[Transcript starts at 1:08]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my Podcast. Welcome to the end of August. Not quite the last week, but we are getting there, which means I got to remind you folks that if you're listening to this on the day that this drops, this episode will drop on Thursday, August 24th, that means that the waitlist for round 14 of my Instagram Intensive closes tomorrow, Friday, August 25th, the Instagram intensive. If you don't know, it's my six week online group coaching program that teaches health and fitness professionals exactly, I'm talking about literally exactly how to use Instagram for online business.
We start on September 12th. Waitlist, the waitlist, gets first dibs at registration and 100 monies off. So if you're thinking you want help, you're thinking when you want to join the Intensive and you're thinking you want to save some money, do yourself a favor, hop on the waitlist, the link will be in the show notes, and then we'll get that poppin', to quote the great Dr. J Pop.
So let's hop into the episode. Today we are talking about, or I should say we are answering the question, how long does it take to build a successful online business. I will say, this episode is inspired- it sounded like I was going to say, this episode is brought to you by… No, it's not a commercial.
Uh, but this episode is, or was inspired by Practice with Trin. I threw a question out on Threads, and… Practice with Trin wrote back and one of the topics that they brought up, suggested was patience as a virtue slash playing the long game in biz. I am certain that I've done at least one episode maybe the same exact title as this or a very similar title as this. I didn't even go back and check because you know what, if I can't remember I'm pretty sure then you can't remember, although I there's a lot of stuff I say I don't remember but either way If I can't remember it, it means, hey, let's do another episode.
So that is what we're going to break down today. How long does it take to build a successful online business? The answer of course is as long as it takes, but the specific timeframe, if you want a rough guesstimate, you want to manage expectations, three to five years. Yes, outliers do exist, but as always, please do not use them as your barometers.
Do not use the exception to the rule as the way that you come up with the rule. That doesn't make any sense. Also, if you're ever going to look at these people and be like, Oh, well, they built this thing and they, they, you know, took them X, Y, you know, X amount of time. Ask how, ask why, and ask if they're actually, you know, having the success that you actually want.
When I say success, most people are framing that in terms of financial success and from that financial success, the other kind of life success and opportunities and options that people get from it, but usually the first step is like financial success. So if that's the case, whatever you, you know, you will define success as, ask them, do they actually have that?
Because they may not. It may look like from the outside, but all you can usually tell is how many followers someone has. You don't know how their business is actually doing. But, if you're going to look at them, I did an episode about this called Complete Comparisonitis, or Complete Comparing with somebody else, where if you're like, I want that outcome, okay, completely compare yourself to them.
Do you have all the same things? Do you look the same? Do you approach things the same? Do you have the same personality? Do you have the same circumstances? Have you been doing things the same amount of time? You know, real talk when it comes to social media, yeah, some people blow up, but like, what do they have?
Number one, maybe luck, not maybe definitely luck, but maybe they have a look. It's a visual platform, whether people want to admit it or not. It's a visual platform. Do they have a look and are they leaning into that look? It doesn't have to necessarily be the same look or the look that immediately pops into your head, but do they have a look?
And are they leaning into that look? Whatever that look may be. Because it's a visual platform. Do they have a certain skill? Are they phenomenal at storytelling? I, I don't know. Do they have an amazing personality that, that is just magnetic and just is great for the camera. Maybe they have a, they have a fucking, you know, past with being in camera.
I'm thinking about- being on video. I'm thinking about Jon and, and Alex. Right? Like, it feels like they've blown up quickly, they didn't, it's taken them time. But like, they also have a lot of these factors that somebody else couldn't just be like, Well, I can just do the same thing, right? Complete compare there.
So, online business is no easier than in person business. And people know that in person businesses, most of them fail. And the ones that don't, they take a long time to really be financially profitable. Danny J has a loose quote, something like this, Online money isn't easy money, it's different money. For those of you that don't know Danny J, I feel bad for you, but uh, we'll link her in the show notes.
Um, DannyJ is JillFits, one of JillFit's besties. Um, she's just super wonderful, but she had said that at some point, I think, and then Jill said it to me, but either way, the quote's something like that and I believe it one million percent. Anyone who tells you that online business is quick or easy, they are lying to you.
They're trying to take your money. They're trying to get you to invest in their coaching program so you can pay them money so they can tell themselves that online business is easy and that making money online is is quick. Because it's not. Yes, you will also see you know some coaches that highlight these um, outliers as they're super success stories.
That's fine. It is nice to show people what's possible, but I need people to also show, or rather I want to show people what's also realistic and what's most likely to happen and where most people are at. There's a reason they're called outliers. Yes, some business coaches will also use their own stories and their perhaps only success story, which is themselves, to lure people in.
You will always make more money going business to business because people will pay to make more money. People also pay to lose weight. I will say that. I'm in that space now, or kind of around it and I'm like, wow, this is wild, but I digress. People will always pay to make more money. So when coaches, myself included, leave B2C, right, business to consumer, and now you're not trying to help them with their pain or their knee problem, you're gonna help someone make more money, it is easier to make money with that second demographic as opposed to helping someone with their knee pain or their back pain. And some business coaches will just go and do that. They'll have very few, if any, in person or business to consumer, we'll say, business to consumer success.
But they're good at marketing. They're good at writing copy. They're good at, you know, selling. And so then they start doing business coaching and they have success there and they market fucking lies. They tell people they're gonna make 10k months in three months and they're gonna make a zillion dollars overnight.
And it's just not true. This shit takes a long time, three to five years minimum, minimum, straight up. I'll also say that I think some coaches just don't, they straight up don't care. They don't give a fuck. They've convinced themselves that what they're doing is somehow ethical, right? And they're living within their own integrity because integrity isn't like an objective moral code.
It's based on your own values. And so if they have, they view things in a certain way then they may be like, you know, they convince themselves that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Aka I can sell this program and it's not my fault that people didn't do it. I did my work, I did my part, it's on them now to actually complete it and they can make a lot of money that way and I don't agree with it.
But it is a thing out there and I wanted to make this episode to just be like, I don't know, to cut through the bullshit. To straight up cut through the bullshit. Online business, building a success, wow, building a successful online business takes a shit ton of time. How much? How much? How long? As much time as it takes.
Three to five years minimum. If you don't have that kind of time, don't start. I, I don't fault you. Like, go do something else. Go work for someone else. There's literally nothing wrong with that. We're in this like, you know, cash based renaissance and this entrepreneurial renaissance. You don't have to go on board with it.
You can literally go do anything else. Go get a trade and have a very stable job. And, cause people need skills as well. Go do that. And maybe that actually leads to an entrepreneurial journey in that way. But suffice to say, I don't want people thinking that online business is some guaranteed grand slam, super easy, super quick thing.
If you have an idea and you're like, yeah, but I kind of want to, I kind of want to see what I can do with this. I want to try and make this entrepreneurial thing work. I want to make this online thing work. Amazing. Give yourself that kind of time then. Give yourself those three to five years.
Start in person. Start by working for somebody else. Start it as a side hustle. Don't need this thing to work because when you're thirsty, you make bad decisions. It's not good. It's not good. Stay hungry, not thirsty.
So, you know, yes, I would love for everyone to just be able to say that they have an idea, and then they started a business online and it worked, but that's not how business works.
And that's not how life works. I think a little bit of an interesting tangent here is that I hear a lot in this space, people… I'll say complaining about capitalism. I'm not here to take a side. I'm just going to say the little observation. The interesting part to this of folks want to have an idea, go online, create a business, AKA put this solution in front of people and get paid for it.
Capitalism is what would allow for that to happen. But these same folks tend to be like condemning capitalism and saying that it's terrible and other people chiming in about the fact that capitalism is what forces these folks, forces themselves to have these other jobs that they need just so they can afford basic life necessities.
And they have no time then for a side hustle. I agree and also, to me, the ultimate problem is greed. I'm putting this in here because as I was outlining this, I was just like, I feel like people are gonna think certain things or, you know, comments may come out and I think there's room for discussion here about what the actual problem is.
Because one, there's a problem with the greed of these coaches that are just selling fucking lies. And on the other side of like, why doesn't this thing work? I have this idea. You know, why doesn't it work? Because that's not how business works. Businesses are built on solutions to problems. That's it.
Period. Businesses are built on solutions to problems. Not hopes and dreams and I think I like this thing. Other people need to have this problem. But when we start kind of looking to point the finger and why didn't this work? I'd love for us to point the finger back at ourselves. And ultimately, if we're looking at the bigger, the bigger system, it's greed that is very problematic and causing, you know, this, the cost of being fucking alive is, is too much. Right? So, a little bit of a side tangent, but also relevant.
So back to the discussion about starting an online business, how long it takes to succeed in online business or build, build a successful online business.
If you go back to episode 4 97, we'll link that. Thank you, Courtney. Um, that is the title. The title is that, title of that episode was The Best Way to Start an Online Business. And in that, I speak about starting in person, but also some of the order of operations that I would go through from the online perspective as well.
So in terms of how to do it, check that episode out. But in terms of how long it's gonna take, that's what this episode is for. And I want to really lean on the expectation management side of things. That three to five years minimum, the shit takes a long time. But also, the time goes by quickly. We just uploaded five, 500 episodes on this.
I started this thing in 2018. It's 2023 now. Like. The time goes by. I think the flip side of this discussion is when should you stop? When should you say, I'm calling it quits, I've been trying, this thing ain't working. And my answer to that will always be, when the juice is no longer worth the squeeze. I'm thinking about my Mafia here, and I think this, this, my Mafia is filled with the best people.
And I'm so proud to have them in, in this family, in that family. Because they get it. I think they're the best people in the online space, in the online business space, because they just fucking get it. I got folks in there that have been in there since 2020, and they've been showing up, and they've been doing the thing consistently.
They've been consistent and prolific with content creation. I got a bunch of people in there with over a hundred podcast episodes. They've been showing up on social media daily. Nearly daily, they're getting specific with their messaging, they're, they've been showing up and doing the thing, and some of them don't have the massive financial success that you, or to show for it, they don't have massive financial success to show for it, and I hate this for them. I hate this. I want everyone to have the success that they want.
But they are all aware that this is the reality of the quote unquote game, that just because you play doesn't mean that you'll succeed, but the only way to succeed is to play and you have to be involved in it. And then at some point if you're like, this just isn't it, and I'm trying and I'm not getting out what I need, and that's the big thing, I'm trying, I'm not getting out what I need, then maybe, you know, then you decide personally when it's time, time to do something else.
One suggestion that we discussed in the Mafia is reframing success. So one of the most beautiful things about online business is the overhead is very low. Your, your expenses, I should say, the expenses are very low because you don't have a brick and mortar physical space as part of your expenses. You don't have that overhead.
So for if you're in this three to five year period, perhaps we're looking at success and we are reframing it as breaking even and we're able to create content, build that audience, attract, create content, build that body of work, attract an audience and we're breaking even. Like, yeah, it'd be great to be making more and in order to legally call it a business, you got to turn a profit, and so it's not just a hobby, but this shit takes time. And if you, during that timeframe, you are covering your expenses to me, that's amazing because you're building the audience. So actually you're, you're coming out ahead. It would be like when you, if you were to spend money to run ads to get leads, what people try to do with that is just break even.
They're not trying to make money on those ads, sell something to those people. They're just trying to get those, that audience, get those eyes onto their email list. And so they'll do, you know, whatever the ad spend is, maybe they'll do, um, what is it called? Like a tripwire. We can get into that in another episode, but they'll do something like that to just cover expenses, not trying to make a zillion dollars, not to make any money on this. They just want to break even. So that could be one thing to do. A second thing I think is important here is to define success. I alluded to it earlier. I kind of spoke about it earlier, but like, you know, these online coaches will be like, you'll make 10, 000 in a month.
And it's like, but why is that the number? Why? Because it's a nice round number, like what is that? 10, 000 steps, $10,000, like where does that come from? I think it's hugely important to get personal and objective with the goals here and your definition of success, right? Get objective, run the numbers. How much money do you need for the lifestyle you want, for the choices that you want, the options that you want?
Then that's the money that you'll, that you're gonna need. I have someone in mind right now I'm thinking about and I'm like, yeah, then his number is different than my number and he's thriving. I love that because he's, he's gotten personal about it and gotten objective about it. What are your goals and why?
So three to five years, why? Why does it take so long in order to have this successful business? Well, number one, we, if you're listening to this and you work with humans, then you are in the business of trust and building trust takes time. The best thing you can do is build that audience first. And in order to build that audience, attract the eyes, it just takes time.
Think about your own habits. I did it for four years. I showed up and built the audience, attracted the audience, nurtured the audience, provided value to the audience for for years before I sold a single thing to them. Which was Breathing with the Maestro. Thank you if you bought it. Thank you.
It was the best decision I ever made in order to wait that long. And it was, it was inadvertent. I wasn't like, I have to wait four years and I'm going to do it. It's just, I didn't want to sell anything. I was working in person still and getting the reps that way and getting the confidence that way. And just documenting my day and sharing that on Instagram and using the things that I was going through, and, you know, treating and seeing in person as my online content to build a that online audience. And then when I was finally ready to do something online, I was like, here we go. We're gonna do this.
I just saw my guy Forrest today. We'll link that episode. It was just over there at the gym talking to him. And he's saying you know, he really came online in 2020 um and worked with him and kicked his butt a little bit to be like, just get over yourself, show up. And he's having massive success in the online space in terms of like building that audience.
And he was like, dude, I got people that are just buying from me now and it's, it's 2023. And I'm like, yeah, three years. Sales cycles aren't three days. The time it takes for someone to purchase after meeting you or getting exposed to you. It's years. It's months to years, usually on the, on the, on the side of, of years.
Alright, so consider that. Why else does it take so long to see this success in the online space? Because we live in the information age, which means that folks have access to a ton of information, which gives them a lot of options. They have more power in deciding. They could be like, I'll go to that person.
I'll go to that person. They just choose somebody else. They could get overwhelmed and just take no action at all. They could try to do it themselves and DIY it. They could have had a bad experience with another coach or another person and now they're hesitant to go and work with somebody else. Or they could straight up just never even know about you because the space is so crowded and so noisy.
And so it takes time before you finally get in front of them.
I think the third reason that it takes so long to, to build this successful online business is that our ability to create is not the same thing as the ability to create demand. Just because we're in the information age, or rather because we're in the information age, means that we can learn a lot of things.
A ton. But it doesn't mean that people need or want those things. They need or want that information that we've learned. All right. Businesses are built on solutions to problems. Not everything that we know or enjoy or can do provides a solution that people are willing to pay for. That's. That's just how it is.
I think about right now, like, I walk on the Strand, which is next to the beach where I live, the big sidewalk area. And I saw like two girls one time, young girls selling jewelry, and I was like, this is not the place for that. You could try, but I can tell you that if you're selling drinks on a cold day, not a cold day, on a hot day, you're going to sell more lemonade than you are bracelets.
Just because we can create something and make something doesn't mean that we can create the demand for it. And that's one of the things that I think happens in the online space and people get misled because they think, oh, well, there's a million people on there and I can create this thing and the people are going to want it.
And you all know, you all know I stay saying, that field of dreams, if you build it, they will come, is bullshit. Bullshit. Wait to create. You show up, you build the audience, attract the audience, listen to what they want, and then you create that.
So, how long does it take to build a successful online business?
Again, a minimum of three to five years. It ultimately takes as long as it takes. But if you want to get objective and you want to maybe give you like a, a number, kind of start for that expectation management. Minimum of three to five years. Stop looking at outliers and start playing the long game. So shout out to Trin for that question.
Let's do a quick review and then we'll wrap it up. The review this time came from Barbero, no Barber q I don't know, barber quo, 18. I don't know either way. Thank you. You know who you are. Thank you. And this person said: Never disappoints. I have found myself always looking forward to new episodes. I appreciate the shorter lengths, 15 to 30 minutes, and always leave with valuable info, tips, suggestions from Instagram. Oh, no, suggestions, period. From Instagram and podcast, I truly feel like I know Shante, even though we've never met in person. Hopefully one day. Thanks for always being you and making me feel like I'm not alone in biz and life.
Y'all, you're the best. These reviews really do mean so much. So thank you for sending them in.
Wide open for more of them. Head on over to the Apple podcast, leave a little review, leave some stars if you want a little rating, five preferably. But thank you to everyone that's left one already. Thank you to all you for listening. One more time, don't forget, the waitlist for my intensive closes tomorrow, Friday, August 25th, so tappy tap the link in the show notes, add your name so you can save your spot, save the monies. You can't save your spot, but you can save the monies, and I'd love to have you in the intensive. All right. All right. That's all I got for you today. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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Get on the waitlist for my Instagram Intensive before it closes!
Check out my friend, Danny-J: @dannyjdotcom
MOTM #497: The Best Way to Start an Online Business
MOTM #362: Face Your Fears to Create Safety with Forrest Jung
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