I Will Teach You To Be Rich » Case studies http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com Personal finance blog for college students, recent graduates and everyone else -- including entrepreneurship -- for getting rich. Featured in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:07:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Case Study: How Brian turned a hobby into a business — and almost doubled his rates http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/case-study-how-brian-turned-a-hobby-into-a-business-and-almost-doubled-his-rates/ http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/case-study-how-brian-turned-a-hobby-into-a-business-and-almost-doubled-his-rates/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:56:58 +0000 Ramit Sethi http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/?p=7732

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The most dependable way to earn more money is to provide more value to your customers. That’s obvious.

And the most dependable way to provide more value to your customers is to listen to them and take the time to really understand what they want and need…then give it to them. That’s also obvious.

So why do so few people actually take the time to do it?

It’s because researching your customers isn’t as sexy or fun as creating products or strategizing your pricing. It involves talking to REAL PEOPLE. It also involves admitting that you might be wrong about your customers and the best way to find out is to shut up and listen.

If you can’t get into your customers’ heads, chances are your products and strategies will fail. Why shoot yourself in the foot before you’re even up and running?

Today, a story about one of my students, Brian, who did it right.

He’s building his business slowly, minimizing his risk and taking the time to talk to his customers and other professionals in his industry along the way. His results speak for themselves…he’s almost doubled his rates.

Here’s how he did it.

Step 1: Proving the idea

Halfway through film school, Brian realized that while he loved filmmaking, he had no idea how to turn his hobby into a business. He learned a lot about the technical and artistic aspects of filmmaking, but not much about how to actually make money from those skills.

Brian didn’t want to drop out, so he decided to try Earn1K, my course on earning more on the side, he was curious.

By the third week of Earn1K, Brian had niched his business idea down to high-end wedding videos and set two goals:

  1. Book three weddings and have one of them be from a couple he didn’t know.
  2. Earn enough to pay for a camera (about $1,200).

He started telling everyone he knew about his new wedding video business. “At the beginning, I was pretty much giving the videos away. One was free. A couple were $450. By the end of the first season, clients were paying $1,000 for each video. I saw that I was giving people valuable material. They weren’t paying just to help me out. That meant a lot. They really wanted what I was offering.”

Brian minimized his risk by proving the validity of his idea before investing a lot of money in it. He shot his first three weddings with rented or borrowed cameras. He didn’t print business cards or put up a website.

“Why have business cards if no one wants to know who I am?” Brian reasoned. “Same with a website. No one was looking for me. I needed to get people’s attention first. Then I could think about that stuff.”

Brian booked six clients by the end of the first summer. Three of them were people he didn’t know. He bought his camera and started planning for the next year’s wedding season.

“This is what people pay money for!” he said. “I could learn a lot of the pieces of this from scattered blogs, but not from a single, trusted source. You know it’s grounded in data and real conversations with people. And Earn1K is all cohesive and ordered so that it’s actionable. It’s realistic and doable.”

Step 2: Understanding his customers

“Everything about video is considering your audience. Whether it’s corporate video or fundraising or weddings, it all hinges on understanding who is watching it and what it’s going to take to communicate with them well. And that comes from really understanding your ideal client profile.”

He used the 37-minute video and worksheet on defining your ideal client profile from Earn1K to focus on his ideal client.

“That’s the lesson that got me thinking about who my customers were and what they really wanted. I started talking with customers, talking with wedding photographers, researching other videographers. I did this when I started and between seasons. My product has definitely changed over the last year thanks to that lesson.”

Brian found his best customers were almost always 25 or older. Any younger and they’d be more focused on price than quality. They were usually young professionals who had been working for a couple years. “I’ve also noticed it’s usually the bride’s parents who are paying, so I’m now trying to learn more about them and where they are in their life. I’m focused on the couple, but I want to give them enough material to sell me to their parents.”

Wedding photographers have also been helpful in teaching Brian about his customers and market. “Not only do they know the business, but they’ve been great sources for referrals. Brides look for photographers early and video late in the process, so having that connection is huge.”

Brian’s also learned a lot about his ideal customers and the market from studying his competition. “A lot of the choices I saw videographers making seemed foolish. Like charging by the hour and listing all of the equipment. My clients don’t care how many microphones I’m using. They trust me to deliver a quality work of art, and they want me to be generous with my hours and equipment. Not constantly try to upsell them.”

How has knowing his ideal client profile helped Brian?

Getting into his customers’ heads has helped him deliver better videos and earn stronger referrals. While he’s only booked one more wedding than last year, his price per wedding has gone way up. Couples can purchase a short form video for around $1,250. A long-form for $2,250. Or get both for over $3,000. He’s also started adding same day editing so the wedding party can view their video during their reception. His clients love it.

As his reputation grows, he’s already booked two weddings for next season and is pursuing leads for several off-season weddings. Best of all, he loves what he does.

Working on happily ever after…

Brian isn’t a full-time wedding videographer yet. He still paints houses part-time to help pay the bills, but he isn’t worried about that.

“From all the wedding photographers I’ve talked to, it can take three to six years to go full-time. So I’m in good shape for how I’m growing.”

With two seasons under his belt, Brian has a better sense of how many weddings he’ll need to book each year to make the business sustainable. “Nobody else is a full-time wedding videographer in my area. There’s some people doing commercial and real estate video. But for now I’m sticking with weddings and doing it better than anyone else. My clients appreciate that, and it makes it simpler for me.”

Instead of diluting his niche, Brian is expanding his geographical market. Seattle is just an hour and a half away. If he can break in there, he knows he’ll be able to go full-time. All he needs to do is connect with a few wedding photographers and start reaching out to couples who meet his ideal client profile…

Total earned using Earn1K: $15,653
Houry rate: Before Earn1K = $15; After Earn1K = $25
What would you be doing without Earn1K: “I was going to try start this business with or without Earn1K, but without it I’d still be floundering for lack of confidence, clarity of who my customer is, and growing but ever so slowly.”
What would you tell others considering joining this course: “I read heaps of blogs but I craved structure and I needed an authoritative voice among the well wishers and the vague suggestions. Your dedication to data forced me to rethink my strategies from the ground up and I’m super grateful for that. Earn1K set me on course for success.”

Who is your ideal client?

I devote multiple modules in Earn1K to really defining your ideal client and defining what they want and need. But you don’t need all of that to start today. Sign-up for Insider’s List today and I’ll give you FREE access to a ton of money-making resources — including another case study about someone who also kickstarted their business with free work — as well as my Ideal Client Profile worksheet.

(Can’t see the form above? Click here instead.)

PS — I need your help. My friend Amit Gupta (@superamit) was diagnosed with Leukemia and is trying to find a bone marrow match. Time is running out — he has less than 13 days left to find a match. I swabbed my cheek 2 weeks ago and it took 5 minutes. Will you help? Click here: http://t.co/mztEwzGQ

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There’s a lot of psychology behind the name of my course, “Earn1K on the Side.”

During our research of 100,000+ people, we discovered some fascinating insights. In a nutshell:

  • Earn “1K” — why do I call it that? Even though many of my successful students earn tens of thousands of dollars on the side, virtually no one believes they can do that at first. It simply seems unattainable.  So 1K is a cognitive shortcut to something achievable.
  • “On the side” because most people believe that “earning more” means they have to quit their jobs and start the next Google (which is, of course, nonsense). Important to delineate that.

For most of us, earning $1,000/month would make a massive material difference to our lives. And then, some (not all) of my students use my Tuner Strategy to “tune” that number to $2,000, $6,000, even $10,000 a month. But if you present those numbers too early, people simply shut down because those amounts are too large to process. They simply don’t resonate, and people say things like, “I’m not the kind of person that could earn $10K/month.”

These psychological insights are crucial.

That’s why when it comes to earning money, based on hundreds of thousands of data points, I relentlessly mock social media and passive income (here’s a good story about someone who tried to build a product and failed) and focus on a simple goal: getting your first three clients and earning $1,000.

Your first client might be your uncle. Your second might be a fluke. But when you hit #3, then you’ve proven you can do it. The Tuner Strategy takes the pressure off of your initial efforts because you don’t have to hit a home run on your first try. It gives you the freedom to start small and work your way up.

Today, a story about one of my international Earn1K students, Prime, who used this strategy to land her first client and start making money on the side.

“All I need is a business I can bring anywhere.”

By day, Prime worked as a copy editor for the local bureau of an international news agency in Manila, Philippines. At night, she’d dream about working for herself and travelling the world. She just didn’t know how to combine them.

With her experience as a business reporter, Prime could have returned to an earlier correspondence job in Singapore or taken a higher paying writing job in China. “The thing is,” Prime said, “I don’t want another job in the news wires where I end up working long hours in the office and just travel either on holidays or on my twenty days of paid leave each year. All I need is a business I can bring anywhere.”

Prime had read about location independent entrepreneurs and knew, right away, that was what she wanted to do.

“I was raised to believe that financial security doesn’t come from climbing the corporate ladder, but from having your own business,” Prime said. “I had this nagging desire to have something of my own. But being a reporter, I was clueless as to how to make a business out of it.”

Learning to trust her gut

Prime had read my blog for a long time. And she was excited about my Earn1K course — but hesitated because of the price. “I didn’t sign up, but I knew even back then that it was probably a quality product.”

Prime’s hesitation lasted a whole year (!!), but finally, she couldn’t stop thinking about being location-independent. She signed up for the course and listed off 3 core goals:

  • Become a location-independent entrepreneur
  • Get at least 4 clients (2 for herself and 2 for her business partner)
  • Earn at least $1,500 to $2,000 a month so she could quit her day job

I loved it when she said, “I wish I didn’t stay on the fence for a year. If I had trusted my gut and enrolled in Earn1K as soon as it was offered, my business would have been bigger by now.”

She went on:
“I was excited to learn I can make a business out of blogging without having to resort to ads and massive traffic. Or that I can make a business out of writing without having to become a publicist. That there’s other options for me as writer aside from freelancing for publications. I tried that before and had to quit because the pay sucks.”

But where should she begin?

From first client…to regular clients

“The lesson that really hit me was about the need to go deeply into my customer’s head, to research more about my client’s needs and fears before I pitch,” said Prime.

Using a 37-minute video and worksheet from Earn1K, Prime created her Ideal Client Profile — a Filipino entrepreneur who needed copywriting help to reach a global market via strong online content. That included website copy, blogging and article marketing. The clients were hands-on and money-conscious, but also eager to grow.

Building off her experience as a business reporter, Prime surveyed the Filipino entrepreneurs in her network and discovered the need was there. With her love of writing, she knew this business was a perfect fit.

(Note: I get tons of questions about whether my material works internationally. This should answer that question…)

Now, to land that first client!

“I reviewed my contact list and looked for small and medium scale entrepreneurs who were looking for writers for their businesses, who trusted me and who believed in my writing skills. I zeroed in on one who hired me in the past but had to let me go because she couldn’t afford to pay me on a full-time basis. She was planning to expand overseas and liked me, but didn’t think she could afford someone with my credentials and journalism experience.”

Prime knew if she could get her foot in the door and prove her value, she could use the Tuner Strategy to raise her rates and land more work.

Prime offered to complete one writing project at a reduced rate of $30 and included a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. The client was so happy with Prime’s work that she offered Prime a regular writing project — five blog posts a week.

The tuning begins!

“She’s now a regular client, and pays around $450 dollars a month for five posts a week.” Each post is about 500 to 700 words, which is easy for Prime and her business partner since they learned how to write quickly as reporters.

Next, Prime moved on to finding a second client…

“I just sent a detailed proposal to a friend of mine who owns a travel company in Nepal. He’s looking for optimized content like my first client, but he’s also a bit afraid that I’m expensive.” (This is a recurring theme — and I teach my Earn1K students how to avoid competing on price, and actually deliver MORE value…for premium prices. But this can sometimes be difficult at first, so I also teach how to get your foot in the door using strategic pricing.)

Prime saw another chance to use the Tuner Strategy to build her business.

“I offered a complete content marketing solution — a package of blog posts, article marketing, twitter campaign and consultation. I know a copywriter who’s offering a similar package for $800 a month, but I told him that for this project, I would charge $300 because I’d like to do a travel project. We haven’t closed the deal yet, but based on our email exchanges, he’s very keen on it. Hopefully I’ll close my second sale later this week.”

“Don’t nickle and dime your dreams.”

As Prime and her partner work to land their second client, they’re already contacting others. “We have no plans of offering low rates forever. Given that we live in Manila, our rates are still within industry standards and slightly above our ‘resentment level.’ For now, we just want to attract clients, get referrals and learn more about content marketing.”

Well on her way to achieving her initial goals, Prime’s new goal is to elevate her business to becoming a high-end content marketing strategist for travel companies. On the side, she continues to build her own travel blog, The Gypsy Gals (http://solofemaletravel.net/).

Prime talked about investing in herself: “You must not be afraid to invest in anything that will help you fulfill your dreams. As long as you know how to tell if a project or service is quality, then don’t nickle and dime your dreams. Your energy goes where you want to flow.”

Total earned using Earn1K: “About 1,000 dollars in the first quarter of my business  (June to August). The course paid for itself.”

Hourly rate: “I don’t charge an hourly rate. This is not the system here in the Philippines. I charge about $20 for each 400-600 word blog post.”

What you would be doing without Earn1K: “Without Earn1K I would have been doing what other journalists were doing: just climbing the corporate ladder or figuring out a way to be reassigned overseas so I can travel. But signing up with Earn1K has given me a better option. Why should I wait (and struggle so hard) for an overseas posting when I can just have a location-independent business which will give me more time to travel (and has the potential to give me higher revenues)? I was offered a promotion but I declined it as I prefer to build my business. I’m confident that it’s possible because I’m applying what I learned from Earn1K. “

What you would tell others considering joining the course: “If you plan to set up a business, you need to invest in YOURSELF. That knowledge that you’ll get from a comprehensive course like Earn1K will help you start, maintain and expand your business. I view Earn1K as my MBA and I never regretted the fact that instead of enrolling in a business school, I used my savings instead to pay for Earn1K.”

Grab my ready-to-use referral script from Earn1K

As Prime mentioned, the Tuner Strategy is all about taking on more or less work until you earn the amount of money you want. One excellent way to do this is by getting referrals from your existing clients. I talk about this extensively in Earn1K, even providing a script that students can “rip-off” and use directly.

You can get the script – for free – by signing up below:

(Can’t see the above form? Click here.)

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It’s always funny when I ask people what they want me to write about, and they’ll say something like “How about how to earn more money?” or “Something about getting started investing!”

First, I contemplate homicide. Then suicide. Then I delete their email and go to my happy place.

I call this the Manifest Destiny problem:

Have you noticed how lots of people always want more and more information, but rarely implement what they already have?

A couple years ago, I started realizing how lots of personal-finance readers were constantly asking for more and more information — more blog posts, more book reviews, more financial magazines — but would often just READ, not take action.

To put it bluntly, I have lots of friends who read blog post after blog post, but have STILL not automated their money, started investing, or even put together an aggressive plan to pay off debt.

I’ve tried to convince these people to leave my site as quickly as possible. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t need the biggest email list or the highest number of customers. I want the right people.

So today, we get to follow the story of someone who was one of the consumers — reading book after book, but doing nothing — yet he changed his behavior to get great results.

One of the ways he did this was to eliminate worthless distractions. For example, when it comes to earning more, social media is almost always a distraction. (This comes as a big surprise to many people, who read about Twitter/Facebook every day and think it “must” be useful…right?).

The problem is, if you take every one of the things you “should” do, you get overwhelmed with choice. It’s more fun to brainstorm, read 5,000 blogs, come up with a list of ideas, than to focus on a simple goal: 3 paying customers.

We all know someone like this. They have a ton of ideas for how to do something, but never act on them. They read a lot of blogs and books. They think “I can’t start yet…I need to do (ONE MORE THING) before I get started.”

And 10 years go by, and the day never comes.

But there are systematic ways to change from being a “thinker” to a “do-er.”

Here’s how one of my students, Brian, did it.

“I’ve read so many business books that I thought I knew how to start a business.”

Brian loved his job as a pastor for a campus ministry, but it only paid $1,000 a month.

“Plus, I’m getting older but college students always stay the same age,” Brian said. “I was ready to start transitioning to other work.”

He’d thought about earning more money before. Since his ministry job only took up 20-25 hours a week, he had lots of time left over. (Much of which he filled with books on business and personal finance.)

“I’ve read so many business books that I thought I knew how to start a business. But really, I just had a bunch of scattered ideas floating around in my head. I realized that reading books wasn’t enough. I needed a system to actually take action. I needed someone to push me along.”

He stopped thinking about earning more money and started doing it.

“I knew from your book that your stuff is super practical with lots of action steps and scripts. All legit. I had no barriers about your Earn1K course.”

When Brian signed up, he set two goals for himself:

  1. “Make $1,000 and prove that people will actually give me money to do stuff for them.”
  2. “I want to tell my friends that I made money on the side. They haven’t done that.”

“Brian, I want to start paying you now.”

Brian’s first breakthrough came from marketing guru Mike Williams’ Master Class, a 100-minute step-by-step breakdown on how to deeply get into your customer’s head and getting them to work with you. He calls it “Customer Clairvoyance.”

“I learned that I have to do it for them. People are lazy, and that’s okay. I just have to set it up for them. I have to make the follow-up call. I have to schedule the meetings. I have to make it as easy as possible so they can just say ‘sounds good’ or ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This was something I knew was true, but I just didn’t know how to do it. The Master Class showed me how.”

The class also taught Brian how to really understand his customers. “If you listen to people enough, they’ll tell you what they want to buy from you. And then you can give it to them. Once I got that, I had an epiphany. ‘Oh, this is how I sell to people!’”

Here’s how he implemented it.

“I was out at dinner with a friend. He introduced me to the owner and said I was interested in marketing. I told the owner, ‘Hey, I’ll do you email list for you for three months, and then we can talk about transitioning to paid work. I’ll show you how to sign-up people. I create a newsletter and set up autoresponders for you. I’ll handle everything. Every week, I’ll send you an update.’ He just kept saying ‘That’s great, that’s great.’ I got the job.”

That lasted two months…

“After a couple months, I went in with some campaign ideas, and he said, ‘Brian, I want to start paying you now.’ I couldn’t believe it! This was so cool. He paid me $60. That was the first money I’d ever made as a freelancer.”

“Quick wins are uber-important.”

“$60 isn’t a lot of money,” Brian said, “but it was a quick win that made me think I could actually make money on the side. It helped validate my idea and encouraged me to keep going.”

Since then, Brian’s branched out his services. “I still manage the restaurant’s monthly email newsletter, but I also helped the owner design the menu for his new restaurant.”

Brian isn’t even a designer, but based on his hustle and success with the email marketing, the owner came to Brian first. “I said ‘I’m not a designer, but I can find someone who can help.’ My friend and I did it, and that project pushed me over $1,000.”

In only a few months, Brian had achieved both of his goals. His days of sitting around and thinking about earning money on the side were over. He was in business.

“Clients don’t care about your education. They care about results.”

Brian’s new goal is to get more clients. He’s approaching other restaurant owners and refining his offer, learning as he goes.

“You were totally right. Clients don’t care about your education. They care about results.”

Most importantly, Brian was able to make the shift from thinking about idea after idea…to getting concrete results. From here, he can use the Tuner Strategy to “tune” that revenue up as much as he wants.

Total earned using Earn1K: $1,300

Hourly rate: $40/hour – $50/hour

What you would be doing without Earn1K: “Honestly, reading a bunch of business books and not doing anything about it.”

What you would tell others considering joining the course: “If you’re going to take action for the things you learn, it’s worth it. If you’re not, don’t waste your time.”

A quick note on “Customer Clairvoyance”

If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek at the psychological master class that Brian used to start taking action, you can get it (free) here.

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One of my students, “Sabine,” is a marketing specialist who used my Briefcase Technique to land a new client worth $5,600 a month.

I’ll show you how she made “their jaws drop” and got them to happily sign a $5,600 a month contract.

How many lattes is that worth?

Read on…

“I was completely fed up with being an employee.”

Sabine is a 34-year-old marketing professional specializing in helping small companies in the web development sector. She’s worked for herself for a little over a year.

“I was completely fed up with being an employee,” Sabine recalled. “I had…how should I say it…interesting bosses. After the third or fourth bad experience, I knew I wanted to be my own boss.”

So she struck out on her own. While Sabine enjoyed the freedom, she struggled to bring in enough business. “I had no good clients. Everything was on-and-off. Nothing was stable.” She knew that if she was going to succeed, she needed to invest in herself. That’s when she decided to sign up for Earn1K.

“It was amazing! All the fears I had, everything I had thought about — ‘ahh, why can’t I do this, why can’t I do that?’ — you gave me answers for everything.”  Sabine told me. “And now I know how you could do that. You had already asked your readers and network and participants so many questions, you knew the answers I was looking for.”

Sabine’s goal when she signed up for Earn1K was to make $2,800 and land three new clients by the end of the course. She only got one new client — but he paid her $5,600 a month.

“I’m used to coming up with ideas for improvement.”

“Before…I struggled to find the right price for my work. I didn’t know how to say I was worth the money. Now I know how to focus on benefits and present myself to clients.”

Sabine’s favorite tactic is the Briefcase Technique.

“I have a sales background. Lots of ideas about how to improve things, how to improve sales. I’ve worked for companies with less than 45 employees where there’s no marketing department, aside from the boss. So I’m used to coming up with ideas for improvement.”

She saw that one of her Xing contacts was looking for a marketing and office manager for their mobile development comapny. (Xing is like LinkedIn, but more popular in Germany, where she’s from.) Sabine contacted the company about the position, and they sent her a profile of the position they were looking to fill:

JOB PROFILE

Marketing:
Brainstorm and initiate Marketing activities
Write copy (case studies)
Create and send out marketing materials
Prepare events / trade fairs
Prepare and do sales presentations

PR:
Write blog posts
Twitter
Facebook
Website
Write press releases

Office Management:
Create office documents & spread sheets
CRM
Bookkeeping
Secretarial work (telephone, reception desk, office supplies, invoicing)

Sabine reviewed my video on the Briefcase Technique and started brainstorming ways she could fulfill and exceed his wish list.

“It’s really helpful to know what the client wants. If you know that, you can develop ideas around it. But it’s not necessary to have a job profile. You can use past experience to generate ideas. I drew on what I’ve done in past jobs and for previous clients. Or even just what makes sense — new websites, case studies, fixing mistakes. Things like that.”

Sabine used the company website and blog for most of her research. She also checked out their Twitter and Facebook pages, the Xing profiles of the company founders and did some basic Google searches.

Then she compiled her notes and arranged a meeting.

“You could see their jaws dropping.”

Sabine’s interview went well. They were amazed they found someone with experience in both marketing and office management. But before they could get into details, Sabine used the Briefcase Technique.

“I presented it before I told them what I charged. I said, ‘I’m sorry, if you don’t mind, I have a few ideas on some other ways I may be able to help you.’ I pulled out my sheet. In the beginning, you could see their jaws dropping.”

Sabine walked them through a list of things she could do for them on top of what they covered in the interview. That sealed the deal.

“They called me two days later with an offer. And one day was a holiday. They didn’t want me as a freelancer. They wanted to employ me because it would have been cheaper, but I didn’t want that. So we agreed on a two month trial contract. I know that without the Briefcase Technique, they wouldn’t have seen the value.”

Not only was that contract worth $5,600 a month, but Sabine raised her rates on the project from $50 an hour to $57 an hour. A 14% jump.

“I have to say, if your course stopped with the Briefcase Technique, I would still be thrilled.”

If you’re interested in getting free material on how Earn1K can help you earn more, click here.

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I love Chinese people. But in Silicon Valley, there is a funny phrase called “Chinese Math,” a derogatory term for clueless first-time entrepreneurs who estimate their market size by using examples like this:

I’m going to sell custom handbags to women in China.
There are about 1 billion people in China, so 500 million women. Let’s say 250 million adult women.
If I can sell to just 1% of them, that’s 2,500,000.
And if I can make $30 per bag, that’s $75 million.
I’m going to be rich!

Yeah…it doesn’t work that way.

This approach sucks because any message watered down enough to fit a market that large will be so generic that no one will listen.

Big corporations make the same mistake all the time. They throw millions of dollars into a product they’re convinced everyone will want. Then they stand there slack-jawed when no one wants it.

Counterintuitively, for most products and services, the more specific you are, the more sales you can make.

For example, think about personal trainers. Who’s going have more success?

  1. The trainer who promises everyone and anyone that working out will make them feel better
  2. The trainer who promises 20-something men they’ll double the size of their biceps in four months

That’s the paradox of niching down your offering. The more specific your niche, the easier it is to sell and the more you can charge. This is an extremely complex area, but that’s a simple example.

Today’s case study is a perfect example of this.

Paige was a pilates instructor struggling to offer her services to everyone interested in pilates. As soon as she narrowed her focus to helping people with back pain, her business exploded.

Read on to learn how Paige:

  • Finally admitted that her target market was too broad
  • Tested different niches without spending a penny
  • Nearly doubled her number of clients by niching down her offer

“After day 1, I knew I didn’t want a refund.”

One year ago, Paige made the leap to start working for herself.

After making $25 – $35 an hour for two and a half years as a pilates instructor at someone else’s studio, she opened her own studio in her garage. No commute, higher rates, more flexibility…and the responsibility of finding her own clients.

She quickly discovered there’s more to being a successful pilates instructor than the actual pilates.

“Before I took Earn1K,” Paige said, “I was charging $75 an hour, but I always got talked down and made excuses for why I didn’t deserve the money. I was instructing 20-25 hours a week and trying to build my business. My husband and I were working all the time. We needed to make a change.”

Paige had lots of ideas for building her business, but she didn’t know where to start. After reading the blog, she decided the best starting place was Earn1K.

“You doesn’t regurgitate the stuff everyone else is saying. Your stuff is on a different level. After day 1, I knew I didn’t want a refund.”

“It was all about getting into her head.”

Paige’s turnaround was spurred on by one particular client.

“This lady was an old client I had lost contact with. She wanted to resume her pilates but was really busy and asked if I could do the mat work at her office. Pilates has two types of workouts: mat workouts and equipment workouts.”

Eager for more work, Paige agreed to a talked down rate of $45 an hour. It wasn’t until she hung up that she realized that the drive time would eat into her profit and that just doing mat exercises would limit her client’s results.

Frustrated, Paige sucked it up and did her best. As expected, the results were less than ideal. “I kept telling her ‘you need to do this, do that.’ I wasn’t listening to her. Kind of selfish. I was so focused on my earnings and what I wanted.”

That’s when Paige watched a 37-minute Earn1K video on defining her target market, then an 11-minute bonus video on Why Benefits Sell. She realized that hadn’t taken the time to truly get into her clients’ head. She knew how pilates could help her client, but she had no idea what it meant for her client or how to convince her to give it a try.

“I started listening to her. She would say things like ‘My posture is so bad. I look horrible and fat and I don’t understand why I can’t get my back up. I have this great dress and I look bad in it.’ That’s when I explained how she’ll look lighter with a stronger back because she’ll be stretched out. That will make her feel better about herself. And I explained how I was doing my best with the mat exercises, but that I could help her more with the equipment. With the springs and straps we could put more strength in her back.”

Paige’s client agreed to try an extra session in Paige’s garage for a few weeks (at $75 an hour). It only took a few sessions before people started telling the client she looked better.

That quick success hooked her. The client quickly dropped her in office mat workouts for three sessions a week in Paige’s studio.

“It wasn’t about the work,” Paige remarked. “It was about all getting into her head.”

Testing her niche

By really listening to her clients, Paige realized that many of them worked with her to fix a lingering back injury. In fact, that niche benefit brought Paige to pilates in the first place. She wondered if focusing on clients with back injuries could help her business.

“Before Earn1K, when someone asked what I do, I’d say ‘I’m a pilates instructor’ and the conversation would fizzle out. Then I started testing niches. Very simple. When someone would ask me what I do, I’d say ‘I’m a pilates instructor working with clients with back injuries.’”

Paige used the test at parties, with people at the grocery store, all over the place. She noticed a spike in interest immediately. “Everyone responded. Just adding that line opened up whole dialogues and got me a lot of referrals.

Solely by word of mouth, Paige’s business nearly doubled. She went from instructing 20-25 hours a week to 30-40 hours. She also discovered that niching down her business helped her stick with her $75 an hour rate.

“Now I just say my rate and they pay. I also helped mitigate risk for new clients by offering an intro package. Five lessons for $250. By the time they’re done with it, they’re ready to keep going and happy to pay the regular rate. I’ve only had one client not stay after the intro.”

Without a website or any marketing campaigns, Paige’s business has nearly maxed out.

“Creating my offer was easy once I identified my most catchy benefits.”

For Paige, the hardest part was learning how to really get into her customers’ heads. With a thriving practice and strong word of mouth built on a niche benefit, Paige is now looking to take her business to the next level.

“I really want to talk to people about the back pain issue. Most pilates websites are bad. They don’t really help people with back pain who are looking for a solution to their pain.”

Instead of building a website that’s a business card no one looks at, Paige is channeling her success and expertise into a platform she hopes will help even more people with back pain. For her, niching down hasn’t just meant more business. It also means more opportunities to give.

Total earned using Earn1K: $3,450

Hourly rate: Starting rate ($45/hour) and current rate ($75/hour)

What you would be doing without Earn1K: “Nothing. I was so frustrated and overwhelmed figuring out and implementing ‘everything’ that needed to be done for my business. I would exhaust myself mentally all day on things I ‘could’ do that when it came time to implement ideas I would chuck the whole project because I didn’t know where to start and I felt so defeated.”

What you would tell others considering joining the course: “This course empowers you. You’ll no longer be paralyzed by failure or overwhelm. You’ll have steps to implement today to grow a thriving business.”

Get FREE and FULL access to BOTH videos that helped Paige double her number of clients

I want to show you that Paige’s impressive results are not simply a matter of luck. She isn’t an exception. Paige doubled her number of clients, raised her rates over 60% and maxed her business out by applying the lessons from Earn1K.

Today, I want to share with you the two Earn1K videos that drove her success:

  • Define Your Target Market – A 37-minute video on why you need to niche down your offer, how to do it, how the two-qualifier method can save you weeks and months of frustration and how to develop your own ideal client profile.
  • Why Benefits Sell – An 11-minute video on how to get in your customer’s head, why the straightjacket technique can make-or-break your business and examples of people use do it well and who do it poorly.

These 48 minutes can literally launch your business and set you up to start making money on the side, but not if you push “play” and go into TV-mode. Just like Paige, you have to apply what you’ve learned. If you do, just like Paige, I promise you’ll be impressed with the results.

Get both videos for free — instantly — by signing up below:

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One of the things I teach my Earn1K students is how to consciously recognize barriers — even those that are so deep, they’re invisible to us on first glance. It turns out that our peers — friends, neighbors, even family — can often be significant barriers.

How many of us have had “supportive”  friends and family members tell us we couldn’t earn start earning extra money on the side?

Or that we couldn’t turn our skills and interests into $1,000 a month?

“You’re lucky to have a job right now!” is a common phrase.

But few of these people are living the rich life we want to lead. In fact, if we’re honest, we don’t want to be in their place 10 years from now.

And so many of my students learn to recognize, internalize, and systematically discard these barriers.

Today, I’ve got a story about Johnny, an Earn1K student who suffered a debilitating injury and watched his income drop 50% overnight. With all of his new physical limitations, Johnny knew he couldn’t afford any psychological barriers, too.

He tested his beliefs and was able to eliminate all of his bank fees, start two side businesses, earn thousands of dollars and double his hourly rate from $40 to $80…all before he finished physical therapy.

Here’s how he did it.

“How much would you pay to walk again?”

Johnny was a successful clinical specialist for a medical manufacturer. He had met the girl he was going to marry. And between his martial arts and strength training, he was in great shape.

That’s when his life flipped upside down.

Johnny was squatting 400 lbs. when he accidentally dropped the weight onto his shoulders and blew out a number of discs in his back. Right away, he was bedridden. He also went on extended disability. His income dropped to a fixed $2,500 a month.

“Rent took up 50% of my income,” Johnny recalls. “I live in Vancouver. It’s an expensive city. I’m laying in bed thinking ‘How am I going to pay to eat? How much would I pay to walk again?” You don’t care. You pay what it costs.”

Luckily, Johnny wasn’t loaded up on debt before his injury. But he was quickly moving into the red. “I needed to learn how to manage my money after losing that chunk. I needed to reverse or at least control the descent into the red. I knew I needed some system so I wouldn’t drive myself crazy worrying about every cent.” Physical therapy isn’t cheap. Neither is a wedding.

Johnny picked up a copy of I Will Teach You To Be Rich and was initially taken back. “You’re a cocky motherfucker. You really got in my face, and you asked the questions I didn’t want to ask myself. At first, I wanted to prove you wrong, but you knew what you were talking about.”

“I told the bank what I wanted: $0 in fees.”

Shortly after finishing the book, Johnny started walking again. Between physical therapy sessions, one of the first places he walked to was his bank.

“From reading the book, I immediately experienced a couple of mental shifts. One was paying for what you love and being ruthless about what you don’t. I went over my banking statements for the past three months and realized I had been getting hit with a lot of fees. Who wants those? So I went to a new bank and told them what I wanted: $0 in fees. They set up my account so I had no fees and actually gave me $250 to switch banks.”

Impressed that Johnny could demand — and get — that from his bank, his fiancee went into her bank and did the same thing. Johnny told his friends and they agreed — “I shouldn’t be paying for this.” They walked into their banks and negotiated down to $0 in fees.

“It’s like breaking a world record,” Johnny laughs. “First one person does it, then everyone does. It’s just a psychological barrier.”

From managing money to making money

After seeing the results from the book, Johnny knew the next step was Earn1K.

“I needed to find a way to compensate for my fixed income. At that point, though, I didn’t really know what I’d be doing. The results from your book were so great that I had an attitude change about pursuing opportunities. I wanted a further psychology shift. I figured if your book had that much of an impact, I knew the course would probably be exponentially more so.”

Johnny signed up and devoted 10 hours a week to completing the activities in each lesson.

“Once I found my ideal clients, I didn’t have to explain my rates.”

While working through the course, Johnny settled on martial arts training as his business idea. He had over 25 years of martial arts experience, and he could do it while continuing with his physical therapy.

“Plus, a lot of what I teach is psychological. Most martial arts training is all physical. It’s action, reaction. You repeat something 1,000 times so that you can respond that way instinctively when you’re in the moment. But that’s not the best way to create behavior change. I mean, how many times do you have to practice touching a hot stove before you learn not to do that?”

Johnny knew that he could teach people a martial art the same way Earn1K taught him how to earn money on the side — by setting up systems to drive behavioral change.

After some free training proved the marketability of his idea, he started coaching novices at $40 an hour.

In hindsight, that was a mistake. Johnny struggled getting novices to pay. And when he did, they treated martial arts more as a novelty than a serious pursuit and didn’t stick around. “They wanted everything for nothing.”

This is where most novices fail. They randomly pick a price and, when the price doesn’t produce paying customers, they thrash around, creating Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and blaming the economy. They rarely stop to consider that they didn’t do their homework — usually involving pricing research and choosing the right clients.

Johnny was convinced there was a market for his martial arts training, but what if he was targeting the wrong people? He reviewed Earn1K’s 37-minute video and worksheet on how to define your target market. One lesson that resonated with him was to market to people who were willing to pay for value.

“That’s when I noticed more and more experienced martial artists were gravitating toward me. I found I could help these people target a narrow gap in their skill set. They already knew instruction could move them to the next rung up the ladder. Plus, they already understood what I was doing and appreciated it. That meant I didn’t really need to explain my rates.”

To prove it to himself, he tested raising his rates from $40 an hour to $80 an hour. No one complained.

It sounds simple, but the application of choosing the right clients is subtle.

“When you start out, your beliefs about who your customers are and what they will pay for your service are just that. Beliefs. They’re internal. They’re limiting. You have to find out who your ideal customer really is and then test to see what it’s really worth to them.”

“I always hear your voice in my head.”

A year and a half ago, Johnny was a on a fixed-income slide into debt.

Today, he’s growing a profitable martial arts business and feels more in control of his financial future than he ever has. He’s ramping up to earning $1,000 a month from his coaching and recently added a new income stream selling martial arts training equipment on Craigslist. Plus, this new income stream has become his best lead generation tool. “I’m actually making money on my marketing, not just spending.”

Nearing the end of his physical therapy, Johnny looks forward to what’s next. “I’ve also used my business, sales and martial arts experience to branch out into event security and management. I sell the clients. I build the team. I do the site assessment. Then I send in my team to actually work the event.”

Johnny credits his new found skills and confidence to Earn1K. “The course helped me be honest about what was working and what wasn’t. I always hear your voice in my head. Your like my conscience. I can hear you saying ‘Did this really take you where you wanted?’”

For Johnny, the answer is yes.

Total earned using Earn1K: $3,500.00

Hourly rate: “My starting rate was a straight $20/hour. I have now developed a number of rungs where the first is a $10.00 no commitment, group drop-in. Assessment occurs here. The second rung is a 4 part modular program that is taught at $200 per program participant. The 3rd rung is specialization or personal training building on prior concepts learned. This rate ranges from $50-$100 per hour.”

What you would be doing without Earn1K: “It is possible that I would still just be talking about doing it! I would lack confidence in my business dealings, learning through costly trial and error on multiple levels. I would not have been as focused in my clientele and been pandering to the lowest common denominator.”

What you would tell others considering joining the course: “Take the course if you want to change how you see business, save time and money and understand when you are being manipulated in other systems. I see Earn1K as freelancer self-defence course. Applicable and effective for a specific outcome. I have gained better marketing insight than people with 4 years of schooling in similar fields.”

Read the same chapter that helped Johnny tear down his mental barriers — for free

In the opening of my book, I break down the key messages of I Will Teach You To Be Rich…

  • Why getting started is more important than becoming an expert
  • How to get extraordinary results
  • How to spend extravagantly on the things you love
  • And much more

You can get this chapter – for free – by signing up below:

(Can’t see the above form? Click here.)

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This site isn’t for everyone.

When I launched it 7 years ago, I was a student at Stanford. I wrote it for my friends and me, many of whom went to colleges like Stanford, Harvard, etc. As the site grew, the people I wrote for didn’t necessarily have to go to those colleges, but they were educated, likely to make above-average incomes, and not interested in saving pennies.

In fact, I refused to do short blog posts or video clips because I didn’t want stupid people on my site. Life is too short to spend all day fending off attacks from ignorant people who are “outraged” by someone spending a few hundred dollars a month eating out.

Is that condescending? Cocky? Maybe. But that decision — to write for smart people and not pander to them — set the tone for the quality of readers even years later.

I’m proud to say that even today, I would be proud to have any of my very smart friends read my site and know that my material would not only apply to them — it would challenge them. Compare this to sites that write articles like “5 tips to save on your holiday sweaters,” also known as people you and I would not want to hang around with.

That’s why I laugh when I occasionally get an email from a high-powered corporate attorney or investment banker, wondering if my material would apply to them. (It’s a legitimate question, since they are relatively rare and therefore virtually zero self-development material is written for them.)

I usually tell them that, yes, I have highly successful people earning multiple 6-figure incomes who have still benefited from my material.

Today, I’d like to share the story of a research pediatric cardiologist who used my Earn1K course to make a career change.

I’m not afraid to tell you that I expect more from you. I don’t simply want to show you 50 new “tips” and “hacks” to let them wash over you and make you feel good. I expect you to make significantly more. I expect you to live a richer life by hanging out with friends and family more. And I expect you to demand more of yourself.

Today’s story is a good example that by focusing on top-performing people — including a cardiologist who earns 6 figures — you know that you can use the very same techniques for your career.

*      *     *

The Naysayers

How many of you have heard people say things like, “If you want a safe job, work for the government”?

Or: “Corporations are evil, soul-sucking places for sell-outs.”

Or: “Online courses are a scam. If you want to learn something, you need to go to school.”

Part of the reason these beliefs are so dangerous isn’t just because they’re wrong. Maybe they are, maybe not.

It’s because most people don’t even think about testing them.

We hear something a few times and just assume it’s true without digging around to find out for sure. Hence people who genuinely believe that paying for material, like my Earn1K course, is scammy because they “could always find the same info for free online.” (Yes, but will they?)

And when we do test them, people around us get scared and tell us how wrong we are. Most people would rather be consistent than happy or right.

Today, a story about one of my students, Fraz, who tested his assumptions. He was a well-paid university researcher frustrated by a system that seemed to hinder all of the goals it claimed to support.

Was academia really the best place to work?

Was he selling out by going to the private sector?

Could he even make the jump?

Read on to find out how Fraz did it.

“You’ve gone to the dark side.”

That’s what Fraz’s friends and coworkers in academia said when Fraz told them he was leaving his research position as pediatric cardiologist at a major university for a private sector job at a pharmaceutical company. He had sold out.

Fraz shrugged it off. He knew the truth. The private sector was the best place for him to continue his work of facilitating research.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions out there,” Fraz noted. “People on the academic side think the streets in the private sector are paved with gold and that everyone is rolling in money. That’s not true. I’m making about the same now as I was at the university. Six figures.”

“Research is heavily funded and controlled by the federal government,” Fraz explained. “That means when the government is under pressure to cut costs, it impacts our work.”

Fraz noted the common belief that business is selfish and secretive while academia is generous and open. That seemed false, too.

“In pharmaceuticals, everything has to be done in a team. The work is very complicated and takes a lot of people. That’s versus academics where you’re in it for yourself. There’s not a lot of support. Grants are a zero-sum game. We’re not all in it together.”

Fraz challenged one other assumption: that you can’t hustle your way into a great new career.

2011: The Year of the Hustle

“I’m definitely not entrepreneurial, but I do read a few personal finance blogs. That’s how I found I Will Teach You To Be Rich. It’s refreshing because you don’t pull any punches.”

One of those examples was my 30 days of all-new material about creating disproportionate results by hustling. Fraz tackled the challenge head-on. Instead of just thinking about informational interviewing, he started making calls to friends and acquaintances in the private sector.

The first few calls didn’t go anywhere, but it quickly turned around. Fraz shattered many of his misconceptions about the private sector and discovered there were many opportunities available if you just knew how to look.

When he heard about Earn1K, he was convinced it could help him make the switch to the private sector.

“Anytime you spend big bucks, you have to think twice. But based on the stuff you’d done already — the blog, the emails — the likelihood of Earn1K being a dud was pretty low. Your free stuff is good quality, so there’s got to be great stuff on the back end.”

Fraz signed up.

“Hearing real stories about real people is so valuable.”

“My goal with Earn1K was to really focus on how to interview. How to present myself to a potential employer in a way that looks good to them.”

Fraz loaded up his iPod with over 30 downloadable case studies from the course and listened to them on his daily commute.

“Hearing the stories of real people is way more compelling than just reading about a list of techniques. People don’t understand that. What counts are the stories that illustrate the points, make it actionable. That show how to approach the process. That was my favorite part of Earn1K. All the stories of entrepreneurs and negotiations and what lessons they learned from them.”

Fraz particularly liked hearing about mistakes people made. “You hear about successful people and don’t think they make mistakes, but they do. And I’m going to make mistakes. I love hearing about how you spent an afternoon watching reality TV and blew your whole day. And that’s okay. You don’t have to be a superhero to make it.”

Putting Earn1K into action

To begin, Fraz expanded his informational interviewing. To make the switch to the private sector, he needed to really get into the heads of people on that side.

“I called up people I knew. Friends of friends. I said, ‘Look, what I want to know is where you are, what you do, and how you’re doing it.’ And one of them actually mentioned a position I might be a good candidate for.”

Fraz knew from Earn1K that you can’t just walk into a client meeting or an interview and wing it, but it took a couple failed interviews for the lesson to sink in. When another opportunity arose, Fraz vowed to be prepared this time.

He reviewed a 35-minute Earn1K video on how to identify the benefits your clients really want. He tapped his growing network and found someone who had been a close confidante of the hiring manager. From that contact he learned about the hiring manager’s personality, history and pet projects. Fraz also talked to people inside the company to uncover their real needs.

Then he set up several mock interviews with contacts from other companies. “Going through the mock interview process is important. You can think about it sitting on your sofa, but there’s a big difference in actually moving your lips and doing it.”

Altogether, Fraz spent one to two hours a day over a couple months preparing for the interview. All this on top of his normal workload as a pediatric cardiologist researcher. “I didn’t realize how much work has to go into the preparation process. But it was totally worth it.”

The final result?

The hiring manager, a relatively senior vice president, was so fascinated by everything Fraz had to say that he was taking notes during the interview.

Fraz laughed. “How often does that happen?”

He got the job.

Earn1K is not just for entrepreneurs.

As Fraz settles into his new career helping a pharmaceutical company collaborate and streamline its processes, he’s still challenging his assumptions.

“I just had a meeting with marketing. We were talking about the motivations of our patients. Before I would have thought the marketers were coming from outer space, but now I could appreciate it and participate.”

He also still digs into Earn1K for guidance.

“I’m not entrepreneurial by nature. The industry I’m in and came from is not entrepreneurial. Nonetheless, I still found a lot of value in Earn1K. The stuff you talk about is valuable to a lot more people than just twenty-somethings in Silicon Valley.”

Get an excerpt of my Earn1K lesson on customer research

Fraz dominated not by simply diving into the new career search, but by methodically RESEARCHING (so he would impress his interviewers.) This lesson applies to us all – identifying what really matters to your clients & customers is often makes the difference between success and failure.

Today, I’m offering you an excerpt of my Earn1K lesson on customer research – free.

(Can’t see the above form? Click here.)

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Today, a story about one of my students, “Vince,” (name anonymized) who discovered that impressive credentials like an MBA alone won’t get you a job.

But deeply, truly understanding the desires of the hiring manager will.

See for yourself…

Vince spent $100,000 and two years getting an MBA only to find out that employers didn’t care about MBAs any more. They said they only wanted people with experience.

His school’s Career Services Department gave him the exact same advice they gave every student in every situation. Shotgun out as many resumes and applications as possible and hope something sticks.Vince knew from his struggle to find a summer internship halfway through his MBA that this approach probably wasn’t going to get him a job.

Certainly not a great job for good money doing something he loved.That’s when he did something most job hunters never consider doing. He stepped back and thought about how he could make himself stand out. How he could really get into the heads of his potential employers.

Vince found a way to PROVE he was a better candidate than his fellow graduates and applicants with more experience.

The results?

Comparing his mid-program internship search to his post-graduation job search, Vince boosted his call backs from 30% to 70%. Better yet, he boosted his offers from 11% to 86%.

Even though Vince applied to only a third the number of companies in his second round, he received six times as many offers!

By truly understanding what his “customers” wanted (HINT: it wasn’t experience), he was able to go from being just another graduate to being sought-after.

Here’s how he did it.

MBA ≠ A Guaranteed Job

Vince was tired of his job as a management consultant. The short projects and huge emphasis on billable hours wore him down. He knew that if he could move into the consumer technologies field then he’d be a lot happier. But how?

He had a plan:

  1. Quit my job.
  2. Take on a bunch of student loans.
  3. Spend two years to get my MBA.
  4. Graduate and start a new, better job.

Right?

With graduation coming up, Vince started his job search. The news was grim.

“Every company I talked to said they were just hiring people with experience,” Vince said. “I had invested $100,000 into my education and then found out companies will no longer overlook your lack of experience if you have a credential. It’s just not true anymore. How do you gain experience when you’re just starting out?”

The business world had changed. But the job search strategies his school’s Career Services Department gave him hadn’t.

“I knew that since they gave the same advice to everyone, there was no differentiation. It was pretty prosaic.”

Nonetheless, Vince gave it a shot. Halfway through his program, he needed a summer internship. He sent out resumes and cover letters to 30 companies and hoped for the best.

“I was very scatter shot. Not at all niche. I had a form resume and cover letter. Clicking on ‘submit’ 30 times isn’t that hard. I just tried to shoot as as many resumes as possible.”

The results weren’t very promising. Of the 30 he sent out, only nine called him back. Worse yet, because he hadn’t done his homework before the interview, he wasn’t prepared. Only one of the nine made him an offer, and it wasn’t a great internship.

Vince knew he needed a new strategy. That’s when he saw Earn1K.

“I treated my job interviewing strategy like a business.”

“I’ve read your blog since 2004. I’m a big believer in having as many psychological tools as possible. Your focus on developing automated systems instead of relying on willpower really resonated with me.”

Vince knew that not all of the course applied to him, but the psychology did.

“The psychology of how to convince someone to part with their money is something I wanted more scientific analysis on, not just intuition. How could I convince an interviewer that I was worth a large salary seemed similar to convincing a business that I could freelance for them. Just replace ‘customer’ with ‘hiring manager.’”

After graduating, Vince didn’t want a repeat of his internship search. He decided to approach his job interviewing strategy like a business. He wanted to understand his clients need and know how to pitch aimed at solving those needs. He signed up for Earn1K.

“I used to consume, and consume, and consume…”

Vince dove into two key Earn1K lessons on getting inside the heads of your customers. He studied a 37-minute video on how to define your target market and another 35-minute video on how to identify the benefits your clients truly want. There were also bonus videos and worksheets to help him make each lesson actionable.

“Before Earn1K, when it came to preparing for an interview, I was just a huge consumer of content. I’d read blog posts, commentary, any info about the company I could find,” Vince said. “It didn’t help. Having info wasn’t enough. I still didn’t understand their real business challenges.”

After completing Earn1K, Vince developed a new approach.

“Now, if I’m interested in working for a company, the first thing I do is interview a ton of alumni who work there. I ask what their pain points are. What keeps the managers up at night? This is the info I really need to know. Once I have that focus, I can take the next step. Figure out how to address those needs.”

Vince didn’t just brainstorm solutions to those needs, he created a detailed presentation outlining his strategy for solving them. (This is part of the Briefcase Technique, one of the tactics he’d learned in Earn1K.) He also created new, very targeted resumes and cover letters for each company on his list.

Now to test his new approach…

This time, he only sent out 10 resumes and cover letters. Of those 10, he had seven call him back. An increase from 30% to 70%. But Vince knew the real test would be the interview.

“My first interview was with an online tech company. From my conversations with alumni, I knew their biggest challenge at the moment was cloud computing pricing. Sure enough, that question came up early in the interview. I said ‘You know, I’ve thought about that issue and have a document that should address that.’ And I don’t mean just notes. I had a tables, a whole strategy.”

The interviewer was hooked.

“I could tell he was surprised,” Vince recalled. “No one does this. But at the end he said it was the most in-depth discussion about company issues he’d had with an interviewee.”

Of his seven interviews, six companies offered him a job. An increase from 11% to 86%.

“With six job offers to choose from…”

With six job offers to choose from, Vince controlled where to take his career. Eager to learn all that he could, he chose a company that offered him a high-level, customer-facing position and promised to rotate him every couple of months so he could really learn the business.

Vince credits Earn1K with teaching him the skills he needed to connect with and sell himself to those hiring managers.

“Earn1K taught me that it’s okay to be unorthodox. In an economy where where everyone looks the same, being a little unorthodox is a plus. You have to hustle. You have to be better than the others. Don’t be afraid to show how good you are, to show them you understand what their problems are. The Briefcase Technique is a great way to do that. I love it. That’s how I got an excellent job instead of a mediocre one.

Get the “A Rich Life” chapter from my best-selling book for more career advice – free

I devote an entire section of the “A Rich Life” chapter in my book to career/salary negotiations. There, I cover:

  • How to frame your salary requests as benefits to your employer (rather than selfish perks for you)
  • JUSTIFYING your proposed salary with research and data
  • Ways to come to the negotiating table with powerful leverage (and command respect)
  • Much more

You can get this chapter – for free – by signing up below:

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One of the objections I regularly hear for why some people don’t sign up for Earn1K is that they don’t know a high-paying skill like web design or programming.

Assumption 1: “I need a technical skill”

First of all, get the hell out of here. That’s the perfect excuse to do nothing.

You don’t have to have a technical skill that takes years of practice to start earning money on the side. In fact, here are some of my non-conventional students who are doing quite well:

John M.
Security/Combat Instructor (Knife/ Stick fighting)
Total earned since joining Earn1K: $2500+

Sophia C.
Group tutor
Total earned since joining Earn1K: $9000

Justin J.
Event DJ
Total earned since joining Earn1K: $4500

Emmanuel G.
Traditional organic cooking
Total earned since joining Earn1K: $4000

Assumption 2: “I need an idea”

You don’t need to know HOW you’re going to make $1,000 a month on the side. That’s one of the first lessons we cover in Earn1K — 4 weeks of techniques on how to generate, narrow, and test ideas for profitability. You will learn how.

In fact, rather than talking about how it works, let me show you how it’s done.

Today, a story about one of my students, Melanie, who said the same thing: “I can’t sign up for Earn1K because I don’t have a technical skill.”

But she decided to test that assumption and signed up anyway. Since then, she’s quadrupled her freelance rates and is going strong.

Here’s how she did it.

“Spending a couple thousand dollars for anything besides a car was tough.”

“I’m an avid reader of professional development material. That’s how I found Tim Ferriss. And it was through Tim that I found you,” Melanie recalled. “I liked you from the start. You were a little snarky.”

Melanie found a lot of information about how to earn more money and take control of her career. When the first launch of Earn1K was announced, Melanie added her name to the email list to learn more.

“It looked good, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever spend that much. I’d never done a course like this. Spending a couple thousand dollars for anything besides a car was tough. Especially since I didn’t have a concrete skill in mind. I didn’t think the course applied to me. I hit a mental barrier.”

Melanie let the opportunity pass. She went on with her life, still very much enjoying her job.

But she kept an eye on my blog. She read my emails and listened to the audiobook version of I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

“I was impressed with the book. And you narrated your own audiobook. After hearing you, I felt like I knew you enough to trust you, to take you seriously. When I got emails, I felt like you added a lot of value to my life.”

When Earn1K 2.0 arrived, Melanie took a leap of faith and signed up.

“The first three weeks were scary.”

“Going into the course, my goal was to get this info and make it profitable for me. So make back the price of the course plus $1. That’s my first goal.”

Melanie had a larger goal of learning how to build and scale a business, but to keep herself from getting overwhelmed, she stayed focused on landing her first three clients and getting into the black.

“To be honest, the first three weeks were scary. Starting out, the hardest thing was figuring out what one simple thing I could do to earn money on the side. In my job, I do a lot of soft skills. Not social media. I don’t play an instrument. For three weeks I said ‘okay, this is good information, but it doesn’t apply to me because I don’t build websites.’”

By week four, Melanie was too busy to keep studying. She took a break. This is more common than you’d think, and we discovered this in our customer research. So Earn1K now comes with lifetime access, and as a result, she was able to go back and continue the course when her schedule calmed down.

Melanie dove back into the first three lessons, particularly a 20-minute video all about how to identify a profitable skill you have that you can use to start making money.

Melanie realized that she’d always been good at public speaking and writing. And with her experience as a teacher, she knew about lessons plans. And with her experience at the non-profit, she knew something about marketing. Put together, these might work as a unique and valuable skill set.

Now, to test it.

From $10/hour to $40/hour

“I remember one Master Class. It was Mike Williams. He said whatever you do, don’t just sit around. Do something. So I did. I had heard about Elance.com and Guru.com. I went on Elance and started bidding on projects.”

Underbidding, actually. But Melanie was okay with that, and she was doing it strategically. (One of the modules in Earn1K goes in depth on pricing, and we discuss when to charge sky-high rates, when to charge industry-standard rates, and when to work for free.) In Melanie’s case, she knew she was inexperienced, and finding some initial clients was more important than optimizing her rates.

Sure enough, her hodge-podge collection of soft skills was valuable. She quickly landed her first client.

“The guy had a coaching program for middle and high school kids. He wanted to create lesson plans and ebooks to give the kids. I thought, ‘I used to teach. I know how to do that!’ I sent him a proposal. It was just four paragraphs and said, basically, that I was a former teacher and that I market to teachers in my current job. I know how to communicate to this group and speak to their needs.”

Melanie wrapped up the $480 project quickly. Then she upsold the client on an additional $100 worth of work to create more learning materials for the kids.

“I found out I could do it. I could start earning back the cost of the course and get into the black. That was awesome!”

For her next client, Melanie underbid again. She found a wealth-building coach looking for someone to turn his motivational videos into user-friendly manuals.

“I bid $100 per module. The first one was a test. It took 10 hours to do because the guy was all over the place. It took a lot of time to find the structure. But they liked it.”

In fact, they liked it so much they asked Melanie to do another. She agreed and spent eight hours on the project. When they asked her to do a third, Melanie told them she wasn’t doing it for that price. The client doubled the rate on the spot.

“I have templates now,” Melanie said. “I can do it in five hours. That’s $200 per manual. And I did six of them at that price.” A jump from $10/hour to $40/hour.

And that’s just the beginning. Her second client asked her about building a higher-priced group coaching course. Melanie is already thinking about how she can help him structure his videos. She knows that his customers will pay more for a high-quality video and that she can help him deliver that. When she does, she’ll be raising her prices again.

“Earn1K gave me confidence that I can do more than my current job.”

Melanie is still committed to her current career, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t looking down the road.

“I found I wanted to help people develop and market Christian information courses,” she said. “Contrary to your material, lots of coaches don’t really have good frameworks for their lessons. Lots of people are fluffy and vague. I can help these coaches really understand how to better serve their customers and how to create great information products.”

For now, Melanie is enjoying the process and learning as much as she can. Each new client gives her another opportunity to make money and get a behind-the-scenes look at where she wants to go. All because she had the courage to test her assumptions.

Melanie saw Earn1K as an INVESTMENT rather than a cost. Get my Scrooge Strategy email on spending vs. investing – for free

I have a paid service called Scrooge Strategy where I email you one PREMIUM (as in, it actually works) tip per week on saving money. One of my favorite emails from that service is called “Spending vs. Investing: Flipping The Value Proposition.” It talks about exactly what Melanie did – and gives you specific, concrete ways to do the same in your own life

Get my Scrooge Strategy email on spending vs. investing – for free – by signing up below:

 

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Over the course of creating Earn1K 2.0, we discovered some fascinating insights about people and money.

In order to create the second version of my flagship course on earning money on the side, I collected over 100,000 data points. That’s surveys, emails, phone calls, 1-on-1s, and Earn1K 1.0 student feedback.

Here are two of the most interesting barriers we discovered:

“I can’t start earning money until I get all of my finances in order…I need to get business cards, a website, Twitter…then I’ll take this course.”

Then we discovered this:

“I can’t be an entrepreneur. That’s for people who quit their job and start a company. I don’t know anything about that.”

After we heard those the 650th time, we began to craft a response.

The truth is that aiming for perfection is a great way to do nothing. How many of us are guilty of that?

Instead, I always push for a series of Quick Wins and Big Wins.

Quick Wins: Focus on getting immediate positive feedback. This is critical to ongoing motivation and helps get you over the initial hump of starting out.

Big Wins: Instead of worrying about saving a few bucks here or there, or setting up a useless blog that nobody reads, identify the 2-3 things that would get you DISPROPORTIONATE rewards. Spend your time there.

As a result, in Earn1K, we are ruthless about showing people a series of baby steps to get 3 paying clients and earn $1,000/month…and then far, far more.

Today, I’d like to share a story of one of my students: Jo.

You’ll notice that in her story, she doesn’t “boil the ocean,” a term that describes doing something earth-shattering (usually used derisively since it’s an impossibly large goal).

Instead, she takes a series of BABY STEPS that continually keep her moving.

Sometimes she might make a bad decision, but at least she’s moving — and smart people can correct their course.

The result?.

Well, within a few months of Earn1K, here’s an exact quote she got: “They wanted to hire me,” Jo said, “but by then they couldn’t afford me.”

If you’re nervous about quitting your day job and making the leap to working for yourself full-time, I think you’ll enjoy Jo’s story.

“I didn’t want to work for a corporation anymore.”

Jo is no stranger to hard work.

For years she had spent 60-70 grueling hours a week racing deadlines and fighting budgets as a manager for an enterprise-level project management software company. And while she still loved computers and technology, her heart just wasn’t in the work anymore.

“It was a hard time,” recalls Jo. “I’m very loyal, very hardworking. But because our system was so large and custom, any changes meant a lot of rework. My mother had just died. I didn’t like living in Las Vegas. And the work and the bureaucracy was killing me. I didn’t want to work for a corporation anymore. I wanted to work for myself.”

That’s when she stumbled across I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

“Ramit is one of the most relentless people I’ve ever met.”

An avid reader, Jo gobbled up Ramit’s book. That lead her to his blog. From there, eager to learn more, Jo signed up for Ramit’s mailing list.

“Ramit cuts to the chase. I like him a lot. He doesn’t tolerate a lot of slack and bullshit. I’m not quite as ruthless as he is,” Jo laughed, “but I’m also cut to the chase. People either have the chops or they don’t to be an entrepreneur. And until you figure that out you’ll never be successful.”

Ready to figure out if she could turn her software management skills into a lucrative and reliable consulting career, Jo signed up for Earn1K.

Jo had read plenty of books about starting a business and changing her life, but none of them were near as systematic in breaking down the exact steps to take (and avoid) to earn money on the side. “If you actually work through the exercises in Earn1K, you start to figure out who you are and what you can do. That builds your confidence that you can be successful by implementing what the course teaches – using the skills you have to earn money, how to crush the psychological barriers all entrepreneurs have to face, how to structure your time, what employers are looking for.”

Jo’s favorite lesson?

A 65-minute video Master Class with the super-successful lawyer, pundit and serial entrepreneur Alexis Martin Neely. “Alexis explains exactly how she raises her rates $500 every time she gets five new clients. That blew me away!” Included with the video is a worksheet breaking down Alexis’ six step process for creating your own Money Map and a bonus worksheet showing you how to maximize your rates.

Jo was hooked. She completed the course on top of her 60-70 hour workweeks. It was time to put it all into action.

Making the leap to full-time consulting

The phone rang. It was a construction company in Minnesota. They were interested in paying Jo $5,000 for a three month contract. Jo knew this could launch her consulting career, but three months?

“I said no. I said it would not be worth it to quit my regular job for a three month contract.” The company was still interested in either a longer contract or hiring Jo as a full-time, regular employee.

That’s when Jo applied the tactics from the final lesson in Earn1K, a 39-minute video on how to make the leap to full-time freelancing. She decided to take a close look at exactly how much she needed to quit her job. If she could calculate her expenses and strike a better deal, Jo knew she could overcome her fear of quitting.

“I negotiated for a flat rate contract which paid enough to match my salary and cover medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401k, life insurance, travel, accounting and legal costs. I spelled all of that out to my client so they would understand how I was calculating my rate.” Literally. Jo compiled all of the numbers in a spreadsheet and presented it to the company. Take it or leave it.

“They said six months. I said okay.”

Jo attributes her success to Earn1K. “The course taught me how to be the CEO of my own life. I’m in charge of my life. It doesn’t matter who I’m working for. I can’t begin to explain how helpful that confidence was. When we started talking money, I didn’t blink or flinch. These people really understood the consulting world. If they had sensed the littlest bit of weakness, they would have brought me down on the price. But it wasn’t there.”

Jo got her six month contract, $5,000 a week and all her benefits. She was officially working for herself.

Six months later…

Her contract was about to expire. The company called her into the office. “They wanted to hire me,” Jo smiled, “but by then they couldn’t afford me.” They did the next best thing and extended her contract.

In the meantime, Jo landed a second client and hired two subcontractors to manage that while she focused on the construction company. Her consulting business was growing. And for the first time, Jo realized that instead of living where she found work, she could find work where she wanted to live. Where did she want to go next?

Here’s a FREE 15-minute excerpt of the Earn1K Master Class that Jo used to become the CEO of her life

Want a sneak peek of the exact Master Class that Jo Tampas used to dominate her side income?

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