The Two-Hour Revenue Playbook
read time 6 minutes
video version: watch here
got a sweet deal here from the sponsor of this week’s newsletter (appsumo) on one of my favorite tools for calendar management: TidyCal.
If I put a gun to your head and said you have 2-hours to go generate another $10,000 of revenue for your business…
What would you do?
Unfortunately for the vast majority of entrepreneurs out there… they don’t have a good answer.
And the reason is simple:
They don’t have a reliable system for generating revenue.
They rely on referrals, or organic content, or people just walking into their store randomly…
(This is especially true for service-based businesses.)
The result is an inconsistent stream of revenue. And this right here, in my experience having coached hundreds of business owners, is the single greatest stress founders face.
They wake up each day not knowing if they’re going to make money, and if this continues for too many days in a row, they know they will very quickly go out of business.
If you want to avoid this fate, then you need a reliable revenue generating machine.
That is, you need to understand the core levers you can pull inside of your business at ANY GIVEN MOMENT to go make more money.
I call this your 2-Hour Revenue Playbook and it starts with understanding what are the tactical actions you could take in the next 120 minutes to get in front of a prospect and make an offer.
(and I recommend you run this playbook every single day if you want to scale beyond 7-figures FAST)
Let’s break it down:
1. Hot Leads
The best place to go looking for money is from the people who’ve already given you money in the past.
That is: Your Current Customers.
They’ve already shown they know, like, and trust you… so continuing the relationship with a new purchase is pretty low hanging fruit.
The two best ways to leverage this group to generate more revenue is through upsells and cross-sells.
First, the upsell is all about asking yourself:
What’s the next problem this person will face on their journey?
For example, let’s say you’re a business coach and you helped your client scale their business to six figures.
The next challenge they might face is how to streamline their operations to handle the increased workload and reduce operational complexity.
Voila, you’ve got yourself a new offer.
So now, just reach back out to those customers and say:
“Hey, you’ve been working wit me on solving this problem… and you’ve achieved [specific result[… now, it’s time to figure out [new challenge[. Would you like some help with that?”
The power of this approach is that you’re not just selling for the sake of selling—you’re genuinely helping your customer solve their next big problem. It’s the logical evolution of your relationship.
The cross-sell isn’t terribly different than the upsell.
The upsell typically graduates the customer to a higher level of service or product because they’re already primed to pay more because you’ve already delivered results in the past…
But if you don’t have a higher level product/service, then you can simply go back to your current customers and sell them horizontally to another product… just make sure that if you DO have the higher ticket product, you lead with that because that is where the majority of your margins are going to be realized.
Now, what should you do if you don’t have any other products to sell to your current customers?
Well, here are two option:
First, simply re-sell them on the same product.
For instance, if you have a recurring coaching product or service that is usually paid out on a monthly basis, you can go back to your customer and re-enroll them in another 12 months of the product by offering them a discount for paying up front today.
“Hey, your membership/subscription is coming to an end in 3-months.
Renewing by the end of today would lock you in at your current rate for another 12-months. Otherwise if you want to wait, that’s totally cool, but the rate will be increasing by 20%.
Would you like to lock it in now so you don’t have to worry about it in a couple months?”
The second option (if you don’t have other products to sell your current customers) is to simply ask them for a referral.
Which leads us to the second part of the 2-Hour Revenue Playbook:
2. Warm Leads
Warm Leads are the people who are already aware of you and are in your ecosystem in some meaningful way. They might follow you on social media, be subscribed to your email list, or have shown interest in your product or services in the past, but haven’t purchased yet for whatever reason.
So, let’s turn these Warm Leads into paying customers. Here’s how:
Start with your email list.
These are people who’ve made a decision to not only give you their personal information, but they’ve also given you permission to reach out to them. In the world of business, this is worth its weight in gold (but only if we can convert these prospects into paying customers).
So here’s what we’re going to do: Send A SPEAR email.
SPEAR that stands for Short, Personal, Expecting A Response.
Example:
“[Name], I just launched [product/service] and thought of you. Are you interested?”
That’s literally it…
No fancy formatting…
No long-winded copy…
No images or bullet points or in-depth sales pitch…
Just a simple, direct, personalized message that feels like it came from a friend an expects a response.
Don’t overcomplicate this. It is seriously one of the simplest (yet most powerful) tools in your marketing quiver.
We actually slept on this for years at Escape Climbing. Despite having a massive list of past customers, we never actually sent them any emails asking if they’d like to buy more from us.
The first time we emailed our list… we instantly made another $15,000 (which was about a 10% boost of monthly revenue for us at the time).
Every email after that, like clockwork, would generate between $20-30k.
Not a bad return on investment for a few minutes work, right?
Okay, after emailing you list, move onto your social media followers.
These are people who think you’re so interesting that they’ve elected to follow you… but I bet you’ve never personally reached out to them to say hey, have you?
Well, if not… you’re leaving money on the table.
So here’s what ya do:
DM every single one of your followers and ask them what brings them around and if there’s anything you can do to be helpful.
This is where we put the social back in social media. The more personal you make the interactions, the more likely they are to convert in customers.
Remember, in business:
The more hands you shake, the more money you make.
Last, but not least, we’re going to make a hand-raiser post. This could be as simple as taking your SPEAR email and turning it into a post:
I’m helping 5 people lose 10 pounds this month. DM me “10” if you’re down.
Now, you’re going to DM everybody who comments, likes, or engages with that content to see if you can somehow help them. This approach works wonders because it’s direct and invites engagement, but it requires you to actually reach out and be social.
So stop ignoring your followers and go make friends… or better yet, go make some customers.
3. Cold Outreach
Alright, the last part of our 2-Hour Revenue Playbook after we’ve talked to people who already know us… is to go talk to strangers.
I know, I know… I’m a child of the 80s and I know all about Stranger-Danger… but seriously, talking to people you don’t know is how we grow a business.
So let’s get out of our own way and go make some money, yeah?
Here’s how:
First, recognize that cold outreach is all about volume.
You’re reaching out to people who have no clue who you are, but who are a good fit for your product/service.
The way you get in front of these people is through LinkedIn, Instagram, or any other platform where your ideal customers hang out.
(for me, when I started my first business (window washing), that was knocking on the doors of the houses whose windows we wanted to wash).
Thankfully, you probably don’t need to go knocking on doors to grow your business.
Instead, start by identifying people who are following or engaging with similar content to what you offer. Then reach out with a personalized message.
Your conversion rate here will be low, but if you’re consistent and persistent, it WILL pay off over time.
If I had a gun to my head and only two hours to make money, this is not where I would start…
But once you’ve exhausted all your Hot and Warm leads (or if you’re completely new to business and have NO leads), then this is best option.
One final note:
This Playbook can generate quick revenue, but ya know what’s even better than quick revenue?
A full pipeline that consistently generates big revenue.
Which is why I recommend you execute this Playbook EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Seriously, if you dedicate 2-hours daily to running this playbook I promise you WILL make more money.
How much more you make simply depends on your Volume and Skill… but that’s a conversation for another day.
Until then,
Stay Hyperfocused, My Friend…
Anthony Vicino
P.S. What’d you think about this week’s newsletter? Reply to this email and let me know what was your favorite part?
Here’s why most people WON’T execute this playbook…
Most people will read this article and think:
“Yeah.. that’s awesome. Let’s do that…”
But then life does what life does and ya know, it manages to get in the way and distracts us with tasks that are Urgent, but not necessary Important.
The solution is to create timeblocks in your calendar for executing this playbook every single day.
And the sponsor of today’s newsletter (Appsumo) has a special deal just for you on a tool that will help you do just that.
It’s called TidyCal and it will help you take control of your schedule.
So go check it out here.
Dive deeper into telling your story
Here’s the brutal truth:
Learning to tell YOUR story is one of the hardest skills in the world.
It’s ‘cause you’re just so close to the tree, you can’t see the forest.
That’s where an outside perspective comes in handy.
Reply to this email with “STORY” if you want some help.
I’m curious…
What’s the biggest struggle you face as you’re trying to generate more revenue for your business?
Is it getting more leads?
Converting those leads?
Getting referrals?
Reply to this email and let me know. I might be able to help ya.
Explore more
Make a million dollars starting on low salary… Low Income Millionaire
The 3 systems you need to scale… 7-figure growth systems
Double your revenue… by ignoring this
