The Only Framework You Need To Grow Your Business To Over $1M/month
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Seven years ago I was knee deep in trying to build a business that manufactured polyurethane rock climbing holds with my buddy Ryan.
Now here’s the thing…
I knew absolutely nothing about manufacturing and even less about polyurethane (though as a former professional rock climber, I did thankfully know a thing or two about rock climbing holds).
Despite our ignorance, Ryan and I were committed to growing the business and taking over the world of indoor rock climbing gyms.
And so, compensating for our lack of knowledge and experience with gusto, we poured all our energy into that business.
Now, in the beginning, despite our best efforts, we really weren’t growing at a rate proportional to our efforts.
Which was pretty damn demoralizing, to be honest.
We were bashing our heads against the wall, trying to bust through with sheer brute force, but just weren’t making progress.
I was personally on the fast track to burnout. Thankfully Ryan has a higher tolerance for brain damage and kept me in the game.
And I’m so glad he did, because one day I stumbled upon a simple framework that instantly, in a glorious moment of Eureka!, revealed the problem.
It’s thanks to that simple framework that we 10x’ed over the next 3 years, from $300,000 to $3,000,000, and did it in a way that we actually didn’t grow to hate the business.
That simple little framework is called The Theory of Constraints and it’s the secret to unlocking all the growth you could ever want in your business.
The idea is simple: A system will never grow beyond its biggest constraint.
Put another way: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Now, this is easy to understand and even easier to say… but surprisingly difficult to actually implement (even for seasoned entrepreneurs).
Case in point, I had an onboarding call with a new student back in September. This guy was a successful entrepreneur by all accounts and was even a coach himself.
He knew all about the Theory of Constraints… but within 15 minutes of our first call it became clear he’d gotten so close to the trees that he’d lost sight of the forest.
And in the process, he had been spinning his wheels for the previous month trying to solve for the wrong constraint in his business.
Sometimes ya just can’t see the picture from inside the frame which is why even coaches need coaches.
Anyhoo, once we unblocked the real constraint, he experienced a nice little jump in cash flow.
Here’s the lesson: Sequence is Speed.
Put another way: Solve your business problems in the right order to unlock instant and painless growth.
Solve them in the wrong order and you’ll just be bashing your head against the wall wondering why you aren’t growing despite how hard you’re working.
So let’s get into the weeds.
If your business isn’t growing as fast as you’d like, it’s probably because you have a marketing, sales, or operations problem.
That is:
-
Get Leads: Marketing (your pipe isn’t full)
- not enough people know about you
-
Convert into Customers: Sales (your faucet isn’t open far enough)
- you’re not converting enough people who DO know about you
-
Deliver Results: Operations (your bucket isn’t big enough)
- you’re struggling to deliver your product
Let’s break it down:
1. Get Leads: Marketing
“You can’t save souls in an empty church.” – David Ogilvy
Amen, David.
Listen, it’s simple math.
The MORE people that know you exist, the MORE of your product/service you will sell.
Everything in business gets easier when you have a full PIPELINE.
But it’s here at the first bottleneck that most people get stuck ‘cause they just can’t figure out how to get in front of more people.
Well, it’s actually quite simple. There’s really only two ways:
You can hunt for leads or you can farm for leads.
Hunting is all about picking up the spear (or the phone) and going out to find people.
This means you’re cold calling prospects, knocking on doors, sending cold emails, or DMs.
This method is fast, direct, and will give you an IMMEDIATE boost in leads.
But here’s the catch: This is a flywheel that stops turning the moment you start pushing.
Your efforts only ever scale linearly, which means Hunting for leads can be quite the grind. If you want to scale through Hunting, you’ll have to build your sales team and/or your use of technology/tools (a gun is a better tool for hunting than a slingshot, right?).
Farming, on the other hand, is about creating systems that attract leads TO you.
Think content marketing, building an email list, a podcast, or referral partnership.s
It’s slower to start, but THIS flywheel, once you get it going… really starts going (and there’s not much you can really do to stop it).
Now, here’s the thing… this isn’t an either/or.
Your business probably needs you to be both a Hunter and Farmer of leads.
Now, I’m not gonna get into the nitty gritty in this newsletter of how to do that, but if you want a quick way to increase your leadflow in the next 120 minutes, check out this video where I break down my 2-Hour Revenue Playbook.
2. Convert into Customers: Sales
Okay, so now that you’ve got leads the next step is to convert them into paying customers.
And this is where all sorts of self-sabotaging behavior occurs.
For whatever reason, many entrepreneurs I’ve worked with have a fear of sales.
They don’t want to come off as too salesy, or pushy, and so they completely abandon anything even remotely resembling a sales pitch.
And as you can imagine, that doesn’t usually go so well and so these entrepreneurs stay small and keep riding the struggle bus.
Listen… I break down the exact 7-Figure Sales Pitch I train my team on in this video…
(you should go watch it. I promise it WILL make you more money)
… but it’s not going to do you any good if you can’t first solve the biggest constraint of all: You.
YOU need to get out of your own way when it comes to sales and you do that with a simple mental reframe.
See, I believe that sales is the ultimate form of service.
If you genuinely have a product or service that can help somebody solve a problem they don’t like having, then you have a moral obligation to make them aware of the fact that you can help them.
Afterall, if you had the literal cure to cancer would ya feel weird shouting it out to every single person who walked by you on the street?
No, of course not. Because you KNOW it can help them.
I promise, if you can carry that same level of certainty and conviction into your sales calls, you WILL make more money.
Now go back and watch the 7-Figure Sales Script. It can legitimately add another zero to your revenue over the next 9 months.
3. Deliver Results: Operations
Alright, now that we’ve unclogged our Leads pipeline and have Customers converting, the next constraint we’ve got to solve is… ya know… actually delivering an awesome product.
Which is, again, easier said than done.
But it’s a problem you’ve GOT to solve, because if you can’t deliver an amazing product, then it doesn’t matter how many leads and customers you push through the pipeline, they’ll all just leak out the bottom of your bucket.
Prepare to be churned into oblivion, my friend.
One way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to use the Time ‘Til Value Diamond. Here’s how it works:
1. Purchase
The customer journey officially begins at the moment they hit the “buy” button. This is the instant when their lifetime value with you begins and the clock starts ticking.
2. Activation
You only get one chance to make a killer first impression and the research clearly shows our long-term opinion of a product, service, or business is largely influenced by how long it takes for us to see our first bit of value in USING the product.
So the big question here is: What is your customer’s Time ‘Til First Value (TTFV)?
Now, here’s the funny thing… you don’t have to deliver an absurd amount of value here.
But you do have to deliver something to combat buyer’s remorse and reinforce the fact that your customer has made a damn good decision.
You can accomplish this through a nice personalized welcome letter or text that lays out a roadmap with timelines of what they can expect to happen next.
Afterall, there’s nothing worse than buying something and then having no clue what you’re supposed to do next.
The sooner you can give the customer a sense of progress and control, the sooner they’ll feel like they’re winning. And then we move onto…
3. Retention
There’s typically a lag between when your customer purchases a product and when they FINALLY see the big payoff (we call this the Expected Value).
For instance, you purchase the services of a CPA to prepare your annual taxes. There’s likely a lag between when you sign up, when you give them all your documents, and when your taxes are officially filed.
If your CPA doesn’t communicate with you in the interim, you’re left in a swirling black void wondering if your taxes are actually going to be filed on time or correctly.
Nobody likes to be surprised (even if the surprise is huzzah! your taxes are filed on-time and accurate!).
To avoid this, a savvy CPA will always keep in mind your TTRV. That is, your Time ‘Til Recurring Value.
Engaging your customers with regular check-ins, progress updates, and mini-milestone victories is how you take one big valuable deliverable and turn it into a dozen ongoing valuable deliverables.
All things being equal? Who do you suppose will be the happier customer?
4. Achievement
Alright, now it’s time to deliver on the big promise of your product or service, which is TTEV or Time ‘Til Expected Value.
Good rule of thumb: The faster you can deliver the desired result, the better.
5. Ascension
Really want to wow your customers and keep them coming back from more?
It’s easy…
Over-deliver on their expectations and do it fast. This is what we call Time ‘Til Surplus Value, or TTSV.
Now, on the Diamond this is shown as coming after TTEV (Expected Value), but the truth is that you can deliver Surplus Value at any point on the customer’s journey.
And you should, because the bigger the perceived disparity in value between what they purchased and what you delivered, the more likely they are to come back, to buy again, or to refer their friends.
And THAT is how you deliver an amazing product experience.
Alright, friends, those are just a few of the constraints you’ll have to solve for at some point on your entrepreneurial journey.
But I promise, you will unlock massive growth once you master the art of identifying and alleviating the actual constraint in your business.
Good luck!
Stay Hyperfocused, My Friend…
Anthony Vicino
P.S. Want my help growing your business? Just reply to this email with the word “APEX” and let’s see if it’s a good fit.
I’m curious…
Where in your business do you think the next constraint is?
– Is it getting leads?
– Having trouble converting your prospects?
– Unable to consistently deliver results?
– Tough time eliminating churn?
Reply to this email with the word “LEADS”, “CONVERSION”, “PRODUCT”, or “CHURN” and i’ll send ya something that’ll help ya unlock that constraint.
Explore more
High value skills to help you break your constraints…watch this
Want to learn how to sell better?….here’s how
Don’t know who to sell to…check this out
