As a business coach for millennial entrepreneurs, I regularly encounter young creatives who feel defeated, burnt out and frustrated with their work. And honestly, I can’t blame them. With today’s competitive advertising platforms, algorithmic inconsistencies on social media and an overload in content creation, it’s harder than ever to stand out and scale an online business with confidence.
That’s why I asked four seven-figure millennial entrepreneurs to share their best insights on how they continue to grow and reach new milestones in their businesses against all odds. Use this advice to gain clarity, inspire action and think outside of the box to manifest massive change.
1. Invest in the right team members.
A common theme I see amongst young successful entrepreneurs is their ability to choose business partners and team members with strengths that can be leveraged for success.
“The reason that my business reached a million dollars in revenue within three months of launching was because I had a strong business partner with essential skills that I lacked,” says Irina Wynn, CEO and founder of World Microblading and Fab Life Society. “He excelled at paid media and business development, so having him on my team allowed me to focus on the creative and branding aspects so much more. The truth was that I already had an offer people needed, but my business partner helped position me as the go-to choice in my niche through ads and essentially become the Category King,” Wynn says.
Ultimately, it’s impossible to grow if you’re capped out on your time, your energy and your resources, so having the bravery to step out of your comfort zone and bring others into your vision is often the key you need to experience a major breakthrough.
2. Stop overcomplicating your success.
While building the necessary skill sets to scale your business is often a steep learning curve, nothing is more challenging than rewiring your mindset for success. But if you’re able to make certain mental shifts and continually strengthen that muscle, you’ll see that the only thing standing in your way is your own self-doubt.
Jeremy Adams, the co-founder of Prestige Food Trucks and CEO of Unicorn Innovations, credits his multimillion-dollar ventures to his simple belief that he could do it. “What most people don’t realize is how simple it can be to reach seven figures. You can sell 100 $10,000 items to get to a million, or 10 $100,000 items to get to a million. I simply chose to enter an industry where the average customer pays $1 million per year. It started with believing that I could and not overcomplicating it.”
3. Always evaluate the quality of your product.
Shaan Patel, the CEO and founder of a Mark Cuban-funded company, PrepExpert, says that your business will never grow if your product isn’t essential to helping others.
“There are three key elements attributed to hitting seven figures: 1) Product, 2) Product, 3) Product,” he says. “Focus on creating the best possible product or service for your customer. The better the user experience that a person has with your product, the more likely they will tell a friend or colleague about it. Word of mouth is worth 10x more than any paid marketing you can do for your product or service. In fact, for the first five years of my business, I didn’t do any marketing for Prep Expert. Yet, the company still doubled revenue every year. Why? Because the SAT and ACT classes are so good that students would tell their friends about the score improvements, college admissions and scholarships they got! Word of mouth is key to building any seven-figure business. By building a better product, you are building the marketing directly into the product.”
4. Leverage the power of your local community.
If you’re stuck in a sales rut, one of the best things to do is to look outside of the box, reconnect with your brand values and create new ways for your ideal customers to pay you.
That’s how Johnathan Grzybowski, co-founder of digital marketing agency, Penji, was about to hit seven figures in his business. “Back in November of 2017, we were having trouble enrolling new customers. Being a community conscious startup, we’re always seeking new ways to support our local community, so we came up with an idea,” he says. “We decided to create a new offer that serviced qualified local nonprofits for only $1 per month. The program gained local notoriety and shortly after, top influencers and leaders within our local network championed us by introducing their friends and business colleagues to our business. Most of our sales within our first year came directly from positive praises that stemmed from us giving our service away for free to nonprofits.”
As you can see, reaching accelerated results in your business is often so much simpler than you think—all it requires is for you to step out of your comfort zone, leverage the right teammates to lift you up, strengthen your mindset and dare to do the (seemingly) impossible. You’ve got this.
