#283 - How Smart Entrepreneurs Grow a Business From Zero In 2025

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Transcript

The Old Game Is Dead

Speaker 0 0:00

Smart entrepreneurs are playing a completely different game in 2025 . The old way of doing business with one funnel , one offer , one sales process is basically dead in 2025 . This used to work . Let me clarify In 2020 , all the OGs of the industry came , dominated , made their millions and left . But in 2025 , if you're playing an old game with old tricks , you're going to get outnumbered and outrun by everybody else . So let's fix this in this video and I'm going to show you exactly how smart entrepreneurs are going from zero to $1 million , plus a year with a simpler model .

Breaking Through Revenue Ceilings

Speaker 0 0:37

And look , I've been there . I've been in the point whereby I've struggled so hard to build and grow and scale my online business . It's normal , business is tough . You're going to have really difficult periods , but just because something is difficult doesn't mean it needs to be miserable forever . When I was building Voix , our media company and education business , we were hitting a ceiling over and over again . I would relive the same quarter , the same month , over and over again , and nothing would change . Nothing would change in that instance . We were getting up to roughly 100K a month consistently . We'd go up to 120K , swing back down to 80K , swing to 70K , back up to 100K , and nothing would change . The only things were changing was the complexity of the business . It would become harder to scale , the team would have much more issues and next thing I know , I'd be finding myself trying to figure out someone's Wi-Fi problems in the back ass of nowhere . This is not the right way to build a business and , to be honest , I was sick to death of it .

Building Your Ecosystem Engine

Speaker 0 1:36

So what's the big shift that changed everything . For us , this was the big difference from serving a tiny market in a small niche , solving one problem , to serving the entire market at a scale . This is how we went from a small one offer , one funnel approach to an ecosystem model that scales way beyond you and way beyond your own little brand , and I call this the ecosystem engine that feeds your entire business , and it also feeds your entire life , because money may not be the goal for everyone . It could be time , freedom , location freedom , financial freedom , whatever that may be . It all comes with having an ecosystem engine that drives traffic into your business . So let's look at it step by step .

Speaker 0 2:17

The first stage is leads . The most important part of your online business is leads . Without leads , everything gets sucked up . It is the oxygen , the lifeblood . Everything inside of your business breaks down to leads , and I was in this position whereby I was hammering my head off the wall trying to get leads , and I couldn't do it right . We just had LinkedIn and , apart from just putting out more posts , which actually doesn't work , we needed to open up new client acquisition channels to get more leads . What we started to focus on was having an Instagram strategy basically the same content on LinkedIn . Having a YouTube strategy , having tactical videos on YouTube , having an email strategy , getting leads to actually go deeper down the funnel with you before taking the final step to working with you .

Speaker 0 3:03

And this just blows up the amount of velocity and speed you can have in your business . And when I was a tiny , small , little media company , we could barely find the lead . I looked under the closet , I looked behind the couch and nothing was there . Nothing was ever there , whereas when we had more of a client acquisition focus , this is basically how every smart entrepreneur is doubling down in 2025 . And this is how people are going from zero to 1 million all the way up to 10 million a year . And here's the actual brutal truth is that if you have your ecosystem well defined and well built , you don't need people to buy your stuff , because your free content solves every one of their problems and it allows them to go and build an amazing business . They can send you referrals , they can send you recommendations . They may not ever do anything , but they can leave a fantastic experience working with you . By just your free content alone , someone like yourself can watch all of my Build With Me series on YouTube and technically build a one million a year online business . People only pay for access , speed and proximity to me and my amazing team . That is the only difference and that's the beauty of having amazing content coming off the top of YouTube and all your other platforms .

Speaker 0 4:17

Next up , we have sales , and speed

Track Every Metric Ruthlessly

Speaker 0 4:19

sells . B2c is a speed game . B2b is a gentleman's game , and you need to get up , get off the couch and actually speak to your leads , and I like to say that sales is very like dating . Unless you're six foot four , shredded as hell with a crystal clear jawline , no one's coming to you . You have to make the first move . You have to go to your leads . You need to open up more conversations . Unless you're Alex Ramosian you sold a company for 40 million no one's coming direct to you randomly to work with you . They will eventually , but not in the beginning . You need to open more conversations on LinkedIn , on Instagram . You need to have more content coming off the top of YouTube that starts more conversations . You need to have more phone calls , you need to get on the phone and ultimately , ultimately you need to stop being a princess .

Speaker 0 5:10

I've been diagnosing people with princess syndrome for the past couple of months and I'm seeing this over and over again Business owners too proud to create content creators , too proud of their Canva templates to actually speak to their leads and founders who need to ask their daddy to go to the bathroom . This needs to stop . It needs to stop . You need to go directly to your leads , open up more conversations and , even though it's quite cliche , the more hands you shake , the more money you make . So you're probably thinking , yes , darren , I know leads , I know sales . That makes sense . I'm just going to do all that . I already do that .

Speaker 0 5:41

If you are doing it to a high level , then you need this following point you need to track your metrics and every inch of your business . It's not sexy , it's not fun , it's not something you can post on Instagram , but it is the absolute backbone of your business . If you don't have a good hold of your numbers , you're going to fall apart . You're going to be super anxious as well , because you've no idea what's coming around the corner . I've worked with some of the biggest sales trainers in the world and some of them are absolute cowboys . They have their finger in the air picking up random , random ideas as to how they track their sales , how to track their customers , their prospects , and none of them truly actually can get into detail and actually be able to analyze the numbers , let alone close a deal . Some of these guys can't even close a door , let alone a 6k paid in full program .

Speaker 0 6:32

So what do you need to track and take simple notes of this ? You need to understand how many leads you're speaking to a day . I would say 50 new conversations a day , 50 follow-ups a day , when you get them on the calendar . You need to understand how many calls you're booking , how much people are showing up to the calls , what is your close rate , what is the lifetime value ? How much people churn every month ? What is the total cash collected ? What is the total back-end cash collected ? These are only small little things . Right , they're small things and the irony is within Apex , one of our programs .

Speaker 0 7:04

We just give this to a lot of our members . Some of our members come in , they're making 150K a month and they don't really understand their sales process . We just give them a lot of our actual tracking sheets and instantly they're able to see the numbers and scale their business directly . After that and also other things to track is some things like how much you're spending on ads , how much does it cost you to get customers , how long did this stick around for ?

Speaker 0 7:28

Because I'll be fully honest with you , for a long time I didn't track this stuff and that's why I'm saying that I don't speak from a position up here . I've actually done the cowboy stuff for a long time . I just thought , yep , next month's gonna be better , next month's gonna be better and nothing changes . Although now , because I know , end to end , how many calls we book , how much show up , what's the problems ? How do we diagnose problems ? I can , for the most part , predict how much money we're going to make . Next month . An asteroid might hit and kill us all on this planet , but unless it does , I have a pretty good idea how much revenue we can generate , and it's all based on understanding your numbers . It's very simple and to give you a simple example , if you wanted to lose body weight , you would get on the scales every single day and actually measure your body weight . It is a key indicator as to are you losing body weight and fat in your body . Do the same for your business , and the second you start looking at the numbers , you will genuinely start driving them up and finally we have fulfillment

Multiple Offers vs Single Funnel

Speaker 0 8:33

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Speaker 0 8:33

Now you've been hearing me talk about the ecosystem engine for the past 10 minutes and you're wondering well , when do I see the products ? When do I see the offers ? The offers come last Because once we have our leads , sales and also our metrics dialed in , we now have different ways to solve that problem , and your first offer is going to be a high ticket offer . This is gonna be close to you because you don't have that many clients . It's gonna be fast for the client to get results and it's gonna be a lot of proximity and access to you and , as a result , you should be able to get the best results for people as a result .

Speaker 0 9:06

So let's just give an example of a sales trainer who works with B2B companies . If you have this offer dialed in , you might physically go there and actually work with the sales team to improve their sales processes , and so on and so forth . We have a client called Jiri who's done exactly that . He has a very close proximity offer , which is a two day workshop , which is over $30,000 USD , where he goes and physically improves the sales performance . Now that same offer can be delivered in different ways . He can have a coaching program , he can have a mentorship , he can have self-paced content for people to come and work with him , and as he builds his ecosystem and gets more traffic and gets more loyal customers , they will see the full breadth of what he's doing and say , okay , I want to work with you , but I don't want to spend 30 000 . What I actually want to do is go through one year programs over eight weeks or 12 weeks or 16 weeks and as a result , you have a series of miniature offers that solve the same problem at different levels throughout the game .

Speaker 0 10:09

Now let me ask you this

Industry Leaders Embracing Ecosystems

Speaker 0 10:11

how would that look inside your business ? Imagine that , instead of trying to find leads from everywhere , you'd have a clear and simple acquisition channel . You'd know how you're getting your leads coming in . Then you would also have a sales process to go direct to them . If you're a princess , you can just put an appointment setter , or you can put a closer on the calls if you don't want to hit the calls , then all of this data gets fed to you , fed to you as the CEO .

Speaker 0 10:36

You're the CEO of your business and the CEO of your life and , finally and most importantly , people can pick the product that suits them best , and this is why we do not kick people through a funnel . We pull them into our ecosystem . And , look , it's not just us that's doing this . Iman Gaji , specifically , even mentioned me on one of his podcasts for the ecosystem model that we've built , and he has done the exact same thing . Iman has WAP , he has Flowzy , he has 8FL and a bunch of other programs that he's helped people pull into his ecosystem . And the same ecosystem that Iman mentored me on is exactly what we have done inside of our business , and this is how the smartest entrepreneurs in our space are scaling from zero to one million plus in 2025 . Multiple offers simple , seamless and straightforward .