One Man Empire - Charlie Hutton

Are you making this common mistake with your customers?

Psychologists tell us that humans are hard-wired to always want more.

Something to do with our primal instincts.

Yet when it comes to business, especially scaling one to 1M+…

‘More’ is NOT the answer.

And I get it…

It goes against everything you’ve been told to believe, so before you say…

“Charlie WTF - I need more customers to make more money!”

Hear me out.

… Because here’s the problem with ‘more’ at all costs:

Not all money is created equal.

See, in this game, there is good money and there is bad money.

And in my experience, most customers fall into the second category, not the first.

It comes back to my Customer Money Matrix…

Which boils down to this:

\>> Bad Money #1- Low Margin + Low Touch

Customers that do not pay you what you’re worth.

\>>Bad Money #2 - Low Margin + High Touch

Customers that pay you peanuts while expecting you to deliver the moon on a stick.

\>> Bad Money #3 - High Margin + High Touch

Customers that pay a fair price… BUT are high maintenance, eat up profit and suck-up sanity.

… Any of those sound familiar?

Thought so.

It’s why ‘more’ at all costs is always a one-way ticket to No Man's Land.

… And a lunatics way to protect profits and boost business.

In fact, if you’ve ever felt that you are working more and making less - this is probably the reason why.

It’s also why right now, I’m urging you to solely focus on “good” money at all costs…

Because…

\>> Good Money = High Margin + Low Touch

Meaning you get paid MORE to do less.

Which is good news if you want to break free of no man's land, get back time, and push to 1M+ in revenue - without adding any more bu****it to your business

In truth, it’s the only way to avoid the bloodbath and efficiently scale in this new economy.

A map for an empire without employees… and the frontline battleground for 1M+.

Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

His work from the 1950’s is viewed as the benchmark for human needs.

It starts with the basics like food and shelter.

Then moves to biggies like status and self-actualisation.

Makes sense.

A man’s gotta eat before he can ponder his place in the universe.

Same goes for business and scaling a £1M+.

See, there’s a hierarchy of ‘needs’ inside your business.

Needs that must be met before you consider attacking the next rung on the ladder.

The hierarchy looks like this…

At each level, five ‘needs’ must be met before moving on.

It works like this:

\>> Level 1 - Cashflow.

This is about maximising demand generation and cash.

Do this by Simplifying for profit.

\-Becoming a specialist

\-Committing to a core competency

\-Building a predictable path to purchase

\-Creating a repeatable directive for deliverable

\-Setting a precedent for prepayment & repeat payment

\>>Level 2 - Capacity.

This is about creating capacity inside the business...

Without the reliance on employees or being limited by your current capacity.

Do this by Automating and systemising for freedom.

\-Adopting the ‘machine first’ mentality

\-Building stringent standardisation

\-Pushing processes to remove the need for people to think

\-Creating a detachment from dependency

\-Removing reactivity

\>>Level 3 - Capital.

This is about scaling profitability.

Do this by Scaling to build the war chest.

\-Becoming profit centred

\-Releasing from ‘key’ client reliance

\-Liberating from price comparison

\-Leveraging Lifetime Customer Value

\-Active adaptability

Now, this isn’t a deep dive.

More a high-level look at the exact actions men here take to scale without an army of employees.

With this, you can have a stab in the dark and go it alone.

Or you can apply to join us.

The choice is yours.

Barney (my son) loves baseball…

After a long winter break, his training is back.

To celebrate we watched a classic baseball movie, Moneyball.

Brad Pitt headlining as Billy Beane.

The mediocre player turned maverick manager.

The man who changed baseball fFrom a game about superstars to a game about numbers.

Now, when Beane proposed these changes, the baseball world hated him.

They loved the superstar players.

His scouts thought he was nuts.

His coach thought he was dumb.

The press tore him a new one on the weekly.

Yet Beane held firm.

And the one number he worshipped?

The percentage chance of a player getting on base.

He didn’t care if you threw funny, if you were old, or if nobody had ever heard of you.

If you could get on base, you were his guy.

Why?

Because getting on base got the win.

And winning was all that mattered to Beane.

With his number approach, he built a dynamite team for peanuts.

And he was offered the biggest salary in the history of the game, which he turned down btw, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, two years later, the smart teams had all adopted his model.

One team was the Boston Red Sox. And with this numbers approach they finally won the World Series…

After an 86-year drought.

And Beane’s approach is a reminder for all of us.

It is easy to get caught up in the status of running a business…

How many staff have I got? How many likes did that post get? How fancy are my customers?

The ‘superstar’ metrics if you will.

The ones that give you status and make you feel good when bragging to your mates…

When in reality the one number that will get you the win in life?

Profit.

And how much of it you’re putting in your back pocket to give yourself and your family the life you want.