Likes Ain't Cash

Your Job For The Final 10 December Days As entrepreneurs we can feel guilty during Holidays because we want to be at 2 places at once: We want our business to grow (which requires time and attention). But we also want to spend time with our loved ones (which also requires time and attention). So we can create scenarios in our head in which we have to choose. And no matter what we choose we have to give something up. This back and forth can eat at your sanity pretty easily. Yet it is solved just as easily when you see the situation for what it is. It's not an exaggeration to say that you're one moment of clear judgement away from the next breakthrough in your business. One post. One offer. One angle. One idea. All of these have the power to create serious positive impact but it's hard to see them when you're losing your sanity. You're in a creative profession. And creation is hard. As someone who loves to work I find it helpful to not think as these weeks as a break from the job... But as THE job so that I can find that couple of moves that will make the difference in 2025. If you know you should take time off to reap the fruits of your labor and haven't, this is the best reframe I can give you: Your business is your part time job. But staying sane is your full time job. It's not time to "lock in". If anything, it's time to zoom out. And craft your plan to a winning 2025.

It’s much easier to make money when you have a plan and a date. This starts with your Freedom Number: How much money do you need to do whatever you want? Both in time and money. We all have the same goal: To get there as fast as possible. In an ideal world you would get to that point in a straight line without losing clients. But unfortunately we have to factor in churn. People leave. And whenever someone leaves, the timeframe can get longer. (Let’s say you set up a 1 year timeframe to get to your Freedom Number. If you lose half your clients that means it will take 2.) That means that your Freedom Number would get further away from you every time someone leaves. That's where the Waitlist comes in: The Waitlist (brown) keeps you on track because it allows you to replace all the clients you lose. It takes 15 minutes to install. But when done right it means that you can replace all the clients you lose and get to your Freedom Number without unexpected delays.

Chaos Is Essential I was supposed to be in Warsaw today But my flight got canceled and I'm stuck for 2 nights in London. I thought I was, anyway. But after walking 17k steps and seeing the Big Ben, London Eye, Tower Bridge and Thames River I would like to have a word with London's marketing department. They don't do the city justice. It's beautiful. It came at a right time in my life when I'm going through some significant decisions. This impromptu trip reminded me not to take plans too seriously. Life is gonna life. Plans are gonna change. And a lot of the time it's for your own good. God has better plans for you than you have for yourself. This trip reminded me of it and I even bought this hat to remind me further. I call this my "Chaos" hat. It's there to remind me that chaos is good if you don't resist it. But use it as a tool. Chaos is a key part to my business. Its why I don't have work schedules. I don't do content plans. I simply feel for what I want to create that day and I do that. "Notion planner" types won't understand this but there are times when chaos is the way because it creates the space needed for creativity. As I was coordinating flights, two new Cash Creators joined via my Workshop Funnel. As I got threw into the chaos I got a nice breather and I got to explore a beautiful city. As I'm in the Waterloo bus the idea to write this came to me and so here we are. And I even had dinner with a Cash Creator last night. On most other industries chaos hurts you. But in coaching and consulting, where people buy you, not your coaching, having a little healthy chaos is essential.

The Game Will Provide. Business works like videogames. Specifically, the energy aspect. When you start a level you have a certain number of "lives". You don't know how many you'll lose. You can only trust that the Game will provide enough so that you'll complete the levels. You don't really doubt it. You know they will appear. When I embarked on my $100k/month profit journey I didn't know how many "lives" I'd lose. And I lost a few. Namely: - Risk of public embarrassment. - Less-than-ideal promotions. - Offers that didn't land. - Tens of thousands of words that didn't get published. - Multiple ideas that I thought were smart (that the market clearly didn't). Yet after every loss somehow the Game just gave me more "lives" that made the next level easier. An idea. An insight. An offer. A lesson. A plan. I could've avoided many more mistakes if I spent more time strategizing . But I wouldn't change anything because even though I lost many "lives", the Game provided. - 700 customers - 80 active clients I legit enjoy working with - 5 $100k (profit) months in a row - New Ideas - Maturity that I didn't I had in me - A really good time. I've even had the opportunity to work from typical coaching and consulting companies to Argentinian entrepreneurs who regularly go on the news to invest in the Guatemalan pork industry. It happened partly because I simply trusted the Game. I believed that if I played it, it was going to provide the lives I needed to complete it. And it did. I'm about to complete the final boss of 2024: Getting to $100k/month in recurring personal profit. Those last 3 words are important. I've had $100k months before. But they weren't recurring. They weren't profit. And they weren't personal because I had to share it with others. It required losing a lot. And yet the Game gave me so much more. And I'm now on the last 4 weeks of 2024 looking forward to beat it. I'm close but not quite there yet. But I already know what's going to happen. The Game will provide. It's not about winning. It's about believing in the Game and believing that you will somehow win. But to win you have to play. I made the decision to play. The Cash Creators made the decision to play. All towards a common goal: A $100k/month in profit business with less than 4 hours a day and 95% profit margins. We're gonna get there. It's not a matter of if but a matter of when. We trust the Game. We know that there will be uncertainty and lots of problems to solve along the way. But that as long as we play the Game will provide.

Update: I’m Debt Free. I just paid off my $467,823.96 debt to Ryan. Ryan is my former business partner. We built what is now Cash Creators together. But it wasn't that before. It was a machine called Tweets & Clients with 15 team members, great systems and the infrastructure to scale it to much more than what I'm making now. Except... I didn't want to. I didn't want $1 million per month in revenue. You can't buy stuff with revenue. I wanted $100k per month in personal recurring profit that I actually take home. And so after a few tough decisions we split ways and struck a deal: I would get 100% of the business back to build the vision I had for Cash Creators. And he would get 50% of the profits of our last month working together. 12 times. Essentially a 1-year buyout. I've been paying him $38,985 every single month since March. And I had around $77,970 to go. And after a wonderful Black Friday in which 3 PDFs created $80,000+... I decided to use those 3 PDFs' income to pay it all off. This was it. The last payment I needed to become 100%, undeniably, indisputably and once and for all... Free. I decided to believe in myself and in my Model. Through thick and thin. To trust the plan and execute even though I wasn't always 100% clear of my next step. And it paid off. This is the Model I implement with the Cash Creators to $100k per month. $100k that isn't going anywhere but to their bank account. Not to their team. Not to a business partner. And not to unnecessary expenses (margins stay above 92%). Those $100k are theirs and theirs only. I've proved it's possible and now I'll make it a reality for them in 2025. As what I'll do myself, I've done what I wanted to do. And I want to shift my focus to my offline life with my family, my wedding, honeymoon and challenge myself in other areas. So I'm closing Cash Creators to outsiders. And this next intake will be the Final Intake. This is it. 15 spots opening on January 1st and then it's gone. I'm opening up reservations that work on a "First Come, First Served" Basis. The only way to get in will be to be first in line in January by making a reservation. There's currently 7 people on it. To make yours, join my list (link in socials) and you’ll get the details..

Why Leads Ghost: The part of the brain that makes decisions is not the part of the brain that acts on those decisions. A lot of coaches are in a better position than they think: They've already added enough value and proved enough competence. Enough to make prospects decide that one day they're going to hire them. Their marketing already made prospects decide whether to work with them. The problem is that their marketing hasn't made prospects decide when to work with them. At some point the coach doesn't need to answer the question "Why you?" anymore. It's overkill. They've made their mind up already. They already chose you. That's when the marketing needs to shift: From answering the question "Why you?" to "Why now?" True story: I had a client that got 531 emails from me before he became a client. The email that finally got him to pull the trigger? It wasn't one selling him on me. He was already sold on me. It was the one that sold him on acting now. I introduced real consequences. And these consequences did in 1 email what the other 530 couldn't: They actually got the sale. When leads are ghosting you the solution is not to convince them into buying you. It's to add consequences to convince them into buying now.

“You gotta believe in them.” 5 words I find myself referring back to often. I'm often hesitant to change the ways I serve clients. I experienced it when I let go of my team and went solo. When I switched from sales calls to google docs and when I split with my business partner. I still hear it when I'm crafting new workshops and sometimes when I answer their questions: The little voice. It tells me that maybe this will be "too much" or "too confusing". It tells me not to have faith in them. That if I don't get it completely right it's game over. He’s loud. But he’s wrong. It took an ego hit to accept but I accepted that I'm not that important. They would still get what they want even if I'm not there. My guys are solid. They will figure it out. Believing in my clients allowed me to embrace change in an industry that fears it. And to make the necessary changes to serve them better. (Even when I'm often wrong.) It allowed me to give clients the outline and let them fill in the blanks. Change is necessary. And I don't fear it anymore. Because unlike in the past, Now I understand that I gotta believe in them.

How to get 5 clients that make more money than you: Some Cash Creators make more money than me. It doesn't make sense given that I help people primarily with... money. But it makes sense when you understand that the Promise isn’t the only thing people buy from you. They also buy your Philosophy: Your Philosophy is different from your Promise. It’s how you accomplish it. It can’t be a gimmick. It has to be real because when you get it's a gimmick people can see through it. When it's real it's not uncommon to attract people who make more than you. For these people it's not about the destination. It's about the way they get there. They may be interested in your Promise. But what they really want is the Philosophy. Coaches and consultants who target people “making at least X amount a month" are missing the point. By targeting a certain money level you're closing yourself off to a higher money level. The solution isn't to target people making a certain amount. Or to call out a trait. The solution is to make your Philosophy clear so you can attract clients that resonate with it. (Often a higher caliber of clients). There is such a thing as "too much" market research. Sometimes you don't need to do any. Sometimes you need to put yourself out there and let the market come to you. It's the antithesis of common marketing advice. But common marketing advice applies to commodities like toothpaste and sodas. You don't sell commodities. You sell coaching and consulting, which are luxury goods. And luxury goods are not just sold with Promises, but with Philosophy.

Philosophies Sell More Than Promises. Some Cash Creators make more money than me. It doesn't make sense given that I help people primarily with money. But it makes sense when you understand that the Promise isn’t the only thing people buy from you. They also buy your Philosophy. Your Philosophy is different from the Promise. It’s how you accomplish the Promise. It can’t be a gimmick like “The XYZ Method”. It has to be real. When you get it wrong people can see through it. When you get it correctly it's not uncommon to attract people who make more than you. For these people it's not about the money. It's about the way they get there. They may be interested in your Promise. But what they really want is the Philosophy. Coaches and consultants who target people “making at least X amount a month" are missing the point. By targeting a certain money level you're closing yourself off to a higher money level. The solution isn't to target people making a certain amount. Or to call out a trait altogether. The solution is to put your Philosophy out there so you can attract the people from all levels that want that Philosophy for themselves. (Often a better client). There is such a thing as "too much" market research. Sometimes you don't need to do any. Sometimes you need to put yourself out there and let the market come to you. It's the antithesis of common marketing advice. But common marketing advice applies to commodities like toothpaste and sodas. You don't sell commodities. You sell coaching and consulting, which are luxury goods. And luxury goods are not just sold with Promises, but with Philosophy.

Lead Nurturing Is A Myth. J's client journey went like this: Sunday Morning: Doesn't know who I am. Sunday Evening: Friend tells him about my workshop. Purchases for $100. Monday: Attends workshop. Tuesday: Takes a Cash Creator spot and becomes a client. J is an example of one of the core Cash Creator Principles: The longer someone consumes your free content the less likely they are to become paid clients. I don't believe in lead nurturing. I believe in solving problems. If someone entered your world they probably want something from it. Why keep it from them with complicated 10-email sequences? They have a problem. You have a solution. So make them an offer fast. Instead of trying to convince people who "will definitely buy from you someday!" (They never do). It's a much better use of your time to make offers to people who know what they want. And that starts on day one.

How To Make Your Offer Easier To Buy Offers do best when you offer one thing. But it's hard to offer one thing when people need different things: Some people need 90% of your offer. Some need 10%. Some people get a big result. Some don't even get started. So what specific offer do you actually make? To find it don't think about it in terms of specificity. But in terms of visibility: When you describe your offer - can the prospect SEE it? Can they paint a clear picture in their head of what the end result looks like? When I sold a "$2,000 Offer Template With 4 Quadrants" it sold 5 times as much as when I did an "Offer Training". It's the same thing. But one is easy to see and the other one isn't. "Heal your gut" is hard to see. "Not a single pimple on your skin" is easy to see. "10x your leadflow" is hard to see. "Get one inbound lead in your inbox a day" is easy to see. "Get the girl of your dreams" is hard to see. "Get 5 Tinder matches per day" is easy to see. Offer creation is much simpler when you swap "creating an offer" with "creating an image". And they often sell better because visible offers beat irresistible offers.

Goodbye. When I sold my company a few years ago I asked a mentor what I should do next: He had sold a company for high 8 figures and runs another 8 figure business. He said "take some time off." I thought he was being ridiculous so of course I didn't listen. And jumped right back at building another business. I remember the day I got the big bank transfer. I was on a bus and I got the notification. And I just swiped it because I was busy responding to a client. I had won the race. Yet I never paused. I didn't celebrate. I just kept on running which eventually hurt me, my family, me and my business. Not making the same mistake again. I'm 90% of the way to my $100,000/month (profit) goal. If things go according to plan, I'll reach it on the goal date: January 2025. And I've got plans for then. The most relevant to you now is that the opportunity to work with me inside Cash Creators as we know it is going away. I'm not going to keep running after I cross the finish line this time. I'll pause and celebrate. So to work as closely with me to build a $100k/month profit business as the Cash Creators do, This Final Intake is the last chance. 1 more intake. 10 folks. And then Cash Creators as we know it is over.

I've posted 60,000 times. And yet there was 1 post out of those 60,000 that made me the most. I call it the Protagonist Post. And it's the most profitable post I ever made. I've got a 12 minute video showing you the behind the scenes and why it worked. Link: https://youtu.be/ONQ0xT8Ahcg

9) Collect Don’t Create I rarely "struggle" with content because I don't create it. I just collect it from the stuff I'm delivering for clients. I can do this because my priority is retaining them. Not getting them. Paradoxically, this eases the sales pressure on your audience because it makes you incapable of "manipulating" the marketing material. You're just telling a story that already happened. Showing them something that already worked. 10) Good. Not Nice. There's too many nice coaches. People who are always available. Always helpful. Always nice. But these often get friendzoned by their audience. Even though they're extremely competent, the audience doesn't fully perceive it because of how nice they are. They end up a "nice coach". Liked by many. Loved by few. Hired by even fewer. 11) Sometimes Scaling Is The Wrong Move Most business owners build for the sake of building. And they end up building someone else's dream business. They build off "best practices". Checking off items relayed to them by an online guru: Offer, check. Paid advertising, check. Sales team, check. Short form content, check. They do this without asking themselves what they want. But there is no "right" business model. The only right method is the one that feels the most natural to you because then nobody can beat you. The path was always simple but never easy. But now it’s almost complete. Stay tuned for the January Final Intake, the last Cash Creators intake before we go Invite-Only. To get notified, you have the option to join my email list.

11 Ideas That Took Me To $100k/Month Cash Creators has made $100k profit every month for the past 5 months. As I'm deliberately taking less clients and closing it to outsiders in January, I've reflected on what were the main mental models that made it possible. 11 of them: 1) Likes Ain’t Cash My most useful reminder. I played the "getting likes" game for 3 years and it made me some money. This year I decided to focus solely on the "getting cash" game. My audience grew just 5%. But my income grew by 5 times (500%). I used to do show business. Now I just do business. 2) Offer Shell Offer Suites monetize stuff. Which adds complexity because you have to create a lot of it. Offer Shells monetize access. Which reduces complexity because you can focus on creating one really good thing, then sell access to you to implement it. It sells with half the words, takes less than 2 hours a day to deliver and gets you clients that pay you triple. 3) Whale Bait Whales are people who have one of the problems you solve and the money to pay for it. Fish have neither. Whale Bait is the discipline of only posting for Whales and the main tool of the Cash Creator: The creator that wants to get rich. Not famous. With the right Model, 67 clients take you to $1 million per year. And since I did the math I've never posted "fish bait" again. 4) Value vs. Insight The common industry practice is to give your valuable secrets away for free and then people will pay for the implementation. In my experience this is the exception rather than the rule. There's often a Gigawhale that will pay for it. But for the vast majority of people, giving them a solution (Value) will slow their decision making. But proving you have a solution (Insight) will speed it up. 5) Prospect Inertia The more money someone gives you the more money they are likely to give you. It's not that people are "unqualified" for a $2,000/month offer. It's more like they're too early for it. 80% of my clients bought a cheap thing from me before becoming clients. There's similar numbers among Cash Creators not because their leads are unqualified. But because leads need to make a small payment to take your stuff seriously enough for a big payment 6) We Don’t Do Maybes I don't do maybes. I only do yes or next. I do this because I've learned that the energy required to chase a prospect is more than twice the energy required to replace them. Often the "burnout" in coaching and consulting businesses is not caused by overworked. But by unfulfilled expectations from people that "blue ball" coaches and consultants with no intention of buying. It's a race without a finish line. And you always run out of gas. 7) The Cash Creator Model There are big decisions like where you're going to live, who you'll marry and what you do for a living. Your model is not quite there but it's close. The wrong model created a 15 person team, 12 hour workdays and 30% profit margins for me. The right model created a team of just 1 VA, 4 hour workdays and 95% profit margins. Same industry. Vastly different Models. 8) Belief In Yourself When I wanted to transition from the typical sales call model to the Cash Creator Model, I had a decision to make: A) Not to believe in my Model. This way I can remain partners with my business partner Ryan, not risk anything and have less responsibility. But I'd have to give up 50% of my profit every month. B) Believe. Then I can buy Ryan out. But I'd have to accomplish with just 1 VA what took 15 people to do. Face my clients and tell them it's just me now. Risk public embarrassment because this might burn to the ground. And incur a $467,824 debt (Ryan's buyout). I chose to believe. And now I take home 5 times the money and work less.

9) Collect Don’t Create I rarely "struggle" with content because I don't create it. I just collect it from the stuff I'm delivering for clients. I can do this because my priority is retaining them. Not getting them. Paradoxically, this eases the sales pressure on your audience because it makes you incapable of "manipulating" the marketing material. You're just telling a story that already happened. Showing them something that already worked. 10) Good. Not Nice. There's too many nice coaches. People who are always available. Always helpful. Always nice. But these often get friendzoned by their audience. Even though they're extremely competent, the audience doesn't fully perceive it because of how nice they are. They end up a "nice coach". Liked by many. Loved by few. Hired by even fewer. 11) Sometimes Scaling Is The Wrong Move Most business owners build for the sake of building. And they end up building someone else's dream business. They build off "best practices". Checking off items relayed to them by an online guru: Offer, check. Paid advertising, check. Sales team, check. Short form content, check. They do this without asking themselves what they want. But there is no "right" business model. The only right method is the one that feels the most natural to you because then nobody can beat you. The path was always simple but never easy. But now it’s almost complete. Stay tuned for the January Final Intake, the last Cash Creators intake before we go Invite-Only. To get notified, you have the option to join my email list.

I believe you don't need to follow rules if the rules are stupid. When the big 2020 event happened I moved to Mexico for a few months just because I didn't want to wear a piece of cloth on my face. When I was told to get a college degree because that's the best way to make money from where I'm from I started selling perfume door to door to make some money on my own. I don't like to follow rules if I feel like there's a better way. So this Black Friday I decided to do things "backwards". The best practice is to put an offer up on Black Friday. But I released mine early and I'm going to take it down on Black Friday. The best practice is to have an option that's slightly more expensive than the other. I'll have an option that's 10 times more expensive than the other. The best practice is to come up with an irresistible offer. I'm going to go by ear. And just combine 3 workshops that sold well and that don't require extra work. The best practice to "lock in" for Black Friday. I traveled to Guatemala to see my family and meet up with some friends. It's all "backwards". Yet this strategy has created $24,300 in 10 days. It's far from the best strategy because in business there isn't one. Especially in coaching and consulting where stuff needs to be "you" for it to work. The "best" plan of action is always custom to you and your needs. If you don't want to "just post more volume bro" then don't do it. If you don't want to "just send more DMs" then don’t do it. Your way is the best way anyway.