The Butterfly Effect

An excerpt from this week’s issue:

Hello readers! 👋🏾

First of all, apologies for the radio silence! I aim to get these newsletters out every week, but it’s been a busy last couple of days with work, family and life plans. Despite that, this newsletter remains a priority, so better late than never I guess!

Some highlights - this week we reached 33 subscribers! Thank you all for being part of this new and exciting journey 🚀. Secondly, I’ll be visiting the US! 🇺🇸 Plans to visit Boston and California are in the works, so if you’d like to meet for coffee drop me a DM (dates TBC).

Without further ado, onto this weeks post. I loved learning about Anfernee’s entrepreneurship story, especially around how 1 small activity - putting together a landing page - got him paying customers in only a matter of 3 days! This got me thinking about my approach to business - what’s a small win I can achieve this week? What’s something small I can do right now that’s low cost and won’t take a lot of time and commitment? I hope this story inspires you to take a small action in your business!

Let the learning begin 🤓 

How about a quick introduction? What do you do and where you are in the world?

Hi! I’m Anfernee. I've been working remotely since 2016 and am currently in my second round as a digital nomad 💻. My wife and I moved to Danang, Vietnam, last June from Sydney, Australia 🇻🇳. We needed a change of scene, the cost of living here is 4X less than in Sydney, and I love me some delicious pho 🍜😉.

I’m currently a freelance marketing consultant/coach and podcast outreach specialist. I deliver strategy & content that gets service-based businesses more trust, leads, and sales. I run the Authentic Marketer newsletter and the Authentic Influence podcast.

How did you earn your first $500/month online?

1. Put together a simple 1-page landing page explaining my service, a special launch price (AUD $300 per month), and a PayPal button.

2. Shared the page in a FB group I was a member of and asked for feedback.

3. Got 3 paying buyers within 72 hours.

What was the timeline to reach $500 from $0?

72 hours!

How did you find opportunities to earn $500/month?

Step 1 - Looked at opportunities in the space that I was already in.

It’s by working in a particular industry/space that the opportunity presented itself to me. Prior to launching this service, I was the marketing manager for a co-working space (for 2 years). Before that, I had a failed FB advertising business that I’d run for 2 years with a business partner where I learned a lot about content marketing.

During that time I saw firsthand how startups and small businesses struggled with getting ROI from their blog content. The main pain points that I identified were a lack of promotion of the content they were producing and no clear strategy for getting results from their content.

Step 2 - Surrounded myself with the right community.

Whilst I was still working at my full-time job, I surrounded myself with people who were going through a similar journey and who were potential clients. That's how I found a paid Facebook group called "7 Day Startup VIP group" started by an entrepreneur named Dan Norris.

In my experience, people who are paying to be part of a group/community are more likely to be in a place to pay for services than those who are in free groups.

Step 3 - Paid attention to trends in the market.

Something else that was happening during that time was the rise of productised services. So I wanted to see if I could create one of my own. What trends in society, technology and the market can you draw from?

Step 4 - Didn't focus on the money, focused on solving a real problem.

My goal was not to make a specific amount of money per month. It was simply to validate that someone would be willing to pay for my services. That meant talking to real people and identifying a problem that someone would be willing to pay to have solved.

What were the most helpful tools (e.g. Twitter, YouTube)?

1. Strikingly.com for creating the landing page (free)

2. Facebook group for the community, getting feedback, and connecting with prospective clients (paid)

What were your biggest challenges?

1. Going from a hunch/idea to identifying a big enough problem that people were willing to pay for. I also wanted something that made my offer different than the many article-writing services already available at the time.

2. Narrowing the focus of the service to something that I could deliver easily and in a short timeframe. This is where a productised service can be a good option.

3. Figuring out how to price the service so that it would be attractive enough for initial clients to give it a go. Later on, the challenge became how to price the service so that the business was sustainable and profitable.

4. And then actually launching it and getting those first few customers! It was a steep learning curve but it paid off in the end.

If you could start again with your current knowledge, what would you do differently?

1. I'd look to factor in profit from the beginning

2. I’d also start considering what I wanted my business to look like within 12 months, 24 months, etc. Am I wanting to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur? Freelancers get paid when they work. Entrepreneurs build teams and systems that do the work.

What’s your #1 top for starting and growing to $500/month and beyond?

"You don’t learn until you launch."

I learned this valuable lesson from Dan Norris' book “The 7 Day Startup”:

You don't need a fancy website, logo, massive social media following, or huge marketing budget to get started. You can even do it with a simple 1-page google doc.

It's all too easy to think you've got a great idea but an idea is worthless without customers.

Do you have any advice, ideas, books/articles to read, resources you recommend?

Learn and practice the art of copywriting. If you can't use words to communicate the value of your service, you won't be able to make consistent sales. Here's a good primer to get started.

Find a mentor or join an online course/community (ideally one that's cohort style like Daniel Vassallo's Small Bets). There are lots of entrepreneurs out there that are more than happy to help you out and share their own experiences.

Read The 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris, Work Less, Make More by James Schramko, and Company of One by Paul Jarvis. I also highly recommend reading Profit First by Mike Michalowicz to get your mindset right around making the finances work for you.

Don't be afraid to take risks. It's hard to make money as an entrepreneur, but it is possible with the right attitude and mindset. Don't give up and have faith in yourself! Good luck!

PS. If you want to stay in touch, I put out my weekly Authentic Marketer newsletter where I share actionable marketing, online business, and personal development tips every Friday.

What small action will you take?

Many successful startup stories will have you thinking success requires all-out commitment and blood, sweat and tears. In some cases, yes this is required. Anfernee’s story was particularly inspiring for me, as all he did to take off his business was create a simple landing page, then sharing it on social media. In his words:

A massive thank you to Anfernee for sharing his story. If you want to checkout his newsletter on actionable marketing, online business, and personal development tips, subscribe below!

Once again, thanks for reading, and see you next week!

As always, if you have any feedback to share, or you’d like to tell your story, you can reach out on Twitter.