Formula for How I Made My First $100k in Business

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm really excited for today's episode because we're gonna be talking about the formula for how I made my first $100,000 in business. I'm gonna be breaking down some of my top tips, some of the best things that I did in that year to hit $100,000 in my business. So if you are a current or aspiring aspiring online coach or entrepreneur of some kind, stay tuned because this episode is going to be really juicy for you. There are so many nuggets inside and I can't wait to dive in. Before we kick off, I want to remind you guys that there is a free masterclass coming up this Sunday, September 17th. I'm going to be hosting a free masterclass on Zoom. Anyone is welcome to come. It's called How I Built a Six-Figure Business in a Year. So we're going to be sharing more of these tips just like what I'm sharing with you in this episode, and also a full-on timeline down to the years and months of what exactly I was doing and when, so you can see the entire journey from $0 to $100,000. Plus, I'm going to share with you 5 of my biggest mistakes and lessons learned so that you don't have to learn the hard way, and you can take my mistakes and use them as your shortcuts. It is completely free, and there will be a replay available, although those of you who come live, you know, you always get a head start on my super special deals. So you want to be there live if you can. Click the link in the show notes below this episode to register for free and join us. All the details will be there. You'll get a confirmation email with all the information you need, and I hope to see you there. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life.

So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride.

Let's go make shift happen. What I'm about to share with you is The formula for how I made my first $100,000 in business. If you follow this formula, if you take what I am telling you right now and you actually implement it and you do these things and you apply it to your business, you will see success. You will see growth because these are the types of things that you have to do, especially in the early stages of your business. If you want to see growth. So let's get into it. The first thing that I did that I think is really, really important is that I showed up consistently online way before I had something of my own to sell. So I see this a lot where people are waiting to develop their course or their program or finish writing their ebook or create whatever it is that they're creating in the backend. They're waiting to do that until they start actually showing up online as a creator or filming themselves on camera or talking to their audience. This is a huge mistake. Do not wait until you have something to sell to start practicing showing up online, talking to the camera, sharing advice, tips, and guidance. You've gotta start doing all of that stuff now. And here's why. Selling is a skill. And even if everything that you have to offer right now is free, guess what? You are still selling even when your shit is free. You are still selling because are you going to actually be able to— how are you going to get someone to click the link or sign up for your emails or download a free resource or actually read through your entire post if you are not already mastering those persuasive techniques that are involved in sales? So even if all of your stuff is free, you still are getting valuable practice at what it means to be a convincing speaker or to have these persuasive techniques in your back pocket to really drive someone to action. That's what we're doing with sales. We're driving someone to action. And so whether that action is purchasing a $20,000 program or it's clicking a link and signing up for a free training, you've still gotta have those skills. And it's not something that you're just gonna have on day one if you've never practiced it. So you've gotta start showing up consistently. Online way before you have something to sell. And if you're, you've already been trying to sell shit and it's not working out, then it's just a sign, or you'd like for it to be working better, I guess. It's just a sign that you've gotta keep building that skill and flexing that muscle and figuring out those ways of how you can really get people to take action based on what you're sharing and how you're sharing it. And this is a lot of what I teach my clients, right? Because there's a, there's a method to it, there's a science to it. How do you get someone to pay attention? How do you get them to stop their scroll? How do you get them to click a link? How do you get them to sign up? How do you get them to feel safe enough to invest with you? There's a formula for all of that, and it's something that you definitely can learn. But the main thing is that you've got to start somewhere, and the best time to start is yesterday. The second best time to start is now. The second thing is that I pitched myself to be featured on podcasts way before I felt qualified or quote unquote ready. This was before I felt like I had a beautiful website or before I even had my courses or programs hosted online in a beautiful portal. Like, I didn't have my shit together yet. I was still pitching myself to be featured on podcasts and I pitched some pretty big shows. And I also pitched a lot of smaller shows. And most of the big shows ended up saying no, which can be expected, right? But every no is leading you closer to a yes. And one of them actually said yes for a fee. There was a catch to this yes to be hosted, uh, as a guest on this really big podcast, and that was that I was going to have to pay a fee in order to be featured because I wasn't a celebrity or a big coach at the time. And I could be featured, but I was going to have to pay to play essentially. And so I really thought about this because I had never seen something like this before. To my knowledge, you know, the podcasting space was really free marketing exchanges where it's valuable information for the person's audience, but then for the person who is the guest, it's also a really valuable opportunity to get their voice and their work out in front of a large audience. And the way that I saw it was just people exchanging for free. And to be fair, now that I'm way deeper in the podcast space, that is truly what it is most of the time. Although there are, you know, there's money involved in other parts of the podcasting world, but I had never seen someone charge in order to be a guest. And so I thought, hmm, like, is this, I don't know, like, is this sketchy? Is this bad energy? Like, should I do this? I've never seen this. And I was so unfamiliar with the podcasting space. I didn't have my own show at the time. And so what I did was I reached out to Charlie Rocket, who is a really big influencer. He's super into manifestation. He— if you guys follow him on Instagram or TikTok, he's got like millions of followers nowadays. But back in the day, he was someone who I had really connected with online and we would DM back and forth a couple of times and we were by no means like close friends, but he was a contact that I had in the space who I knew he had a podcast. He would be well-versed in this arena and he was someone who was approachable and that I could ask like, hey, have you ever seen this before? Like, what do you think? And so I reached out to him and I told him what the situation was. And he said, you know, I have not really seen that either, like paying to be featured on podcasts. But, you know, if you, if you have to bend over backwards and it's going to be a really big stretch for you to be able to pay to get featured, then maybe it's not the right time. But if you can find the money, you know, it might be worth it for you to just get in the game because sometimes you've got to pay to play. And so if you can make it work, like, why not just get in the game? And I took that advice and I was like, you know what, he's right. Like, I want to get my foot in the door. There's always some sort of sacrifice when you want to get in the game or get ahead, and you're young and you're hungry and no one gives a shit about you yet, and you don't— you haven't made a name for yourself. And it's the same in corporate, right, but just in, in ways. It's like there's always a sacrifice that you have to make when you're young and nameless, but you want to get started and you want to get in the game in some way. And so I said, all right, I'm gonna do this. And I ended up doing it. And what happened was we recorded that episode, I think, in December or January, and it didn't end up going live until a few months later in March of 2020. And as As you you probably remember, March of 2020 was the first like full month of lockdowns around the world for the pandemic. And so it was a time where lots of people were wanting to work on themselves. Personal development was on the rise. Everybody was stuck inside. More and more people were listening to podcasts. So it was a really serendipitous moment for me in my journey, and it completely changed the trajectory of my business. You know, it helped me gain thousands of followers, um, tons of clients, tens of thousands of dollars probably in client payments, increased visibility, all of the things. And that all came from choosing to bet on myself before I was ready and not waiting until I had all the certifications and the podcast and the beautiful website and all the things to put myself out there and say, hey, I have something valuable to say. And I think people are really gonna get something out of it if you're willing to take a chance on me. And so I think that's a, a really valuable piece of advice for anyone who's out there getting started or trying to gain traction and visibility. It's like pitch yourself. Be afraid. And you know what? You're gonna get a lot of nos. That's a fact, but you're gonna get some yeses. And one of those yeses could be a really big life-changing moment for you, or the key to increasing your visibility, or, you know, gaining really aligned clients in your business or something like that. So don't be afraid to pitch. The next thing is that I shared as much of my personality as possible. You know, I was really just focused on being myself and being really open. And I wasn't afraid to look stupid or be judged, even though a lot of those thoughts would like cross my mind. And I'd be thinking in the back of my head, like, you know, are people from high school watching this or listening to this? Or I wonder what they think, but I just kept going anyway. I think that's the important thing is it doesn't matter if you have those thoughts. It just matters that you keep putting one foot in front of the other anyways. And so I was doing things like dancing on camera and I was showing my struggles with my skin and I was sharing my honest controversial political views sometimes about the pandemic and the behind the scenes of my life and my relationship and my apartment and my dog. And I was just really letting people into my life. And that really, really helps build like, know, and trust with your audience. I also was giving people lots of opportunities to be in my energy and to get close to me. And so I was hosting live meditations a lot. Again, this was like during the pandemic period. And so this worked really well and just kind of like fit with where the times were and where everyone was at. But I was, you know, constantly just trying to think of like, okay, what can I do? How can I get people involved? How can I invite them in and bring them into my energy and just create this, this energy of closeness? And so I would host things like live meditations, guided journaling sessions on Instagram Live. I would do free workshops and masterclasses. I would even do random, like, Saturday workouts in my apartment. I would just film myself on Instagram Live doing a HIIT workout and be like, come do it with me. Or I would do yoga flows inside of my Facebook group and just like all kinds of anything that I could think to do that would allow people to feel like they knew me more or they were getting value from me in some way. I also built something. I focused on building something that was actually going to get people results. And I stuck with that one thing. So when it comes to what I was actually selling at this time, I sold one signature program over and over again every quarter of the year. I wasn't reinventing things all the time. I wasn't doing mini offers or masterclass or like paid masterclasses here and, you know, a 3-week program here and a 4-week program there and this, that, and the other thing. It was one thing. It was one signature program over and over and over again. And everybody started to learn the name of this program and the ins and outs of this program, and they felt the, the pull and the draw to want to sign up for this program, but maybe they couldn't afford it. And so they got in in the next round or the next round. And I really just decided that I was going to become known for something before I started diversifying and adding all kinds of other offers to my product suite. And I think that really, really helped not only strengthen my audience and my clientele, but also building up really incredible testimonials and reviews and social proof and just having this, this big sort of machine behind me of like, this girl knows what she's talking about. She knows what she's doing. She gets results. The amount of testimonials that we have for that signature program from Burnt Out to Badass and the amount of women that have changed their lives inside of that program is absolutely insane. And it only, it only exists in that way because I never stopped selling it. Like I just kept sharing that one thing and I would add things to the program and I would get more and more incredible guests to come in and, and facilitate and do featured workshops with the girls inside. And you know, I was just focused on making it the best that it could be. And I think that's something that is challenging because I am a manifesting generator and I do wanna do different stuff all the time. The way that I kind of satisfied that need to be doing new and different stuff all the time was through content, through adding things into the program, and through thinking about like what I could do in the future, but not necessarily diverting my attention and my time away from what the focus was at that moment. So I knew that there was gonna be a time where I could create all different kinds of programs on all different kinds of topics, and I would allow myself to, feel into that creatively and even create content around those things and start to play with those ideas. But I wasn't building programs on them yet. I stayed focused and I stayed in my lane, and it really, really served my business. Another thing that I did was I hired a business coach pretty early on, and then forever and ever after that, as needed, obviously. So once you do that and you get that kind of support, you're kind of like, well, I don't know why I wouldn't do this for the rest of my time as an entrepreneur because entrepreneur is emotional whiplash. It's a roller coaster. It's a crazy ride. For those of you who are on it, you know, there's lots of ups and downs. But the thing that I want to say about this is that I, I didn't try to make tons of money on my own in order to like prove to myself that I could do it before investing. That wasn't the mentality that went— that I went with, like, okay, I'm going to do this thing. And if I start making money and if I have X amount, then I know that it's working and then I'll invest in myself. I wasn't really thinking that way and I'm so glad that I wasn't. Instead, I was just kind of like, I trust myself and I am choosing to believe that this is going to work no matter what because I'm backing it and I'm going to make it work. So I bet on myself and I invested early to learn the right way for how to do things. I would've hated to get a year into my business and then realize like, oh my God, I'm so burnt out because I've made all these mistakes and, you know, built things in maybe the wrong way, or this was the only way I knew how to do things because I had no roadmap. But now, you know, I'm burnt out and I don't even have the energy to correct all of these things. And this feels even more impossible now than it did at the start because it feels like I have to, scrap everything and start over. Like, I would have hated to have that experience. And so I just decided that I was gonna learn it the right way from the jump, and I was going to get an expert to tell me, this is how you do it. Like, this is how tons of people have done it before you. This is how I've done it. This works. Do this, and here's the path. That's what I knew that I really, really wanted. And so I invested in getting the answers. And being willing to invest in order to get the answers is a really, really important skill. And I want to share something that I read the other day on Threads. It was one of Alex Hormozi's threads, and it's about like this comparison between building a townhouse and building a skyscraper. But it really illustrates exactly what we're talking about in such a good way. So it says, two men set out to build a building. One lays the foundation for a 10-story building and finishes the entire building in 9 months. The other lays the foundation for a 100-story building, and it takes him the entire 9 months just to build the first few floors. The first, being ahead, mocks the second man for taking so long. He decides he wants to build his building into a 100-story building too, to prove how good of a builder he is. So he tries to add stories on top. He gets to 15 or 16 stories, and then the foundation begins to crack. He starts reinforcing things, but no matter what, he feels he can't put any more on top. Over time, the second guy keeps building and building slowly over time and passes the first man. Two years later, the second man completes his 100-story building despite barely having his foundation finished by the time the first man finished his entire building. The first man goes to a mentor and asks his advice on growing his building taller. The mentor tells him, you need to tear down this building and start over. He says, and waste all the time I spent building this one? Can't I just add it on top if I knew how? And the mentor replies, there's a lesson here. The fastest way to build a 10-story building isn't the fastest way to build a 100-story building. Your desire to grow fast ruined your ability to grow big. A lot of entrepreneurs build businesses as though it's a race, and sometimes they reach their goals. Then they see someone bigger with bigger goals and a bigger business, and they try to build their business into that business, but they can't because the fastest route to a $10 million business is often not the fastest route to a $100 million business. Sometimes big things take time, and often that's what makes them worth pursuing. Don't compare a skyscraper to a townhouse 6 months into the building process. So for me, this just kind of like really illustrates exactly what I was saying, is like, I would rather invest in knowing the right way to build rather than trying to figure it out on my own and then getting a year deep into my business and going, oh shit, like, this worked in some capacity, like, I'm making money, but I hate my life and I'm burnt out and I don't know to scale this. And oh shit. And then I ask a mentor like, hey, how do I grow this bigger? And they're like, I mean, all of this is kind of like fucked. We need to like tear it down and like kind of start over. And honestly, that's what happens to a lot of online entrepreneurs. They get to a certain stage in their business and then they're like, wait, I don't actually like this. This business model isn't working for me. This isn't serving me. The only way to continue to scale this is something that I've just realized I don't actually want to do. And so I have to start a whole different business model now, and that feels really daunting and really scary. And so I'm so glad that, you know, I, I had that mentality starting out of, I'm gonna invest in a coach early on so that I can get the answers and learn the right way. And let's be really clear, like, I didn't have the money to invest. It was $5,000. I did not have $5,000, but I knew that I also didn't have a lot of time to waste for the reasons that we just talked about. So I asked for help and I borrowed the money the same way that so many hugely successful companies do. They don't start out with all of the money to build their big visions. They— but they definitely don't wait around until they can scrape it together. They get investors. And they raise capital and then they pay it back. That's how it works. And so that's what I did. And I think it's a valuable lesson because a lot of people are trying to hold all of the weight on their own shoulders and go, I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to find the money and I'm going to— I'm going to sell my thing until I'm blue in the face and then I'll have the money and then I'll get the help. But the reality is, a lot of times we need the help before we know how to make the money. Like, that's just facts. Another thing that I did that is obviously very important is putting in the work that is required. So I was doing things like daily direct outreach, consistent content, live videos, talking to the camera, 17 sales calls in a week. Sometimes I would talk on the phone with someone for 70 minutes. One person. I would talk on the phone with one person for 70 minutes or more sometimes just to help them feel comfortable investing in my program. And you know what? A lot of the times they ended up not investing. And so I wasn't afraid to put in the work and the time that was required in order to get clients and build my business. The other thing is I was also putting in the inner work that's required. So not only the outer work and the action steps, but also the inner work, you know, getting really clear on my vision and goals and And I continued to do the inner work to calibrate myself to the level of what I was manifesting. I used my own manifestation methods that I was teaching my clients at the time to continue co-creating that reality that I was desiring within my business. That's the kind of stuff that you can't just put down. And this is why when I teach business, I really like to fuse strategy with spirituality. And it's not only the strategy work and the action, but it's also that inner work and becoming the person who can actually hold the success and hold the wealth. And that was a really important piece of the puzzle as well. And the last thing was that I made sacrifices. And I think this is something that a lot of people—

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I guess in this particular space don't talk about as much because we so often are sold the message of it gets to be easy and it— you get to do this in a way that feels good for you and it gets to flow. And like, I'm not hating on any of that stuff because I've said that stuff, I believe in that stuff, I've utilized those mentalities in my own business, but there's time and place for everything. And if you're at the very early stages of your business, it is not the time and place to flow and ease and just let things fall into place. And it's the time to make some sacrifices. It's the time to work hard and figure it the fuck out. And I think that's a reality that a lot of people don't want to face, especially when we get into these spaces around, you know, feminine leadership and feminine energy in business. All of the— all of things that I also teach and integrate into my life and my company. But again, it's just the time and place for certain things. And when you're in those early, early days, the reality is sometimes we've gotta make sacrifices. And so I did things like working on the weekends and in the evenings. I would take client calls on Sundays because it was the only time that worked for people. And I was living in Spain at the time, so there was lots of different time zones. And I remember having a client that I would take at 10:30 PM. Like we would literally be on calls from like 10:30 to 11:30 or midnight. And some people aren't willing to do that because also they'll see coaches that are way far ahead of them in their journey going, you know, do it in a way that feels best for you. Like, you have to set the boundaries. This is the times that I like. And so if clients want to work with me, they're going to make it work. All right. But you've got to recognize, like, when someone is in a totally different phase and stage of business, the advice or the things that they're talking about may not necessarily apply apply to the phase and stage of business that you are at. And so this is, again, a hugely common mistake that I see all the time is people looking up to these 6 and 7-figure coaches and they're hearing them say things like, you know, oh my God, I would never DM people and don't— I, I don't follow up with people because like I don't chase any leads and this, that, and the other thing. And I have all these boundaries and people can only contact me from this time to this time and I don't allow my clients to do this and these are the times that I like. And so if it doesn't work for them, like they'll find a way. And all of this stuff that is just not realistic and not applicable for early-stage entrepreneurs. Maybe you get to have those things and feel that way and run your business in that way when you are at a 6 or 7-figure level or when you've developed the audience that is so devoted to your work and they're willing to bend over backwards to fit into your schedule and do things the way that you want them to be done. But that's not always the case at the beginning. And so you've gotta be willing to make some sacrifices and that's just real talk, tough love. Like you gotta put in the work, you know? And so I had a full-time job teaching in schools while I was also working on serving clients. And so I would use my lunch breaks from teaching to literally run, like actually jog because I needed to save time. I would run down the street several blocks to a Starbucks, I would grab a coffee, sit down, open up my laptop, and I would take client calls in the Starbucks. And, you know, I had to, I had to sacrifice some things during that period of my life in business. I wasn't going out as much or socializing as much. I stopped going to the gym every day. Like, I was just like, okay, this isn't feasible. Like, I can't be at 100% capacity in all of these areas of my life and build a successful business from the ground up and work full-time. Like, it just, something's gotta give. And so I stopped going to the gym every day. I decided, all right, I'll fit in a couple of workouts on the weekends, and then I'm gonna walk the dog. And that's literally all that I had time and space for. And so finding what is— what maybe in your life needs to give a little or be put on the back burner. And it doesn't mean that it's gonna be like that for the rest of your life or for the rest of your business journey, but there are times where you have to be really real with yourself and go, how badly do I want this to work? And how badly do I Do I want this? What am I willing to set down or sacrifice in order to pour more of my energy into the thing that I want to work so badly? I see a lot of people who are trying to build coaching businesses and they've been doing it for some time. And I think a large reason for some of them of why it hasn't been working, or it feels like it hasn't been working, or just, you know, it's very like slow progress, slow growth is because they've divided their energy into 10 different buckets of things that they have going on in their life. And one of those buckets is their business. And that is not enough energy in order to make the business grow at the pace that they want it to grow at. And if you aren't, if you're not bothered by like that slow and steady growth and you would rather have your energy equally split into all 10 buckets, of your life and have your business take a couple of years longer to get to the place where it needs to be, then that's totally fine. And if you like it that way, then you should be doing it that way. But what I see is a lot of people who are not enjoying that, that is what's happening for them, but they're not realizing it's because their energy is split into way too many areas and they've gotta really narrow it down and they've gotta be willing to say, okay, these things I'm not going to be able to participate in right now. These things I have to set down. These things I have to delegate. I'm going to have to have a conversation with my spouse and they're going to have to take over more of these things. And we're going to have to figure out a new balance because I need way more of my energy to be able to pour into this business if I want it to work and if I want it to grow at the pace that I want it to grow at. And so sacrifice is required. And I think that's something that not a lot of people are saying. It's not the, um, It's not the standard narrative, at least in the sort of like spiritual business space. I think it is very much so when you go over into like the, um, like masculine business building spaces where you've got these like male coaches or the fitness world. And in those spaces, I think they do have more of that narrative in those conversations, but sometimes it's to a detriment because there's no— they're not even recognizing that there's another possibility. They're not even seeing the feminine side of the coin. And so I think it's really important to, to know both truths and allow them to exist at once and really be able to just look at your exact scenario, where you are in business, the, the pace at which you want to grow, the results that you're trying to get, and then figure out, all right, what do I need more of right now? Do I need more foot on the gas or do I need more flow and more life and more play? Because there's a time and a place where you're probably gonna need to lean harder into both of those at some point, but it's just about where are you actually right now and what makes sense for you and your goals and the stage of your business. All right, you guys, that is it for today. I have so many other tips and things that I want to share with you about my journey from $0 to my first $100,000 in business. So if you want to join in, please sign up for the free masterclass taking place this Sunday, September 17th. It's gonna be so much fun. Again, there's gonna be a replay, so if you can't come live, you'll receive the recording in your inbox directly after we get off. It's completely free. There's a replay. Click the link in the show notes to register and join us. I hope to see you there. If you guys enjoyed this episode or found value in it, please pay it forward and share it with someone who you think would enjoy it. Either take a screenshot and share this with your audience online, or copy the link directly and send it to someone that you know. Send it to a friend, to a business bestie, to your group chat. And don't forget to follow the podcast. Are you subscribed to the show on Apple or following us on Spotify? Because most people actually are not, and this is one of the best ways to support the show and make sure that you don't miss any future juicy episodes. So make sure that you check out if you are subscribed or following on Spotify. Leave us 5 stars if you love the show. I so appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for being and we will talk to you next week. Bye!