How to Make Your First $10K Online, According to Everyday Folks Who’ve Done It
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How hard is it to make your first $10,000 in revenue online? Some cross that figure in one fell swoop, while others still struggle to make even half of that amount.
At the end of 2022, I sat in an end-of-year event hosted by some small-time digital business owners.
Dubbed the 10k club meeting, these everyday folks created a forum to share the success tips that drove them to the five-figure spot in business.
Some made it quicker than others, but over 12–24 months, all these founders crossed that mark.
Whether it’s running a small digital business or creating content, you’re sure to find some helpful pointers. Here are some tips they shared.
It’s easy for people to miss this point of launching an online business. Or starting anything on the side.
If you join the craze for the sake of it, you will end up bitterly disappointed. For example, people start something in a hurry — a business, a change of career, a product — before later thinking of how they can really help others with what they do.
But that’s getting off on the wrong foot. And the granddaddy of all mistakes.
Find a simple problem to solve first. Show people you have a product/solution that can meet their needs, something they’re battling with or don’t want to do/can’t do by themselves. It’s so simple.
Plus, in the digital age, the options are limited.
We claim to be brilliant humans, but our irrational decisions often call our brilliance into question.
Haven’t we all lamented a silly purchase, wondering how anyone convinced us to trade valuable money for a product we didn’t need? Well, sometimes no one did convince us. The shiny packaging was all it took.
Those human principles have never changed over thousands of years and won’t change much for the next millennia. Our emotions, influenced by fears and aspirations, will always rule us.
And for all the noise about marketing tactics, human psychology 101 will always win.
Yes, it may feel like an unfair advantage when you know most of these psychological principles and can unleash them on people. It even seems manipulative. But aren’t we all victims in some ways?
If you clicked on this headline, it’s either out of curiosity or reciprocity — simple psychological principles that have worked for eons. Read Professor Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion.
There are many ways to make your first $10,000 as a digital enterprise or creator. The best is having a product or service and getting people to buy to that tune.
You can build that offering so well that ten people find enough value in it to shell out $1,000 for it.
You can also make it less expensive and easily accessible for more buyers. Either way, you’ll get to the top.
But as I painfully learned from these successful folks, creating a solid offering that appeals to fewer people but with the means to pay top dollar for it is easier than the reverse.
Even worse, the race to the bottom isn’t pretty; it’s almost always crowded down there.
Spend more time and effort working your way up the value ladder. Invest more in creating valuable products for your highest tier of buyers. Push yourself to attract the top tier.
Some folks love to go solo and blaze new trails. I share those traits too. It served me immensely in the classroom, but not so much outside of the classroom, in the (online) business space.
In the wild world online, you can’t be too proud and fixated on your own journey that you forget to crane your neck at what the competitors are doing. Or certainly what those ahead of you did to get there.
Whatever you’re doing, someone’s probably doing it better than you. Or at least knows something that’s working where you’re struggling. And it doesn’t hurt to get humble and learn from their ways.
That may be the key to unlocking your first $10,000. No, it’s not permission to steal from them.
But sometimes, you can learn a great deal from the competition. You can even see loopholes in their work. And plugging those loopholes could give you a great opportunity.
It’s tempting to want to make every move available through the endless possibilities of playing the online game. But you don’t need to master every trick in the digital playbook.
As we’ve always said, having too many priorities is no priority. Less is more.
Most of my friends think three is perfect. They advise you to find the three most important ones that will parachute your fastest to the top and work on them. That’ll help break the temptation to do it all.
When you find them, go hard on them. The rest will take care of themselves. It’s not about ignoring all the others; it’s about channeling most of your energy to these three options.
You won’t make money doing everything; you’ll succeed by doing a few things right.
A term coined by author Jay Bear, talk triggers are the little things businesses can do to get customers to talk about them. In a positive light, of course.
It could be a special promotion on some days or a product for a limited-time offer. But individuals can do that too. And with life online, it’s even easier.
If for nothing, build a freebie. Even though there’s no free lunch, everyone loves a gift. And that may be what will attract more people to your product and get people interested in your service.
If you can take advantage of the increased attention, 10K isn’t too far from reach.
If you’re going the digital business route, what stops you from looking up to the five-figure target? Whether from a side gig or a full-time business, $10,000 is still $10,000.
Whether you require 24 hours or 24 months to cross that line, you’d have outdone millions who will never get there.
And not too many people would be happy to lose that amount.
If you won’t be happy to lose that, neither should you be sad making that extra. I know many creators and small businesses that would be super excited about hitting that target.
And if that’s you, these tips could nudge you towards that magical goal.
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