Welcome to another Sunday edition of the Scale Up Newsletter. Although I usually focus on scaling from around 6 figures to 7. Today, I want to talk about scaling in the early stages of a business.
I want to go over 5 “skills” you should develop basic proficiency in. If you can get these 5 skills to to the “ok” level, you should be able to scale up your small business rapidly.
I’ll give a quick note here on a school of thought I’ve come to believe. If you want to be the world’s best copywriter, you’ve got a LOT of work ahead of you.
However, it doesn’t take that much work to be the world’s best copywriter selling educational products to 3rd grade teachers. You get the idea. Every layer of “extension” decreases the available supply which in turn increases your value.
This is why they say, “the riches are in the niches”. We are taking this same theory and applying it to developing our own internal skillset. Furthermore, this approach allows you to bulldoze ahead and gain experience and get feedback on your own ideas.
Because I am an “internet guy” I’m focusing on the skills you need to launch or grow your own online business.
This should really help you as you grow. Let’s go through each one. And where I can I’ll give you links to the tools that I use.
Web Design & Landing Page Design
You’ve got to be able to build websites to sell your products or services. My personal favorite here so far is either Kartra or Elementor on WordPress. Personally, I Like Kartra for it’s all in one options, but Elementor gives you more control over your actual website.
Here’s a landing page that I built in Elementor if you want to see the kind of things you can do that are point and click simple:
https://HISCapitalGroup.com/register
Copywriting
If you want to grow a business, you’ve got to make sales. This means being able to write ads that express what you are selling and that make people want to buy it.
If you want to learn copywriting then obviously I’m going to biasedly send you to my website. I actually give away about 99% of what I create, so you’re bound to learn something that can help you:
When you get better at writing ads, your whole world changes!
Tech Skills
This one is tough for a lot of people. But, if you’re gonna play on the internet you need to be able to speak the language. This can include learning some basic coding in html/css/javascript and if you’re really inclined php and MySQL.
It’s not “hard”, just tedious. If you can afford it, of course, it’s always good to just pay someone else. But you should still understand the basics.
Inside of this box you also should know how to purchase a domain, setup SSL and hosting services. Creating an email account with GSuite and using Google Drive. I like to use WPEngine for hosting my wordpress sites.
Under this category I’ll also include learning how to use software. If you can get a general feel for operating software, your whole world opens up. From no code solutions to SAAS products for different business problems you can do a lot more.
Audio/Video Editing
This is practically a required skill these days. The good news is you don’t need to be a master editor to make a quality product. There are a few key components to getting going with audio/video editing.
1) Your equipment. You can start with your phone and eventually upgrade to a camera and some lights. Just YouTube this and you’ll find everything you need.
2) Your editing software. For audio I like Audacity. It’s free. For video editing I like Camtasia because it allows me to record video, audio, and screen captures. It is easy to use and fast. Someday, I’ll graduate to something better – but for now I like it a lot.
3) Ideas – You do need to keep thinking of ideas and building a backlog to work on. This gets easier the longer you go. One of my secret weapons is my Copywriter Brain which keeps my backlog full. You can learn more about that here.
Media Buying
This is another skill you really must develop if you want to see a business really scale. This is the skill of running paid ads to your products or services. This includes using sites like Facebook & Google to run ads.
There are many great programs out there that can teach you how to run ads. One of my favorites is Adskills. Make sure you check them out if you aren’t a member yet.
Once you can run ads, it becomes much easier to test new ideas out and see what the response of the market is.
Without the skill of media buying you won’t really get much traffic to your site unless you learn the skills of SEO and other free traffic strategies.
So, optionally, if you really can’t or won’t learn media buying, then study up on SEO and other organic traffic strategies like blogging, forum posting, reddit hopping, slack group strategies, FB group posts, Linkedin outreach etc.
Final Thoughts
I may put together a small course around these topics and walk you through examples of me doing all these things. If you’re interested in that for a sub $97 price point let me know and that’ll tell me if it’s worth me pursuing it.
But you can definitely learn all these things on your own, it just takes time to work on it and work through it.
Hope you enjoyed this different episode of the Scale Up Newsletter.
Till Next Time,
Mike Giannulis
PS – Tweet Of The Week:
Turn your goals into projects.
Don’t share your aspirations, focus on activation.
Don’t write a statement, focus on movement.
Don’t ignore obstacles, plan for them.
A goal serves your ego, a project serves your purpose.— Michael Giannulis | CEO | Entrepreneur | Investor (@mikegiannulis) March 15, 2021
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