How I built a seven-digit company without employees: the basics
So many things are said about those few people who have the ability to create large companies with hundreds or thousands of employees who can’t wait to be at work.
However, there is a tremendous loss in flexibility, almost automatic, once you pass a certain threshold, a certain size.
Personally, not only do I not find myself among those few people mentioned above, but I don’t even want to join it.
The good news is that my lack of interest in these occupations has not been an obstacle in allowing me to build a seven-digit company, in a fairly short time and with only one co-founder and no employee.
My business can also be managed from anywhere in the world, just a simple internet connection .
And, to be precise, I am writing this article from a coffee shop in Syddey, Australia: although I will most likely continue to travel around Europe and the world, sales will continue to grow and business will lose nothing.
I’m not bragging, it’s clear, I’m just saying what the facts are, facts that you can put into practice, that’s how:
- Start with simple things
Too often, smart people have great ideas that immediately overwhelm them, with the consequence that when they enter the market, there will be no way to test or understand which parts of the product work and which don’t.
Many things are said about the concept of Hanry Ford which initially intended to offer only one type and one color of a certain product in order to understand and calibrate the customer’s response, to then improve the product and sell it.
In this first phase of “starting with simple things” you will have to remove all the complications that arise when you sell your product or when you leave it in the hands of an intermediary.
Related reading:
Information Business: 6 reasons why you should create yours
What I want to say is that you should avoid, at least initially, to over-complicate your sales with large distributions or retail sales, so that you can focus on designing a specific product cut for your customer.
This will ensure you control the brand and voice and will allow you to have direct communication with your customers, who will leave you important feedback and keep the entire margin on your sales.
So you can invest again and grow faster without taking responsibility for asking for funds or loans elsewhere.
Automation starts with your sales channels or your e-commerce thanks to solutions, such as Shopify , which create a sort of system out of the box and that will connect you to practically everything.
Automation will have to continue through your marketing and will support features with products like Facebook Ads, which not only work very well, but require minimal controls.
Finally, Desk or Zendesk will automate your inbound support requests: they are fantastic because you can write macros or keep the answers to almost all the questions.
In this way, as a request will arrive, you will just need to click on a button to answer and solve the problem, on the contrary you can also set the macros to “auto-reply” after managing the language or the keywords for some questions.