Lean Business for Creators (Volume 1)
LBC (Lean Business for Creators) is for people who believe that obsessing over serving and mattering to a small audience who care, is more important than chasing the next “shiny object” opportunity…
That being small (tiny even), is more important than chasing scale and revenue targets…
LBC is for people who want to create deep and meaningful work they’re proud of, for people who value that work enough to pay for it (and love it enough to tell others about).
I promise that engaging with the training and doing the hard work (it’s not easy work), will help you attract the people you seek to serve. And eventually, with the commitment of showing up to do this important work, you’ll earn an income from those customers who are the most committed.
ATTENTION: This “beta version” of LBC is perfect for early adopters. People who get excited about buying unfinished products because they want to be FIRST (get an early competitive edge). People who are willing to make a leap of faith and buy early.
I define an early adopter as someone who meets this criteria:
They have a problem or need,
They understand they have a problem,
They are actively searching for a solution and have a timetable for finding it,
The problem is so painful that they have cobbled together an interim solution (or have attempted to),
They have, or can quickly acquire, dollars to purchase the product to solve their problem.
Put simply, early adopters are those people who NEED THIS PRODUCT THE MOST.
The Product
The format of LBC (Volume 1) is mainly long-form text. If you don’t enjoy learning by reading, please don’t join. Don’t buy. This is not a video course.
In the majority cases I’ve experienced, I don’t believe video is respectful of your time and attention. Most people will take an hour to describe something which could have been said in 10 minutes or less.
Video has a place in learning — like showing how to do something that’s difficult to explain in written format — which I embrace and support.
But video is also not well suited for reference. Most marketers create video because it’s easier for them. Not because it’s a better learning medium for their students.
I’ve got a “voice” built for text, not video.
The written word done well is different. It’s beautiful and concise. There’s little waste. Either a word is needed to convey the thought or idea or insight, or it doesn’t get used.
This course is 93% written. Long-form.
The course content is *not* dripped out.
You’ll have access to it all. It’s self-paced. Meaning you can tear through it at a pace to match your schedule. That said, the goal isn’t speed.
I get asked a lot, “how long does it take to complete ARM or SOI?”
That’s the wrong question to ask. Getting the gold star for completion isn’t the KPI that matters. We’re not back at school.
What matters is two fold (and achieving this can vary wildly between students):
Comprehension (internalizing the ideas until they’re clear to you),
and execution (doing the work).
This isn’t a race.
It’s about doing the work and then getting a result. It’s about serving first, then earning money as a result.
Really A Marketing Course
At a meta-level, you’ll learn how to be a better marketer. You’ll learn a (strategic) skill that’s transferable to the marketing you already do, and the marketing you’ll do for years to come.
In LBC you’ll *not* learn how to do a product launch. That’s a tool, a tactic.
Rather: You’ll learn how to create empathy lead marketing that connects emotionally with the people you seek to serve.
You’ll learn how to move people from prospect to customer because you’ve demonstrated you understand their problem, and have a solution they care about and want.
When you do this well, “selling” becomes superfluous. It’s a thing of beauty when you create an asset that behaves like this.
You’ll *not* learn how to coerce sales through fake pressure, hype and hoopla. Enough people are teaching this through their behavior and actions.
You’ll learn how to create human-to-human marketing that matters to just the few people you seek to serve. The complete opposite to mass marketing.
The industry is already crammed overflowing with people teaching and practicing clueless mass-style marketing.
No mass here.
LBC Curriculum
Below are the broad, high-level lesson topics that make up an LBC system (“system” in this context is referring to systems thinking: a more holistic approach to building something that’s more than the sum of its parts).
Within each section below are many sub-lessons, which unpack the nuanced layers underpinning each topic; nuances omitted from this overview because they’re not important until you’re doing the work:
[Who] Serving an audience, a minimum viable audience, is a responsibility. It a long-term play that requires commitment and consistency. Are you enrolled in this journey of creating an online business for the long-term, that serves first? That’s the first question you need to answer (LBC is *only* for people who answer “yes” to this). Then come other questions you may ask:
Who do I serve?
What niche?
But I’m not an expert?
Questions we unpack in this module, with real-life use cases to help demonstrate how you can “plug” into the value-chain as a trusted advisor: a linchpin ; someone who’s needed and valued.
[Happy Customer Engine] Here you build your lean Happy Customer Engine. Lean: meaning simple not complicated; not overdone to extract maximum possible revenue before trust is earned:
The front-end is powered by Lean SOI: The premise of SOI (Sphere of Influence) is to attract, earn, and create (“make”) better customers. This forms the front-end of your Lean Business for Creators (everything preceding the opt-in). Lean SOI is a specifically tooled “lean version” of the full-fat SOI. Basically: how to build your customer creation funnel that “wins” (makes) customers instead of coercing, strong-arming, and persuading them over the line through pressure tactics.
The back-end is powered by Lean ARM: The premise of ARM (AutoResponder Madness) is to nurture, bond, and earn the trust of your best prospects and customers through story-driven empathy-lead email marketing and the strategy of preeminence. Email is perfect for this. Lean ARM is a specifically tooled “lean version” of the full-fat ARM (the stuff you do once someone is on your email list).
This lean-lightweight combo of SOI + ARM powers the Happy Customer Engine of LBC.
[Monetization] LBC (Volume 1) has two channels of monetization. I don’t believe in “one size fits all,” so you won’t find one way of doing things in LBC. You pick the monetization engine that best suits your needs.Both are “lean” (lightweight), which allows you to focus your efforts on creating best-in-class content instead of perpetually creating offers on the offer hamster wheel of doom. Both channels are continuity (subscription) based. There is a strategic reason for this, of course. In LBC you’ll learn why.
[Promotion] LBC (Volume 1) covers two (well, three technically: the third I will leave as a surprise for students) traffic channels of reaching your minimum viable audience. Paid (via FB ads) and organic (via content marketing). You can start with either. You choose.But, long-term, both are encouraged (“eggs” in multiple baskets). All promotion, paid and organic, are powered by (long-form) story-driven marketing that respects systems thinking (below).
[Systems Thinking] LBC is an application in thinking in systems. It’s about combining parts strategically so that, at some point, “emergence” can occur when the system as a whole functions in harmony.Systems are dynamic and often complex. So a more holistic approach to understanding the nuances are required. The end result (although I’ll be quick to add that there is no “end” per se; its an ongoing journey) of your LBC will not be the sum of the parts listed above. It’ll be more than that. It’ll be unique to you; like your DNA. Something that has a life of its own.
If doing deep meaningful work isn’t your bag, that’s cool, it’s not for everyone: but LBC will not be for you.
LBC is a strategic playbook for architecting and building an online business that matters and which benefits all sides. An engine of revenue that’s an asset (leveraged: you’ll not be trading time for dollars).
But this journey will be hard.
A journey that’s about getting-rich-slowly, not fast. It’s about thinking for the long-term, not making short-term decisions like politicians for quick gains now.
Are you still ready join?
