Basem F.
Basem F.
Nov 2 · 12 min read

7 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My Business…

I’ll immediately start talking about these 7 things because I’m a person who doesn’t like reading the long introduction in each article I read, so let’s jump into the crust of this article!

1.) Build Your List (Your Own Starbucks)

You will hear me talk about building your list pretty much every single day if you’re inside my FB group, watching my Youtube channel or reading my daily newsletter.

Do you know why?

Because it’s how you create freedom!

That is just one of my income streams (sales funnels)…

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but are you doing it?

Building a list is how you create passive income.

It’s how you’re able to buy back your time and focus on the growth of your business and not just working endlessly.

Now let me be clear…

There are many forms of a “list.”

What I’m referring to here is an email list which is still the most profitable way to make money online, but lists can be in many forms…

  • Facebook Group
  • Instagram Following
  • Youtube Channel

Things are changing and changing fast!

Social media is only going to keep growing, but you should still be capturing emails because it’s the best way to get in contact with people on a regular basis.

You don’t need a massive audience as most people tell you that you do either.

I made my first sale with less than 10 email subscribers and others did 350k with 2000 email subscribers.

It’s all about treating people with respect and not viewing them as a credit card and abusing their trust.

When you treat people well you will have customers that keep buying from you for over 7 years straight just like I do.

So you might still be wondering how the heck building an email list and Starbucks have anything to do with each other right?

Simple…

Starbucks is not in the coffee business like you might think. They’re in the distribution business.

If they want to sell more coffee they need to set up more stores to expand the distribution of their product.

You have an unfair advantage, my friend!

If you want to sell more of your product all you need to do is get more email subscribers. It’s your own distribution channel that allows you to connect with your potential customers and often.

I can push an email to my list at any time and make money without trying.

People can have 50k days from just sending an email to an offer.

I’m sorry, but you will not do that by making a post on Facebook or your IG feed, you just won't.

So if you’re not focusing on building your email list you’re going to have a hard time building a consistent, reliable and predictable business.

2.) Have A High Converting Sales Funnel

When I first started online years ago I had no clue what I was doing, just like most people who start out.

I was on every guru’s email list, buying products for all different business models and when I did take action I was hoping something would work out.

I eventually settled with blogging because it was the “thing” 4 years ago when I got started.

I was creating lots of awesome content, getting traffic to my blog, but no one was buying.

What gives?

I made the amateur mistake of thinking if I just link people to a great product to buy they would purchase.

Wrong!

Most people don’t buy right away… they just don’t.

So if you don’t follow up with them so you can give them more value and give them more opportunities to buy from you then it’s like burning money.

However, building an email list and a sales funnel are two different things.

Similar, but also different.

Your email list is your database of potential customers you can follow up with to send people to content or make additional offers they can buy.

A sales funnel is the strategic process that walks people through the process of selling your product or an affiliate product.

The reason I wasn’t making many sales with my blog was I had one shot to get the sale… One Freak’n Shot!

The average person takes 7 points of contact (minimum) before they make a purchase.

Thinking about all those lost sales… It makes me want to cry right now.

When you have a sales funnel in place it strategically walks people through the buying process by educating them, overcoming potential objections and selling them on your product.

The best part is it’s completely automated and runs 24/7/365.

Once I learned how to put a sales funnel in place my income went from 0–100 real quick.

Just take a look at every big marketer you see…

We all have a sales funnel in place that automates the selling process for us so we can work on our business over spinning our wheels working in our business 24/7.

If you want freedom you need to either create your own or find a high converting funnel you can leverage while you learn.

3.) Stop Focusing On Making Money

I know this probably sounds crazy right?

Most people don’t make money because they focus on making money.

I never got this when I first started.

I was massively in debt, I was desperate to make something work and I just wanted to make money.

I see this often with many people who come to me for help.

They’re focused on all the wrong things!

Money is an exchange of value and if you want to make money it has to come from someone else.

Therefore if you want to make money you must help other people to get what they want.

Common sense right?

Actually it’s not. Common sense isn’t so common.

Most people struggle for years because they’re in desperate mode looking for an easy fix to make money by doing very little work.

They jump from program to program thinking it will be easier.

To make money you need to solve problems for other people. That is how money exchanges hands.

This business actually is pretty simple!

Affiliate Marketing is the easiest business model to start:

  • You don’t need to create products
  • You don’t have to stock inventory
  • You don’t have to deal with customer service
  • You don’t have to know copywriting
  • You don’t need to be an expert to get started or have any testimonials or previous results

But… you need to help people solve their problems.

Solving problems is pretty easy…

It’s just recommending a product that can help someone solve their current problem or fulfill a need they currently have.

When most people get started in this industry they want to spam their links on social media, send two sentences and a link with their emails and shove the product down everyone's throat hoping they will buy.

However, you didn’t buy that way, did you?

When you slow down to speed up it’s very easy to see the mistakes we make in our lives and business.

I once made this same mistake myself because I was in desperate mode.

Once I switched my thinking from how do I make money for myself to how can I help at least one person today my business and life transformed very very fast.

We live in a world of people who only think about themselves, their own problems, their own fears, their own struggles, and their own desires.

When you make everything you do about other people you become irresistible and attractive and then making money is extremely easy.

4.) Invest In Myself Often

When I first got started I wanted to do everything on the cheap.

I wanted to make lots of money online, but I didn’t value investing in myself or my education to learn from people who know more than me.

If you think about it, we will pay 100k to go to college to get a job that will start us out at 50k and take us half our lives to pay back all the debt and we are conditioned to believe this is a good opportunity.

However, when it comes to investing 5–25k into a mentor to help us learn the skills, shortcut our learning curve and show us how to create a business that can literally 50 to 100 X our ROI in just 1 year from our knowledge, we think it’s expensive.

Society has royally screwed up our thinking and because of this most people remain stuck.

I was that person who wanted:

  • To do everything as cheap as I could
  • To get all my information for free
  • To have people spoon feed me all the answers
  • To have people help me because I was in a tough spot

I wanted to make big money like how I saw my idols do, but I didn’t want to invest in myself to learn the skills like they did.

Eventually, I realized doing things myself is very painful.

Sure if I stuck with things long enough I might be able to figure it out and piece everything together myself.

But how long would that take me?

How many years would I have to keep struggling?

Once I realized I was hurting myself I found ways to invest in mentors when I was in debt by working extra hours, cutting back expenses and sacrificing to get the help I needed.

This cut years off my learning curve, saved me years of frustration trying to do things on my own and it was the best decision I ever made.

I just dropped 10k last week on a new mentor and I’ve spent over 150k on coaching and courses to further my education.

Let’s just say investing in mentors was a million times better than college.

College teaches you to get a job and struggle.

A mentor teaches you how to fish so you can fish forever.

If you don’t have the money right now then find a mentor you can follow.

Just one and absorb and implement all their free information until you’re in a better spot financially.

However, the sooner you can align yourself with someone who can help you stop spinning your wheels the better.

Going another year not getting results is far more painful than sacrificing things you don’t need to waste money on in the short term.

5.) Spend 80% of your time “Taking Action” and 20% Learning

This is the #1 reason I was stuck for a long time.

I was a master consumer.

Maybe this is you?

To create the life you want you need to spend a lot less time consuming because it’s paralyzing your ability to take action and it’s teaching you learned helplessness.

The longer you go consuming daily and not taking action the more you’re training your brain to be helpless.

You start to tell yourself things like:

  • I need more information
  • I don’t know what to do
  • This is confusing and overwhelming
  • I’m not sure who I should trust or follow
  • I don’t know where to start

When you constantly consume information and you do nothing with that information you’re putting yourself in a state of constant overwhelm.

Your festering up anxiety and stressing yourself out because you feel unsure of your future and your ability to make your dream come true of being a successful entrepreneur.

Most people stay stuck in “getting ready to get ready” mode.

They constantly need more information to prepare, but you don’t need more information.

You need to go on an information bubble bath and focus on one business model, one traffic source and one year of consistent action.

That is the magic formula, my friend.

6.) Focus On Your Focus

Just like above we talked about taking action, but I need to go a little deeper here…

You need to focus on your own sh*t.

Most people are focused on everyone else’s life, results, what they’re doing on social media and watching as a spectator.

This is a horrible habit to get into because you look at other people and start comparing their results to your lack of results.

What you need to do is get focused on your thing.

Specifically one thing at a time.

I’m all about simplification and making my life less stressful, more enjoyable and creating more freedom.

Most people do the opposite by trying to build 5 businesses at once, 7 traffic sources, reading 10 books with 4 more on the way, listen to every podcast and know what everyone is doing on Instagram.

Ask yourself right now… How does following all of these people help you?

It Doesn’t, it severely hurts you and keeps you “STUCK”

I don’t know what people are doing, I don’t care what they’re doing and I’m not interested in the latest hot trend of the month.

I’m busy focusing on my lane, making my business better, make my business simpler and optimizing my life for enjoyment.

Adding more things to your life = more stress

Simplifying your life and subtracting things that don’t matter clears your mind and makes room to focus on things that matter.

So if you feel stuck the first step is to unsubscribe from people that don’t add value to your life, stop following people who confuse you and sell you a new deal every week, stop following everyone on social media and just cleanse your soul and mind from all the clutter.

Then use that space to focus on what you want in your life and what you want to build.

When you focus on your own self-growth and focus on constantly getting 1% better every single day you will truly amaze yourself one year from now when you look back on your progress.

7.) Growth Is Uncomfortable

My final tip is that growth is going to be uncomfortable.

I never understood this when I got started.

I wanted things to be easy, with no obstacles and things to happen quickly.

I didn’t understand how to think like an entrepreneur because I didn’t grow up around successful people.

When I look back on my 4-year journey to this point every new level was uncomfortable.

I avoided doing videos because it terrified me and I now can equate millions of dollars to doing videos.

I avoided doing live streams for a year and half. My mentor kept pushing me to do them, but I said no way. When I finally got out of my head and did them I made multiple six figures my first year doing them.

I avoided doing webinars because I didn’t know what to do or how to do them. I made sales on my first webinar and I didn’t even pitch. People asked me what they could buy!

At every stage of your entrepreneur journey, it’s going to be scary, you’re going to feel uncertain, you’re going to fight your self-doubts, but I promise you will overcome them if you just take one more step.

When you get into a business you think the money is what you want and it’s going to make you happy, but once you make the money you will be more proud of the fact that you grew into a better version of yourself.

You will be proud you proved yourself right and didn’t quit on your dreams.

You will be proud that no one can tell you what to do anymore at a job and you control your own destiny.

You will be proud when you see how your family looks at you and they’re proud of you because you did what 99% of the world will never do because they give up on their dreams.

The journey is going to be uncomfortable because change is scary, but it’s 100% worth it.

Focus on just getting 1% better every day and you can transform your life in just 1 short year.

So know that if I can do it then it’s possible for you to do it as well.

Now the last thing I have for you is lots of people asked how they can work with me and how I can help them.

If you’re looking for a personal mentor to work with you for 1 full year to guide you and show you step-by-step what to do and help you shorten your learning curve then I recommend that you contact me on my Facebook profile so we can start your online journey together.

Just message me by saying “I’m looking for a mentor” and I’ll totally help you out for free!

This what you will get from me:

  • I will map out a custom marketing plan for you to implement so there is no guessing on your part.
  • You will have access to me 24/7/365 every single day when you have questions or need help.
  • I will let you leverage all my hard work and build a custom sales funnel for you and have my team set it up.
  • I will personally write your emails so they convert leads into customers.
  • And I will hold you accountable so you constantly progress and get results.

So go here and book a call to speak with me.

With that being said that’s a wrap for today, I’m exhausted writing this.

Have a good weekend!

Written by

Basem F.

I’m a digital marketer and my mission is to help as many people as I can to achieve financial freedom!

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