struggling with hitting consistent 10k or more months. And I did not have this full on model. These three ways to do it it until I sat down, mapped out my value ladder or my business model. That's another very important step that I want to reiterate here. This business model needs to be talking to that one person. I want to show an example because this may be easier to explain. An example. Let's say you're a photographer and you're creating Lightroom presets for busy moms, right? Moms are taking all these photos of their kids on their phone and you create Lightroom presets to make their photos look super cool, super professional even though their moms with iPhones. Now let's say you also have a course for photographers on how to start your photography business. This is not a cohesive target audience. This is not a cohesive business model because people who are buying Your Lightroom presets 9 times out of 10 aren't photographers and they don't want to know how to build a photography business. They're just trying to make pretty pictures they can post on Instagram to show off to people. Right? Some of them may want to start a photography business, but this is not a cohesive business model because it's not talking to that one person with that one problem. Instead, you may want to offer in your toe dipper like your workflow for booking a photography client, something like that. And then you have a course that gives them all the workflows or your entire process for your business, for your photography business. And then your, your Cannonballer may be, you know, one on one coaching with you where they can get feedback from you and you can help them build out their business to start booking more photography clients. That's the same, same audience. Because I'm going to tell you this is the biggest mistake that I see when I'm looking at business models. And like I said, this is the very first assignment that all of my 10 count replay clients get. And we request and encourage them to submit their business model for review by me so I can ensure they have this solid guiding light so that every decision that they make, they're looking at this guiding light and they're deciding does this make sense for this business model? Where does this decision fit? Does it fit, fit? I personally believe as a solo business owner, if you want to get to 10k months or beyond, you have got to have all three of these offers solidified in your business model. You have really got to diversify the ways you are driving revenue to your business and give people different ways to test and try out paying offers from you. Because you don't want to be doing 10k months in client work and be chained to your desk from 8am to 8pm five days a week. You want some flexibility. That's why you started your own business, right? You really want to be able to have lesser amount of clients by replacing that income with some digital products or digital courses on autopilot. Ish. And you also want to have a consistent stream of paying people coming through your business door, so to speak. So you have a never ending supply of of Cannonballer customers or clients. I actually just put the finishing touches on a quiz that you can take to help you find the right business model for you it literally takes just about five minutes and when you're done, you get the results. To learn more about where you can focus so you can create the right offers to boost your revenue and finally achieve that 10k or more months, go to trina little.comquiz to take it. Now then I want to know what results you got from that quiz, so come back here and let me know in the comments. Comments in my next video, I'm going to be sharing with you all the ways that you can grow your audience to have that continuous stream of leads flowing up, down or in between your value ladder. So make sure you're subscribed.