Do you know what you deserve for your efforts?

There are considerations if you have a small business and intend to scale it up or finally experience the success you want and need so badly. For instance, you will need to excel in at least one set of promotional skills, which means being a HUSTLER or embracing Content Creation (or both).

Why? Because there are no proven shortcuts to building a stable yet exciting business. And though you’ve seen Richard Branson end up as a billionaire by starting a local records store, you must know that his success took time (investing in rock bands and finally having one become a hit is what made his first big payday).

Successful hustlers aren’t necessarily record salespeople but motormouths, albeit not the pushy kind. They talk to lots of people in public, at networking events, and via digging for referrals. It is called old-school selling, and it works better now than ever, especially in public, primarily because everyone and their dog went online to generate sales, do professional lead generation (advertising), or find prospects one at a time.

Content Creation is the new world way, and it is critical online. It is how to establish a brand, rank a website, and get noticed on social media.

Look at the sales professionals and business owners who practice one-on-one outreach prospecting using direct messages (DM) on social media. For B2B, that means using LinkedIn, and that begs the question: do those who post LinkedIn articles experience more from InMail outreach? The answer will blow your mind, as research has shown a 250% increase in results for those who post consistently and use InMail!

Can LinkedIn articles, podcasts, and YouTube videos also be embedded on your website as part of an omnichannel approach?  Can social media posts link to your content on your site? Yes and yes, and both strategies are highly effective.

Can you rank a website at the top of a niche or local search without posting content and doing some SEO? Not if your competitors do!

When I talk to people in traditional businesses and those involved in Direct Selling, the ones who earn the big bucks are either good at creating content or are hard-nosed prospectors, and a rare few do both well.

You aren’t a real entrepreneur if you suck at both (hustling and content creation). Instead, you have a self-employed job. 

It may be your business in terms of how you file taxes, but it merely replaces having a boss, and it is also likely that your bank manager does not love seeing you in the bank (because you are always behind on your bills). 

If you are good at either, you are a premium customer at the bank!

The crazy truth? We can teach almost anyone either set of skills (or both). And while B Type personalities don’t quite do as well as A Type when it comes to public perception and things like Public Speaking, they do equally well (or better) one-on-one!

So, there are a few things about your future success to discuss, including the difference between A-type and B-type personalities and how content creation works. But before we delve into more detail on these, do you know what you deserve?

In 1999, something truly remarkable happened when I wrote an ad and took 5 minutes to send it to my customers. Yes, I made a huge profit from that one ad, $47,214 net, to be exact.

The headline of the article I wrote to share what happened that day was How I made $47,214 in 5 minutes but the real nugget in that non-tall tale is that it took three years of over-servicing customers to get enough referrals to painstakingly build the list that was ready for an offer like that.

I was an overnight success in 3 years!

A nice anecdote, but what I am getting at is, did I know what I was worth? Did I expect to earn $100,000 a month for almost four years in a row (except the two months after 9/11)? I did not.

Most business owners know that they deserve more but are unlikely to expect the kind of mad income that, say, the American YouTuber, MrBeast has today.

I didn’t know I would earn $300,000 in a single month. When I started, I was just looking for a way to make $200,000/year!

Here is the point. What you expect will change in time.

You become used to it, and quickly. But most of the few who significantly scaled up their income knew the extent of what was possible in advance.

You may just be looking for your first real win, never mind the kind of homerun that lands you on the cover of a North American-wide newsstand magazine, as happened to me in 2004.

If you are looking for more success or your first win, it is normal not to realize your true worth and expectations change over time, which is one of the first lessons of big-time success.

You adapt to your new reality quickly, but how do you get to the point where this kind of self-awareness is your experience?

Since you can’t lean on past experiences, and with trial and error being one of the worst ways to learn, finding a mentor is best. And that means you have to read or watch the YouTube videos of a master (if you cannot get one-on-one with them).

The job of the master is to help get more out of their follower, which means more than they would have accomplished without help.

You need to do some stuff alone, like hustling and creating content. But the master knows the ticks and can steer you in the right direction, cutting out lost time on trial and error.

The master has been there and done that and can prove it. As Tony Robbins put it, Success leaves clues, and in the case of a master, that means they have written a book or created high-quality training. And they are good (if not great) speakers.

Success leaves clues is not about a Rolex but skills. A rich man can buy his son a high-quality watch, but that does not make them a mentor. Only an individual who has done it on their own knows what it is like to start to expect success at a level most cannot even imagine.

Earning $300,000 in a month and $1 million in a year is life-changing income, but the real aha moment is realizing that you have learned how to not only do it but replicate it.

In the next few years, within the Tall Tales Newsletter and in articles and videos I post online, I intend to share many stories of people experiencing incredible success, including those of people I have mentored personally.