My business earns $300k+/month, here are 10 things I would do if I were starting from scratch
How I would replicate this if I had to start over.
DEEP DIVE
My business generates $300,000+ per month in sales and it’s growing. My newsletter has 61,000+ subscribers and a 50-60% open rate.
We’ve even made $224,356 in a single day.
And, I’ve helped our clients at GrowLetter do much, much more.
I say this not to brag, only to show you I have a system that works.
Today, I’ll explain how I would replicate this if I had to start over.
Here are the 10 things I would do if I were starting from scratch:
1) Accomplish something
People want to learn from others who have done the thing they’re talking about.
Get real world experience.
Find a job, start a business, work for free, experiment.
Optimize your work and time for things you can later create content about.
Work on things that build your expertise, make you interesting, and unique.
You don’t need world-class accomplishments. You only need to be a few steps ahead of the people you’re helping.
Think about it this way: If we were to measure Tiger Woods’ golf skills on a scale of 1 to 10, he would be a 10 out of 10.
Most people who want to get better at golf are at a 1-4 out of 10. Do those people need a 10/10 golf pro to help them?
Hell no. A golf expert with at a 5-6 level would help them more than a 10/10 pro.
Get to a 5-6 level in one skill or topic. Then move on to the next step…
2) Publish content consistently to one discovery platform
If you want to build an audience, don’t start with a newsletter, podcast, or blog.
Start by publishing consistently to one social or video platform:
LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, TikTok, Facebook, etc
These are discovery platforms. Even if you have no audience you can reach people through their algorithms and other users sharing your content.
Newsletters, blogs, and podcasts have little to no built-in discovery.
They're the BEST channels for retaining audiences, building relationships, and monetizing. But they’re not useful if you need to build an audience from scratch.
Do this:
Pick a weekly publishing cadence. That could be 1x per week, 2x, 3x, or 5x.
When you're starting it doesn't matter how frequently you publish. What matters is that you stick to the same weekly cadence for at least 90 days.
Start with what you have time for. Then increase the frequency as you become more efficient.
I recommend posting 1-3 times per week to start. Then increase that to 5 times per week after you do this consistently for 90-180 days.
3) Scratch your own itch
The easiest way to create content is to write something YOU want to read.
When you create what you need, content that solves a problem you have — you can assess the quality of what you make directly, instead of by proxy.
It’s also a hell of a lot more fun.
If you want to become extremely successful you need to be in this for the long run.
Scratching your own itch makes building your business every day for months and years sustainable.
4) Collect emails from day 1
Your email list will be your most valuable asset. Start building from day one, but don’t worry about sending emails until you've built an audience.
Spin up a simple landing page with beehiiv.
Mention your up-and-coming newsletter at the end of your social posts.
Have CTA (call to action) for your newsletter (that’s coming soon) in your profile.
After you publish consistently on one discovery platform for 30-90 days (or more), get to 5,000-10,000+ followers, and build up an email list of 500-1000+ people, then you can start a newsletter.
5) Own a word or idea
The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.
Jay Clouse explains this well…
I’ve worked for the past 3 years on owning the word “newsletter.” It’s paid off. When people want to build a successful newsletter, they come to me.
When my audience talks to their friends about newsletters, they mention me (word of mouth marketing).
When people search the term “newsletter” almost anywhere on the internet, I show up.
If I were starting over I would think deeply about the category and word I can own.
A free weekly newsletter is the best way to start engaging and monetizing your audience through email. You’ll make the vast majority of your money from your email list in the long run.
That said, don't make the mistake of sending your newsletter more (or less) than weekly if you’re just starting out.
Weekly is the minimum cadence readers need to build a habit of opening.
More than weekly is too much work for someone who has not a built a large email audience yet.
After you get to 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers and there's a clear financial ROI for sending more than one time per week, do it.
Until then, you need to focus on growing your email audience.
6.5) Spend more time on discovery content than newsletter content
Make your newsletter short and simple to complete each week.
1 or 2 primary sections are all you need.
My newsletter has a curated section “best links” and an article section “deep dive”. The intro and outro sections are basically the same each week.
That’s more than enough.
I often see beginners with long complicated newsletters that they struggle to write each week. It's a recipe for disaster.
If you don't have a large email audience yet, you need to spend more time creating content to get people on your email list then for the people already on it.
Do that by creating for your discovery platform.
An extreme example is Alex Hormozi: His newsletter is literally a 60 second read. Then he publishes hundreds of posts on social that would take hours to consume.
Plus, always repurpose your newsletter into:
1 blog post (web version of your newsletter)
3-5 posts on your discovery platform of choice
If you do just that, every year you’ll publish:
52 blog posts
156-260 social posts
7) Be profitable from day 1
There are 4 ways to monetize your audience before you have a product or service to sell them:
1on1 coaching/consulting
Other people’s products (affiliate marketing or referrals)
Newsletter recommendations (SparkLoop or beehiiv boosts)
Newsletter sponsorships via an ad network (I like the beehiiv ad network)
These aren't going to make millions of dollars at first. But they’re the best ways to make your first dollar online, cover your expenses, and build momentum.
Especially consulting or coaching calls.
Sell 30, 45, or 60 mins of your time using Calendly and Stripe/PayPal.
With this you see your customers' problems and challenges
Use these to identify the focus of a product or service you’ll sell later.
Talking to people who pay you (customers) and seeing what they pay to fix is a better signal of what product you should create than surveys, polls, and interviews.
Another helpful signal is how sponsorships and affiliate products you promote perform. Which sponsors or affiliate promos do best? Use this to inform what product you will later create and sell to your audience.
8) Convert your rented audience into an owned audience
Make the most of every follower and view.
Send a DM to every new follower.
This is a simple way to convert 20-30% of your followers into subscribers. Yeah, it takes time, but you can hire a VA to do this for $5 per hour.
Post 1 pre-CTA and post-CTA per week to tease your newsletter.
This is the #1 growth tactic you’re probably not using.
Include a CTA in (almost) every post:
Even if it’s subtle, mention your newsletter and it’s value proposition (or a lead magnet).
Create and promote a new lead magnet every month or quarter:
Incentives are powerful. Give people something for free if they sign up. This could be a template, checklist, cheat sheet, guide, video, etc.
Optimize your social profile for email subscribers.
Your newsletter’s core value proposition (and/or a lead magnet) should be clearly displayed in your social profile. Don’t use a linktree. Send people to your landing page for the most conversions.
Build genuine relationships with other founders/creators in your niche — and the people who read your content.
Just like entrepreneurs and investors use other people’s money (OPM) to grow their wealth — you need to learn how to use other people's audiences (OPA) to grow yours.
This is “earned” media.
The best way to build earned media is to be kind and helpful.
Engage with other people creating similar content.
Comment on their posts, help them for free, share relevant content from them with your audience.
Over time, they’ll do the same for you. And eventually you can ask them for a testimonial (social proof).
Engage with your audience.
Reply to all your comments and emails.
Save positive responses to your content in swipe file (social proof).
Talk to your audience, ask questions, and create content in response to questions you get.
If you feel like you've deeply help someone, ask for a testimonial. These will help you later when you have a product to sell.
10) Launch a signature product
Through your consulting calls, sponsor results, comments, and email replies, you’ll identify patterns in the problems your audience has.
Use this to create a product or service that:
Solves a real problem
Is aligned with the word or idea your own
It may take 3-6 months to identify what product to create. But once you do, launch it fast and ALWAYS sell then build.
Don’t waste weeks or months creating a product that people may not buy.
Always do a pre-sale. This is the only way to determine what your audience wants.
Surveys, polls, and interviews may give you an idea of what they want. But many times, buying behavior will be completely different!
People vote with their wallets.
If you want to build a media or education business, your signature product should be a information or coaching offer.
I’m talking about offers like:
Events
Courses
Live learning
Memberships
Subscriptions
Digital products
Coaching (1on1 or group)
Masterminds or peer groups
Or a hybrid of these
To learn how to identify what to sell and launch one of these products, read my deep dives on this topic:
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