How Kable Made A $17,000.00 Sale And Quit His Day Job Of Doom For Freedom, Fun And Adventure

Kable talking Freedom Business on SSM Freedom Trip Thailand 2013

Tim’s Note: This is a post from Secret Society Mastermind Member, Kable, who went through our last program. Since then he quit his day job of doom and been absolutely smashing his freedom business, notably landing a $17,000.00 sale just before he took off to Thailand for our first Freedom Trip.

Kable and I sat down at a cafe yesterday (as people in suits and hurried faces quickly ate their lunch and went back to work) and he started recounting that sitting in Thailand, on the beach as the sun was setting with his laptop, that he could clearly see how he could run his entire business from anywhere in the world.

This is a very different life from a few months ago.

Kable is also highly active in our SSM community, posting videos, trainings and insights for our members and will be doing some videos for you in our upcoming SSM program which opens in March.

Plus, he has a majestic beard.

In this post Kable talks about one of the aspects to freedom business: finding the right people to buy your stuff. When we talk of clients in SSM, we talk of people who you ACTUALLY ENJOY helping and doing stuff for. Your One Key Fan.

Take it away Kabes!

I’m writing this from a flight to back home to Melbourne, Australia, after an LIFE CHANGING trip to Thailand with a bunch of the awesome Secret Society Mastermind guys.

A week of partying, working and adventuring in a tropical paradise with a bunch of rad dudes from across the world was really like LIVING THE DREAM – something I didn’t really believe was possible for myself before I began my freedom business journey about 9 months ago.

One of the things that allowed me to go on this amazing trip was the fact that I made one pretty big sale in the weeks leading up to Thailand… worth $17k!

In this post, I’m gonna talk about a few different points that were important in getting that sale.  This isn’t a comprehensive “how to get the sale” (we go over that in detail in the upcoming SSM3 Program), this is more of a exploration of a few important factors that made this particular sale happen.

1. Find out your client’s problems, and then handle them.

This is key.  When I had an in person meeting with the potential client, I asked them “so what’s your biggest frustration with your old website?”

For this particular client, the big frustration with their old website is that it was unreliable in sending information from the site contact form to the relevant staff member.

The client told me that another website company (who was also vying for this job) had said “well that’s not our problem”…  WRONG ANSWER!  If you want to land big (or smaller jobs), you need to find out what your client’s big frustration is, then HANDLE IT FOR THEM.

2. Have great previous work to show clients

When a client sees all the other great work that you’ve done for other clients, it does a few things….

-It proves that you are capable of producing great work

-It helps the client visualise what their new website / app / video will look like

-It shows your client how good their competitors’ websites look.  This will get your client thinking “I don’t wanna get left behind, I need this cool product…”  This is especially effective if all your other clients are in the same industry.

Tim’s Note: If you don’t have previous work yet as you are just starting out, you can do some free or discounted work FIRST – This gives you the confidence that you can actually deliver a great product (because it’s a free job you can make some mistakes) and then you can add that to your portfolio and use to beef up your price for future clients.

This is the actual beach I was working from every evening in Thailand… Crazy!

3. Stack the value

Give the client everything they need – even if they don’t realize they need it.  The $17k client originally wanted a website.  But I knew that their online presence would be much more powerful if they also had live action videos, effective social media pages, fantastic photos, and great copywriting.  After I explained that to them, they could see that I was thinking about how to HELP THEIR BUSINESS, not just sell them my product. And that I was the right guy to help them.

4. Make your proposal visually interesting

After I meet with the client, I wrote out the proposal, detailing exactly what I was going to provide for them.  Before I sent it to the client, I emailed it Tim, asked him for his thoughts… His feedback was “well, it has all the right info in there, it hits all the right points, but it just looks like BIG BORING SLABS OF TEXT”.

He was right – the proposal just looked boring, drab, and just… vanilla.

It was not the kinda thing that was going to BLOW THE CLIENT AWAY.

The answer?  I got an outsourcer to quickly mock up a simple homepage for the client, then edited that homepage so it had ipad and ipod frames.  I inserted the images in the proposal, and DONE!  The proposal was much more interesting, engaging and ATTENTION GRABBING for the client.

So, there you go!  Of course, there are heaps of other things that you need to do to land clients, including

-building a great relationships

-finding out how much they are willing to spend early in the sales process

-becoming an authority in your One Key Fans (1KF’s) area.

I’ll be writing more about this stuff in the near future, and I’ll be helping Tim cover all these topics in the SSM3 course.

To summarise, back in SSM2 Tim mentioned that we need to LOVE THE SHIT out of our clients to produce great products, big smiles, and rad results for them. Well, in order to land these big clients, I would say that you need to start loving the shit out of them WELL BEFORE even before they sign on the dotted line and officially become your client.

So if you have any questions about this big sale, about SSM3 (so excited for this), or anything else related to Freedom Business, just drop a note in the comments section and I’ll get back to you.

Otherwise, GO GET OUT THERE, GO GET WHAT YOU WANT!

Kable

[VIDEO] Exactly How To Build And Launch Your Own $1000/Week Freedom Business

Click Play On The Video Above Before Reading On

Would you like to wake up each day and do whatever the hell you like?

Feeling tired? Go back to sleep.

Feeling productive? Smash out some work.

Feel like going out to the beach for a surf or partying all day/night? Go hit it up!

Whatever it is you TRULY wish to do with your days, it can all be accomplished by having a Freedom Business running in the background working SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO.

Now this concept isn’t new at all but it was REALLY hard in my early days to wrap my head around the fact that you don’t have to actually work to earn money.

The little voice inside my head was telling me that SURELY this can’t work. But it does… and there’s a select group of everyday normal people called the “Freedom Secret Society” that make it happen.

When I made my first “freedom sale” something clicked in my mind forever and I knew there was no turning back. This is the way of the future.

So today I wanted to dive right into the MEAT of what a freedom business looks like and provide an overview and example of how the whole process fits together. This post, in a lovely combination of video and text, will show you exactly how test your very own freedom business idea and make your first freedom sale.

This is also an insight into one of the training resources I use with the Secret Society Mastermind crew.

HELMET CAM – PLEASE WATCH AND ENJOY BEFORE CONTINUING:

How was the helmet-cam?

Spark some freedom business ideas for you?

See how the little guys like you and me can take on the big corporations simply by BEING BETTER AT TARGETING AND TALKING TO THE ONE KEY FAN?

At the end of the day business can seem like this big hard monster dominated by the privileged. RUBBISH!

Just remember this golden rule: People like doing business with people they like.

How do you get someone to like you? Easy – pinpoint their deepest desires or fears/frustrations and help ‘em out with your snazzy new product or service.

Time and time again we are seeing cases of normal everyday people starting their own successful freedom businesses that rival large firms from their bedroom.

Now obviously you don’t have to go into selling iPhone apps for real estate agents. This was just an example to illustrate some of the processes involved.

The whole thing really isn’t that hard once you break it into chunks and create a map of where you’re going.

And what is the total cost to set one of these up? $150-$300.

This is a tiny investment to test out your first FB idea.

So let’s take an in-depth look at what was covered in the video…

COMPONENTS OF A FREEDOM BUSINESS – HOW TO TEST YOUR VERY FIRST FREEDOM BUSINESS IDEA FOR UNDER $500

1. Figures First – Cost $0 : Time 2-5 hours

This is EXTREMELY important. You need to have a target to set your sights on and check in on this target daily to see you are on track.

Before you start ANYTHING and get swept up in the nitty-gritty of your business, you also need to set strict criteria as to what the business should look like day-to-day.

E.g. “It needs to be able to be run from anywhere in the world with just a laptop. I only want to be working on it 2hours a day”

This will stop you from going into business ideas that are going to suck away all your time and leave no room for freedom. There’s a million great ideas/niches and industries to go into but the ones we want are going to give us freedom (not just another self created job!).

So at the end of every week all you need to do is ask yourself one question “Did my Freedom Business make $1000 this week?”

If the answer is no, then you go back over your map and see why.

Quick tips/suggestions:

Link some PASSION AND ENERGY to your $1000/week. What would this amount of money mean for you? Could you quit your job and travel/creating freedom businesses on the road?

Vision-boarding is a great tool for this. Go to http://images.google.com and search for cool images on how your life will change when you reach your goal. Refer to each day for that little extra drive and motivation.

2. Idea Generation – Cost $0 : Time 1-2 days

Freedom Business Saying: “Before the idea, comes the fan.”

There’s 3 steps to this… WHO? WHY? and WHAT?

• WHO do you want to fall in love with what you do?

It’s these fans/lovers that will sustain your business (and ridiculously awesome life) in the long and short term. So you definitely choose people that YOU LIKE.

As discussed in the video, in my early days I made the horrific mistake of selling stuff to people I didn’t really like. Even though my business made money I ended up selling it because I just didn’t want to deal with these people anymore.

• WHY will that person buy something from you?

The two main reasons people buy something are 1. A deep, burning desire and 2. To alleviate a fear/frustration they have.

Spend some time crafting an image of your typical “One Key Fan”. How old are they? Where do they live? What are their deepest darkest secrets and goals?

• WHAT will you actually sell them?

Do you want to offer an info product, a service, a physical product OR a combination?

Quick tips/suggestions:

If you combine some of these you can add the value and therefore increase the price!

The One Key Fan concept I created is an adaptation of Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans post, so for some extra coolness I recommend you get familiar with it.

If you didn’t read the original post on the One Key Fan I suggest you brush up on your knowledge here.

3. Build – Cost $150 – $500 : Time 1-2 weeks

First things first, you are going to want to do some competitor analysis on your idea then build your website.

Now let’s not get too technical here. Competitor analysis sounds all corporate speak crap for what really is “Searching in google and snooping/spying on other businesses”.

Open google, think like your One Key Fan – what search terms is he/she going to use? Plug em in and start looking at the competition.

Take out a notepad or open up a spreadsheet and note what others are doing well in terms of their website design and sales copy – then think about how you can inject your own personality/brand into the stuff you feel that your competitors are doing good.

Below are a few of the sites you can use to find anything from website designers to sales copywriters to iphone app developers. Whatever can be done, WILL be done at a fraction of the price from someone highly competent another world away from you:

http://www.elance.com

http://www.odesk.com

http://www.freelancer.com

You will need a freelancer web designer and website coder for a start. You may want to chat to some or post a project around your potential product as well.

Quick Tips/Suggestions:

Think about it this way: These days – there’s not a business out there that can’t be replicated.

Don’t attempt to learn and do everything yourself. Things like Photoshop, HTML, Web Design, etc can all be done on the SUPER CHEAP by somebody who has had 5+ years experience and will be a lot better and faster than you.

I had a hard time with this and found myself trying to do everything in the early days. It’s not your job. Get it in someone else’s hands and drop the ego…

You have a business to RUN, not work in.

Set up google analytics on the site so you can track your stats as well (it’s free and important).

4. Marketing – Cost $0 – $200 : Time 1 week

The easiest and most inexpensive way to test out your new site/business idea is to go out into the real world and have conversations about it.

Do you know someone who knows someone that your product/service can help? Get a coffee with them. Sit down and talk about their DESIRES or FRUSTRATIONS (one key fan style).

How do you do that?: “So what’s the biggest frustration you have in your business right now?” “What do you really need help with?” “What would be amazing for you?”

Hot tip: Don’t try to make a sale right away, offer to do some help for free in exchange for a testimonial to give your product/site more credibility. If you do some free work you will also learn the sales processes and delivery timelines for your product or service (which are always hard to estimate).

Aside from offline marketing, there is Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and some other crafty ways to get some initial sales/customers.

In the initial testing phase, forget SEO and social media. If you want responses real quick and to see if your idea is going to work go for some PPC on Google Adwords or Facebook Ads (there are other ad networks like MSN if you don’t like google, too).

Google adwords allows your ads to show up on the right hand side of searches in google and they also provide great training on how to setup your first campaign. Spend $100 or so to drive 100+ visitors to your site to test it out. Use google analytics to track what people are doing on your site.

Quick tips/suggestions:

Not making sales? not getting enquiries? Always come back to the One Key Fan. What are they REALLY looking for in terms of their search keywords? Is your website really speaking to what they need?

Social Media, PPC, SEO, etc are all TOOLS to help you CONNECT with One Key Fans. Get to the CORE of the fears/frustrations and desires when designing your Adwords ads and website sales copy.

5. Automation

Once you have made some sales and are confident with your new business – it’s time to put the freedom on turbo!

This is the exciting (an my personal favourite part) where you get an assistant (or team of assistants) to REPLACE YOU in the business.

The golden rule: Anything repeatable is outsourced.

Stuff like customer support, delegating tasks to other freelancers and email can all be handled by an assistant.

Use freelance websites to posts full time positions. I’ve had great successes with people from the Philippines. The majority speak American english and are very competent.

You can get a full time Filipino with a university degree for approximately $250 a month.

A small price to pay for freedom!

Quick tips/suggestions:

Get your assistant to send you a DAILY EMAIL detailing a) what they have done for the day b) where they ran into problems c) what they need you to attend to or teach them

It’s going to feel SUPER WEIRD not checking your email all the time. You’re going to have to adjust to all the free time you have.

The first week I set this up successfully I found myself having to find stuff to do. My brain wanted to check email all the time even though I didn’t need to because I was so used to it.

You have been warned: it’s FREAKY when you can do what you like with your days.

FREEDOM BUSINESS OVERVIEW DIAGRAM

Click To Enlarge/Download – Courtesy Of Carl Östlund

So there you have it.

I hope this has sparked some Freedom Business fire in you. This may seem like a lot, but after your first one or two businesses this entire process becomes a breeze – especially as you start to build long term relationships with great freelancers.

Still not convinced? Check out some of the people in the “Secret Society” that are using this stuff to change their lives here…

Obviously this is a detailed overview and not a full in-depth formula. I’ll be covering topics in more detail in future posts SO KEEP AN EYE ON THE DAILY EMAIL AND THE BLOG FOR MORE AWESOMENESS!

Cheers to your freedom.

T

PS. Do you have some questions/comments or just wanna show some love? PLEASE COMMENT BELOW. I love hearing from our new community. Big things happening

How To Get Your First Sure-Fire Business Idea And Customer Using The Potent “One Key Fan” Technique

FREEDOM BUSINESS DEFINITION: ‘One Key Fan’

A single person who absolutely ADORES what you do.

They will buy anything and everything you put out, hang on every single tweet you post and share the hell out of your Facebook updates with their friends.

They will argue and defend your product and brand UNTIL DEATH.

They can’t wait to interrupt dinner table conversation just to talk about you and your product.

They even get your logo tattoo’d on themselves.

(Side note: Yes, it was real, a dude did get the Freedom Business logo tattooed on himself – and you’ll learn a very important lesson as to why in this post)

Here’s the big problem when starting out: You REALLY want to start a freedom business but you haven’t got a great idea yet and you have no idea how to find a single customer.

And that’s not even the start of your problems… because every single person, every single day is BOMBARDED with advertising and marketing from all angles.

We are NUMB to it. We don’t see it. We tune out.

As soon as we get a sniff that somebody is trying to sell us something – *poof* we are OUTTA THERE!

Advertising (in the traditional sense) is DEAD.

So what’s the solution?

Is there a solution?

Can anyone really do this freedom business thing?

The answer is YES, YES and YES!

The solution lies in one simple yet very little-known technique – the secret of ONE KEY FAN.

Forget about “targeting a market” like all the old business stuff will tell you.

We don’t live in a collective society anymore. Social media and technology has bought about the age of the INDIVIDUAL therefore you need to TARGET a SINGLE PERSON and make that one person LOVE THE SHIT out of you (yes, very technical terms, I know).

Once that one person loves you so much that they start spreading the word about you, then you have done your job and you can start finding more of the same type of people or better yet, build a community around the same type of people. This community will support you and your business for life.

“Ok, sounds cool – but where’s the proof? and how do I do this?”

One of my freedom businesses is a marketing, branding and advertising agency here in Australia called yep, you guessed it – One Key Fan (logo above).

Here’s the funny part – We don’t even have a proper website up yet. We certainly don’t have an office (yuck), a business telephone number or even a business card.

Whilst all sorts of other companies who do similar work are pouring thousands of dollars into advertising campaigns, we’ve done ZERO promotion and not spent a single cent in advertising or marketing.

It all started back when I did some branding and website work for a business who heard I did good work. For them, I took it to the next level and delivered not just good, but AMAZING work.

I cared for them and their purpose. I loved the vision of their business and I listened deeply to what they wanted. I even called them up randomly just to see how their business was going.

How could I afford to do this?

In true “freedom business” style – My outsource team was doing all the actual hands on work. So whilst i’m chilling at my favourite cafe reading a book, I thought I might as well give them a call.

That person was so pleased with the work and love they got from me that they told a few others (business owners tend to hang out with other business owners). Within one week the One Key Fan business snowballed so much I had to start declining work! There was too much to handle.

HERE’S A HOT TIP: ***People buy stuff from PEOPLE not BRANDS.***

Even though this was technically a company that I was doing this work for, it was the PEOPLE behind the company (specifically the owner/decision maker) that
decided to buy my stuff.

The way to beat the regular advertising and marketing game is to NOT DO ANY ADVERTISING AND MARKETING AT ALL – *gasp!*

It all comes down to this: If you can’t get one person to love what you do and spread the word then you’re dead before you’ve even begun. You will be constantly fighting an uphill battle.

As the old saying goes, “You can’t polish a turd” (it’s still a turd).

Ok. Let’s get down to business here. Are you ready?

How do YOU find your business idea (hidden inside your One Key Fan) and sell your very first product or service?

The Golden “One Key Fan Formula” To Getting Your First Business Idea And Sale:

1. Determine Who Exactly You Want To Make Amazing Stuff For, Or Help?

If you’re just starting out, the VERY FIRST thing you need to do is decide WHO you want to create or find a product or service for.

Most people make the FATAL mistake of thinking of the product or service first, then try to match it with a market. Not you though.

You are going to find someone that YOU REALLY WANT TO make something awesome for.

Who do you want to see a smile on the face of? Who do you want to take pride in your work?

I’ve started businesses based solely on the fact I knew there was money in that area, neglecting the fact that I really disliked the people in that market. Bad move.
I ended up hating life dealing with people I thought sucked and didn’t vibe with my personality at all. Sure I was making money, but I had to talk to and deal with rude, annoying people.

See the thing is, in order to have a successful long term freedom business – you have to be prepared to BLEED for your One Key Fan.

There’s no “dipping your toe in the water” here. If you want authentic, true, die-hard One Key Fan’s – you’re going to have to be authentic, true and die-hard to their cause as well.

You have to be prepared to GIVE more than you get. You have to add love and caring yet be fiercely passionate and fight for your One Key Fan’s success in the world.

So step 1 is deciding exactly who you want to bleed for. It’s the most important step.

2. What Is This One Persons Deepest Frustrations And Desires?

Everyone is frustrated with something – Business owners need more customers, health-nuts need a faster way to burn fat and lonely men need a girlfriend.

If you can tap into what your One Key Fan’s deepest fears, frustrations and desires are then you have struck a literal goldmine.

The idea is that you come along like their knight in shining armour with a gift of a product or service that fixes whatever ails them.

3. What Is This Persons Unique Language? What Does Their Daily Life Look Like?

This is essential knowledge.

In order to build a website or a product that resonates with that person you need to know what language they speak. For example, business owners might use terminology like “return on investment” or “conversion rate”.

Every group in society has it’s own language and way of speaking.

To connect with your One Key Fan you’re also going to need to know what their daily life looks like – specifically: WHERE THEY LIKE TO HANG OUT.

Ask yourself this question: Where does my One Key Fan hang out BEFORE he needs me?

A fantastic way to do this research is to look at blogs or forums that you think your One Key Fan may hang out in. Do a search and pay attention for threads that start with “HELP ME…”.

4. The Mission: Find And Have Coffee With A ONE KEY FAN In REAL LIFE

If you are really going to crush it with your freedom business, you’re going to have to leave your house and get out there in the real world.

You may decided to chat to a potential One Key Fan on a forum, then (as long as they aren’t super creeps, which shouldn’t be your target One Key Fan anyway) invite them
to a public place for a quick coffee.

You’re doing this to get to know your One Key Fan on a HUMAN LEVEL.

Ask them questions and be EMPATHETIC. Remember you CHOSE these people to make something amazing for, so FIND OUT EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM.

Specifically ask: What’s your biggest frustration right now? and What do you think could help solve the problem you have?

This will give you THE golden insight and valuable knowledge to start building a product or service around.

Another example would be if you decided to target clothing store owners. Walk in, have a chat to the owner and say you are doing some research for a project and if you could
ask them a few questions.

5. Build A One Key Fan Profile

So you have chosen WHO you want to do amazing stuff for, you’ve found out where they hang out and what sort of language they use AND you have had a coffee and connected with this type of person in real life.

Now it’s time to build their profile.

Create a real-life name for your One Key Fan. List personality traits. List their frustrations and desires. List their age, marital status and any other relevant details.

Now here’s the secret: every singe thing you do – from website sales copy, to product building, to advertising – needs to TALK DIRECTLY TO THAT ONE KEY FAN and NOBODY ELSE.

You don’t want to be everything to everybody (that NEVER works and leaves your business unfocused and diluted in power). You want to be EVERYTHING to SOMEBODY.

6. Create A Personality (aka Brand) That Connects To This One Key Fan And Delivers Exactly What He Or She Needs

Brand and Branding are just fancy words for saying “personality”.

Remember – people buy stuff from people so the more human you can be, the better. This is why we learn the language of our One Key Fans.

To sum it all up: BE REAL.

As stated above – your logo, your website, your product or service, the way you speak to your prospects and customers and every single thing you do inside your business should talk directly to the HEART of your One Key Fan.

The product and all it’s components comes from your One Key Fan research.

Most businesses FAIL because the try to shove a product at the the market instead of building one FOR the market.

Ever had someone talk AT you rather than TO you? Same thing.

THE BIG IF

IF you can find ONE person in this way, connect with their fears/desires and build something (or find an existing solution) to their problems, then how can your business not be successful?

IF you can deliver this processes successfully to one person – you can then find MANY of the same people using the internet or let your One Key Fan’s spread the word organically about you.

This is the real game changer for the new world of business. Neglect these steps at your own peril!

Here’s me doing a Freedom Business session with some of the Secret Society Mastermind crew today.

This technique/philosophy is something they use every day to rake in new sales in their own freedom businesses. The guys in the Secret Society Mastermind who are really killing it are following this process EXACTLY.

As you can tell in my case. I’m prepared to bleed and die for what I believe in here at Freedom Business.

I don’t consider myself the “be all and end all guru” of all this. Or even the expert. But it’s something that i’ve DONE and tested in THE REAL WORLD.

This is stuff I use every day in my own freedom businesses.

This One Key Fan concept was built out of my many business failures and successes. I know that if I follow the principles outlined in this post, I give myself the greatest chance of success.

If you liked this post all I ask is you please tweet it/like it/stumble upon the hell out of it using the buttons below.

And of course, please post some comments/questions and i’ll answer them.

Stay classy… And go get your One Key Fan and report back the results!

T