There's a basic equation at the base of any successful online business.

I don't care if you're selling physical goods, digital goods, services, events, whatever.

THIS is the equation at the heart of success.

Thanks to an interesting chat in the GM+ weekly office hours we had yesterday, I've been thinking of it.

And I wanted to share some thoughts here.

Let's kick it off with the equation.

At the base level, success comes down to these 3 metrics.

1. The number of people who see your offer
2. The percentage of those people who buy
3. The value of those customers

Of course there's nuance within each step, and the focus should not be revenue but profit, but this is the basic equation.

Our chat in GM+ yesterday was focused on reach, and how some people are masters of generating reach for their offers.

We were chatting and breaking down strategies and thoughts for 2 hours, too much to go over here.

What I wanted to do was summarise the mistakes I see entrepreneurs make, and what I've found to work for brands at different stages.

Let's get into it.

Earlier stage brands - up to $10k/month:

Focus on narrowing down your ICP and crafting an offer they cannot say no to.

Don't worry about your social following, email list, or any of that just yet.

Right now, the focus should be on...

1. Understanding your ICP
2. Creating an offer that appeals to them
3. Landing your first 5-10 clients
4. Making sure they get results

In short, it's about validating an offer with actual payments and real-world results.

If you create an offer that's useful and works, your ICP will want to pay you for it.

that makes things like your positioning, messaging, and marketing strategy much easier, leading to a better conversion rate.

Try to have an offer that's at least $2k for this. It'll make life easier as all you need are 5 clients to hit $10k and unlock the next stage.

Growing brands - $10k - $25k /month

With a proven offer and some solid social proof, you want to test the limits of this thing.

Now it's time to get it in front of as many of your ICP as possible. Find a method you can be consistent at and keep on pushing to get in front of as many people as possible.

• Ads
• Partnerships
• SEO

The channel is less important than the results.

A caveat here.

Mainstream mass reach might feel good, but it likely won't help you.

When I say increase reach, increase reach within your ICP.

After all, someone who sells SEO services is not going to be able to collect much cash by marketing to the retired crowd who have no interest in growing a biz.

Reach is only useful if it's in front of people who could actually buy.

Improve LTV - $25k - $35k /month

With a proven offer and reach, we now want to improve the value of the customers coming through.

Depending on the offer, this could be reducing churn or increasing repeat purchases. Anything to increase the amount of cash someone spends with your business.

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These are the basic steps and the order I'd recommend you approach them in.

• Prove the offer
• Increase the reach
• Improve the LTV

Once you're happy with the results, it's now time to reduce what you're doing.

You'll probably find the 80/20 rule applies and 80% of your results are coming from 20% of your actions.

When the system is working, you start to focus on cutting dead weight and increasing your inputs into the 20%.

Simples.

Anyway, if you want help with any of this, hit reply and let me know. I've got a spot or two left for 1:1 stuff in feb.

Speak soon,

Pete "equations and ting" Boyle