None of It Matters Until You Make a Million

Chris Davis 0:10
And we’re back with another episode of the All Systems Go podcast. And I’m getting on my soapbox, my bah humbug soapbox today and I’m going to just have a conversation out loud that I recently had with myself the other day. And it’s one of those conversations that sometimes it can be scary because it can be so objective that you start to realize how biased maybe you have been in your approach to certain things. And I wasn’t depressed or anything.

Chris Davis 0:45
I was just really challenging my thoughts, challenging what I was seeing as working and not in business and just seeing what, what, what people were talking about and sharing online. And I said, I made this statement to myself. I said, none of it matters. It.

Chris Davis 1:05
It. Who cares? Who cares about any of it? And that was the beginning.

Chris Davis 1:11
But what, what made me record this is when I was on online and I was on social media and someone had posted that their Kajabi milestone. So I guess after you make a certain amount of revenue with Kajabi, they send you something, they took a picture of it and I didn’t get burned up. I wasn’t angry or anything like that. But if anybody has used Kajabi or any of these other do it for you all in one marketing and content platforms, you do understand that it comes with a cost of extra fees that you pay, little customization beyond what they provide.

Chris Davis 1:58
And most Kajabi emails, honestly on new accounts go straight into the spam. People don’t realize it because they’re just like, oh, I built a thing and it’s. And I’m able to sell it. Yay.

Chris Davis 2:09
And there are some other things around, you know, analytics and just controlling the data and all of that. I can go on for days. And that’s not specific to Kajabi. It’s just any SaaS platform pretty much has these, these issues, right?

Chris Davis 2:24
And here I am just, I’m. And listen, y’, all, I’m, I’m just being open and honest with you all. And here I am looking like, man, you know, you could, you could build such a better system. What happens when you scale, you know, da, da, da, da, da.

Chris Davis 2:35
And I told myself, I said, chris, shut up. It doesn’t matter. All of these advanced tactics and app business building methodologies to control the data to scale and be more secure. None of it matters, man.

Chris Davis 2:52
It does not matter. And I’m like, this is a very challenging conversation I’m having with Myself, everyone. And I’m like, well, if it doesn’t matter, then what have I been doing all of these years? And here, here’s the most honest part about this.

Chris Davis 3:09
As I’ve gotten my results in life as a professional, they have always the large results, the ones that I’m the most proud of have always been at the hands of SaaS, companies or startups that have not just a revenue to invest, but they have the need to invest in a more complex system, right? You get to a point where the basics just don’t work anymore. And if you’re a solopreneur, that is a very different, that’s a very different trajectory. If you are a business owner of one or business operator of one, and maybe you just have a handful of freelancers and contractors, it’s a different story.

Chris Davis 3:58
That is a totally different avatar. And to those people or who, I’m saying it doesn’t matter. Clay Collins, the founder of LeadPages, always had this teaching around your One funnel, right? You need one offer, one audience, one funnel until you make $1 million.

Chris Davis 4:20
And this was like 10 years ago and it’s still true today. And I see this more than anything. And that’s where I start to say, you know what, Chris, you’re right. When you start to draw the distinction between the environments you’ve been in and experienced success and the environments that you’re often talking to people in, solo starter small businesses, two totally different avatars, right?

Chris Davis 4:54
Two totally different business needs, growth paths and everything. So, so when you look at the solopreneur or the single operated small business, you start to realize a lot of this stuff is overcomplicated. You don’t need advanced technology. You don’t, you need a form software.

Chris Davis 5:16
Pick one. Just don’t let it be Google Forms, but pick one, right? And even, even at that, if you use Google Forms, so be it. As long as you’re not collecting sensitive information, AI is good enough to the point where that form could go into a spreadshee, that spreadsheet can do something else.

Chris Davis 5:33
Listen, I’m even softer on my stance there, right? Whatever, whatever platform you choose, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. You talk about documentation.

Chris Davis 5:45
How many times have you all told me? Have I told you all mapping? If you’re new to the podcast, mapping is the process of putting shapes and arrows down to visually document what’s happening in your business. I’m a proponent of this.

Chris Davis 6:01
I’ve got many maps. Guess what? If I didn’t have one, I could still make A million dollars. You can still make a million dollars without it.

Chris Davis 6:09
Do you need the documentation? Nope. It’s nice. You don’t need it.

Chris Davis 6:15
Do you need the tools to be tightly integrated so that you don’t have to use the Zapiers and makes and things are. It’s a tight coupled native system, sure, but it’s not going to stop you. It’s not going to stop you. If you want to use apps and build them the wrong way and you know, add costs to your operating expenses, you can still make a million, right?

Chris Davis 6:43
You. We often as small business owners and here’s what this is, this is an interesting dynamic. I watch a lot of sports and these commentators. It used to be a day and age where you had to be in the studio.

Chris Davis 6:58
Now you can be. You’re at your home, sometimes they’re out and about and when people are in their homes, they have worse setups than people who are streaming daily online with small audiences. I mean, to be honest, I’ve got better lighting in camera and sound than most of the people on tv. So what does that tell you?

Chris Davis 7:22
Doesn’t matter. Lights, camera, sound, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. You can.

Chris Davis 7:29
If I’ve seen disjointed systems built and operated to a million dollars, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it more often than not. And then I see the crowd of that and I used to be heavy in this crowd. I used to lead this crowd of automation, service providers, technology, professional digital marketers scrutinizing. Oh, don’t do that because they just changed this.

Chris Davis 7:58
And don’t run it to this page because you really need this type of landing page. And never use WordPress because WordPress will break down. And don’t use this. We have all of these tech do’s and don’ts and guess what?

Chris Davis 8:10
I see people violating those rules all the time and still making it. Still, still, still making a good living. Right? And what am I saying?

Chris Davis 8:22
Am I, am I invalidating all of my previous episodes? Am I saying because I’ve changed now, everything that I’ve taught you in the past is no good. I’m not saying that. Okay, what, what I’m saying is in order to be successful in business continuously at a smaller scale, for a lot of you, 350,000 to $500,000 a year, your business generating would change your life for a very long time.

Chris Davis 9:00
To do that, you don’t really need sophisticated systems that are well documented, well oiled, running and fully automated. You just don’t. I’m sorry, you don’t. I want to be honest with you all.

Chris Davis 9:18
My preference is that you would. Right. Because what, what does that allow you that allows you life design capabilities. You, you can then build your business to operate in a way that supports your lifestyle.

Chris Davis 9:36
Right. But without it, if it’s just a checkbox, make, make X amount of money. You just need focus. Yeah.

Chris Davis 9:47
There was nothing else to follow that. Well, I’ll follow it up with discipline. You need discipline, focus. You need discipline and focus.

Chris Davis 9:56
You do those two things consistently and you will make the money that you, that you’re out to make. And what do I mean by that? If you’re constantly figuring, constantly investigating where your customers are and who they are, every day you’re finding more out. You’re interviewing a customer of the past.

Chris Davis 10:23
You’re talking to a prospect, but you’re collecting data in a way that’s informing you and you’re continually making offers, offers to them. Those two things alone will get you very far. Why doesn’t it work for the. The average person?

Chris Davis 10:40
Because the average person doesn’t. One that I’ve realized that a lot of people don’t even know how to get to know their audience. They don’t know how to do market research in an ongoing and conversational way. And let alone are they clear on their offer and what problems the offer solves for their audience?

Chris Davis 11:04
A simple. I don’t do a lot of marketing mentoring anymore, but when I do, the first thing I ask somebody is, okay, I see what your offer has. Right. I see what you’ve put in it.

Chris Davis 11:25
I can see that you’ve put a lot in your offer. The question is, what does your offer put in your audience? What does your offer put in your customer? Does, does it put the ability to make more money?

Chris Davis 11:38
Does it put speed? Does it, does it put the missing piece? What does it put in your customer? And a lot of people can’t answer that.

Chris Davis 11:48
A lot of people still don’t have their elevator pitch. A lot of people, if you ask them on the spot right now, what do you they can’t tell you within a sentence or two with clarity and without rambling. Well, guess what? That lack of clarity, that’s your issue that you.

Chris Davis 12:07
We could build an automated system around that and yes, multiply the lack of clarity, but that’s your issue. You have to go get clear. And guess what? There is no automated way to get clear.

Chris Davis 12:20
A lot of this just requires you reaching out, joining groups, going out to networking events, local and beyond, going to speaking engagements. Right Posting consistently around how you want to be positioned, not just what you want to talk about. So when we scale this all the way back, all I’m doing is highlighting what I’ve always said. If you go back to my previous episodes, I always mention and you look at the significant six, you go listen to that episode if you haven’t listened to it.

Chris Davis 12:55
My marketing episodes, I’ve always stated strategy precedes technology. I’ve always said that. And here I’m telling you a strong strategy with the focus to execute it continuously will do more for you than creating a complex technology system with full out documentation and all this automation. It just is what it is, everyone.

Chris Davis 13:23
There are many tools that I would advise you not use of most of them I’ve seen somebody use them and be successful with them. Just is what it is right now. I started out by saying none of it matters until you make your first million. That’s a little catchy.

Chris Davis 13:40
Everybody’s, everybody’s end goal is not a million. So it doesn’t matter until you make the amount that matters to you. That, that’s, that’s a more accurate way, right? So whatever that amount is, if that’s 600k a year, 750, 350k a year, until you make that amount, it really doesn’t matter.

Chris Davis 14:05
Just go do, do what you gotta do. You want a landing page? Okay. Who Cares if it’s WordPress, Kajabi, LeadPages, Magic Pages, I don’t care.

Chris Davis 14:18
You just need something up to capture information. Now execute your strategy. All right, great. Now you want to, you want to, you want to take payment?

Chris Davis 14:26
I don’t care. WooCommerce, ThriveCart, Shopify, doesn’t matter as long as it works. And when people are ready to say yes, they have someplace to put their money, just, just collect the money, right? And I’m not conceding to sloppily build a system without intelligence.

Chris Davis 14:47
My desire is for you to be coupled with somebody who can do both. Help you execute your strategy with the best technology, leveraging the proper amount of automation. All I’m telling you is a lot of you are chasing that instead of focusing on the core parts of business that makes it grow. Understanding your audience, making understanding your audience.

Chris Davis 15:12
Having an offer that resonates with them and every day making offers to that audience. Everything else is the nuance, right? And how you handle that nuance. Pick and choose.

Chris Davis 15:29
Pick and choose. Some of you want to, want to hire people, okay? Some of you want to hire technology, okay? Some of you want to Hire technology and AI.

Chris Davis 15:38
Okay, Some of you want to hire people, technology and AI however you desire to make it the system. When, when, when we start building systems and refer to automation and AI, it’s there once you start to have a preference of how to make money. And you can’t have a preference if you’re not making money. Right.

Chris Davis 16:06
I’m talking about when you, when you’re getting started now, when you’re more mature in business. Yes. You say, wait a minute, I don’t want to be on calls. I don’t want to be spending 20, 30 hours a week in my business.

Chris Davis 16:20
Well now all roads go through automation, technology, automation and AI. Because you can’t do that without it. Right? And I just wanted to be honest with you all for me, how I’m built, I don’t like paying the additional commission fees on top of whatever.

Chris Davis 16:43
And the companies that I contract with, they don’t want to pay those top fees. But they’re bigger companies, you know, go ahead, pay the extra 5% to run your Patreon and build a community that’s making $300,000 even though you’re paying Patreon like 50k of that. Right? Go ahead, do it, make the money.

Chris Davis 17:07
Right? Like make, when I say make the money, I’m not saying your focus is making money only I’m telling you. I see too many people in business with too much technology being sold. Documentation and update this and airtable database that and do all of these things about technology and it doesn’t move the needle.

Chris Davis 17:29
It’s not going to make them profitable anytime soon. There are basic steps that they’re missing that will make them profitable. And once they’re profitable now, they’re gonna have the funds to invest in the proper technology, the proper documentation. Cause documentation is insurance for your business.

Chris Davis 17:46
You need it, right? You definitely need it. And again, if it were my preference, I would have you raise capital so you can check all these boxes for, from the beginning. But the reality is that’s not, that’s not most people, that’s not.

Chris Davis 18:04
And I just wanted to put context around this, that most of this doesn’t matter, honestly, until, until you, until you make a million or so. Because making a million and keeping a million, two totally different things. So if you want to make it and keep it, all right, it does matter. Everything matters.

Chris Davis 18:28
Everything that I just mentioned matters. Where you put your data, the processing fees that you’re paying, your tech stack, how it’s integrated, how native it is. Every non native integration. When I say native, just Say the tool directly talks to another tool, that’s a native integration, whereas you have your third parties.

Chris Davis 18:50
The tool A talks to tool B by way of zapier, by way of make, by way of N8N. You don’t have that. It’s a direct integration and usually through API or webhooks. That is the ideal, the preferred method of building a system.

Chris Davis 19:08
You own the data, you have a data warehouse or you have a controllable database where all of your data is either stored or duplicated to. So it’s okay if it’s in the other platforms, as long as it’s in a platform that you own too. These things start to matter when you’re trying to keep a million or scale to, to beyond a million. Right?

Chris Davis 19:32
These things definitely matter because again, what happens after a million, totally different getting to a million. I’ve seen people stumble to a million. And let me say this, when I say stumble, just timing market was right. What is it?

Chris Davis 19:50
Viral. Viral virality. Their capability to go viral was high. Right?

Chris Davis 19:58
And it just, it just worked. Just worked. Right. I’ve seen that.

Chris Davis 20:03
But let me qualify this statement too. Everybody’s not going to make a million. Millionaires are more so like NBA players or professional athletes. Out of a thousand, you’re not gonna have 20% of them going.

Chris Davis 20:16
Out of a thousand athletes, 20% of them are not going to the league. It’s more like 1%. Right? So millionaires, even though the number is increasing, but they’re still the smallest number.

Chris Davis 20:30
And there’s a lot of. And I don’t want to discourage you, there’s a lot of success to be had before you get to a million. Just imagine making $400,000 in a business that allows you to work from home, travel, have free time. You, you would not be complaining, right, that that million dollar mark.

Chris Davis 20:50
Most businesses will not hit it. It’s just the reality that doesn’t mean you’re less than. All it means is that once, once you understand what you’re doing in business and how you do it matters and your life matter. Style matters.

Chris Davis 21:12
Now everything that I’ve been saying matters because you’re not going to be able to build the business that you want without tight systems. Automation AI. You can’t do automation AI without good documentation. They all go hand in hand, right?

Chris Davis 21:30
So, so whether, if you want to design your life, if you want your business to support the lifestyle that you design for you, and if you want to scale the millions that you’ve made, yes, it does matter. Everyone else doesn’t matter. I don’t want. I am so tired of getting on calls and people are obsessing over what technology to use and they’ve not sold a thing.

Chris Davis 21:57
You don’t. You know what? All you need to make your first sale is a social media account, a Gmail account, and a Zoom account. That’s really it.

Chris Davis 22:07
And those, all of those are free. You can close your first deal with with those posting on social media, telling people, I’m going to email you or just DM them to build a relationship. When it’s time to jump on a call, hey, here’s a Zoom link. Let’s jump on a quick call, get on Zoom and collect payment.

Chris Davis 22:28
Send them a PayPal invoice, send them a stripe invoice. These are all free tools. No need to overcomplicate this thing. I’m serious.

Chris Davis 22:38
And if you have a, if you have an offer that’s resonating, people are gonna let me get more and more and more now because people want more and you’re selling more. You need to free up your time more and you’ve got money to do it right. But even at that, it’s not like you gotta go build the most advanced system. Just start putting systems in place that free your time.

Chris Davis 23:02
I do not consult anybody that’s starting out or not as profitable. I have different definitions of profitable. Don’t meet my definition of profitability. I don’t consult them.

Chris Davis 23:15
I just tell them, hey, who’s your audience? What’s your offer? How’s it selling? Just do more of that.

Chris Davis 23:22
We’re not talking about technology, we’re not talking about apps they should build. Unless there’s a direct connect to freeing up their time and helping them be more efficient, you just don’t need it. You really don’t. But I’ll say this, when you’re scaling beyond millions, you most definitely need it.

Chris Davis 23:40
Because I’ve seen startups, SaaS platforms not be able to go public because of their code base or security breaches. I’m talking about companies that you guys are using their software right now. I’ve seen SaaS companies not be able to acquire private funding because a lack of documentation. I’ve seen startups not get acquired because of a lack of documentation, because the buyer was nervous that if they bought that, they would be stuck with the team that they currently have and they wanted the freedom to be able to replace people, hire more or whatever, no documentation.

Chris Davis 24:21
So this stuff matters. Do not get me wrong, it matters at a large scale, it does matter. And guess what? Those, those fees that you pay, can you imagine paying an extra 3% on a million dollars?

Chris Davis 24:38
That’s different math. Right. So less tolerance. It is less tolerance, the more money you start making.

Chris Davis 24:47
But, you know, make your first 250k, 500k or whatnot. The tolerance is so great. The tolerance is so great. Right.

Chris Davis 24:56
But when you start getting up there, yes, the systems get much more sensitive. Right. And you see it because for people scaling past millions, what got you to a million will not get you to 10 million. It just won’t.

Chris Davis 25:18
You’re going to have to streamline, you’re going to have to get more targeted, you’re going to have to get sharper with your messaging. Your strategy may work. The strategy could be solid all the way to multi millions. But the methodology, oh, yeah, and the quality of messaging, it’s got to be.

Chris Davis 25:40
It has to be tight. The colder the audience, the tighter the messaging has to be. That’s just that. It’s just what it is.

Chris Davis 25:50
Unless you have one of those offers that just, it just has referral built in. People just talk. People, hey, have you tried this again? There’s many ways to scale a business, but I just, I just wanted to make this, this episode to make it a little easier for you all.

Chris Davis 26:11
You know, sometimes I think that people feel like if they’re not leveraging technology highly and they’re not using automation, somehow they’re behind. And I’ve been part of that narrative. So I apologize if I’ve given you erroneous pressure to move in a direction that maybe wasn’t the right direction for you anyway. But what’s always the right direction in business is making offers to the right audience.

Chris Davis 26:44
How you do that, whether it’s manual or automated, it’s up to you. The result of that, the data, how you, how you, how you assess it, analyze it, how you document what’s working. The higher up in revenue you get, the more important it becomes. So if you’re not making that much, yes, you can ignore all of the posts.

Chris Davis 27:08
Oh, you shouldn’t be using this. And make sure you map this and do the. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.

Chris Davis 27:15
It really doesn’t. What matters is that you have an audience that you know and you have an offer that you know that audience wants. And you have messaging that connects the two. And once you have that, you don’t need five lead magnets, need one.

Chris Davis 27:35
You’ll need 10 landing pages, just one. You’ll need 10 versions of your product, three or four versions of your product, just one and just do that, do that for 12 months. See? See how your life is different.

Chris Davis 27:49
Simplify your tech stack and just focus on that one. One offer, one lead magnet, one landing page, one primary email follow up, one newsletter. Right. One platform you’re publishing to and just master that focus in and you’ll see just how much you’ve been scapegoating your ignorance around your business to technology.

Chris Davis 28:21
Technology’s been. I shouldn’t say scapegoating, that’s not the proper term I’m thinking of. But you’ve been using technology as a distraction. Let me put it like that.

Chris Davis 28:34
You’ve been using it as a distraction. Oh, I need to, I need to do this. I need to get this in. I’m using circle and I need to migrate.

Chris Davis 28:41
Who cares? It’s not going to make you more money. Just stick with what you have and use it right. It’s okay.

Chris Davis 28:51
Things are not going to be perfect. But do not turn technology, I guess technology, I guess I will say technology is the scapegoat. Technology can’t be the scapegoat to the reason why your business is not growing. It’s not your technology, it’s you.

Chris Davis 29:06
It just is everyone. So I have this speech with my clients as well. So it’s not just you all. I’m not just getting on the builders and solopreneurs that listen to this podcast, but I also wanted to frame Free you.

Chris Davis 29:20
And if that did free you, that was the purpose of this podcast. That was it. Just wanted to share that with you all. Hopefully that does put you on a path closer to making the money that matters to you than not.

Chris Davis 29:36
And if you are a builder and you’re looking for ways to shorten your learning curve and really bounce, bounce your messaging off people who are doing the same thing as you, I’ve curated a community of experienced builders just for that purpose where they’re sharing what’s working. They’re, we’re, they’re collaborating, they’re, they’re in the field. They are in the field doing the doing. You can join that community at no cost.

Chris Davis 30:08
The link is in the show notes. So signing off here until the next time I see you all online, automate responsibly, my friends.