Steal My 2025 Business Model

(It was also my 2023 and 2024 model...it works)

In this newsletter, the first of the year, I will outline my business model for 2025. Use the bits you like. Discard the rest, but be aware of them if you need to tweak your approach.

I’ll break this down into three simple sections. Audience Acquisition, Audience Engagement, and Offers.

I’ll then finish with my daily and weekly routine… this model doesn’t take long each day.

Let’s go

Audience Acquisition

Too many people try to be all things to all men (and women). That approach doesn’t work, so choose your audience wisely.

Your ideal audience will have one thing in common: they all share the same few problems. You job is to create content that helps them overcome this problem.

I STRONGLY believe that the best approach is to help them solve the problem for free. Then, if they need further help, you can help them implement what you have taught.

Does the world need another cookie-cutter course? Or do people need practical help and advice?

I believe it’s the latter.

Create content that helps them recognise and address the problems they may have. This is best done through “How To” and & “X ways” Content.

This will attract the right audience, and they’ll start to take notice of your content.

Publish this content on your own content hub first, then distribute it wherever your audience is.

I recommend doing this daily, Monday to Friday.

Once this is working and you are creating a steady stream of attention-grabbing content, it’s time to move on to stage two.

Audience Engagement

It’s time to start to engage with your audience by providing more detailed content. This is best done with a newsletter (like this!), which provides deeper dive content and lays out what your audience should be doing to achieve success.

Share your advice, personal successes, and daily life. Your job here is to build authority and demonstrate that subscribing to your newsletter and a community is a positive step forward.

It’s important to demonstrate your successes, no matter how small. Too many people try to show their audience unachievable goals.

“Here’s how I earned $100k in 6 months.”

Content like that will do two things: disillusion part of your audience as they know they won’t be able to achieve it and give a section of that audience unachievable expectations.

For example, here is a post I made yesterday in my community; anyone can achieve this by simply publishing content and sticking to it… it’s achievable for everyone.

Finally, if your newsletter is on Substack I believe it should be, use notes to publish helpful content and follow and engage your audience and others on the same path as you.

Look for collaborations you could do, guest posts, interviews, joint workshops, or anything that will increase your reach and attract those who may be part of your audience.

You don’t need to DM people with your offers!

YOUR OFFER

This is the only thing I’ve changed since 2023 and it’s been the best thing I’ve done in years.

Notice I have written that in the singular? Offer, not offers.

CREATE ONE OFFER

Until a few months ago, I had multiple offers, three courses, a community, books, and lead magnets. Buying everything would have cost my audience hundreds of dollars, which is good for me and bad for them.

It made things messy, so a few months ago, I decided to bite the bullet and create one offer that would help people implement what I’ve been sharing in my content.

I added a 2nd community where I can do group training and help people implement what they have learned. Doing one-to-one training, which was my preference, would have been too prohibitive for my audience.

I then bundled this with all my courses, communities, books, and everything else I create during the year and charged $99 per year for it.

I made this available to my newsletter subscribers by creating a VIP Tier and also to my Blog readers by mirroring the offer on my blog

A WORD OF WARNING

Before pricing your offer, do the Math.

What do you need to earn each month to cover all your costs? I am lucky because after 20 years, I have a passive income that I get each month that covers 95% of my costs, so a few extra sales every month will cover everything. Anything else is a bonus.

Do the math!

My Daily Routine

Above is the business model I’ll be using this year. Now, it’s time to see how it fits into my daily work routine.

Daily:

Create an article and post it on my blog and on Medium.

I create notes, engage with others, reply to comments on my articles, and comment on articles where I feel a comment will add value.

Look at comments and highlighted content to see what resonates with my audience.

Post content, create training videos and answer questions in my communities.

Weekly

I create a newsletter edition. I’ll be adding a second (short Form) edition from next week.

I will create a YouTube video, which I’ll paste into a related article the following week.

That’s about it, my simple business model that works.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Have a great year, and reach out if you need help.