Everything I teach here at SURVIVAL CEO revolves around implementing the following 5 Pillars into your business. These 5 Pillars help to lay a SUSTAINABLE FOUNDATION that can help guide almost every business move that you make. Businesses without SYSTEMS are messy. Messy businesses are stressful, unprofitable, and feel like a constant mental and physical grind.
For years, I struggled to make ends meet with my Wilderness Survival Business. It wasn’t until I had ALL 5 of these critical PILLARS in place that my business really started to feel like a profitable business, instead of an unprofitable HOBBY.
YOUR PLATFORM
Your platform is your place on the web (like the website you’re at right now) where you host valuable content (like what you’re reading right now) so your customers can consume it. Ideally, your platform is a BLOG (like this one here at squarespace.com). Social media services like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube aren’t the kind of platforms I’m talking about. You need something that can DO MORE. Social media services are great sub-platforms to drive traffic to your main platform.
YOUR CONTENT
On the internet—CONTENT IS KING. Those who create the best content for their customers WIN. Think about the most successful businesses or personalities in your niche market. I’ll bet they’re all great content creators. CONTENT is what GETS TRAFFIC to your platform. It’s what draws clicks and viewers over to your platform. This content is FREE to consume. This, though, is where most people get stuck. They get into a vicious, unprofitable cycle of training their customers to get EVERYTHING from them for FREE. Ultimately, this model does not work. So, we must build out 3 more pillars in our business.
TRAFFIC
Your platform and your content do not matter if you can’t figure out how to get people to see it! TRAFFIC is just a fancy word for VIEWS & CLICKS by REAL PEOPLE who are surfing the internet. Without traffic, nothing matters. TRAFFIC is a BIG BUSINESS these days and big brands are paying a lot of money to get traffic. However, there are a few great tips & tricks (that I discuss in my FREE DOWNLOADABLE BOOK) that I use to get traffic FOR FREE—minus my time, of course. Just getting traffic, though, isn’t enough. You MUST make every effort in the world to take those potential customers on a journey through your business. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO CONTACT THEM AGAIN!
EMAIL COLLECTOR
Your most important job as a business owner is to BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST. This is what you will use to develop relationships with your customers so you can, ultimately, make them offers for your products and services. Without an email list, you have NOTHING. Your email list is what you use to launch new products, ask about what products you should be developing, and grow your business! Social likes and follows and subscribers on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube ARE NOT emails. Those can be striped from you at any given moment. The only list you own is your IN-HOUSE email list and it is the heart and soul of EVERY online business. Your email list the way to increase the LIFETIME VALUE of your customer.
THE CUSTOMER ON-RAMP
Getting your potential customer’s email is just the beginning of the relationship. Once a potential customer has given you their email in exchange for something (like a FREE DOWNLOADABLE book), you can use that email to keep in touch with them through regular emails. Recent advancements in technology allow us to create these emails to be sent automatically—even while we sleep! Once a customer engages with your content and gives you their email, your automated email sequence takes over and starts to develop that relationship. It takes them on a journey through your business. IF YOU DO NOT GET THE CUSTOMER’S EMAIL, THEY WILL LIKELY NEVER RETURN to your platform again. There’s just too many businesses vying for their attention. Email allows us to build a relationship and eventually make offers when the time is right. Most people try to sell something to their potential customers BEFORE the customer is ready for a pitch. Establishing this relationship is critical.
THIS SYSTEM IN PRACTICE
Let’s use a REAL LIFE example of how this system works. WILD EDIBLE PLANT OF THE MONTH CLUB is a business of mine where I teach about a new Wild Edible Plant, every month, to a paying list of subscribers. My business model is based exactly on what I’ve described above. See below:
I have a platform where I host content. That website is: http://www.wildedibleplantofthemonth.com.
Each month, I create a set of identification sheets for a specific Wild Edible Plant. I use pieces of this as content on my site. My PAID subscribers get the FULL content.
I use a variety of ways to drive traffic to that platform. I make blog posts. I post Wild Edible Plant tips on Social Media that get shared. I put photos on PINTEREST. I even take out a few display ads on websites where people who might like Wild Edible Plants visit. That big banner ad above is an example.
When a potential customer visits my website, they see an IMMEDIATE OFFER to download my FREE Foraging Calendar. It’s a great little guide that shows them when most wild edible plants are ready to harvest. In order to get the guide, they must enter their email. When they do, I give them the guide and add their email to my list.
As soon as a potential customer becomes a part of my email list, I begin to tell them my story about how I became an expert in identifying wild edible plants. Over the course of several emails, they get to know me and my business. After a few days, I invite them to become a paying member of Wild Edible Plant of the Month Club. Even if they DON’T subscribe, I still have them on my email list. I will continue to keep them in the loop about my products and services and they may purchase something in the future.
THE NITTY-GRITTY
Clearly, there are some more details to master on each of these 5 steps. That’s why I wrote THE SURVIVAL CEO 5 PILLAR BLUEPRINT BOOK.
If you haven’t read it yet, YOU NEED TO! It’s only $1 and I elaborate on how I’ve implemented each of these 5 PILLAR to do exactly what I love for a living.
Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN,
Creek
DOWNLOAD my 1-PAGE 5-PILLAR FUNNEL TEMPALTE
On this 1-page [simplified] template, I’ll show you each step I use in my 5-Pillar Blueprint to attract and engage my perfect customer! Download NOW by entering your email below.