Strategies for Making Your First Million

This particular way to make a million dollars is going to take you approximately three years. It could take you much less time than that. It could take a little longer. But I think that for most of you, you could do this in three years. Here's the kicker. Here's the reason everyone is not a millionaire, if it were that easy. Most people won't watch this video. I can see the stats. Probably. 10%, 15% will watch the whole thing. If you're watching the whole thing, you're already kind of at this echelon, you know, most people won't watch. The people who do watch, most people won't implement what they learn. They'll simply appreciate it, but they won't do it. They won't do what I say. So just like me a few years ago, and to this day, I hope. There are some people who are going to watch this. They're going to listen to every bit of it. They're going to write notes. They're going to think and brainstorm as we go and then come back to it a little bit later. And then they're going to implement this. And those are the people who, just like it happens to me every single year, are going to come to me in a year or two or three, and they're going to say, I made my first million. And they're going to walk across the stage at your first million live because we're tracking that. It'll be a few people. It won't be a lot of people. This video may get 500 views total over a year, or it may get a million views total over a year. There will be a small, small percentage, less than 1% who do this. So you have to decide if you're that person. It's as simple as that. Now, let's get started. Let me, let me, I'll read from my notes. They're handwritten. don't have great handwriting, but they're handwritten notes. This is coming from my heart. This is coming from experience, my experience and other people's who I study or I know or both. So one caveat is that things are ever changing. Socials changing, algorithms are changing, what is hot and what is not is always changing. So you may have to calibrate this along the way, but this is going to be a good starting point. Remember what I said, don't skip any parts because every little bit of it could trigger and could spark an idea for you. Okay, so the basics, the overall here is, let me just prop this up without breaking anything, I hope. I don't think I can. The overall idea here is that a lot of people that I know. who are very wealthy, meaning cash wealthy, have made courses. My friend Amy Porterfield, her book's behind me over here. My friend Danielle Leslie, my friend Terry Ijeoma, all three of these women have made courses that have done tens of millions of dollars. And most of them, or most of it, was made between 2020 and 2023, maybe 2019 to start. And I have courses. I have an entire academy, arlensacademy.com, with a lot of free courses, if you want to take those. Some of them are dated, though. I have a course right now. I have two courses, in fact, right now. I'm not going to suggest to you that you do this by making a course. As I said, there are many ways to make your first million. This is a different way. It's not going to be a course. The beginning of it is going to sound like a course. course though. So what I want you to do is I want you to look at some of my videos if you need to and figure out what your niche is, figure out what your topic is, what your offer is. I have other videos about that. You can look at my channel and go through that, my book as well. This is for people who have that idea. At least you know the arena you want to be in. You're going to base it on your experience and your likes and what the market wants to buy. Those are the three things. I mean, honestly, there are hundreds or thousands of videos on YouTube and it comes down to what do you know about, what do you enjoy, and what are people willing to pay for? That's it. So you're going to find that topic and you're going to either start a YouTube channel or a podcast. You're going to take your current YouTube channel and see if it's appropriate for what we're going to do with it. You're going to film four videos. Now, I'm not going to go into all of the pieces of how do you set up your camera and how do you make the video look good. I'm on Zoom right now. It's not in 4K when I upload. It's barely in HD. I have another setup. I have two other setups that are 4K that you'll see in my videos. But there are different ways to do it. I just saw a one-hour Frank Kern video that was done all on his iPhone. where his daughter interviewed him, his teenage daughter interviewed him. So there's no excuse really of, oh, I don't have a lot of equipment or I don't have a setup. You want to make sure that people can hear you. That's why I have this mic in front of me. I don't love having it in front of me, but it is a great mic. It's about $200 or $300. And it's important that people can hear you. Can you hear me right now? Say yes out loud if you can hear me. Yes, you can hear me. It's important that you can hear me. I click on so many videos on YouTube and elsewhere where it looks great. I'm excited about the topic. That's why I clicked on it. And then I can't hear the person very well. That's happened to a few of my videos before. You want to be able to hear. So you're going to make four videos and this is in your 36 month process. So this is the first. month you're going to get started on this because if you don't get started on this part early you're never going to do it just just know you're never going to do it if you don't make that first video so the first video is going to be 10 to 30 minutes and all of them will be that length and they're going to talk about the first video so write this down if you need to they're going to talk about the problem and the solution overview of what you're offering so you What you're going to eventually offer, and this is going to eventually start to make sense to you, but it needs to be something, in this case, that is something that you can deliver as a service or deliver virtually. So it needs to be something that you are, you would put into a course, you would teach someone about HR, accounting, how to market, sales. how to paint something that you would put in a course, but instead of filming coursework and course curriculum, you're going to film these four videos. The first one is problem solution overview. You're going to introduce people to the problem that you solve, and you're going to talk to them a little bit about what the solution is. So a good example is the chief of staff affiliate that I have with... My former chief of staff, who currently works with me, Melanie, she filmed a chief of staff course certification, and I'm an affiliate of that. And so the problem or one of the problems is that CEOs and other executives need someone hands on, need someone who can be their right hand and their thought partner. And that's often put on someone like an executive assistant who is not prepared. and not being paid enough to do that role, while there is an incredible role that is being overlooked, which is chief of staff. And so introducing that problem and then introducing what the solution is and giving a lay of the land would be my first video, if I were doing this process that I'm telling you about. The second video is going to be, again, 10 to 30 minutes, and it's going to be testimonials and case studies. And it can be one or the other or both, but you're essentially jumping on a Zoom and interviewing someone who you have helped with this problem. You have helped them solve this problem. Or you're going to go straight to camera and tell the story of someone and maybe show screenshots and show that evidence. You're trying to show proof, social proof, that you can do what you say you can do. If you do not have these credentials at all, you need to use your first month and your first three months to build those credentials. So you're going to start a little bit later than everyone else. Again, if you do this at all, you're ahead of the game. But that's where you're going to really start to shine. You may have this in a different package than you realize. So if you've worked at a company for eight years or in the same industry for 10 or 12 years. You have somebody who you've helped. You have that company, you have an employer, someone you've worked for, someone you've worked alongside. Someone has been helped by your work. So it doesn't have to be, oh, I've done this course, or I've done this thing, or I've done this exact thing we're going to talk about. It could be from your past. I call it putting points on board. You're going to show those points that you already have. So if you're currently an executive, you have that. You're going to pull from there. The third video is going to be your first step solution. So what So now that you've introduced what the problem is, and you're going to do it in this order, by the way, now that you've introduced what the problem is, where would your potential customer, your potential person that you want to help and serve, where would they need to start? Where would they need to start? What is their very first step? A lot of that can be answered in, if you don't know the answer, it could be in the education. Your first step is to read these three books. Your first step is to take this 30-minute course or watch this video that I have or download this PDF or dot, dot, dot. You want to help someone feel like it's possible for them and that they're learning immediately. So that's your third. Your fourth is now a recap of all three. Just a little bit of... This is what you learned, recap. And you're also going to have an FAQ here. So your fourth video is actually not going to be filmed with the rest of the three prior to it. You're going to film the first three videos first. The reason you're going to do that is because these videos are going to go on your YouTube channel that I told you to start a few minutes ago. And let me tell you, when you start a YouTube channel, you may already know this, but when you start a YouTube channel, you're not going to get a lot of views. It's not like TikTok, where if you put your first video up, you can get 10 million views. YouTube can show your video to the algorithm, to the people. The algorithm is the people, right? But it does take a few videos to do this. So you're not doing this to go viral. You're not doing this to reach thousands of people. You're doing this to reach a few people, 15, 30, 100. You're doing this to reach the right people. And you're going to send this link out to other people anyway. This is where this is going to live. So these four videos in a different time, in 2021, would have been the course, the mini course that I would have encouraged you to create. It would have been a 30 minute. to two hour mini course, right? Exactly that amount. And you may have charged $50, $99, $197, depending on how helpful it was. You're actually not going to sell this. You're going to use this to sell. Your next thing to know is that you're going to release this on a weekly basis. And I'll tell you in a second when. So I want to bring you back to understanding the bigger picture, and then I'll tell you a little bit more. Big picture here is that you are going to create not a chorus, but a cohort. And you're going to create a transformational cohort of people. I have done this so many times in the last four years. I can't count how many times I've done it. I've done it for Backstage Pass. So if you go to BackstageInvest.com, you can see the landing page. I've done it for an Inner Circle, Mastermind. I've done it for YouTube, how to go from zero to a thousand subscribers. I now have 25,000 subscribers at the time of this filming. I've done it more times than I can say and to the tune of a lot of money. And it's very fulfilling as well. And so you're going to create a cohort. The reason you're going to create a cohort, not a course, one of the reasons is there's some sort of testing and reporting. that less than 20% of your students are finishing your course. And if fewer than 20% of your students who you get to take the course are not even finishing it, then how are they going to have the transformation that you need in order to continue to show those testimonials? And to just, for it to be worth it, right? You could potentially sell them. And there are other videos that I have, we'll talk about courses and that'll... may even be another Your First Million video. But for this and this time. We're thinking about, actually, we're going to go a little bit to the side here. Another reason is this transformation that you want to give people is much easier and much more impactful if you can meet with them on a weekly basis. The lift is not as high as you might think, though. So this is going to be a cohort membership. collab, that's not the hybrid, hybrid, you're going to set up a cohort and it's going to be an eight week long journey. Think of the course that you already had in mind. Think of the topics what you are doing in these four videos anyway. The way you're going to deliver it is just going to be a little different than you would have done on a course. It's going to be you talking with a group. whether that's one person who signed up or it's the 20 people who signed up. And I'll tell you about that in a moment. Stay tuned. And you're going to go live on Zoom or your preferred platform. I would suggest Zoom. You're going to deliver that information to them in the first half of the hour or so that you have with them. And in the second half, It's going to be a time for questions. It's going to be a time for breakout rooms and for co-working. Some of these eight weeks, you will bring in guest speakers who will either deliver some sort of information, hopefully without selling, or who you will interview. And then the group will get to interview them as well, ask them questions. If you have the right offer. about the right topic and reach the right people, that eight-week cohort can be extremely valuable. I'll tell you what else is going to happen there. So, don't want to do this spotlight search. You're going to choose a time. It could be month two or whenever you think it's appropriate to do this. And you're going to post these four, you're going to post these three videos. Once a week the first video week one a week from then the second video a week from then the third video The reason you're not posting the fourth video yet is because you are going to read every single comment that you receive And again, this is a new account If it is a new account and if that new account is also accompanied by a very small audience that you have You're not going to have a lot of comments necessarily, but as well learn later, I'll teach you later how you're going to kind of counter that. But no matter how many comments you have, you are going to look at them and respond to all of them. You're going to take note of the questions you receive and you're going to answer a little bit, but you're going to mostly say that's coming up later. Stay tuned in two weeks, stay tuned in three weeks, because you know the schedule. Then once you've done all three of those, as soon as you get... you know, a couple days into that third video, you're going to film your fourth video. And your fourth video is going to incorporate, again, a recap of all three videos and some of the questions you were asked. You're going to answer some of those questions. In the description of those four videos, starting with the first one, you would have already prepared for your cohort. And in the description, After if it's a new YouTube channel, you're going to have to get verified It takes about a day to do that and once you're verified it'll let you put links in your description It'll also let you have videos that are longer than 15 minutes So just kind of pay attention to those little things in the description You're going to put a link to a type form or a Google Doc or something of the sort That is an application and in your first video and every video afterward your sorry, of this first three, you're going to say, after you've done the things in the video, the content in it, at the end, you're going to say, I am working with 20 people on a new cohort-based program. It is eight weeks long. You're not going to say the price. And you're going to say, if you would like to apply to be part of it, based on this information I've given you. The link is in the description. That link will take them to a short application, but enough information that you can make a determination if they're going to work well with what you're doing. And then you're going to contact those people who apply. And if you hear crickets, you're going to do it again the second week and the third. If you're hearing nothing, you're going to be putting this link. And even if you are hearing something, you're putting this link to these videos one at a time on LinkedIn, on Instagram. in your email list that you've built. And if you don't know how to have any of this, if you don't have this already, go to my video that's called how to get the first 10 customers. That's a great way to start. Again, it may add a few months to that beginning of that 36 month period. But if you're able to do a million dollars total cumulative in that three years, that's amazing. I think it can even get you to $1 million yearly runway rate in this three years. So wouldn't it be worth it? that if at month 36, that's just three years from now, three years ago was 2021 as the time of this filming. That was a year into things. Three years from now, you could be sitting on a million. If that's the case, then these first three months can be a little slow and be worth it. So you're going to send people to the application. And then you're going to, over that month period that you're putting these videos out, you're going to start pulling people into your cohort. Now, what are you going to charge for this cohort? You're going to charge at least $500 at most $2,000. I wouldn't go above $1,250 for this cohort because what you're going to do is you're going to charge $500 to $2,000, but then you're going to offer a discount. So you're going to say, because you're my pilot to 20. you get a 20% discount or a 30% discount or a 50% discount. So the money that they give you is going to be at a discount, but it's not really important how much money you make in this period. I would even go as far to say that for the right offer and the right audience, doing this for free with the first 20 could be worth it to get all of the data. and the experience and the testimonials and troubleshooting that you will get in this eight-week period. But I would prefer that you charge for it because that will help you understand if it reaches that third thing in our Venn diagram of will the market pay for it? Does the market want to pay for it? So $500,000 to $2,000 retail, and then you're going to discount that. Over that month, you're going to take in, you're going to... have conversations with people inbound. You may reach out to some people if you think that they're right for it and you're going to collect. And maybe eight people sign up, maybe three people sign up, but maybe 40 people sign up. You're going to craft this and you're going to, even if you have more demand than you have seats, you're going to cap it. That's part of the whole situation because in a few weeks you're going to use that demand to your advantage. So then you take on those 20. people or those two people, however many, and you say it's starting on the first of the next month or it's starting in two weeks or it's starting at a later date, but not too far out where they lose interest, but not immediately because you need all of them to start at the same time. So then you will start on that date and each week you'll have the calls that I mentioned earlier. You'll have, you will prepare in Canva or ChatGPT or both. Or beautiful.ai does a great deck you can do. And you'll share your screen and you'll take people through. And you'll decide what is the most helpful and what transformation and outcome do I want them to start at and to go to. If at the end of these eight weeks, at least 50% of the people in this cohort can say that they did XYZ, that would be worth it. And that's what you're going to aim for. And you're going to plot and plan. And let me tell you, chat GPT will help you plot and plan. Don't sleep on that. So for instance, you could say, if half of the people in my cohort went from zero to 100 subscribers on YouTube in the first eight weeks, and they haven't been able to get any subscribers prior to that, or they didn't even have a channel, that would be worth it. And that's what you're going to tell. That's what you're going to offer. Whatever it is, you're going to offer it very openly. You're not so you're. You're going to create a little bit of shrouded mystery because you want the people who are not signed up and not in the cohort to wonder about it. Then on top of that, you're going to post. on Instagram, if you have it, or LinkedIn or Twitter, if you have it, etc. You're going to post every once in a while during that period where you have the videos and you're taking in applications. You're going to post little updates about how things are going, little behind the scenes updates about how things are going. And by the way, I am taking this from my experience over the years and a couple other people's experience recently. And I'm going to do another video That is more in depth on a case study. So check that out. But I think this is the kind of the inside baseball of it all. So you're doing all of that. Remember, you're answering every comment. You're taking notes. This whole eight week period now. So let's say month one was about filming and getting some of those videos out. Month two and three are about having the actual cohort. So that first 90 days. You've made a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. You're off to the races. You're really making it work. And you're taking this feedback from your cohort. Maybe you're halfway through it and they're not seeing any kind of results or they're not feeling like it's worth their time. Get that information from them. Take the hard notes now so you don't have to do that when there are more people involved. You're also going to, I said it was a membership, so you're also going to give people a landing spot to come converse with each other. I can't tell you how exciting that is when you start to really get into memberships. And with this, you are not charging a monthly rate yet. This is just a pilot cohort, but you're going to create a WhatsApp or a Facebook page, if that's your thing. It's not my thing, but if it's your thing, or a Discord or a Slack. Or Teachable, Kajabi, etc. Somewhere where people can go and post, either post on it. Circle is another one. Post on it or Mighty Networks. Or they are, you know, conversing like on Discord. So that that small group of 12 people, of three people, they can talk to each other. And they can ask questions. And they can celebrate their wins. You're taking screenshots, asking them permission. You're... You're collecting these assets and these testimonials and these things in real time, depending on what it is that you're trying to accomplish so that you can use them later. And then, again, you're going to document this process because part of that is when you have these four videos, but maybe 10 people can see them in a month, you also are putting it in other places. And... You want to drive them to the YouTube videos. You want to drive them over there. So, hey, I'm on Instagram. I just left my corporate gig after eight years, and I'm starting something new. And, yeah, today was pretty fun. I did this video. If you want to see what I'm doing behind the scenes, if you want to see what I'm doing, this is behind the scenes. Go over to YouTube. This is my channel. Check that out. And then you have a few people who are going to go over and then kind of get into. what is a light funnel, essentially. When you do these weekly calls, you're going to record them. Please do not forget to record them. And again, you're going to let everybody know, they get told anyway on Zoom, but you're going to let everyone know that these calls are being recorded and they will be used in an archive. And these eight weeks of calls, which is mostly you presenting, but then there will be portions that will go. So you could even... Trim it so that if people feel like certain things they didn't want on video could be there. But the best thing to do is tell people at the front, at the top, in emails and the top of your recordings, this is going to be filmed and we're going to use this in the cohort. And most people are going to like that because they'll be seen by other people and it'll be good. And they can be off camera if they don't want that. And I've done that with my investor course for more than... You know, hundreds and hundreds of people have done that too. So multiple times I've done this exact framework that I'm giving you right now. And then you're going to put that into something. So Teachable is a good example. Teachable is where you can, this is what I use all the time. So you can put things into the Teachable. This is where you would have normally had a course. You're going to put this into a course. You also have a community tab that you can use on Teachable. That's like Circle. They used to have Circle. Now this is just a version of that. So that's where you could put it and you can call it something like a vault or the archive or that's the on-demand portion of what we're going to do next. So what you're going to do next is When the eight weeks are done, hopefully it's gone well. And if you think it's gone well and you've gotten good feedback and it's authentic feedback, you're going to release another video on YouTube. And this would have been, maybe you had one in between. That's kind of like how things are going. But this is going to be, you're not releasing videos on YouTube constantly at this point. You're going to release a new video that says, I just finished. or we finished it a week ago or two weeks ago, whatever, our eight-week cohort. And this is how it went. And that's going to be on the longer side. It's going to be a deep dive into how did things go? How did you feel about it? What kind of results were there? If you can get into either having an editor help you on Fiverr, or Fiverr is a good place to do that, or just, you know, you're on your, you know, showing screen and sharing screen, you're going to... use those testimonials and those things that people that you've been collecting, that's the video that you're going to put that in for the most part. And in that video, in the middle of it and towards the end, and at the beginning, you're going to tease it. You're going to say, stay tuned because I have a big announcement. You're then going to say, we did the pilot and now we're turning it into a membership. The cohort is turning into a membership. So It won't be as hands-on, but you took all the learnings from it. And you're now, when people sign up to it, if they apply, they still have to apply, they are going to get access to all eight weeks videos. So they can watch all of the teachings you gave them. Templates, PDFs, things that you can add to that. Again, ChatGPT or something like it is very helpful in creating these types of assets. Also, you can go to HireRunner.co, my company. Hire someone to help put these things together for you fractionally. There's ways to do this. Or you could do it yourself if you enjoy that. Spreadsheets, all that. Lists. They're going to have access to, again, you're going to be doing weekly calls. And you're going to do this part. You're going to do the weekly calls for up to a year. Eventually, maybe in year two, you may get tired of it. And you may say, I'm not going to do the weekly calls anymore. I'm going to take it all on demand. Because we have so many. And we know exactly how to get people to the transformation without me hand-holding. Or you may say someone else on my team is going to take over these calls. Or you may say, I love doing these weeklies. I don't do anything else but these weeklies and a couple of other videos, and I'm good. So I would love to do that. But for that first full year, you are doing these weeklies. If you're signed up to do this and try this out, you're going to do those weeklies. So they're going to get the on-demand archive or vault. cool name that you're going to give it. They're going to get the weekly calls with you. Not everybody's going to come to it, but they can get the replays. If you think the replays are valuable enough, you'll put them in the vault. And you're going to do your very best to have a hybrid of automation and hands-on of this do-it-with-you version. And you're going to take people on this transformation. Now the people who are in the cohort, and the people eventually who are in this membership, you want to have somewhere for them to ascend next. So you might have a masterclass, or you might have an inner circle, or you might have something that's a one-on-one where they can pay you more, and they can get more hands-on information and work and help with you. And if you help them in that cohort, and they saw those results, and you're able to offer them even better results authentically, some of them are going to convert. And so that's going to actually help things. And if that's something that you can do that doesn't take a lot of your time, you're not sitting here trying to take 30 one-on-ones a month. You're not doing that. This is not what that is. I got to stop you there. I've seen it too much where people have a good thing going, but they have too many one-on-ones. They have too many one-on-one sales calls. and they have too many one-on-one consulting calls. Your time is extremely valuable. You don't want to trade a 9 to 5 for a 24-7. That's not my phrase, but I've heard it many times. You don't want to trade that. You want to put it on almost autopilot so that you can go and live life. You can get to living sooner, but you know you have these certain days of the week that you need to be doing XYZ. So you're going to figure out exactly what that might be. For some people, that's an in-person twice a year. And I know a lot of people who charge $10,000 to $25,000 a year for one person and they have 10, 20, 30 people in that and that they're paying for maybe some text messages and maybe twice a year they meet up and they pay for the meetup. So there's a lot you can do in between. If you can get to the point where you have multiple people in your cohort. and then multiple people in your membership, and it's a few hours a week that you're working on this, the other options and other possibilities open themselves up. But you don't want to just keep taking on more and more and more responsibility just to make a big buck. This is where I need you to hear me. And I think where a lot of people go right, I'm gonna take you left. What a lot of people do is they keep this ascension ladder. And I talk about that a lot too. This ascension ladder of, okay, now the next person, I'm going to have an inner circle and it's going to be this. Now I'm going to have this. I'm going to have this. I'm going to have this. What you need to do is do this for three years. If you do this for a year, you will see results that blow your mind and change your life. If you do this for three years, you'll reach your first million. And that can be... cumulative, definitely. And even for some people, that's going to be a million dollar run rate, meaning by the time you get to year three, you'll be making a million a year. So let's say your membership, because again, this is a membership you've transferred people over to, it's 250 a month and it is, it says 3,000 a year. You're not, and you're going to say, For the first year, I'm only allowing 100 people total in it. Again, when you create this limit, more people want to be part of it and they wonder why. Let's say that. And let's say that it's 100, but you're going to have some churn, meaning some people are going to leave. They're not going to stay the full 12 months. I think it's like three and a half months is like the average. But your thing is at any given time, there will be 100. So if people fall off, if I start to understand people are falling off, I'm going to replenish, replenish. So that first year, your goal is to have the hundred. And let's say it is 250 a month. It could be a hundred a month. It could be a thousand a month. Let's say it's 250. That's 3,000 times a hundred. It's $300,000. So that 5,000 or 10,000 that you made in the pilot is really just to maybe pay for some materials and your time a little bit. It's really invaluable. You can see why you might think about doing it for free. and capping it. Because if you can get that to work and it translates to this, then you're really cooking. I want to take this time right now to say that I know that some people who are even listening to this part, and I appreciate you, there are some people who are saying, this sounds so out of reach to me and so far-fetched to me. I don't even know what she's thinking. I was homeless 10 years ago. I was sleeping on the floor of an airport. I was sharing a bed with my, not a bed, I was sharing a room with my mom in a hotel prior to that. I was in my 30s, she was in her 60s. I was on food stamps and then I ran out of food stamps. But every single day what I would do is I would do what I call becoming money. I said, they can't take away education from me. They can't take away what I learned. So even if I'm hungry, I'm going to learn. And this is what I want you to do. I want you in this time period, this 36 months, this first three months and the first 12 months, I want you to find a way to speak on stages, even if you're speaking on stages for free to start. Don't block the forest for the trees, right? Because what you're going to do is some people and most people I talk to, because I'm a high paid speaker, I've spoken hundreds of times now after getting over stage fright. They come to me and they say, well, how do I get a $10,000 gig? It's tough. That's a whole career in itself is figuring out how to do that. I would say figure out the best, the places you want to be so you can be in front of those people who you can get into your world, your ecosystem, who are going to be the people who convert into your world. Get on those stages. Get into those rooms. Don't worry about trying to make $5,000 speaking because dot, dot, dot. Don't let anybody take advantage of you. When people reach out and they say, oh, I want you to speak on our DEI panel and our tickets are $1,200 and we don't have a budget for you. That's some bull. I'm talking about you looking at where do I want us to speak? And first you'll speak in the breakout rooms. Or you'll do a workshop if you're lucky. And then eventually you'll get bigger and bigger and bigger stages. But you do that. I want you to get on podcasts. I want you to get on YouTube interviews. Even if they have 100 listeners, try to convert some of those listeners. But the key of it is that they need to be aligned. It needs to be something where you say something is going to convert. Because again, I want you to think about three years from now. How would your life change completely if you have done one million dollars in revenue and 50% or so was profit? You want to make $150,000 at your job working for somebody else or do you want to make $150,000 working for yourself with a couple of people helping you eventually? If you can visualize that, then doing this extra work, making that decision today shouldn't be hard. I know it is hard, but you can recalibrate that. Now remember, you're going to repost and repurpose on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. You don't have to do all of these. You don't have to learn a whole other language. You can choose one. But the how is in that. So you build that first year, and then the second year, you build more, and the third year, you build more. But the key, what's the key? Say it out loud. The key has to be consistency. It has to be sticking with this. If you change course six months in, you cooked. That's the thing that changes. That's the difference. Danielle Leslie, there's an interview with her. that I did last year where she said for a year, year and a half, she did a webinar, a sales webinar once a week, every week without fail. And I think it was the first 12 months, it didn't really translate. And then those next six months, she did her first million and never looked back. I've heard this story so many times from so many different people. Stay the course, stay the course. That's what this video is about. I wasn't planning on recording today. It's a Saturday. It's my day off. I just had this truly touch my heart and something I had to tell you. This is how it works. Now, I told you at the beginning of the video that there was something really important at the end. And I'm going to tell you that right now. All of what I just described to you is what I want you to do. But there is a way, there's another version of this for anyone who says, I don't really think I have an offer to give that is worth $500 to $2,000, or I don't feel like building that with everything else I have going on. I have children, I have this full-time job, I have a health issue. Any of those things combined are on their own, or you simply just don't want to do this. But you do want this ability to reach your first million within three years in this kind of lane. Like some of it I can do, some of it I can't. I would suggest to you that you find one or two and no more than that affiliate programs that the commission is $200, $300, $400, $500. And I would do this. for someone who has an incredible course or an incredible membership of their own. I don't know if Rachel Rogers does affiliates, but if she does, talk to her. I don't know if Terry Ijeoma does affiliates. Actually, she does. Talk to her. Talk to Danielle Leslie. Talk to Tara Reid. Talk to people who you know have an incredible process and course or membership. or cohort or something, something, something. And they charge a thousand dollars or more for it. And they already have hundreds, if not more members. So you know that it works. Tiffany, the budget needs to is another one. Go to them and say, I'm building this audience over here. Your course or your offer is perfect for them. Do you have an affiliate program? And if not, Could you build one for me where I get 20%? 30% or, and some affiliates even do 50%. But the key of it is I'm going to have other videos that talk about all kinds of affiliate programs, Amazon and this and that. I have another one for Opus. Those are smaller dollars. The key for this video and the affiliate side of it would be everything I just taught you, but instead of doing it for your product, you're doing it as an affiliate. So you wouldn't charge anybody necessarily for this offer. You would jump on these eight, I'm doing for 20 people, I'm having a free eight week course cohort. And instead of charging them for it, they have to apply for it. You get on there and you're interviewing the person who's your affiliate, or you get on there and you're taking them through the journey of. This is the problem. This is the thing. The same videos can be recorded, but instead of your offer, you're linking them to the affiliate offer that you have arranged. And if those are paying, each of them are paying the $250 or the $300 or the $500, you can look at a three-year period and say, how many do I need to do? At some point, I need to have, if it's a one-time, if it's a one-time, $3,000 over a three-year period, so maybe $100 a month. Sounds like a lot, but if you build this over three years, you can do anything. If you can get into a membership where you're making, I don't know, $50, $100 a month, those numbers get a little even more interesting. But if you can get yourself to... I made my first 10,000 doing this. I made my first 100,000 doing this. I can think you can do the first 100,000 in the first six months. If you can get yourself there, and please tell me when you do, you can get yourself to the million. You can get yourself to the, oh, actually, I don't have to wake up at that time anymore because, or actually, I don't have to stand on my feet anymore for 16 hours because. Or actually, I don't have to do that commute or I don't have to fly to this place every week or I don't have to be away from my family. I don't have to answer to someone. I don't have to play politics. I don't have to be in a toxic work environment. I just have to make sure that my work environment is not toxic. I can start with fractional workers at HireRunner.co, my fractional company. I can get people on Fiverr to do edits and thumbnails and I can take a couple of courses. This is something else I almost forgot. Take courses. You take courses. Take courses. Learn things on this journey. Watch YouTube like it's your job. Pay for courses. Pay for conferences. Be on the stage. Be in the seats. Network. Do the salons I told you about. There's a video where I talk about how to make five new friends this month. That's what it's called. It's a five minute video. And I teach you how to have salons, these dinners that are either quarterly or monthly with you and five other people. And you're building your network and you can learn more about it in that video. But you're creating the life you want for yourself. And I promise you, if you decide to do two or three different things, it will not work. It will not work. You may think more income streams, more money, but I have said forever, even though I'm the seven income person, I have said forever that you first have to do the first thing for, I did the first thing for 10 years and then I did the other incomes. So for three, for one year, at least for one year, do this. But I would say all three years, create this. And you can tweak it and you can have different parts to it. And you know, this may not be this. cohort or this video that you suggested. Maybe I know something else or maybe there is a physical component to it or, you know, maybe what you do is you're a therapist and your offer is some of it can be in groups and some of it has to be one-on-one, but you've limited those numbers. There are multiple ways to do this. If you're working at a corporation right now, what have you done at that corporation? How have you helped that company in your role? How have you helped your boss, quote unquote? How have you helped the company? How have you helped your team? How have you mentored? How have you helped your friends in the industry? What are you known as? What do people come to you about? Or you might not even want to do that. You might say, I'm tired of that world. I want to do something completely different. I want to work on my hobby. And I'm going to spend six months bulking up as I build this, because I'm not going to wait. But at the same time, I'm going to build up my skills. I'm going to get certified. I'm going to learn XYZ, right? So I hope this has been helpful to you. I'm very happy that I filmed this and I hope, I know, I don't even have to hope, I know that some of you will do this. And I'll see you at Your First Million Live year after year after year and we'll talk about this video, some of us. And yeah, thank you very much. I wish you well.

This particular way to make a million dollars is going to take you approximately three years. It could take you much less time than that. It could take a little longer.

But I think that for most of you, you could do this in three years. Here's the kicker. Here's the reason everyone is not a millionaire, if it were that easy.

Most people won't watch this video. I can see the stats. Probably. 10%, 15% will watch the whole thing.

If you're watching the whole thing, you're already kind of at this echelon, you know, most people won't watch. The people who do watch, most people won't implement what they learn. They'll simply appreciate it, but they won't do it.

They won't do what I say. So just like me a few years ago, and to this day, I hope. There are some people who are going to watch this. They're going to listen to every bit of it. They're going to write notes.

They're going to think and brainstorm as we go and then come back to it a little bit later. And then they're going to implement this. And those are the people who, just like it happens to me every single year, are going to come to me in a year or two or three, and they're going to say, I made my first million. And they're going to walk across the stage at your first million live because we're tracking that.

It'll be a few people. It won't be a lot of people. This video may get 500 views total over a year, or it may get a million views total over a year.

There will be a small, small percentage, less than 1% who do this. So you have to decide if you're that person. It's as simple as that.

Now, let's get started. Let me, let me, I'll read from my notes. They're handwritten.

don't have great handwriting, but they're handwritten notes. This is coming from my heart. This is coming from experience, my experience and other people's who I study or I know or both. So one caveat is that things are ever changing. Socials changing, algorithms are changing, what is hot and what is not is always changing.

So you may have to calibrate this along the way, but this is going to be a good starting point. Remember what I said, don't skip any parts because every little bit of it could trigger and could spark an idea for you. Okay, so the basics, the overall here is, let me just prop this up without breaking anything, I hope.

I don't think I can. The overall idea here is that a lot of people that I know. who are very wealthy, meaning cash wealthy, have made courses.

My friend Amy Porterfield, her book's behind me over here. My friend Danielle Leslie, my friend Terry Ijeoma, all three of these women have made courses that have done tens of millions of dollars. And most of them, or most of it, was made between 2020 and 2023, maybe 2019 to start.

And I have courses. I have an entire academy, arlensacademy.com, with a lot of free courses, if you want to take those. Some of them are dated, though. I have a course right now. I have two courses, in fact, right now.

I'm not going to suggest to you that you do this by making a course. As I said, there are many ways to make your first million. This is a different way. It's not going to be a course. The beginning of it is going to sound like a course.

course though. So what I want you to do is I want you to look at some of my videos if you need to and figure out what your niche is, figure out what your topic is, what your offer is. I have other videos about that. You can look at my channel and go through that, my book as well. This is for people who have that idea.

At least you know the arena you want to be in. You're going to base it on your experience and your likes and what the market wants to buy. Those are the three things. I mean, honestly, there are hundreds or thousands of videos on YouTube and it comes down to what do you know about, what do you enjoy, and what are people willing to pay for?

That's it. So you're going to find that topic and you're going to either start a YouTube channel or a podcast. You're going to take your current YouTube channel and see if it's appropriate for what we're going to do with it.

You're going to film four videos. Now, I'm not going to go into all of the pieces of how do you set up your camera and how do you make the video look good. I'm on Zoom right now. It's not in 4K when I upload.

It's barely in HD. I have another setup. I have two other setups that are 4K that you'll see in my videos. But there are different ways to do it.

I just saw a one-hour Frank Kern video that was done all on his iPhone. where his daughter interviewed him, his teenage daughter interviewed him. So there's no excuse really of, oh, I don't have a lot of equipment or I don't have a setup.

You want to make sure that people can hear you. That's why I have this mic in front of me. I don't love having it in front of me, but it is a great mic.

It's about $200 or $300. And it's important that people can hear you. Can you hear me right now? Say yes out loud if you can hear me. Yes, you can hear me.

It's important that you can hear me. I click on so many videos on YouTube and elsewhere where it looks great. I'm excited about the topic. That's why I clicked on it.

And then I can't hear the person very well. That's happened to a few of my videos before. You want to be able to hear. So you're going to make four videos and this is in your 36 month process.

So this is the first. month you're going to get started on this because if you don't get started on this part early you're never going to do it just just know you're never going to do it if you don't make that first video so the first video is going to be 10 to 30 minutes and all of them will be that length and they're going to talk about the first video so write this down if you need to they're going to talk about the problem and the solution overview of what you're offering so you What you're going to eventually offer, and this is going to eventually start to make sense to you, but it needs to be something, in this case, that is something that you can deliver as a service or deliver virtually. So it needs to be something that you are, you would put into a course, you would teach someone about HR, accounting, how to market, sales. how to paint something that you would put in a course, but instead of filming coursework and course curriculum, you're going to film these four videos. The first one is problem solution overview.

You're going to introduce people to the problem that you solve, and you're going to talk to them a little bit about what the solution is. So a good example is the chief of staff affiliate that I have with... My former chief of staff, who currently works with me, Melanie, she filmed a chief of staff course certification, and I'm an affiliate of that. And so the problem or one of the problems is that CEOs and other executives need someone hands on, need someone who can be their right hand and their thought partner. And that's often put on someone like an executive assistant who is not prepared.

and not being paid enough to do that role, while there is an incredible role that is being overlooked, which is chief of staff. And so introducing that problem and then introducing what the solution is and giving a lay of the land would be my first video, if I were doing this process that I'm telling you about. The second video is going to be, again, 10 to 30 minutes, and it's going to be testimonials and case studies. And it can be one or the other or both, but you're essentially jumping on a Zoom and interviewing someone who you have helped with this problem. You have helped them solve this problem.

Or you're going to go straight to camera and tell the story of someone and maybe show screenshots and show that evidence. You're trying to show proof, social proof, that you can do what you say you can do. If you do not have these credentials at all, you need to use your first month and your first three months to build those credentials.

So you're going to start a little bit later than everyone else. Again, if you do this at all, you're ahead of the game. But that's where you're going to really start to shine.

You may have this in a different package than you realize. So if you've worked at a company for eight years or in the same industry for 10 or 12 years. You have somebody who you've helped. You have that company, you have an employer, someone you've worked for, someone you've worked alongside. Someone has been helped by your work.

So it doesn't have to be, oh, I've done this course, or I've done this thing, or I've done this exact thing we're going to talk about. It could be from your past. I call it putting points on board.

You're going to show those points that you already have. So if you're currently an executive, you have that. You're going to pull from there.

The third video is going to be your first step solution. So what So now that you've introduced what the problem is, and you're going to do it in this order, by the way, now that you've introduced what the problem is, where would your potential customer, your potential person that you want to help and serve, where would they need to start? Where would they need to start?

What is their very first step? A lot of that can be answered in, if you don't know the answer, it could be in the education. Your first step is to read these three books. Your first step is to take this 30-minute course or watch this video that I have or download this PDF or dot, dot, dot. You want to help someone feel like it's possible for them and that they're learning immediately.

So that's your third. Your fourth is now a recap of all three. Just a little bit of...

This is what you learned, recap. And you're also going to have an FAQ here. So your fourth video is actually not going to be filmed with the rest of the three prior to it. You're going to film the first three videos first. The reason you're going to do that is because these videos are going to go on your YouTube channel that I told you to start a few minutes ago.

And let me tell you, when you start a YouTube channel, you may already know this, but when you start a YouTube channel, you're not going to get a lot of views. It's not like TikTok, where if you put your first video up, you can get 10 million views. YouTube can show your video to the algorithm, to the people.

The algorithm is the people, right? But it does take a few videos to do this. So you're not doing this to go viral. You're not doing this to reach thousands of people. You're doing this to reach a few people, 15, 30, 100. You're doing this to reach the right people.

And you're going to send this link out to other people anyway. This is where this is going to live. So these four videos in a different time, in 2021, would have been the course, the mini course that I would have encouraged you to create.

It would have been a 30 minute. to two hour mini course, right? Exactly that amount.

And you may have charged $50, $99, $197, depending on how helpful it was. You're actually not going to sell this. You're going to use this to sell. Your next thing to know is that you're going to release this on a weekly basis. And I'll tell you in a second when.

So I want to bring you back to understanding the bigger picture, and then I'll tell you a little bit more. Big picture here is that you are going to create not a chorus, but a cohort. And you're going to create a transformational cohort of people.

I have done this so many times in the last four years. I can't count how many times I've done it. I've done it for Backstage Pass. So if you go to BackstageInvest.com, you can see the landing page. I've done it for an Inner Circle, Mastermind.

I've done it for YouTube, how to go from zero to a thousand subscribers. I now have 25,000 subscribers at the time of this filming. I've done it more times than I can say and to the tune of a lot of money. And it's very fulfilling as well.

And so you're going to create a cohort. The reason you're going to create a cohort, not a course, one of the reasons is there's some sort of testing and reporting. that less than 20% of your students are finishing your course. And if fewer than 20% of your students who you get to take the course are not even finishing it, then how are they going to have the transformation that you need in order to continue to show those testimonials? And to just, for it to be worth it, right?

You could potentially sell them. And there are other videos that I have, we'll talk about courses and that'll... may even be another Your First Million video.

But for this and this time. We're thinking about, actually, we're going to go a little bit to the side here. Another reason is this transformation that you want to give people is much easier and much more impactful if you can meet with them on a weekly basis.

The lift is not as high as you might think, though. So this is going to be a cohort membership. collab, that's not the hybrid, hybrid, you're going to set up a cohort and it's going to be an eight week long journey. Think of the course that you already had in mind.

Think of the topics what you are doing in these four videos anyway. The way you're going to deliver it is just going to be a little different than you would have done on a course. It's going to be you talking with a group.

whether that's one person who signed up or it's the 20 people who signed up. And I'll tell you about that in a moment. Stay tuned. And you're going to go live on Zoom or your preferred platform.

I would suggest Zoom. You're going to deliver that information to them in the first half of the hour or so that you have with them. And in the second half, It's going to be a time for questions. It's going to be a time for breakout rooms and for co-working.

Some of these eight weeks, you will bring in guest speakers who will either deliver some sort of information, hopefully without selling, or who you will interview. And then the group will get to interview them as well, ask them questions. If you have the right offer.

about the right topic and reach the right people, that eight-week cohort can be extremely valuable. I'll tell you what else is going to happen there. So, don't want to do this spotlight search. You're going to choose a time. It could be month two or whenever you think it's appropriate to do this.

And you're going to post these four, you're going to post these three videos. Once a week the first video week one a week from then the second video a week from then the third video The reason you're not posting the fourth video yet is because you are going to read every single comment that you receive And again, this is a new account If it is a new account and if that new account is also accompanied by a very small audience that you have You're not going to have a lot of comments necessarily, but as well learn later, I'll teach you later how you're going to kind of counter that. But no matter how many comments you have, you are going to look at them and respond to all of them. You're going to take note of the questions you receive and you're going to answer a little bit, but you're going to mostly say that's coming up later.

Stay tuned in two weeks, stay tuned in three weeks, because you know the schedule. Then once you've done all three of those, as soon as you get... you know, a couple days into that third video, you're going to film your fourth video. And your fourth video is going to incorporate, again, a recap of all three videos and some of the questions you were asked. You're going to answer some of those questions.

In the description of those four videos, starting with the first one, you would have already prepared for your cohort. And in the description, After if it's a new YouTube channel, you're going to have to get verified It takes about a day to do that and once you're verified it'll let you put links in your description It'll also let you have videos that are longer than 15 minutes So just kind of pay attention to those little things in the description You're going to put a link to a type form or a Google Doc or something of the sort That is an application and in your first video and every video afterward your sorry, of this first three, you're going to say, after you've done the things in the video, the content in it, at the end, you're going to say, I am working with 20 people on a new cohort-based program. It is eight weeks long.

You're not going to say the price. And you're going to say, if you would like to apply to be part of it, based on this information I've given you. The link is in the description.

That link will take them to a short application, but enough information that you can make a determination if they're going to work well with what you're doing. And then you're going to contact those people who apply. And if you hear crickets, you're going to do it again the second week and the third.

If you're hearing nothing, you're going to be putting this link. And even if you are hearing something, you're putting this link to these videos one at a time on LinkedIn, on Instagram. in your email list that you've built. And if you don't know how to have any of this, if you don't have this already, go to my video that's called how to get the first 10 customers. That's a great way to start.

Again, it may add a few months to that beginning of that 36 month period. But if you're able to do a million dollars total cumulative in that three years, that's amazing. I think it can even get you to $1 million yearly runway rate in this three years. So wouldn't it be worth it?

that if at month 36, that's just three years from now, three years ago was 2021 as the time of this filming. That was a year into things. Three years from now, you could be sitting on a million. If that's the case, then these first three months can be a little slow and be worth it. So you're going to send people to the application.

And then you're going to, over that month period that you're putting these videos out, you're going to start pulling people into your cohort. Now, what are you going to charge for this cohort? You're going to charge at least $500 at most $2,000. I wouldn't go above $1,250 for this cohort because what you're going to do is you're going to charge $500 to $2,000, but then you're going to offer a discount.

So you're going to say, because you're my pilot to 20. you get a 20% discount or a 30% discount or a 50% discount. So the money that they give you is going to be at a discount, but it's not really important how much money you make in this period. I would even go as far to say that for the right offer and the right audience, doing this for free with the first 20 could be worth it to get all of the data. and the experience and the testimonials and troubleshooting that you will get in this eight-week period.

But I would prefer that you charge for it because that will help you understand if it reaches that third thing in our Venn diagram of will the market pay for it? Does the market want to pay for it? So $500,000 to $2,000 retail, and then you're going to discount that.

Over that month, you're going to take in, you're going to... have conversations with people inbound. You may reach out to some people if you think that they're right for it and you're going to collect. And maybe eight people sign up, maybe three people sign up, but maybe 40 people sign up. You're going to craft this and you're going to, even if you have more demand than you have seats, you're going to cap it.

That's part of the whole situation because in a few weeks you're going to use that demand to your advantage. So then you take on those 20. people or those two people, however many, and you say it's starting on the first of the next month or it's starting in two weeks or it's starting at a later date, but not too far out where they lose interest, but not immediately because you need all of them to start at the same time. So then you will start on that date and each week you'll have the calls that I mentioned earlier. You'll have, you will prepare in Canva or ChatGPT or both.

Or beautiful.ai does a great deck you can do. And you'll share your screen and you'll take people through. And you'll decide what is the most helpful and what transformation and outcome do I want them to start at and to go to.

If at the end of these eight weeks, at least 50% of the people in this cohort can say that they did XYZ, that would be worth it. And that's what you're going to aim for. And you're going to plot and plan. And let me tell you, chat GPT will help you plot and plan. Don't sleep on that.

So for instance, you could say, if half of the people in my cohort went from zero to 100 subscribers on YouTube in the first eight weeks, and they haven't been able to get any subscribers prior to that, or they didn't even have a channel, that would be worth it. And that's what you're going to tell. That's what you're going to offer.

Whatever it is, you're going to offer it very openly. You're not so you're. You're going to create a little bit of shrouded mystery because you want the people who are not signed up and not in the cohort to wonder about it.

Then on top of that, you're going to post. on Instagram, if you have it, or LinkedIn or Twitter, if you have it, etc. You're going to post every once in a while during that period where you have the videos and you're taking in applications.

You're going to post little updates about how things are going, little behind the scenes updates about how things are going. And by the way, I am taking this from my experience over the years and a couple other people's experience recently. And I'm going to do another video That is more in depth on a case study. So check that out. But I think this is the kind of the inside baseball of it all.

So you're doing all of that. Remember, you're answering every comment. You're taking notes. This whole eight week period now. So let's say month one was about filming and getting some of those videos out.

Month two and three are about having the actual cohort. So that first 90 days. You've made a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

You're off to the races. You're really making it work. And you're taking this feedback from your cohort.

Maybe you're halfway through it and they're not seeing any kind of results or they're not feeling like it's worth their time. Get that information from them. Take the hard notes now so you don't have to do that when there are more people involved. You're also going to, I said it was a membership, so you're also going to give people a landing spot to come converse with each other.

I can't tell you how exciting that is when you start to really get into memberships. And with this, you are not charging a monthly rate yet. This is just a pilot cohort, but you're going to create a WhatsApp or a Facebook page, if that's your thing.

It's not my thing, but if it's your thing, or a Discord or a Slack. Or Teachable, Kajabi, etc. Somewhere where people can go and post, either post on it. Circle is another one.

Post on it or Mighty Networks. Or they are, you know, conversing like on Discord. So that that small group of 12 people, of three people, they can talk to each other. And they can ask questions.

And they can celebrate their wins. You're taking screenshots, asking them permission. You're...

You're collecting these assets and these testimonials and these things in real time, depending on what it is that you're trying to accomplish so that you can use them later. And then, again, you're going to document this process because part of that is when you have these four videos, but maybe 10 people can see them in a month, you also are putting it in other places. And...

You want to drive them to the YouTube videos. You want to drive them over there. So, hey, I'm on Instagram. I just left my corporate gig after eight years, and I'm starting something new. And, yeah, today was pretty fun.

I did this video. If you want to see what I'm doing behind the scenes, if you want to see what I'm doing, this is behind the scenes. Go over to YouTube.

This is my channel. Check that out. And then you have a few people who are going to go over and then kind of get into. what is a light funnel, essentially. When you do these weekly calls, you're going to record them.

Please do not forget to record them. And again, you're going to let everybody know, they get told anyway on Zoom, but you're going to let everyone know that these calls are being recorded and they will be used in an archive. And these eight weeks of calls, which is mostly you presenting, but then there will be portions that will go. So you could even... Trim it so that if people feel like certain things they didn't want on video could be there.

But the best thing to do is tell people at the front, at the top, in emails and the top of your recordings, this is going to be filmed and we're going to use this in the cohort. And most people are going to like that because they'll be seen by other people and it'll be good. And they can be off camera if they don't want that. And I've done that with my investor course for more than...

You know, hundreds and hundreds of people have done that too. So multiple times I've done this exact framework that I'm giving you right now. And then you're going to put that into something. So Teachable is a good example.

Teachable is where you can, this is what I use all the time. So you can put things into the Teachable. This is where you would have normally had a course.

You're going to put this into a course. You also have a community tab that you can use on Teachable. That's like Circle. They used to have Circle. Now this is just a version of that.

So that's where you could put it and you can call it something like a vault or the archive or that's the on-demand portion of what we're going to do next. So what you're going to do next is When the eight weeks are done, hopefully it's gone well. And if you think it's gone well and you've gotten good feedback and it's authentic feedback, you're going to release another video on YouTube.

And this would have been, maybe you had one in between. That's kind of like how things are going. But this is going to be, you're not releasing videos on YouTube constantly at this point.

You're going to release a new video that says, I just finished. or we finished it a week ago or two weeks ago, whatever, our eight-week cohort. And this is how it went. And that's going to be on the longer side.

It's going to be a deep dive into how did things go? How did you feel about it? What kind of results were there? If you can get into either having an editor help you on Fiverr, or Fiverr is a good place to do that, or just, you know, you're on your, you know, showing screen and sharing screen, you're going to...

use those testimonials and those things that people that you've been collecting, that's the video that you're going to put that in for the most part. And in that video, in the middle of it and towards the end, and at the beginning, you're going to tease it. You're going to say, stay tuned because I have a big announcement.

You're then going to say, we did the pilot and now we're turning it into a membership. The cohort is turning into a membership. So It won't be as hands-on, but you took all the learnings from it.

And you're now, when people sign up to it, if they apply, they still have to apply, they are going to get access to all eight weeks videos. So they can watch all of the teachings you gave them. Templates, PDFs, things that you can add to that. Again, ChatGPT or something like it is very helpful in creating these types of assets. Also, you can go to HireRunner.co, my company.

Hire someone to help put these things together for you fractionally. There's ways to do this. Or you could do it yourself if you enjoy that.

Spreadsheets, all that. Lists. They're going to have access to, again, you're going to be doing weekly calls.

And you're going to do this part. You're going to do the weekly calls for up to a year. Eventually, maybe in year two, you may get tired of it. And you may say, I'm not going to do the weekly calls anymore. I'm going to take it all on demand.

Because we have so many. And we know exactly how to get people to the transformation without me hand-holding. Or you may say someone else on my team is going to take over these calls.

Or you may say, I love doing these weeklies. I don't do anything else but these weeklies and a couple of other videos, and I'm good. So I would love to do that. But for that first full year, you are doing these weeklies. If you're signed up to do this and try this out, you're going to do those weeklies.

So they're going to get the on-demand archive or vault. cool name that you're going to give it. They're going to get the weekly calls with you. Not everybody's going to come to it, but they can get the replays.

If you think the replays are valuable enough, you'll put them in the vault. And you're going to do your very best to have a hybrid of automation and hands-on of this do-it-with-you version. And you're going to take people on this transformation. Now the people who are in the cohort, and the people eventually who are in this membership, you want to have somewhere for them to ascend next.

So you might have a masterclass, or you might have an inner circle, or you might have something that's a one-on-one where they can pay you more, and they can get more hands-on information and work and help with you. And if you help them in that cohort, and they saw those results, and you're able to offer them even better results authentically, some of them are going to convert. And so that's going to actually help things.

And if that's something that you can do that doesn't take a lot of your time, you're not sitting here trying to take 30 one-on-ones a month. You're not doing that. This is not what that is.

I got to stop you there. I've seen it too much where people have a good thing going, but they have too many one-on-ones. They have too many one-on-one sales calls.

and they have too many one-on-one consulting calls. Your time is extremely valuable. You don't want to trade a 9 to 5 for a 24-7. That's not my phrase, but I've heard it many times. You don't want to trade that.

You want to put it on almost autopilot so that you can go and live life. You can get to living sooner, but you know you have these certain days of the week that you need to be doing XYZ. So you're going to figure out exactly what that might be.

For some people, that's an in-person twice a year. And I know a lot of people who charge $10,000 to $25,000 a year for one person and they have 10, 20, 30 people in that and that they're paying for maybe some text messages and maybe twice a year they meet up and they pay for the meetup. So there's a lot you can do in between.

If you can get to the point where you have multiple people in your cohort. and then multiple people in your membership, and it's a few hours a week that you're working on this, the other options and other possibilities open themselves up. But you don't want to just keep taking on more and more and more responsibility just to make a big buck.

This is where I need you to hear me. And I think where a lot of people go right, I'm gonna take you left. What a lot of people do is they keep this ascension ladder. And I talk about that a lot too. This ascension ladder of, okay, now the next person, I'm going to have an inner circle and it's going to be this.

Now I'm going to have this. I'm going to have this. I'm going to have this.

What you need to do is do this for three years. If you do this for a year, you will see results that blow your mind and change your life. If you do this for three years, you'll reach your first million. And that can be...

cumulative, definitely. And even for some people, that's going to be a million dollar run rate, meaning by the time you get to year three, you'll be making a million a year. So let's say your membership, because again, this is a membership you've transferred people over to, it's 250 a month and it is, it says 3,000 a year. You're not, and you're going to say, For the first year, I'm only allowing 100 people total in it.

Again, when you create this limit, more people want to be part of it and they wonder why. Let's say that. And let's say that it's 100, but you're going to have some churn, meaning some people are going to leave.

They're not going to stay the full 12 months. I think it's like three and a half months is like the average. But your thing is at any given time, there will be 100. So if people fall off, if I start to understand people are falling off, I'm going to replenish, replenish.

So that first year, your goal is to have the hundred. And let's say it is 250 a month. It could be a hundred a month.

It could be a thousand a month. Let's say it's 250. That's 3,000 times a hundred. It's $300,000. So that 5,000 or 10,000 that you made in the pilot is really just to maybe pay for some materials and your time a little bit. It's really invaluable.

You can see why you might think about doing it for free. and capping it. Because if you can get that to work and it translates to this, then you're really cooking.

I want to take this time right now to say that I know that some people who are even listening to this part, and I appreciate you, there are some people who are saying, this sounds so out of reach to me and so far-fetched to me. I don't even know what she's thinking. I was homeless 10 years ago. I was sleeping on the floor of an airport. I was sharing a bed with my, not a bed, I was sharing a room with my mom in a hotel prior to that.

I was in my 30s, she was in her 60s. I was on food stamps and then I ran out of food stamps. But every single day what I would do is I would do what I call becoming money. I said, they can't take away education from me.

They can't take away what I learned. So even if I'm hungry, I'm going to learn. And this is what I want you to do. I want you in this time period, this 36 months, this first three months and the first 12 months, I want you to find a way to speak on stages, even if you're speaking on stages for free to start.

Don't block the forest for the trees, right? Because what you're going to do is some people and most people I talk to, because I'm a high paid speaker, I've spoken hundreds of times now after getting over stage fright. They come to me and they say, well, how do I get a $10,000 gig?

It's tough. That's a whole career in itself is figuring out how to do that. I would say figure out the best, the places you want to be so you can be in front of those people who you can get into your world, your ecosystem, who are going to be the people who convert into your world. Get on those stages.

Get into those rooms. Don't worry about trying to make $5,000 speaking because dot, dot, dot. Don't let anybody take advantage of you.

When people reach out and they say, oh, I want you to speak on our DEI panel and our tickets are $1,200 and we don't have a budget for you. That's some bull. I'm talking about you looking at where do I want us to speak?

And first you'll speak in the breakout rooms. Or you'll do a workshop if you're lucky. And then eventually you'll get bigger and bigger and bigger stages.

But you do that. I want you to get on podcasts. I want you to get on YouTube interviews. Even if they have 100 listeners, try to convert some of those listeners.

But the key of it is that they need to be aligned. It needs to be something where you say something is going to convert. Because again, I want you to think about three years from now.

How would your life change completely if you have done one million dollars in revenue and 50% or so was profit? You want to make $150,000 at your job working for somebody else or do you want to make $150,000 working for yourself with a couple of people helping you eventually? If you can visualize that, then doing this extra work, making that decision today shouldn't be hard.

I know it is hard, but you can recalibrate that. Now remember, you're going to repost and repurpose on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. You don't have to do all of these.

You don't have to learn a whole other language. You can choose one. But the how is in that.

So you build that first year, and then the second year, you build more, and the third year, you build more. But the key, what's the key? Say it out loud. The key has to be consistency.

It has to be sticking with this. If you change course six months in, you cooked. That's the thing that changes. That's the difference.

Danielle Leslie, there's an interview with her. that I did last year where she said for a year, year and a half, she did a webinar, a sales webinar once a week, every week without fail. And I think it was the first 12 months, it didn't really translate.

And then those next six months, she did her first million and never looked back. I've heard this story so many times from so many different people. Stay the course, stay the course.

That's what this video is about. I wasn't planning on recording today. It's a Saturday.

It's my day off. I just had this truly touch my heart and something I had to tell you. This is how it works. Now, I told you at the beginning of the video that there was something really important at the end. And I'm going to tell you that right now.

All of what I just described to you is what I want you to do. But there is a way, there's another version of this for anyone who says, I don't really think I have an offer to give that is worth $500 to $2,000, or I don't feel like building that with everything else I have going on. I have children, I have this full-time job, I have a health issue.

Any of those things combined are on their own, or you simply just don't want to do this. But you do want this ability to reach your first million within three years in this kind of lane. Like some of it I can do, some of it I can't.

I would suggest to you that you find one or two and no more than that affiliate programs that the commission is $200, $300, $400, $500. And I would do this. for someone who has an incredible course or an incredible membership of their own. I don't know if Rachel Rogers does affiliates, but if she does, talk to her. I don't know if Terry Ijeoma does affiliates.

Actually, she does. Talk to her. Talk to Danielle Leslie.

Talk to Tara Reid. Talk to people who you know have an incredible process and course or membership. or cohort or something, something, something.

And they charge a thousand dollars or more for it. And they already have hundreds, if not more members. So you know that it works.

Tiffany, the budget needs to is another one. Go to them and say, I'm building this audience over here. Your course or your offer is perfect for them.

Do you have an affiliate program? And if not, Could you build one for me where I get 20%? 30% or, and some affiliates even do 50%. But the key of it is I'm going to have other videos that talk about all kinds of affiliate programs, Amazon and this and that. I have another one for Opus.

Those are smaller dollars. The key for this video and the affiliate side of it would be everything I just taught you, but instead of doing it for your product, you're doing it as an affiliate. So you wouldn't charge anybody necessarily for this offer.

You would jump on these eight, I'm doing for 20 people, I'm having a free eight week course cohort. And instead of charging them for it, they have to apply for it. You get on there and you're interviewing the person who's your affiliate, or you get on there and you're taking them through the journey of.

This is the problem. This is the thing. The same videos can be recorded, but instead of your offer, you're linking them to the affiliate offer that you have arranged.

And if those are paying, each of them are paying the $250 or the $300 or the $500, you can look at a three-year period and say, how many do I need to do? At some point, I need to have, if it's a one-time, if it's a one-time, $3,000 over a three-year period, so maybe $100 a month. Sounds like a lot, but if you build this over three years, you can do anything. If you can get into a membership where you're making, I don't know, $50, $100 a month, those numbers get a little even more interesting.

But if you can get yourself to... I made my first 10,000 doing this. I made my first 100,000 doing this.

I can think you can do the first 100,000 in the first six months. If you can get yourself there, and please tell me when you do, you can get yourself to the million. You can get yourself to the, oh, actually, I don't have to wake up at that time anymore because, or actually, I don't have to stand on my feet anymore for 16 hours because. Or actually, I don't have to do that commute or I don't have to fly to this place every week or I don't have to be away from my family.

I don't have to answer to someone. I don't have to play politics. I don't have to be in a toxic work environment. I just have to make sure that my work environment is not toxic. I can start with fractional workers at HireRunner.co, my fractional company.

I can get people on Fiverr to do edits and thumbnails and I can take a couple of courses. This is something else I almost forgot. Take courses.

You take courses. Take courses. Learn things on this journey.

Watch YouTube like it's your job. Pay for courses. Pay for conferences. Be on the stage. Be in the seats.

Network. Do the salons I told you about. There's a video where I talk about how to make five new friends this month.

That's what it's called. It's a five minute video. And I teach you how to have salons, these dinners that are either quarterly or monthly with you and five other people. And you're building your network and you can learn more about it in that video. But you're creating the life you want for yourself.

And I promise you, if you decide to do two or three different things, it will not work. It will not work. You may think more income streams, more money, but I have said forever, even though I'm the seven income person, I have said forever that you first have to do the first thing for, I did the first thing for 10 years and then I did the other incomes. So for three, for one year, at least for one year, do this. But I would say all three years, create this.

And you can tweak it and you can have different parts to it. And you know, this may not be this. cohort or this video that you suggested. Maybe I know something else or maybe there is a physical component to it or, you know, maybe what you do is you're a therapist and your offer is some of it can be in groups and some of it has to be one-on-one, but you've limited those numbers. There are multiple ways to do this.

If you're working at a corporation right now, what have you done at that corporation? How have you helped that company in your role? How have you helped your boss, quote unquote?

How have you helped the company? How have you helped your team? How have you mentored?

How have you helped your friends in the industry? What are you known as? What do people come to you about? Or you might not even want to do that.

You might say, I'm tired of that world. I want to do something completely different. I want to work on my hobby.

And I'm going to spend six months bulking up as I build this, because I'm not going to wait. But at the same time, I'm going to build up my skills. I'm going to get certified.

I'm going to learn XYZ, right? So I hope this has been helpful to you. I'm very happy that I filmed this and I hope, I know, I don't even have to hope, I know that some of you will do this. And I'll see you at Your First Million Live year after year after year and we'll talk about this video, some of us. And yeah, thank you very much.

I wish you well.

Transcript for:Strategies for Making Your First Million

Transcript for:
Strategies for Making Your First Million