Use this system when building and scaling any service based business

Greatness happens, when you put in consistent amounts of effort..

Over long periods of time, in small measures

And when it comes to building a digital writing business, it’s no different

But most people building a business..

Are not following a progression system

They are just throwing paint at the wall, and seeing what happens

It might turn into an amazing painting..

Or it might turn into a third graders art project

There is no direction, only experimentation

Now in the past, I would’ve been the first to tell you..

“Experimentation is part of the game”

But I’ve learned that’s only partly true

Without a system, your progress will be slower..

THIS, is part of the game

Without a progression system, you will keep making the same mistakes

I’ve seen it so many times before..

“I’m going to make money this way”

“This is the best way to do it”

“Maybe this is a better idea”

“Maybe I should do this in my business next”

If you keep doing this, you will struggle with:

• Making the right choices
• Losing thousands of dollars in revenue
• Getting distracted by different business models
• Trying new business strategies every few months
• Wasting hundreds to thousands of hours on pointless ideas
• And the list goes on

Stop. Breath. Rethink things..

You have no direction

You’re doing what you THINK is right..

And not what you KNOW it right

Why? Because you don’t know where to go

I recently talked to a potential student who needed some guidance

He was convinced if he created a digital product that costs $400+..

And drive $2000 worth of ads to it

It would make him/her a ton of money

Statistically this plan wouldn’t work

There is always an off chance that it does..

But 99% of the time this strategy is the same as burning money

They were jumping to the 5th stage of business progression..

And as a result, there was a lot wrong with their strategy

They will keep thinking of cool ideas, that might not work at all..

Because they are not following a system

But instead of trying to fix problems individually, it’s better to use a system

A progression system

You will never have to worry about:

• What you’re doing next in your business
• If a business strategy will even work
• Losing money on expensive business models you end up abandoning
• Feeling unsure if what you’re doing is even going to work
• When it’s time to make a big decision (the system will tell you)

But how does the 5 stages of business progression work?

Let’s break it down..

Stage 1 — The Beginner Stage

This stage is where everyone should start. DO NOT try to skip stages

This stage you are a 1 man team

You have no help, no support, no team members

This is part of the process

This stage is for building a customer and client acquisition system, manually

Spend the start of your 4 hour deep work session, finding ideal potential clients..

And turning them into actual clients

If you’re reading this, and you don’t have a skill to sell yet, then go read my article on “The 3 Digital Career Paths That Can Replace Your 9–5 Within 3–18 Months”, here

Every single day, your schedule needs to contain a prospecting method

DMs, Cold Emails, Partnership Propositions etc.

Whatever you need to consistently land clients

Outreach, is the main goal in this stage

Forget hiring people, forget partnering with people

The only thing that matters here, is a consistent stream of paid clients

This stage is for anyone who’s yet to hit $1000/mo with their service or sales

Until you can consistently hit $1000/mo, you are not moving stages

But your future plan, needs to be removing the need for prospecting entirely

You can only do this by having a content creation strategy

So while you’re sending DMs, you need to create content that attracts your ideal clients, instead of you having to find them

A strategy like this takes months of effort to work, so get started on it immediately

I teach you how to sell services in the DMs, in “Digital Philosopher University”, you can join the waitlist here

Apart from having a skill to sell, you need to start your newsletter or email list in this stage already → More traffic to run to your offers down the line

Every day, when you’re prospecting, do this:

1. 30 Minutes to find ideal clients
2. 30 Minutes to message ideal clients

Use a Customer Relationship Manager to keep track of all the conversations

Follow up on a daily basis

Keep doing this until you can realistically say you’re making $1000/mo

This means you need to have hit $1000 made, every month, for 3 months

But before you move to the next stage, you need to systemize

“Systemize your process, so progress becomes effortless” — Ian Pierre

Anything you’re doing in your business that works, you need to be able to teach to other people → Outsourcing is key

Even as a 1 man business, you will most likely still need a VA

Which brings us to..

Stage 2 — Entry Level Outsourcing Stage

If you have reached this point, it means you have enough workload to comfortably produce consistent results, but not enough manpower to maintain them

To get results on auto-pilot, while opening the doors to scaling, you need a virtual assistant

But just randomly hiring a VA is not the way to go about things

First you need to turn your systemized process, into trainings

This is called an SOP → Standard Operating Procedure

It’s breaking down your entire process into an easy to understand guide

Now it’s time to get you a VA

The average salary in India is $380/mo

So it’s best to hire someone from a third world country, who are used to working hard

This person needs to be filled with ambition, and have big dreams of their own

Consider taking on a business partner in the future somewhere as well

Anything to make your process easier

Ideal places to find these people would be Linked In, X, and Upwork

Now when you start working with this person, you just give them the SOP you created

This allows you to train them, without actively doing coaching sessions with them

Now of course, your SOP’s will require editing.. Everything won’t be perfect

But with enough experimentation and minor changes, you’ll have an SOP that properly teaches your virtual assistant, with minor or no issues

Now you delegate important tasks to your VA

Such as:

• DMs
• Cold Emails
• CRM Management
• Relationship Building
• Social Media Management etc.

Now if you were in my coaching program “Digital Philosopher University”, you’d be able to scale your business infinitely, while staying in this step

But since we’re following the mainstream business progression method, stage 3 will look like this..

Stage 3 — The Expansion Stage

Once you hit $2,500/mo, you will need to expand your team

Maybe hire a few more VAs, or get some more team members

Basically anything to remove effort from your part, while increasing revenue gain down the line

THIS is the stage where you really start building a team

But remember this.. You will be putting out fires left and right

And you will most likely keep struggling with it for a very long time

If you are at this stage, it means you’re no longer a 1 man business, but an agency

To be clear, people don’t care if you’re an agency, or if you’re a 1 man business

What they DO care about, is results

How much money can you make them? How much traffic can you generate etc.

With enough struggle, and enough management, you can hit $5,000/mo in this stage

Stage 4 — The Productization Stage

This stage is where you finalize the expansion of your employees, to a full team

It’s also where you start taking your processes, and turning them into online courses, lead magnets, and webinar trainings

This will increase cashflow, and allow you to build multiple revenue streams

If you are at this stage, you should have about 2000–5000 followers..

And 1000+ email subscribers

This is more than enough to make consistent sales using story emails and authority, personality, and credibility based content

It’s also more than enough to start landing clients through your following and through your email list

Now we get to the final stage..

Stage 5 — The Scaling Stage

So you’re making over $5000 a month, you have a few team members, and you have products selling consistently.. But how do you take this to the next level?

By spending money on ads

Spending money on ads right now, is by far your best choice..

Because you have more than enough cashflow to fund it..

And more than enough opportunity to figure out a formula that works

This means you can drastically increase your product sales and clients over a short period of time, WITHOUT paying out of pocket

IMPORTANT: You WILL burn through cash. But mostly at the start

This is the simplified explanation behind scaling a service based business, and eventually turning it into an “agency”

Remember, you are not the agency, the agency is it’s own entity

Just because you run an agency, it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about other topics, teach other things, and build a brand around those things

The agency is a piece of digital authority you’ve built, it’s not you

The Harsh Truth: Many people think they want to build an agency..

Then when they finally run one, they are miserable

Because they have so much work, that they’ve just created another 9–5

And the anxiety levels are through the roof!

This is why I teach building a 1 man digital writing business, instead of trying to become the next Alex Hormozi

Your business should be a joy to work on, not something you cannot wait to finally get a break from due to all the work

Solopreneurs and 1 Man Digital Business owners live better life’s

PS: This article was originally written on substack, you can find it here