How to Actually Build to Multi-7 Figures (and the Trade-Offs No One Mentions)

Sam Vander Wielen: If you want to build to seven figures, I don’t really even think it’s worth talking about any other nurture channel because there is literally no better way to be able to reach as many people as directly as an email list. And truthfully, if you are selling more expensive products or you’re going to build out a product that becomes your flagship product, that’s a little more expensive, it’s going to be done through email because people aren’t buying $2,000 products for the most part off TikTok or Instagram.

Hey there, and welcome to On Your Terms®, a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to be as present in their lives as they are profitable in their businesses. So if you’re new here, welcome, and if you’re an avid listener, welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here, and I’m excited to chat with you today about what nobody tells you about how to actually build a seven figure business.

If I could just be honest with you for a second, which, you know, I, that’s, I have a knack for that. I honestly don’t think it’s that hard to build a seven figure business, if you want to that is, and that’s a big if that we will talk about a lot today, because I don’t believe that you should want to, I’m not here to advocate that that’s the only kind of successful business or anything like that. I think businesses, successful businesses come in all shapes and sizes and there are a million reasons to be or to not be, uh, a seven figure business, so we’ll talk about that a lot today. But here’s what I found really interesting in doing research for this episode today.

On the one hand, I believe that it’s not that hard. Why is it that less than 1% of one person businesses make over $1 million in revenue per year? Only 1% less than 1% of one person businesses make a million dollars per year. Out of 29.8 million one person businesses in 2022, just 104,000 of them hit the 1 million to 2.49 million in revenue annually.

That’s wild. So in fact, I thought it was really interesting that the average revenue for this is the last year that we have this, this, you know, aggregated data for, the average revenue for those businesses in 2022 was actually $57,000. So pretty far from $1 million. So in my opinion, most businesses don’t get to $1 million in revenue businesses who want to get to $1 million in revenue, but don’t.

I think it’s because they skipped one of the steps that we’ll talk about today. I really believe I’m giving you a comprehensive list of the big picture things that you need to be focused on, if you want your business to grow. Or I would also argue that maybe these business owners didn’t pay attention to what we’ll call the three Ps, which we will talk about later in today’s episode.

I really think it’s that simple. But here’s the thing, not to be the bearer of bad news, but building a seven figure business is not also the like end all, be all, cure all that people think it is, and making a lot of money in your business doesn’t always translate to money in your pocket. You can, you can build a seven figure business that’s not very profitable and that makes your life miserable.

Which is sort of the opposite of what I think people like want to build a a seven figure business for, I mean, you tell me, I, I would love to hear from you, but I assume that the reason that you want to is because you think it would offer you freedom. And so yes, it would offer you a lot of money, but in reality, money offers you a lot of options, which I think equals freedom, right?

But like I said, you have to be really intentional about building a profitable business that allows you to live a life that you actually want to live, remember, you’re here to build a business that you want. You’re not trying to impress anybody. It’s okay if you are happy at six figures. If that’s your goal is just to get to six figures, that’s amazing. Do that. Right?

You need to build this thing the way that you want to build it. But either way, regardless of whatever size you wanna hit in your business, you need to be profitable or it’s not really that sustainable. And I also, if I had my druthers, you would also be happy, right as you run the business. And really, it’s the marriage of those two things, building a profitable business that also makes you happy. That in my experience, is what really success is all about in the online business industry.

So here are the 10 things that I would do if I were you to actually build a seven figure online business or whatever size business you wanna build and I’m going to include some of the hard to hear cost of success, truths that come along with each one of these.

Number one, you need to focus on building a flagship product. Your flagship product is like the thing that you become known for. It’s the one thing that is like synonymous with your name. It’s probably going to be the thing you sell the most of. It’s probably your most expensive and profitable, if not one or the other, but hopefully both, and it’s really the thing that people actually want. So how do you build the right product? How do you build a product that people actually want? Well, you do a lot of demand and supply research as well as unique differentiator research and competitor analysis, all things I talked about in episode 259.

So after you listen to this episode, make sure you check that one out next, but that’s where we talked a lot in the episode about where your passion doesn’t always equal your profit. About the way that you need to approach product creation instead of approaching product creation from a place of like, I like this thing, or, I think everybody should take this course in this way, or Buy this product and do it in this way.

Instead, we take the time to learn their needs. Their struggles, their problems, and desired outcomes. Right? Not, I think it should be this way. We’re not, we’re not leading with shoulds in order to build a flagship product.

People who build successful businesses listen more to the customer and what they’re looking for than thinking about themselves. It’s kind of what separates the difference between a business owner and somebody like an influencer whose job is to literally project this image of themselves and how, good their life and their house and their whatever else looks like so that you buy the stuff. ’cause you just wanna be like them. The difference with a business owner is that you are catering to your customer.

And that’s something that I think has really gotten lost in the online business industry People, like, get so focused on the lifestyle of being an online business owner and how like amazing it is for you. And this is actually something I talk a lot about in my book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy, which if you haven’t read it yet, it’s available wherever books are sold, but I talk about this a lot in the book from the perspective of like, you’ve been a little brainwashed by this idea of like kind of people luring you in. It’s almost like a weird quasi pyramid scheme situation with the gurus are the pyramid, essentially, but where they pull you in saying like, look at how amazing my life is your life could look like that now buy my $3,000 course, and then you buy it, and then you’re like, wait, why doesn’t my life look like theirs?

Well, it’s ’cause everybody’s just paying them and that’s why their life looks like that. So it’s, it’s not, that’s not how it works. In reality, you have to build products that are for other people.

Businesses don’t just magically become successful because you decided that you want a business and you don’t wanna be tied to a desk or work in corporate, or you wanna be able to go to the playground with your kids in the afternoon. Successful businesses are built because we create great products or services for people that work.

That’s just like the mic drop truth of it. People ask me about this, about the Ultimate Bundle® all the time, my flagship product that I created in this style. And I’m like, yeah, ’cause it’s good and people like it and it works like that. That’s, it’s really as simple as that. If I had to add some extras, it would be, and then we take really good care of our customers and then that helps a lot because then they tell other people about it, and then we keep making the product better and we update it, and then that makes it better and it just keeps going and going. Like that’s why it’s successful, it’s not just a random thing that happened to this product.

Ideally, your flagship product is something that you don’t need to sell a billion of in order to be profitable. Unless you have a major audience, a huge email list, you’re a former celebrity, please let me know who you are. Then you can, you could maybe jump off and like create a $27 product and if you sell tons of them, then you can make enough money to survive.

I think for the rest of us who are starting out, you’re building your list, you’re building an audience, you need to remember and do the math of like, oh, how much of this thing would I need to sell in order to live my life comfortably? Right?

And you have to be familiar with what that number is for you, like what’s your break point? That’s something I talk a lot about in the book where I talk about knowing your numbers and knowing really like what you need to be able to pay yourself, and then how to do the calculation for like, okay, well if I need to pay myself X to live my life and afford this lifestyle that I’m saying is the one I want from having the business, then how much does that mean my business needs to make in order to pay myself that?

And it’s really just this kind of like reverse engineering calculation that we go through to figure out how much our businesses need to actually make. And sometimes when you do that, it’s sobering to realize like, oh, this thing that I’m trying to sell, it’s nearly impossible. Like I’m trying to climb like Everest, uh, style of selling online products in order to make that much money. Especially when you look at your audience size and the metrics that we’ll talk about today, like the fact that about only one to 2% of your list will probably buy during any given promotion. Right?

Well, if you have a hundred people on your list, do the math. We need to create a product that will support this life that we say we’re trying to build.

Now, here’s the truth of building a flagship product. It can be a bit boring, but by focusing on one thing, right, it’s not that you don’t sell anything else, but by this being like the main focus of your business and what you’re really building out, like your legacy product, it is going to make your life a lot easier in the long run, and it will make all of your different tasks and like things you have to do in the business so much easier in the long run, and we’re gonna talk about that a lot today.

The second thing you need to do to actually build a seven figure business is become a messaging master. You have to really, really, really get to know your ideal customer. You have to know your current customer if you have them. I’m not talking about like she shops at the Gap and he likes cats and whatever, we’re not talking about that. We are talking about what are they afraid of. What do they want more of? What do they want less of? What are they hoping for? What do they think would be different?

How would that change their life? And not just what they’re thinking, but literally how are they saying it? I am obsessed with voice of customer research. This is something that never stops. It’s probably something I do even more of now that I have a multi seven figure business than I did when I was starting out.

But it’s so important to know in their words, what they’re struggling with, what problems that’s causing them with, what are they seeking instead? And then if you’ve solved it, if you’ve worked with people and your product or your service, resolved it for them in their words, understanding what did that do for them?

Why did that matter? Why does that matter? And like you just keep going and going and going. I do this all the time. We still do quarterly customer calls. We record them. We like aggregate the data. I’m so obsessed with knowing exactly how they’re referring to it, and it changes over time. Like I’ve been doing this long enough now that the way that people talk now who I tracked is really different than the way that people were phrasing things back in 2016 and 2017 when I started. So that is just such a huge part of building a seven figure business and then maintaining it is really being plugged into what your people are saying. That then is going to allow you to master your messaging because when you know how your people think and you know how they talk, you’re going to be able to create content that is literally talking directly to them.

If you’ve listened to the podcast before, you know that I’m obsessed with the broccoli and mac and cheese analogy, where a lot of people go out in their content leading with the broccoli. By the broccoli, I mean that you are leading with what you think your customer needs to know or should know. It tends to be the too technical stuff, maybe heavy educational or promise driven or outcome driven or something like that.

It tends to be the thing that you are focused on. As the problem or the thing that you, you have already identified as the problem as the expert. I make the argument that we really need to be leading with the mac and cheese, which is just, you know, what everybody wants anyway. And when I say mac and cheese, in terms of messaging, I’m meaning, what they’re thinking. What they’re looking for, right? So that’s where it comes in of knowing what your customer is thinking and saying, and then leading with that mac and cheese. And then you serve up the broccoli. You slip it in between the noodles, just like you do with your kids when you like blend in broccoli into the sauce, you slip it in when you’re actually delivering your product. ‘Cause that’s what you need to do to get a good job done. But that’s not what you lead with in your messaging.

Another thing you need to master in your messaging is offering more proof over promise. So a lot of us will lead within in our messaging, like if you buy my program, it will do X, Y, and Z for you.

Instead of talking all the time from a place of promise, like if you join, this will happen. If you buy, this will happen. Right? Instead, leading from a place of proof. Now providing proof can be either proof about yourself being legit, like why do you have the receipts essentially to be talking about whatever you’re talking about or teaching.

Or, and or it can also be about your product being legit or your process working, your method working. Show me the receipts. Show me the results, right? This is something that’s shifted a lot in the last eight years since I started my business, which when I started you could focus more on just this like promise of what you’ll get and what the outcomes would be.

Versus now, I think there’s just a lot more skepticism online, rightfully so, and people scrutinize their options, they also have way more options nowadays. So I think you need to work on providing more proof and leading with the proof over the promise.

Now, here’s the truth about mastering your messaging. You will feel like you’re repeating yourself and you’ll be tempted so many times to make it more complicated than you need to. You will add on things, you’ll add channels, you’ll do this, that, and the other thing. When one thing is working, you’ll just assume that you need to switch it up. Don’t just keep going. Repeat yourself. Repeat yourself or repeat yourself. Don’t ever lose sight of how little of a part you are of other people’s worlds, and I mean that in a good way.

The third thing you need to do to actually build to seven figures is build an audience, because without an audience, we don’t have anybody to sell to.

Now, the first two things that I would do is pick a growth channel and pick a nurture channel. By growth channel, I’m referring to something that’s more like a discovery channel, something that allows you to be discovered and pull in new leads, new subscribers, and listeners, and all that kinda stuff. Some examples would be a podcast, YouTube. Substack, something like that.

Now, ideally, when you’re building your growth channel, you would pick one of those main things like a podcast, YouTube, Substack a blog, a SEO, optimized blog on your site, something like that, and then I would have you add on one social channel like Instagram or TikTok. But that’s not going to be your main focus. Your main focus is going to be your growth channel. And we’re going to talk about in a second how we repurpose the content, how we take the content from your growth channel, and we post it on the social channels.

The second channel that we need to build an audience on is our Nurture channel. So that’s at least for me, an email list. Right? It makes sense. It’s a nice, streamlined, easy thing. If you wanna build to seven figures, I don’t really even think it’s worth talking about any other nurture channel because there is literally no better way to be able to reach as many people as directly as an email list. And truthfully, if you are selling more expensive products or you’re going to build out a product that becomes your flagship product, that’s a little more expensive, it’s going to be done through email because people aren’t buying $2,000 products for the most part off TikTok or Instagram.

So now that you’ve picked your growth channel and your nuture channel, we’re now going to create a content system where both the growth channel and the nuture channel talk to each other. So here’s what your kind of week looks like, if you’re a person who is trying to build a seven figure business, you would create a core piece of content every week.

So let’s say in this example, you decided to go with a podcast or a YouTube channel as your main growth channel, right? So your core piece of content would be one episode per week. That one episode per week then turns into three different things. That one episode per week turns into an email newsletter, social clips and social posts.

So your one episode per week is the inspiration for what you write to your email list about that week, and then the call to action is to go listen to it or watch it. Whether you record that on audio, video, or both, you can then take so many snippets of that core piece of content and you can go post those as reels, as audiograms, as social posts. You can take the transcript of it and turn it into so many different things using the text. You can create posts for places like Threads and X and LinkedIn and Substack, and so many places with literally like the click of a button, thanks to AI. I don’t use it to like write scripts or create any, what I call like original content. But once I have created original content, we have a customized, uh, like chat bot that, that writes and talks like me, that’s been trained on me, that then we can take my, let’s say podcast transcript, plug it into AI, and we can get all these little posts to post and all the other channels that I’m not focused on, because remember I’d said pick one growth channel, like a podcast or YouTube. So, I have this podcast.

My one social channel that I focus on is Instagram. So we, we take clips of this and we post it to Instagram, and we put more effort than anywhere else into that. But for everything else, we are just relying on that. Like, Hey, take this transcript, create all these posts for it, and that’s it.

Honestly, it’s actually working pretty well, we’re posting about the podcast on threads, on Substack notes and other places like Facebook. That strategy is working really well, but that’s, that’s like a very hands-off thing for me where it’s like, well, that’s not the one I’m focused on. Can you see though, how, in this example that I’m talking about, if you are right now running around ragged and stressed out that you’re like trying to post in all these places and yet you feel like none of them are actually working. It might be because you’re not taking this more streamlined approach.

I would really recommend picking one of those things, the one thing that you wanna focus on, and then utilize like automation or AI tools to plug into those other channels, just to have a presence there. But release yourself of all the energy it takes because you just, you can’t, you will not build a seven figure business if you are focused on posting in 30 places at once.

Okay, so now that we’ve created our core piece of content and we’ve created a newsletter from it, and social clips and social posts, my goal would be that for all of those things, wherever you’re posting like social clips and posts, the call to action is to get people to your email list or to get people to watch the core piece of content. And in the core piece of content, you’re asking people to join your email list. So hopefully you can then see how this whole thing kind of works, like an infinity symbol, because your growth channel is pulling people in. Your nurture channel, which is your email list, is nurturing them and getting them to go back and listen to the podcast where you’re then talking about your email and yada yada, and it just keeps going and nurturing and pulling people in, and there’s more people entering all the time. And that’s how you build up an audience. That’s how you then build enough people to have to sell to, which will be the next thing we’ll talk about. But first I have to tell you a little truth about building an audience.

As an online business owner, you need to prioritize time for content creation, big time like that. That is going to be the bulk of your time. If you really want to grow an audience, it doesn’t mean that you have to create a ton of content, in my opinion. You just have to create good content consistently. It’s also important to mention that it can eat away at your privacy and your mental health if you are not careful and don’t set boundaries, which is why I dedicated a whole episode recently, episode 256, all about maintaining your privacy as an online business owner. So that might be a good one to check out later.

The fourth thing you have to do to build a seven figure business is create a simple sales system. Now, one of the ways you can do this is by creating one type of sale like process within your business, either evergreen or live. I do both. So you can also do a combination of the two. Evergreen would be where you would set up something like a webinar that people sign up for and watch anytime they have a series of emails that go out to them at some time and then they’re triggered, uh, to purchase within a time limit. Obviously live is like I’m hosting this live webinar, like for example, I’m hosting the live webinar on October 20th, which of course you’ve already signed up for ’cause you wouldn’t be listening to this and then not have signed up for it, but I’m hosting that live webinar on October 20th, which will then trigger a five day sale of the Ultimate Bundle® in my business. So I do both of those things. I have an evergreen funnel that runs 365 days a year, and I do two live sales a year.

So it’s important to run these kinds of sales throughout the year because otherwise you’re just kind of going like on and on throughout the year without there being any injection of urgency or anything new going on.

I like evergreen for consistent stable income, but also live does add some sort of nice like zippy live element where people get to be with you in person. It gives them a reason to actually sign up. So people who’ve maybe been hearing about your free thing for a long time but haven’t bitten, you know, now they will.

So I think having that combination works for me personally, works really well, but I also ran it evergreen for a long time, and that worked really well too.

Now, of course we also run sales. We run these sales that I’m talking about to our email list in addition to like talking about them on social media and all of that.

But people buy from your email list and remember, one to 2% is a normal conversion rate. So with that, do the math. If you have only X number of people on your email list. It’s probably not enough until you get to have a really big email list or until you get really good at improving that conversion rate.

Like we will often hit like 10%, 8%, something like this that’s really, really high for our industry. But that also has been through years and years and years of practice and doing tons of sales and understanding how to make all of this work. But that’s really the only way to overcome the numbers game. It’s really just a numbers game.

The fifth thing that nobody tells you about building a seven figure business is that guardrails and a strong foundation are just as important.

As all the marketing strategies we’ve just talked about. So of course I’m a lawyer for online business owners, so I have to tell you that the legal stuff is so important. You know, talking about contracts, getting those in place, having refund policies that are clear and that protect you from having to offer refunds, you know, unfounded refunds, having stuff about chargeback threats and all that kinda stuff, and having terms in the right place so that people actually pay you on time and you have some sort of enforcement that you can, you know, hold up so you can make sure you get paid on time.

Without all of that, not only will it hurt your bottom line because you literally can’t get paid if you don’t have contracts and all that, it will also hurt your confidence, right? Your confidence in your ability to go out and confidently talk about your product, like shout from the rooftops and tell people that you exist.

If you are the kind of person who’s then afraid that you’ve done something wrong, that you’re gonna be like outed for not having all your stuff in place. Or that someone could buy from you and then something bad could happen because you’re not covered.

I’m telling you, after helping thousands and thousands and thousands of people like you, if you don’t have that stuff in place and it bothers you, it’s going to hold your you back from actually building the business. So this part. It’s just as important as the rest of it.

Of course, this is also the time that you need to really nail down your onboarding process, your payment processing, and have things in place so that if people’s payments bounce, you have a nice, like very simple automated procedure that happens to collect that payment.

Again, how to deal with chargeback threats, chargeback threats are where people complain to their credit card company saying like, Hey, I never bought this, but they actually, in reality, they did buy it and they’re just trying to get out of it. It really sucks, and it happens pretty often, the more money you make in online business, so you need to have the right pieces in place, or else you’re going to see your profits taking a hit.

And of course, in order for you to grow to seven figures, you also have to protect your intellectual property. It’s really important as you start to grow, you get more eyeballs, you’re building up that audience that we’ve been talking about, that you have some things like trademarks in place, or you’ve copyrighted your, you know, most important content or the thing that you sell. It’s really important to protect your IP on the way up.

Now, the truth of this part is that a lot of people think it can wait when in reality it can’t. And in reality, it will actually be the thing that will help you to grow because you’re going to feel more confident getting out there, like I said. So if you haven’t yet on this one, I would definitely recommend signing up for my last live workshop of the year that I’m hosting on October 20th. And don’t worry if you can’t make that live time, just sign up anyway, because that’s the only way you can get the replay. All right, let’s get in to the next one.

The sixth thing that nobody tells you about building a seven figure business is that you should have a three P process in place. What the heck is three P?

Three P stands for profit, pay, and peace. What you’re really looking for when you sit down to do your three P process on a monthly basis is whether all three of these things are green lights. Are you profitable? Are you paying yourself? The amount that you needed and is your peace protected? If not, then I would say you’re not in a position for growth.

Here’s where a lot of people make a major mistake, and I think what leads them to not grow to seven figures. People, if they were to actually sit down and look at this three P process, they would look and they’d either all be red or yellow or some combination thereof, and they still try to grow anyway.

They hire, they throw on new projects, they start a YouTube channel, they start going all different directions, they get a business coach and they do all these things that in reality, like the lights are not green.

In my opinion, what we need to do is make sure we at least have a system in place where you’re consistently checking in on this part and we’re making sure that these three things are working.

And if they’re working, then we can add on. Because here’s the truth, when it comes to this three P process, more growth isn’t always the answer. It might actually lead to burnout, and that will actually cost you money, if not your entire business, in the long run, I have had so many friends over the years since I started my business, who are no longer in business because they’ve chosen to so many people who are like sick of social media, sick of dealing with clients you know, so many justified reasons, right? But they’re not here anymore. They’re not doing this.

So growth doesn’t always have to be the answer, and that’s why I think it’s really helpful. Like with these three Ps, you could sit down and be like, my business is profitable. I’m paying myself, but I’m not feeling like my peace is totally that great, or I’m feeling like my piece could be on the cusp of, of going red or yellow. And so in that case, I’m gonna just like keep things the way they are. I’m profitable, I’m paying myself, and that’s fine. I’m gonna work on improving my peace.

You know, earlier this year when my book came out on April 15th, I had months around then when my business peace was definitely not great.

Right? And like that’s very unusual for me because this has been something that I’ve prioritized big time. I really don’t see any reason to have my own business if I can’t have like a flexible free life and so it was really helpful for me to go through that period and see like all the opportunities that came after it and like so many inbound requests and media stuff and all of that and then it’s helpful for me to be like, can I add that stuff on? Because right now, if I was to do my three P process, my peace is red, and so I can’t, I’m not in the business right now of adding a ton of things on. I have always paid myself and always paid the team, there’s never been a month that I’ve not had to pay myself or that I’ve taken a, a hit or anything like that, so that’s more important to me than taking on more and more growth all the time.

But it’s still a learning curve that I mess up all the time. Like I still, if I was to like sit down and look at my three Ps, like some of them would probably be red and I’m still adding things on, and then I’m like the queen of having to peel back once I’ve realized I’ve added too much on. So, you know, it’s a, it’s a process. None of these things are exactly perfect, but that’s why I think that these three P’s are good ones to sit down and check in with yourself before adding something new and it’ll also allow you to actually grow in the long run because you won’t add things on indiscriminately or too early or you haven’t thought through.

The seventh thing nobody tells you about building a seven figure business is how much you need to focus on team and tools. So first things first, the more you want to build your business, the more you should focus on automating what you can. So really getting processes down that just are automated, that using things like Zapier, all that kind of stuff is a Zapier or Zapier?

Somebody tell me, I have no idea. I don’t really care. But I used that when I started my business, like to start offloading so many tasks that I was doing in my business every single day. And then when I found Zapier slash Zapier, I found out that it was like, wait, this is so easy. I can, I can make this happen automatically.

So that’s one of the first things that you can do to start freeing up your time. And from there I would get really clear on what role in your business needs to be filled. Like what role are you actually looking for? If I could give you any advice about hiring in general, listen up. If I could give you any advice about hiring, it would be to hire for the role, don’t hire the person, and then try to squeeze them into a role you really wanna hire for the role, and then find the right person for that role. Right?

So the reason I say that is because you need to think business first. You need to think like, my business needs this role filled, and this is what this role is gonna do and how it’s going to contribute to my business. And then you go out and you shop for the best person who’s gonna contribute to that role.

What happens often is that people find people that they really like, and I did this in the beginning, where you’re like, I love this person. I want them to be around. And then you’re like, Hey, can you do like 500 different things that you have no interest in and you have no experience in? And like, can we just make it work? ‘Cause I like you. And sometimes that’ll work for like a minute and then it doesn’t.

So you really need to be very clear about what that role is and what you’re hiring for. Now from there, I’m a big fan of delegating tasks that you don’t need to be involved in, things that don’t need you, things that aren’t your zone of genius things that don’t contribute to revenue, things you don’t like. There’s all kinds of things. You also wanna be conscious though, of not just hiring implementers. You need to hire thinkers too, because when you hire implementers, you’ll still be responsible for telling them what to do, which essentially creates a new job for you.

So one of the things on the way to building a seven figure business, uh, that a lot of people like, one of the mistakes people make is that they hire a whole bunch of team members and then they realize. Crap. I have now like eight people who I’m like, who are asking me questions every day and you know, are telling me what’s going on, or like they’re just creating even more work for me and now I feel like I’m a manager.

Right. That’s when it’s really helpful to hire a director of operations, because then that person can start managing the team members because that can’t become your new job if the whole point of hiring people was to delegate this stuff. You also though, need people who aren’t just going to implement a bunch of tasks, but who are going to get involved with it and figure out, like actually be focused on like the outcomes of that they’re generating, not just the like things that they’re checking off on a list.

Now on your end, I highly recommend doing a weekly KPI review. So your key performance indicators, you can choose what those are. Uh, some of them for me are based on sales, so I always wanna know where my sales numbers are, but I also wanna know what more of my front end marketing numbers are because that tells me what sales numbers are coming up.

When I know my marketing numbers, I kind of get a preview of my sales numbers down the line. So for example, I would get every week, um, I have the team put this together and they send it to me in Slack. But every single week, I know obviously how many of the Ultimate Bundle® we’ve sold, how many of my legal templates we’ve sold, and how many maybe trip wires or things like this. But I’m even more interested in the other numbers on the sheet, which tell me how many people signed up for my webinar that week. How many new email list subscribers we got, what the open rate was, what the click through rate was, um, how many unsubscribers we got that week. And then I have a couple of key marketing metrics like podcast downloads and things like that, that I, I want to see grow, like the things that I am focused on and I’m actively putting a lot of effort in. It’s helpful for me to start seeing like, oh, this is actually working.

Now, here’s the truth about hiring a team and putting all these tools in place. Hiring a team or putting these things into place doesn’t just mean that all of a sudden you can be off the grid and go on vacation and dial it in. First of all, a lot of upfront work, investment and training to get people working for you. It also adds different new stresses that you didn’t have before when it was just yourself. And it was like on the one hand, you know, kind of easier. It’s like if you had to run to the grocery store when you didn’t have kids versus like you have to run to the grocery store with two kids.

There’s just different considerations that you have to do. For me, there’s so many good things about that, about those restrictions because it keeps me in check and I’m somebody who, I mean, I have a ton of ideas and I’m like always like, what about this? And we could do this and we could do that. So it really helps me to have people around me who are grounded to be like, um, hello.

What about the like 12 step process we would have to put in place in order for that to happen? Or like Lindsey, who always holds my feet to the flame, my director of operations saying like, um, Sam, you have like seven other things going on that month. Like. Maybe we talk about that in 2027, you know, so it’s really helpful on the other hand, but it is different.

Like I have a lot of, uh, considerations and, you know, making sure that I’m hiring the right people, that I’m investing in them, and the team culture and making sure we have the right policies in place and like stuff comes up. It’s just, it’s different. It is definitely different than when you work for yourself by yourself.

The eighth thing nobody tells you about building a seven figure business is that you need to focus on relationships, real genuine relationships, not sending, Hey girl dms. All right? So you can scream from the social rooftops all day long. Get on social, talk to whoever’s there, you know, and try as much as you can to build an audience.

But here’s the truth, getting in front of a targeted similar audience to like the one that you want or the one that you have that somebody you know already has is priceless, right? So like me, for example, if I teamed up with some sort of like business coach or something who had a business coaching program and they wanted me to come in and talk about the legal stuff, that’s perfect because I know their people are online business owners, online business owners need legal stuff. The business coach then gets to provide legal support to their customers. I get to come in and promote my business, and it just works all the way around.

The most important thing though, about this relationships thing is that you have to spend the time to truly get to know people. You have to go to events, you have to go to in-person conferences, join masterminds, join groups, whatever.

It is a mutual thing. It is not you just going and asking everybody for help all the time. It’s you helping them, you genuinely becoming their friend and getting to know them. Not with the outcome of them being on their podcast or something, but genuinely getting to know them. And then these are the people that you end up trading favors with and asking to help promote your stuff.

Or when your book comes out, having them email their their huge email list about your book. Right? That’s how this whole thing works. But you need to invest in this now. You also need to invest in it from a collaboration standpoint. As I was talking about earlier, that. I think one of the ways that you build a seven figure business is by having all these little relationships with people where you’re their go-to, whatever it is that you do, right?

Like, so I am the go-to legal person for a lot of different people in the online business space because I’ve developed relationships with them over the years, and then I take care of their customers and then their customers become our customers, and it makes the world go round. Now the truth of this is that it gets a little harder the bigger your business becomes because you know, people wanna leverage your audience, but don’t always have as much to offer in return or your audience becomes so valuable that it becomes something you’re not always willing to trade. So like the other day, for example, somebody asked me to participate in one of their free summits and they wanted me to send like five emails to my email list just about their summit and there’s very little payoff for me in that.

Nowadays to send an email to my list of over 50,000 people is a huge value. So the way that I think of it is like, that’s a lot of real estate. Five emails is, that’s five weeks also for me, and I’m not sending, you know, that many emails, so for me, if I’m going to send emails to my list, it has to be something that’s really, really good.

So it’s either gonna be my product so that it supports the business, or it’s gonna be something that I know is like really, really on target with what my ideal customer wants.

The ninth thing that nobody tells you is that you need some scrappy hustle. You have got to be resourceful. If you want to grow to seven figures, you gotta be resourceful. If you wanna grow a business at all, you have to try things. You have to be open and curious. You have to try things before you know exactly how it’s all going to turn out.

I think that the people that I know around me who are the most successful are okay. Stumbling, failing. Trying, being honest and open and vulnerable about that. Like I think it really helps.

I also do think that there’s like a healthy hustle period that is okay to go through and that, you know, I understand that hustle is really toxic in so many ways. I, I try, I really try or am trying at least to like avoid as much black and white thinking as possible. So when we talk about hustle in the online business world, it’s like so extreme.

I think there’s another version of hustle, which is like going for it. Like you’re probably working a little more now than you will in the future. You are maybe thinking more about your business now. You don’t have all the freedom and flexibility right this minute that you will have eventually. It’s almost like our hazing period in online business.

I think you have to go through it a little bit where you’re just like, all you do is think about your business and whatever, and then you come out of it, it’s okay. You don’t need to stay in it, and you don’t need to burn out and be unhealthy about it. So the truth behind this one is that building an online business, no matter what size is not easy. It is not always blissful. It has it’s hard periods, and I think that’s completely normal.

Last but not least, and I think this is probably the most important one, is that the 10th thing that nobody tells you about building a seven figure business is that you have got to master your mindset. There is absolutely zero way you can grow a business without investing time, money, and energy, or the combo of all of them into your mindset.

You’re gonna have to work on things like impostor syndrome, comparison trap, feeling uncomfortable, taking up space and being seen, all that kind of stuff, asking for what you need. I wrote an entire chapter about this in my book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy because it’s that common and spoiler alert, it doesn’t go away.

You also have to start surrounding yourself with people, books, content, whatever, anything that comes across your, your eyes that are where you want to go or represent where you wanna go or are headed where you want to go. Be around people who have achieved things that you wanna achieve. Be around people that are living a life that you want to live.

Don’t waste your time. I mean, of course you’re gonna have people in your life who are not doing that kinda stuff and not everybody wants to be a business owner. And being a business owner is not any better than like working a nine to five, i’m not saying that, but when we’re in the part of like self-development and professional development related to your business, we really wanna focus on putting yourself in rooms with people who are where you wanna go.

I’m gonna do a whole episode about this soon, but I also really believe in managing your self care and investing in your health and your wellness, because I think that without doing that, you have to treat yourself like, I don’t know, a sports car or an athlete. Like if you don’t refuel yourself, you won’t have the energy or the stamina to do any of the things that we’ve been talking about today.

And so the more that I’ve poured into myself, the more seriously, I’ve taken going to therapy and working out and taking my walks and like taking walk breaks and all of that, the better my business has done, and I completely believe that it’s related.

Now, here’s the truth. This part never goes away. This is not something you work on in the beginning, and unfortunately, a lot of people think once you hit seven figures, then you’ll be happy that’s why I wrote a whole book about it. But you don’t reach like a level of mastery unless you’re a monk in this area. It will ebb and flow and it’ll be something that you keep working on. It’s something that I’m working on all the time. I still doubt myself. I still doubt my ability to grow my business any bigger. I really, really badly want to grow my podcast so much bigger, and I’m freaked out that I don’t know how to do it. I’m trying and I’m like, what if I can’t? What if I don’t? Right? So this stuff will keep coming up, but the more you work on it, the more you have the foundational skills and the tools to come back to so that you know how to improve this.

All right, so just to recap those 10 things, it’s number one, building the right product. Two, master your messaging. Three, build your audience by focusing on growth and nurture channels. Four, create a simple sales system. Five, set a foundation and guardrails for future growth. Six, check in with your three P dashboard on a monthly basis. Seven, get your team and your tools in check. Eight, build genuine relationships. Nine, it’s okay to have a little period of scrappy hustle and 10, master your mindset and your self care.

Now, with that, thank you so much for listening. If you haven’t yet, make sure you sign up for my free live workshop on Monday, October 20th called Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business Before 2025 ends.

It’s my absolute last live training of the entire year, so go sign up now. Sign up even if you can’t make it live. It’s the only way to get the replay. I will see you there.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.