The global economy is in bad shape right now. That is perhaps the understatement of the century.
In the span of eight weeks, it feels like there has been a tectonic shift, and no one knows with any certainty what the new “normal is going to be whenever it mercifully arrives.
What we do know — because we learned it during the financial crisis of 2008, and in many examples prior — is that the businesses that will survive this economic turmoil, and possibly even thrive on the other side of it, are those that are able to adapt to the changing economic reality.
In other words: those with a defensible business model.
In this episode of 7-Figure Small, Brian Clark defines what a defensible model is, uses examples like AirBNB, Uber, and Amazon to illustrate it, and explains how it applies to building a 7-figure small business that is audience-first as opposed to product-first.
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Transcript:
Building a Defensible Business
Jerod Morris: Welcome to 7-Figure Small, the podcast that brings you the stories and strategies that are driving the growing number of solo businesses achieving 7-figures in revenue, without investors or employees.
If you want to discover what’s behind the rise in these 7-figure businesses, then you need to get our free Next Level 7 audio course. In this enlightening course from Unemployable founder, Brian Clark, you’ll hear what’s working right now for attracting an audience, discovering what they want to buy, and building your perfect business.
To sign up for free, go to nextlevelseven.com. That’s nextlevelseven.com.
And now, here’s your host for this edition of 7-Figure Small — me, Jerod Morris.
Jerod Morris: The global economy is in bad shape right now. That is perhaps the understatement of the century.
On May 15th, the Associated Press reported that retail sales were down by a record 16.4% from March to April. It is by far the biggest drop that has been seen since these numbers have been tracked.
Year over year, retail sales are down 21.6%. This is to be expected after eight weeks of social distancing and sheltering in place at home, but that doesn’t make it any less staggering or devastating.
But would you believe it if I told you that not all sectors of the economy are suffering? That same AP report says the following:
“A longstanding migration of consumers toward online purchases is accelerating with that segment posting an 8.4% monthly gain. Measured year over year, online sales surged 21.6%.
You heard that right. Retail sales are down 21.6% over the last 12 months, while online sales are up 21.6%.
In the span of eight weeks, it feels like there has been a tectonic shift, and no one knows with any certainty what the new “normal is going to look like whenever it mercifully arrives.
What we do know — because we learned it during the financial crisis of 2008, and in many examples prior — is that the businesses that will survive this economic turmoil, and possibly even thrive on the other side of it, are those that are able to adapt to the changing economic reality.
In other words: those with a defensible business model.
In this episode of 7-Figure Small, Brian Clark defines what a defensible model is, uses examples like Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon to illustrate it, and explains how it applies to building a 7-figure small business that is audience-first as opposed to product-first.
This episode of 7-Figure Small is brought to you by Next Level 7 — Brian Clark’s free audio course that teaches you how to start stacking the building blocks of a defensible business. Most notably, you’ll learn what’s working for attracting an audience and discovering what they want to buy, which are the first steps toward building a business that truly has the ability to adapt to changing times.
To get started for free, go to nextlevelseven.com. That’s nextlevelseven.com.
And now, this week’s conversation with Brian Clark.
What Is a Defensible Business?
Jerod Morris: So what’s been on your mind lately, Brian?
Brian Clark: Well, there’s a lot of stuff on my mind as with everyone else in the current situation. But to take my mind off of some of the more frustrating aspects of life…
Jerod Morris: Which we just talked about for 20 minutes, but won’t be included in the final.
Brian Clark: Exactly. I really do think we need our pre-show conversations to go live. People would be like, “Wow, damn, those guys are pissed off.
But no, this is the kindler, gentler version of Jerod and Brian.
Seriously, just from a business standpoint, I am looking at how the pandemic has basically just obliterated so many businesses because of the lack of human contact by necessity, and how certain other businesses are doing fine or adapting. And others are thriving.
Now, I guess the most defensible business at a local level, especially if you live in Boulder, are liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries, because they got deemed essential. Just think about it: if you’re going to get people to stay home, they’re going to need to be drunk and high to swallow that. And I think some of the people who are discontent just aren’t drinking enough, I guess, I don’t know.
Jerod Morris: And part of that reason was also to not create a black market, right? Wasn’t that part of the reasoning there?
Brian Clark: There’s all sorts of reasons. I mean, obviously, alcohol withdrawal is a real thing. So, if you just shut it off, some people would get very sick. Some people use marijuana medicinally.
So, I think it was well-reasoned, but it was amazing because I talked to someone at the time when it wasn’t clear if the liquor stores were going to stay open in Boulder, because Denver closed theirs for two days and everyone lost their minds. And so they reversed it.
But in the time before we knew what would happen in Boulder on that issue, one owner of an establishment said they did a month’s worth of business in two days. They literally could have just shut shop right then and taken the rest of the time off. But, of course, they’ve all stayed open. So, they’re killing it, but that is a very, very rare exception. And that’s just very specific to this situation.
I’m much more interested in defensible businesses, defensible business models in the broader sense. Meaning adaptable and within the control of the owner. And, of course, as the proponents of the 7-Figure Small kind of methodology, usually that’s a single owner or a very small team working with contractors.
There’s a whole lot of flexibility there, but only if you’re not hamstrung by elements beyond your control. And to the degree that that’s possible, I find it very interesting.
Disney vs. Netflix
Brian Clark: One thing that at the big company level has been kind of interesting to see all the analysts debate about is Netflix versus Disney. So, of course, Disney is the old world media powerhouse. Netflix is regarded as a technology firm and it’s a platform for media, generally not their own.
Although, of course, we know that Netflix has gotten heavily into producing original content themselves, which like the rest of Hollywood is on hold. However, Netflix is killing it because their subscriptions have gone up astronomically with everyone stuck at home.
Disney saw something similar. They’ve already met their goals with Disney+ something like 15 million subscribers way ahead of schedule. But Disney overall is in trouble because movie theaters are closed. And think about a theme park, Jerod. I find them horrid under any circumstances, but who’s going to go back to a theme park anytime soon? I don’t know, that didn’t seem like a good idea.
In that sense, Disney is defensible in that they’re diversified. And they launched Disney+ just in time. Imagine what a fuss it’ll make in the movie theater world, even though they’re basically shut down, if Marvel goes, “You know what? We’re going to release Black Widow online first, Disney+. The Marvel people who aren’t already signed up are going to flock to the platform.
So that may be a big change. We may finally see the power the movie theaters have had over distribution come to an end. Not that there will be no movie theaters, but they won’t be able to control how films are released in the future. Why? Because look at Netflix, they’re killing it.
That’s a big company type example here that just serves to provide some fodder analysis, I guess, if you will. And this is all really — beyond Netflix, we’ve got this broader trend of what they’re calling virtuality, which means digital, which means online. Everyone, again, has to stay home, so online use, the traffic in the last couple months has just greatly accelerated what was already happening. And that’s a shift to an online economy.
Now we have, of course, a vast online economy. I’ve been participating in it for 20 years. 14 years since Copyblogger. So, it’s around but I think those of us who live in it don’t realize how many people don’t live in it. And I think the surge we’re seeing is a good indication of how many people do not live online as much as we do. But now they’re starting to.
Now, most analysts expect that surge to fade after the pandemic. It’s not like everyone’s going to stay jacked in when they can go back out. But the overall base of digital online economic use is going to rise.
Again, this is something that was already happening and the pandemic has accelerated that change. And I think that’s a common theme. It was going to happen over a course of time, but in the course of two months, we saw an acceleration.
I’ve seen some CEOs say it’s accelerated 10 years because there’s a lot of things that are happening right now. For one (as we’ll get into), companies that were putting off automation and AI, because they were too busy to make it happen, just had an incentive, frankly, to eliminate the human element as much as possible. I mean, it was going to happen anyway, but now it’s happening faster.
Jerod Morris: Yeah, and the other thing that’s interesting, you said it’s accelerated almost 10 years. Instead of the drip, drip, drip, like, “Oh, here’s the new Christmas present for this year, and people get it and it changes these habits a little bit, it’s all happening at once. And it’s a long enough time that people and their families are actually developing habits. It’s going to be — I mean, I agree with you. Obviously, once everything opens up, people will go back to doing some of the stuff that they like.
But there are some habits being created with how people consume stuff, how people shop, how people live that are going to start to be ingrained the longer people are spending at home. And it’s going to be interesting to see how that all unwinds once things go back to whatever the new normal is.
Brian Clark: Yeah, anecdotally, I’ve heard from people in Boulder who were kind of against online shopping because they really wanted to support local businesses. It’s a very Boulder kind of thing. But it’s probably common among people in all areas and walks of life.
But then they were forced to use Amazon out of necessity and they love it. They’re like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe how great it is. As soon as you think of something, you press a button and then it shows up in a couple of days. Even with the shipping problems that have happened due to volume, it’s still the reason why a lot of us have been using Amazon for quite a long time.
So that, and people who were adamantly opposed to video conferencing are now on Zoom with their friends. Yeah, you’re right. Habits are being created, but moreover, I think the resistance that people had to a certain behavior, once they try it, they realize that they actually like it. And that’s an accelerating habit right there.
Jerod Morris: Yeah, the service of Amazon is incredible. It’s the externalities that are the problem when it comes to Amazon.
Are Airbnb and Uber Defensible Businesses?
Jerod Morris: Hold that thought, because I know we want to get to Amazon, but there are other examples. You talked about Netflix and Disney. What are some others that are kind of showing this?
Brian Clark: Two of the major change agents, if you will, after the great recession of 2008 — what sprung out of that were two very innovative companies, Airbnb and Uber.
Now Airbnb has just been wrecked because the broader travel industry has been wrecked. That goes way beyond Airbnb and the people they’ve had to lay off. I thought their CEO did a really good job under tough circumstances when having to let go a substantial amount of staff.
But the broader impact on travel is just monumentally huge in regard to our broader economy. I’m worried that my travel habit that I’ve developed over the last four years has just been cut off and that causes me some concern.
So Airbnb was this application that allowed people with real estate that they owned or controlled to connect with people who wanted short-term rentals of that real estate. You had this entire industry of people beyond the spare bedroom or beyond your vacation home when you weren’t using it; people were buying real estate to participate in the Airbnb ecosystem. They relied on someone else’s platform, yet beyond the dangers of doing that in other contexts, have taken out huge mortgages.
And now you’re seeing complaints that they can’t pay their mortgages because they can’t get any tenants in short-term or long-term. Of course, most people are not that sympathetic to them. I’ve seen some pretty nasty responses, which is, “Too bad, you screwed up. And I think that’s somewhat fair, but I think the real problem is deeper than that.
Uber, on the other hand, is also hurting, Lyft as well. Because, by necessity, people are going less places, they don’t want to be in a car with a stranger in a strange environment. All of that makes sense.
But Uber just got caught by a pandemic too soon because their model, and they’re not even shy about saying it, is to get rid of all the human drivers and have an autonomous fleet. That technology was supposed to start really happening this year, I think, and the pandemic actually put the brakes on being able to deploy and test as much as is needed for autonomous vehicles.
In the broader sense, the race toward automation and artificial intelligence is accelerating. So, at some point, Uber will have autonomous cars, no humans involved. And guess what? Do you think consumers and business people are going to be more receptive of that now or less?
Jerod Morris: More.
Brian Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t like my Uber driver talking to me, but infecting me is a whole different issue. Again, Uber will get there, they will survive.
Airbnb I worry about because there are many things that can disrupt the travel industry. Obviously pandemics, we’ve seen what can happen there. But you’ve got terrorism, you’ve got war, you’ve got an increasing nationalism over the globalism that allowed for this unrestricted free travel and fueled many Instagram accounts with wonderful pictures of your wonderful travel life.
So that’s an interesting analysis to go through. The difference between these two companies that kind of sprung out of the need of people to participate in what’s been called the gig economy. People started renting out rooms to make extra cash. People started driving people around to make extra cash. But then, people became full time drivers and other people started investing in real estate, relying on Airbnb to pay those mortgages.
And that’s the primary theme of what we’re talking about here which is: it is incredibly dangerous to rely on someone else’s platform. Now you know, Jerod, we’ve been talking about this for over a decade. Mainly in the context that we used to sell Copyblogger software for web publishing, hosting — all of these things that you use to build your own platform on the web.
We were just constantly saying, “Man, bad things will happen from the people who relied on a Facebook page instead of a website — Facebook wipes them out. People who relied on Tumblr, people who… It kept happening over and over and over again.
There was never a loss of opportunity for us to say, “Hey, you really need your own website. And I’m out of that business now and I’ll still tell you exactly the same thing.
Amazon as a Defensible Business
Jerod Morris: You talked about Uber and their transition to basically doing business without human drivers. And this kind of brings us back to Amazon, because just in the last couple of days, there have been all these stories and tweets about how Jeff Bezos is on track to be a trillionaire, which just makes you drop your jaw. I mean, it’s just mind-boggling.
And I mentioned the externalities that are created by Amazon’s model. One of the benefits, I suppose, in this current situation is Amazon is one of those companies that is growing, so they’re hiring. They need people who are drivers, they need people who are working in the warehouses.
But if Uber is going to be going to human drivers, how far are we from Amazon doing the same thing? And then eliminating all of those people that are relying on them for jobs? I mean, that has to be something that’s going to be coming down the road before too long, right?
Brian Clark: Yeah. Amazon was already a juggernaut and Bezos was already the world’s richest man. And then the pandemic hits and no one can shop anywhere in the real world. I was surprised to find that Target’s still open. I’m not going in Target. That just sounds like a nightmare to me.
Jerod Morris: They’re not really changing anything, at least a lot of the Targets that I’ve been in.
Brian Clark: No, and I’m a Target guy. I’m not a Walmart guy, I’m a Target guy. But the thought of going shopping is just… when I don’t have to — I mean, most of the time I was using Amazon already. I become less and less a fan of their business practices and that’s a conundrum. If you added up all the money I’ve spent at Amazon in the last 20 years, it’s a lot of money.
But, okay, so this is what happens when a traditional retailer closes, Amazon is the beneficiary. And then we hear news of all these people being laid off, but Amazon is hiring a hundred thousand people or whatever it is. But that’s for now.
Now, never mind the fact that we know that working conditions, especially in the warehouses, is terrible. So, you’ve got desperate people who need jobs and they’re taking them at a company who is known to treat people badly.
And then of course, you’ve got all these hardworking delivery drivers — UPS, FedEx, United States Postal Service — man, they’re out on the front line bringing us our damn stuff. Yeah, you’re right, Amazon is already in process. Again, they’re not shy about it.
Right now, they’re saying, “Well, our robots cooperate with our human staff. They’ve already floated the idea of drone delivery. So that last mile from the local Amazon warehouse facility delivered to your house by a flying robot basically sounds like science fiction. But we have the tech right now.
Again, Amazon has every motivation to accelerate the shift away from the human element because the human element is frail when you have things, again, beyond pandemics —terrorism, just social disruption of any kind. You’ve got to think Bezos is looking there.
Now the reason why he’s probably going to end up being a trillionaire is this whole, the vaccine supply chain thing that he’s got. The guy’s brilliant, but he could be a little nicer, a lot nicer. You know what I’m saying? How much money do you need? Anyway, I’m not going to get into that. But here, Jerod, it gets really worse.
Why Amazon is not Ideal
Brian Clark: Let’s talk more about our people here. People who are in business maybe in ecommerce or maybe as affiliate marketers.
Again, I see everyone rushing to do business on Amazon’s platform, no site of their own, no distribution of their own. They’re just like, “Why would I do all that? Oh, I’ll tell you why — we now know that Amazon has been using the sales data from their merchant program to replicate their own products.
So, basically, this sells well and it’s generic enough, you’ve got now the Amazon white label brand of that now. I mean, did you not see that coming? If you’ve got a company that’s that powerful and that ruthless, how do you not?
Here’s another one — and this one I know is causing a great deal of pain among some of our friends and a lot of marketers and entrepreneurs out in the digital space. But Amazon took the pandemic as an opportunity to finally cut commissions on their Amazon Associates Program.
Now, again, I’ve been waiting for them to just shut the damn thing down for a while because they don’t technically need it. And I think even Amazon thinks that affiliates do provide a valuable source. Again, this goes to the curation of products. There are a lot of business models that effectively educate the public and then make product suggestions.
The Wirecutter was probably one of the most famous examples that sold for 30 million to The New York Times. But when I saw that happen, I’m like, “Man, you better put your resources behind moving away from Amazon or the Wirecutter is going to become not all that valuable anymore.
So, they didn’t end the program. They’re just going to cut the commissions down to a point where you’re not going to eliminate those billions of links out there that are already pointing in to Amazon, but the money will never be the same again. The payouts will never be the same again.
So, that’s another one. Two examples: you’re doing ecommerce through Amazon, they’re stealing your valuable data because they own the platform, and then they recommend their own version of your product ahead of theirs.
And then we’ve got all the businesses that rely on Amazon as a place for curated product recommendations. You get the commissions and those have been cut substantially.
Again, this is what happens when you rely on someone else’s platform. It seems smart because of all the traffic and all the people that are there. But you have to realize that the owner of the platform makes the rules and that’s not you.
How to Build a 7-Figure Small Defensible Business
Jerod Morris: This is all very informative to understand the larger trends, but I don’t think anybody in this audience is going to build the next Amazon. Although if you are looking to build a 13-figure small, more power to you. This may not be the show for you if you’re trying to build something that big.
But how does this work for the folks listening to this, for the folks who are at the 7-Figure Small level?
Brian Clark: Yeah, when you say platform, people have been trained or brainwashed to think Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, Amazon. And it’s true, they are giant technology platforms, but so is a website combined with an email list because you control that website.
Even though you use powerful software like ConvertKit or MailChimp to conduct your email marketing, you still own that list. So that — a technology-driven, a WordPress website combined with your choice of email marketing software — is a defensible audience platform.
It doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive. And think about, Jerod, think about the business we built with a WordPress site and an email list on some good email software. 8-figures, three 7-figure businesses before that. So, it doesn’t have to be expensive.
And the great thing is we — you and I, well, okay, you — in the last week, we decided we wanted to be able to have more flexibility with what we’re doing. So just with basically off the shelf technology for WordPress, we’re building a very powerful transactional platform. Yes, it’s not free, but it’s not outrageously expensive either.
So I think that’s where people have to understand that not only is a website plus an email list a defensible platform, the technology keeps getting better without getting more expensive.
The Audience-First Business Model
Jerod Morris: What about from a business model perspective though? Because, okay, I put up a website, I’ve got my email list. Okay, let’s go. But now I’ve got to build the audience and then kind of take the next step and build a business around that audience. How should people be thinking about that right now, given everything that’s happening?
Brian Clark: Yeah, I think too often people confuse business model with revenue model. They are actually two different things. Your business model allows you to discover one or more revenue models. A business model is basically a design for a successful business that allows you to identify the revenue sources that’ll work, develop successful products and services and attract a customer base.
But, of course, really when you think about that description of the business model, that’s the traditional product-first model. But what we do here is audience-first, and an audience-first business is exceptionally defensible and it is your business model. Audience-first is a business model.
Some people out there in our industry think this way. I know that Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose over at Content Marketing Institute — well, Joe is supposed to be retired, but he’s still working. Anyway, their whole Killing Marketing book really dove into the fact that this is not about content marketing, this is content as a business model. And I got mentioned in that book because that’s been our model. I was just like, “Hell yes, you get it. It’s not about just marketing, it’s an entire business model if done correctly.
Because with audience-first, the way we teach it in 7-Figure Small Intensive, you build the audience by understanding who they are and intentionally attracting who you want. And then you discover what they want to buy, and then you figure out the revenue model that goes with it.
And all of a sudden, you have a successful business because you didn’t do it the opposite way where you’re like, “I’ve got this product idea and I think I should charge a recurring subscription for it. Now let me find some people who want to buy this. No wonder that fails so often.
So right there, audience-first is, in my mind after giving it lots of thought, I wouldn’t start a business any other way.
Now, I want to make clear here that I’m not calling traditional bricks and mortar businesses bad or other types of businesses. What would we do without them? I’m just saying I’ve never been drawn to starting one. I mean, it doesn’t play to my skillset as a writer and a content creator.
But also, the amount of money you can make with one of these small digital businesses is amazing compared to what you can make with a coffee shop, because the audience scales without necessarily meaning that your business has to grow concurrently. It’s incredibly powerful.
How Do You Make the Audience-First Approach Successful?
Jerod Morris: To play devil’s advocate for a minute though, on this idea of audience-first, there are a lot of media companies that are struggling with an audience-first model.
I, obviously as a hobby, cover a sports team, but I see a lot of people who that’s their job. And you look at newspapers that are just getting killed and a lot of people who are in the audience game are struggling.
What do you have to do if you’re going to go audience-first to make sure that you can actually succeed and build the revenue that you need? Because obviously some of these other models are sinking. They were already sinking and this has made it even quicker.
Brian Clark: Yeah, again, this is something that causes me a great deal of concern. I mean, we need responsible journalism. We need journalism that can support itself financially.
On the other hand, I did not create the model of traditional media, the reliance on advertising. I tried to build a company that relied on advertising exactly one time in 1998, it failed. It just was hard, and it’s gotten harder. And yet, we still see even digital media start-ups that rely on advertising and sponsorships primarily. It’s a tough business.
Original content creation and distribution is expensive, and yet, you’ve got a business model or a revenue model from advertising that’s falling apart. So it’s not a defensible model, the indications are all there. I don’t know what else to say about that other than I would never start one.
But think about the flip side of what one person can do, for example, with a curation model that’s desperately in need because there’s plenty of content, too little attention, too little trust. We need editors that can establish trust with an audience. If you combine that with the product and service discovery aspects of serving an audience first, it will reveal multiple revenue sources.
Therefore, you have a more defensible business right there. You’ve got low overhead but high potential, because again, the audience can get bigger without you necessarily growing your organization. And that is obviously so attractive as a business model.
We’ve got tons of case studies and friends who have done exactly the same thing often using original content. Because if you’re a writer, you are the means of production. I’m fascinated with curation, because I think it’s almost more needed than we need more original content to become that trusted editor.
Basically, small wins big if you have enough of an audience. When I say the audience scales and you don’t have to, it doesn’t mean it has to be millions or hundreds of thousands of people. Although we have plenty of examples of small companies that have done that, it just has to be enough to reveal what they want.
And then once you start being able to sell that successful product or service, then you can make decisions based on revenue that’s coming in, not, “Oh, I have a good idea about what people should buy, instead of finding out what they actually want to buy.
The Lesson from These Examples
Jerod Morris: Yeah. I want to ask you one more question, going back to the examples of Amazon and Airbnb, and I wonder if there’s a lesson that can be extrapolated from this. Because you look at what’s happened to those two businesses with the pandemic and it’s like, “Oh yeah, of course that happened. It’s like, “Yeah, this totally affected global travel, of course. This just killed what Airbnb is doing.
With Amazon, people can’t go out, they can’t shop, they’ve got to shop from home. Of course, this would skyrocket their business. And the thing is this whole idea of a pandemic, yes, the timing of it is always going to take you by surprise, but yet, it’s been predicted for a while that something like this was going to happen.
Now, maybe something like this is just too nebulous, too out there, too unpredictable on the timing to actually plan for it. But if you’re the CEO of Airbnb, if you’re Jeff Bezos and Amazon, is this something that you’re thinking about?
Do you think this was in their plans for contingency plans: “If this happens, how are we going to take advantage of this if it happens? When it’s something that is somewhat predictable, even if you don’t know the timing, but that’s going to have such a just massive impact on their business model one way or the other.
Brian Clark: I think if something like this benefits you, then you’re not only thinking about it, but sadly probably… I mean, if it’s inevitable, it is, and this was. I’m pretty sure Bezos knew that something bad was going to happen that would increase virtuality (which is a weird kind of word, but I guess it makes sense), and that as dominant as Amazon is, would make it more so.
I would say the people at Airbnb are very bright people who had to think through catastrophic scenarios, about what could impact global travel, and therefore, impact their business. But I don’t know how you defend their model.
See, Amazon is basically a hybrid company in that they take real stuff to real people from a digital platform. But like Uber, there are ways to interact digitally with the real world through automation and robotics.
But Airbnb’s model was steeped in the oldest school of real-world businesses, real estate, and also depended on the human beings who own that real estate. So now that you look at it, you’re like, “Wow, I’m glad I never bought stock in Airbnb, even though I think it’s a great service and I’ve used it for my own benefit many times. It’s just, there you go.
Again, if you’re trying to think through how to start some massive VC funded tech platform, I think you’re going to start getting these types of questions from VCs. Think about that, Jerod.
You’ve got a whole new criteria of what they’ll invest in and whatnot based on what they now know about a catastrophic scenario. But for people trying to make these 7-figure small businesses, I think the best way to create one, period, is also the most defensible way to do it.
I have nothing against affiliate marketing, but don’t do business with someone who doesn’t need you. Find the companies that are going to welcome you as a partner to get the word out about their great products that they don’t have the benefit of being Amazon or some other major retail brand. So, think that way. Who can you match up between your audience and someone out there who has the right product or service in a way that makes everyone happy?
We always talk about the win-win. Here you’ve got the “win-win-win, and that’s the way to think about it. Not the, “Oh, I’m going to go and do business with this platform that — you know what? — ultimately doesn’t need me. And when they don’t need me anymore, I’m the one out on the street, or I’m the one who’s going to have my product cannibalized.
I mean, you can’t be too trusting. I just think there’s this inherent, decision-making process where people go, “I’m going to start a business on this platform and they’re the ones who complain the loudest when the rug gets pulled out from under them. I’m just going to have to say, “You had to see that coming.
Final Thoughts
Jerod Morris: That’s a good note to end on. Thank you for the insight as always, Brian. Any final thoughts?
Brian Clark: Yeah, I guess you can say that a bunch of introspection has been prompted by this whole situation. Most of it has not been around business. But two months in, my brain just started going to, “This is a worthy exercise on the go-forward because not everything’s going to change, but a lot of things aren’t going back the way they were. And I think a lot of that has to do with the acceleration of what was already happening.
We’ve got to see how it plays out. But I think people in our audience who are trying to build these types of businesses have nothing negative to come out of it because audience-first is defensible. You can switch around to different revenue models at the drop of a hat, if something bad happens and that’s beautiful.
So I’m just more bullish on the7-figure small type business than ever, because jeez, losing your business and your livelihood is happening to far too many people right now, and that is not good.
Jerod Morris: Yep. Well, thank you for being here and listening to this episode of 7-Figure Small. We will be back next week with a brand-new episode.
Thank you for listening to this episode of 7-Figure Small. Remember to take a moment this week — or heck, just do it right now — to sign up for Next Level 7, which is Brian Clark’s free audio course that teaches you about how to lay the foundation for a defensible business, like the one that we talked about in this episode.
You’ll learn what’s working for attracting an audience and discovering what they want to buy, which are the first steps toward building a business that has the ability to adapt to changing economic times.
To get started for free, go to nextlevelseven.com. That’s nextlevelseven.com.