James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to jamesschramko.com. And today, I asked the question — how much of a business do you actually have or do you really have a job?
And I brought my buddy, John Lint, here. The creator of 10XPRO.io who has a Membership Series with me. How are you, mate?
John: Good, good. How are you?
James: Good. So, you’re an expert with setting up systems and helping people turn their knowledge and expertise into money via information products, courses, memberships. An expert at funnels and systemization. I imagine you’ve pondered this question a fair bit?
John: Yeah. I mean, that’s a big question, you know? I mean, think about it, right? You go away, you want to go on holiday. You really want to take time off, you don’t want to work. Well, let’s say, you take two weeks out. Let’s say you want to go to the Maldives with us next year or something like that. When you come back will your business have actually increased?
I mean that’s the important question. And if you hesitate for a second, you’re like, I’m not sure. Or if the answer is no, well, that’s usually a sign that, hey, maybe you have a job rather than an actual business that is working for you without your involvement, right?
So, there are multiple things that you can do to make sure you transition from being self-employed really to having a real online business.
James: Yeah. I found that a business could sort of loosely be defined as to the extent that something will work without you. And in our market where somewhat being an authority or expert can pay well, you will have some job-like functions.
But there’s certainly a lot of things you can do to automate, systemize, and build a team around you to make sure that you could actually take a holiday. I mean, you and I met on the Maldives trip and we go every year. And certainly we’re both going for two weeks this year and I look forward to it very much. I put out a video recently talking about how to build up to that. It’s nice to just take a day off here or there. And then a week off and to find out — pressure test your system to see what can be systemized.
So, in my case, I found that having things like editing done for these videos and audios that I make by someone else is good. Making sure that the other someone else can also send out the emails to notify my audience, that my machine, the website is collecting emails for me and putting those emails into the right sequences and sending out the relevant message at the right time. It’s all very good.
And certainly and very importantly, when someone buys something, you want to make sure that your system can receive the money and then send that customer their login and access and the correct onboarding to make sure they can actually access the thing they’ve purchased, that they can use it properly without having a need for heavy intervention from you, the owner. I mean, there are probably some people who are manually asking for the money and then manually sending login still. But you wouldn’t have to do that with products like 10XPRO.
John: Yeah, exactly. And that’s why we created it because it’s all about getting leverage. So you mentioned here getting leverage by building your own team, super powerful. A lot of people hesitate, in my opinion, way too long before starting to build their own team.
Getting your first support person on board is probably one of the biggest priorities you should have as soon as you start. Getting someone who can do all of these things and then train that person to be able to do those tasks that you talk about, those tasks that are not worth that much. Is it worth your time doing that task? Well, maybe you should be doing the big rocks, right? The things that are really, really important. So, building that team, getting that leverage is very important.
From our side of things, which is all about funnels, automation, and systems and that’s why we built 10XPRO.io, so you could have all the tools that you needed to be able to do the important things. Build your email list and we give you a ton of tools and features to allow you to do that because when you build your list and, obviously, you can do it on autopilot by simply having pages offering something. When they enter their details, they go to a Thank You page. Then the system sends them their email with whatever they opted in for. All of that is automated. So, if you have those things in place, now, you’re building your list on autopilot without your involvement. That’s awesome!
And then we have the other things. We need to have funnels and campaigns that are going to provide value to our customers and then at the same time invite them to take the next step by purchasing access to our membership or to our courses. And you want to have campaigns that allow you to do that. With 10XPRO.io, you can deploy entire campaigns with just one click, everything is integrated and all the tools are set up. And then the cool thing is that you know, you want to add some form of automation to those campaigns meaning that the doors are open and closed automatically, without your involvement. And you can easily to do that.
There are multiple ways but, basically, you have different tools available inside 10XPRO that will allow you to do that — having deadlines campaigns, having webinars that work on autopilot, events that open and close on autopilot. All of that is set up and you can link it with your email system. But now, you have a machine that’s pretty much building your list, making offers and at the same time, like you said, very important: delivering access to whatever you sold — your online course or your membership site. Which means that your customers automatically get the welcome emails, they automatically get the login details. That way they can log in, they can access the course or the member’s area and they can get started, right?
Now, if you want to automate further, you can by drip-feeding the content of your member’s area or you just do a hybrid solution where you have some automation for some key things and then you can also add that little touch, that personal touch if you wanted to. But having all these systems in place is super important to get that leverage and to be able to transition from being self-employed to having a business that is working for you on autopilot.
James: I wish this solution was available when I started online, John. Because the irony is, I spent the overwhelming majority of my time trying to learn how to build myself a website and that really is the last thing that I would want to be spending my time on today.
For 14 years after I started online, I’m not spending any time building my website because that’s not the highest level value for me to be doing. So, that’s where the tool is very powerful.
Of course, there are times when you need to do things but that’s okay if they’re the only things you’re doing and it’s high value and it helps you sell. And, of course, I have other recommendations, too — to put your business on a recurring income. And there are ways that you can also deal with setting expectations so that you can have a holiday.
So, today, if you’re watching this video, comment right near this video what it’s the longest you’ve ever taken away from your business, from your online business since you started it? Type a number nearby and I would be interested to see the discussion.
John: Without feeling guilty, alright.
James: Thanks, John! That was John Lint of 10XPR.io. Check it out.
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