A few weeks ago, Derek Johanson of CopyHour wrote an email with an inspiring idea:
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Most often all that an online business needs to go from zero to 6 figures is to focus on ONE simple business model and ONE marketing channel for growth.
One Business Model: If you sell courses, only sell courses. That’s your one business model. Don’t add coaching or do freelancing too.
One Marketing Channel For Traffic: If you’ve picked LinkedIn to drive traffic, don’t think about YouTube or paid ads at all.
That’s it. Going deep into ONE business model and ONE marketing channel is how you double a small business.
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When I read this, I had a double reaction:
1. Whoa this makes sense
2. Hold on, this can’t be right — it’s just another manifestation of the human desire for “the one thing”
“The one thing,” as you might know, is a popular hook in direct response advertising.
It manifests itself in different guises — “the one thing,” “the ancient secret,” “the real reason” — but ultimately, it taps into to our brains’ desire to melt down the complexity and messiness of the world into just one magic ring of power to rule them all.
Rings like that exist in fantasies, but they don’t exist in real life.
Except, that’s not really what Derek was saying in his email. He was saying something more nuanced, and not-one-thingy.
I wasn’t quite sure how to stickily sum up what Derek was saying. Fortunately, somebody did it for me, in a paid private group (the only paid private group) that I’m a member of. The person in that group summed it up like this:
1. Test until it works
2. Scale until it stops working
Many things can work — for example, as sources of traffic.
The thing is, most things won’t work right out the gate. It will take some time and tweaking for them to produce results.
That’s step 1. Most people quit before they complete this step, and instead they jump to back to the beginning, to another supposed ring of power, hoping that it will work right away.
Derek’s email was about step 2. Going deep into one thing and scaling until it stops working. Which is a worthwhile idea, and like I said, quite not-one-thingy.
I thought about how to apply this to my own business. And I’m not really sure.
In terms of marketing channels to get people reading these emails, my number one source has been referrals and word-of-mouth, which I did absolutely nothing to encourage beyond writing daily and sharing novel ideas and illustrations. Maybe I should just keep writing.
As for the one business model, I still haven’t quite figured out one that I’m happy with. Which is why, over the past few months, I’ve sent out so many emails that ultimately link to $4.99 books on Amazon, or interesting articles you might find valuable, or—
Well, let me get to it now.
You remember I mentioned the paid private community I’m a member of? The only one?
I personally find it very valuable — and interesting.
Maybe you will too. But you will have to decide for yourself. I’m not promoting this community as an affiliate, and I’m not pushing you to join it. But if you’re curious to find out more: