You might be surprised to know that we’ve covered all of the strategy behind building a Pocket Business.
That was it. You can take what you’ve learned here, look at another online business, and see how they are applying all of the principles.
More importantly, you can understand why some businesses work and most of them don’t.
But strategy isn’t much if you don’t have the tactics to implement it and while everyone will have their own set of tactics, I’ll walk you through what I do to build a Pocket Business.
Let’s assume we know the basics like the audience and the outcome that they want. We’re talking about the actual tactics, the things I need to do, to build the business out.
(Please note: These steps don’t have to be done in this order and most of them will overlap.)
Step 1: Build the First Topic Cluster
SEO takes time to get established so it makes sense to knock this out first so that you can get on Google as quickly as possible.
The other part to this though is that by having a resource that your audience can go through, it establishes more credibility and trust for you than social media alone.
With Odd Noodle, the first Topic Cluster that we established was for blogging and because of that, most of the traffic coming to the site is for posts around blogging.
This could change over time as more topic clusters become established but it made sense to get what we knew out the door quickly.
We don’t consider a topic cluster ready until it has at least 10 posts within it. That doesn’t mean it’s done, but with 10 it’s good enough to start talking about the content and pushing traffic towards it.
Alternative to Topic Clusters
An alternative to Topic Cluster is what I call a BVA or Big Value Asset. A perfect example is this Pocket Course.
Another example would be the Feel Good Funnels course at The Obstacle Collective.
When I first started Pocket Business there were no topic clusters because I went with a BVA first.
Does your BVA have to be text? Not at all.
It can be a video workshop or whatever else. Just something that your audience can go through beyond simply signing up for a mailing list.
Planting Seeds
The idea behind doing this as soon as possible is the equivalent of planting seeds. You know they aren’t going to grow right away, but they will grow at some point.
The content creation for Odd Noodle started in October 2023 and you can see that it look some time before it really started to pick up.
Now we know that every month is going to be another increase in traffic from Google if we continue to do the right things.
Step 2: Create the Offer
Admittedly, sometimes I do this step first if I already have an offer in mind. For example, the service where I build the foundations of your Pocket Business was “created” before this course.
But usually, I’ll start creating the Topic Clusters because they can help lead me to the idea of the offer.
It also works the other way around. If you have an idea for an offer then that will guide the content that you create.
And remember, I like to focus on an offer that I can get out as quickly as possible because it allows me to:
- Test things (is the messaging right or wrong?)
- Make money
The last thing you want to do is plan to work hard for 12 months before launching an offer only to find out that it doesn’t work.
Will you have a big audience in 12 months or not? You don’t know these things so it’s important to control what you can control.
How to Sell the Offer
We haven’t talked much about how to sell the offer because it depends on the offer itself. For the most part I try my best to set all of my offers up for passive selling.
That means no fake urgency or deadlines. People buy them when they are ready.
This is also where Feel Good Funnels can truly excel.
That’s another reason why it’s important to focus first on a Topic Cluster or BVA because if you can walk people through a journey and get them to a solution immediately, they are more likely to look at what to do for the next step.
Step 3: Load the Mailing List
Your business will live and breathe by the mailing list. There are people who think that it’s okay to get by without one because they see other people talk about their success with social media, but you don’t own social media.
You don’t own your account.
It can get taken away, the algorithm can screw ya, or a million other things.
Email is your chance to talk to your audience one-on-one so the sooner you get it set up, the better.
So what do I mean by loading the mailing list? This means that I’ll ensure there is some type of sequence of emails that people get when they initially sign up.
The last thing you want to do is get people to sign up and then receive nothing from you. Usually, you’ll find some type of email course being used as an opt-in simply because I like how they work.
The Odd Noodle mailing list starts off with a 5-day email course and workshop.
Nobody Knows When You Wrote It
For Odd Noodle, I send an email out every single weekday. No, that isn’t a lot of emails when people are happy to get them.
It’s a lot of emails when people are annoyed by you.
But the point is that nobody knows when I write the emails. It could’ve been 3 months ago and when I did a batch writing session for emails.
What you should notice by now is that systems are being put in place that can run on their own.
- Blog post writing doesn’t happen daily. It happens in batches.
- Once the offer is created then it’s done. I’ll go back and update it later but I can worry about that later.
- Emails are written in batches.
So in theory I could write a batch of blog posts and then not write another one for 3 months. I could also include writing emails in that batch content session and then not write another email for 3 months.
That gives me two distribution channels that will work to sell my offer (I’ll link to it throughout the different pieces of content).
The success of your business is going to depend on the systems that you create for it.
Step 4: Social Media
In the big scheme of things this is the last part of the whole process because everything else is set up.
Now I need to go on social media and make people aware that I exist. My bio link points to one of three things:
- My offer (sometimes it’s best to try and directly sell it)
- My lead magnet
- My BVA (which usually has a way to opt into the mailing list)
And if I’ve set everything else up then this is all I have to do for a while. I don’t wake up and think about what things I need to do.
I know the only thing that is required of me is to get out there and let people know that I exist which means engaging with others on social media.
Can I schedule posts? 100% and it’s wise to do so, but you should also be out there on social media engaging with people.
The Steps Are Easy
As you can see, I’ve done an excellent job of making all of this look easy because doing the steps is easy. The difficulty lies in being able to make a connection with people.
This is why we spent time talking about Layer 1 and Layer 2 content along with the Pocket Business Formula. Simply doing the steps isn’t enough because everyone can do the steps.
Doing the steps in a way that gets people to notice you and then keep their attention on you is a different game.
It’s why tactics without strategy make no sense so when you see someone saying that the best way to grow on Instagram is to post 3x a day at times that end in :47 you have to roll your eyes.
The One Person, 7-Figure Business
Remember the basics.
Audience x Offer = $$$$$Everything that we’ve gone through in this course lays out the idea that the only thing limiting you from having a 7-figure business on your own is your ability to scale the audience and the offers.
And that will solely depend on the systems that you have in place.
This is why I showed you the steps that I usually go through when starting a new Makers Mob brand.
If I had a team of employees then maybe the steps would be slightly adjusted but the idea behind the steps above is to ensure all 3 business engines are running well.
Oh, we haven’t talked about those yet so let’s do that and it will help you understand the steps a bit more.
Next Lesson: Business Engines >>>>>
