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Learn How to Build a Six-Figure Business in Less Than Six Months

Here's a Step-by-Step Plan to Create a Legitimate Six-Figure Business

With a record 4.3 million people quitting their jobs, the question becomes: how will all those people pay their bills? You may be thinking about joining what has been called the 'Great Resignation' but wondering how you'll keep cash coming in.

Some people will get new or better jobs. There is no shortage of companies looking to hire and retain good workers. However, there's a record number of men deciding to jump into entrepreneurship as a way to create financial security, more time freedom, and live a better life.

RELATED: Step-By-Step Guide to Starting Your Own Business

Men are deciding they want to be their own boss and be in control of how they spend their time. We live in a time when software and access to consumers on the Internet and social media create an opportunity for men to monetize their knowledge, expertise, and experiences.

Today, you can start and build a business with fewer costs, and it can grow to provide life-supporting revenue in a short space of time. You can monetize your knowledge, which means you don't need a physical location or offer in-person services. Selling digital information products allows you to scale a business without the same constraints on your time and bandwidth.

Here's a step-by-step plan to create a legitimate six-figure business in less than six months, with tips from successful entrepreneurs.

Pick a Topic You'd Like to Build Your Business Around

You can monetize your knowledge and experience, but you'll need to be clear about which part you'll teach others. This process starts with deciding on your audience. It's called identifying your ideal target consumer.

You could help medical students study for the MCAT, help gamers understand how to be better at a particular game, or guide writers to develop their skills. The list could go on. No matter what you might be interested in teaching, there is an audience of people who want to learn and will pay for it. The goal is to get clarity on the topic and form the foundation of your business around it.

Gwen Lane is an entrepreneur who built a six-figure business quickly. Her company, the Spark School, is capable of generating six figures in a month. In fact, they've had numerous six-figure months. Gwen's company helps content creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs build their brand, grow their community, and monetize their business through partnerships and products.

Her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to know and understand that building a business is an ongoing process. “Although the six figures happened quickly, it was from years of building a solid foundation, optimizing our offers, and really getting to know our target audience and customer as well as possible,” she says.

“I feel like many business owners don't do this enough, they have a general idea, but they don't really go deep to know their customer's frustrations, what keeps them up at night. Even after seven figures in revenue, my team and I are still working on our messaging and optimizing to make tiny tweaks that make a big difference.

My team and I look at the data and the numbers every single week, improving things where we can and knowing that it will always be a work in progress. I'm constantly learning, testing, and improving my skills as a leader.

Working on myself has been a significant contributor to being able to face challenges and not be derailed by obstacles which are just a part of the journey."

Set Up a Website

Don't stop reading just because you think setting up a website sounds like a complicated step that you'd rather not try. Today, software and access to information makes setting a site an easy task.

You can use a plug-and-play website builder such as Squarespace to create a beautiful and effective website in less than a day. You can get on YouTube and watch hundreds of videos on setting up and making this website appealing to potential customers.

This site could be as simple as having a home, about, content, and sales/services page. Four pages with information about your topic and why you teach that topic can help you create a solid online foundation.

Mike Wayne is a serial entrepreneur who has used software and access to information to build a six-figure business. His company, Mediacraft, helps "knowledge entrepreneurs" with the tools they'll need to market, sell, and deliver their products online more effectively.

He got tired of how complicated it can be to set up and use software, so this ambitious entrepreneur created an all-in-one website and marketing solution called Funnel Streams. He turned his frustration into his business. His company took five months to reach six figures. This was through a mix of consulting services and monthly recurring revenue from FunnelStreams.

“All of my services solve a specific pain point or remove a roadblock from my client's businesses. If you're not solving a specific problem, you'll never reach the scale you'll need to achieve six figures in sales,” he says.

“Use clear and straightforward messaging on your website. A confused mind always says no. No matter how many different services you offer, it would help if you only offered new leads one option — buy or don't buy. Your offer should be easy to read and understand and address their roadblocks on your website."

Create the Revenue-Earning Models You'll Use to Monetize

With your topic and website set, you'll need to think about and set up the ways you'll generate revenue. The good news is you have options:

  • You can offer clients virtually coaching — this is done through software such as Zoom. You teach clients what to do, and they do the work. These could be thirty-minute to one-hour sessions that you charge per hour.
  • You can create courses to teach your topic and put the content behind a member's paywall. You can charge a one-time or monthly fee to access the training. Once you record the content, the heavy lifting is done. You can then sell that recorded content for years.
  • You can offer fulfillment services in which clients hire you to do whatever it is you teach. Busy people spend good money to hire service professionals.

These are just a few examples. Decide which model — or hybrid model — and create your offering through revenue-earning streams that make sense for you. Think about your time and your personality. Some models don't make sense for certain people.

Build an Audience That's Interested in Your Topic

If you're going to build a six-figure business, you'll need potential customers. That means building an audience of people that are interested in being taught about your topic of choice. Social media makes this easier to do.

Billions of people log into social media accounts every day. There are groups and pages for people that are interested in your topic. Your goal is to do market research and find where your ideal target audience frequents online.

On your pages and in the places you find, add value and teach through content. Create written, audio, and or video posts that create awareness and teach your potential customers why they should care about your topic. As you add value, your audience builds, which creates an opportunity to sell.

Show up in your stories, giving little tips. Submit content to places such as Medium to create more visibility. Comment on questions people ask in social media groups, demonstrating your expertise. Go where the audience is and earn their attention.

Rachel Pedersen is an entrepreneur who built her business to generate six figures in less than six months, and the company has grown to bring in seven-figures a year in revenue. Her business helps entrepreneurs leverage social media to build an audience and generate more revenue.

She creates excellent content consistently and uses it to build her audience. Rachel has this advice about building an audience: "Get on video! Video is the fastest way to build rapport — thanks to the Parasocial relationships. People watching your videos view you as the expert, the go-to, and a trusted authority."

Create Systems for Scaling, and Sell Your Offers

Your revenue won't grow if you don't sell what your business offers. To sell, you'll need to have systems for growth. Experiencing too many sales has crippled businesses that weren't prepared for the onslaught.

Blake Nubar is a serial entrepreneur. His company, Click Profits, has generated more than $22 million in revenue. Blake and his company help entrepreneurs get clarity on their offers, scale them, create systems, and build a profitable business. They have won multiple ClickFunnels 'Three Comma Club' awards.

“Get a working concept of your idea out in the marketplace as quickly as possible to validate it. A lot of entrepreneurs think they have a good offer or way to monetize that offer, but testing is the only real way to verify that," Blake advises.

“Use social media, the Internet, groups, and media to sell your offers. As you add value and educate through content, you'll notice the sales start to happen organically. Create a plan for which offer you'll sell and when. Just make sure you can fulfill what you sell. If you're selling pre-recorded content, that is a model that allows you to scale.”

Follow along with this timeline:

  • Take one week to nail your topic and who you want to help
  • Spend one week building a simple website that shows the topic you teach, your offers, and how consumers can do business with you
  • Spend two weeks setting up the revenue-earning models you'll use
  • Spend two weeks creating content to build your audience and get people interested in your offers
  • Spend two weeks creating sales content for social media — schedule it out
  • Spend two months building a decent enough audience to monetize — consistency in publishing content helps you build an audience and create more visibility
  • The next two months are all about selling, scaling, seeing what's working, tweaking, and selling some more

That's a realistic six-month timeline that can get your business to six figures and create a path to scale to more revenue. Remember that done is better than perfect — take action.

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