AP 0403: How Do I Become a Millionaire?

AskPat 403 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody, Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 403 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week. And we have a great question today from Ross.

But before we get to Ross's question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com, making it super easy for all of us to manage our business finances. They actually serve over three million small business owners including myself and they just make it super easy to keep track of your income, your expenses, and all your invoicing as well. They make invoicing incredibly easy, so you can get paid and just focus on what you need to do to grow your business. If you want to check out FreshBooks for free for 30 days, head on over to Freshbooks.com/AskPat and enter “AskPat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Again, that's go to getfreshbooks.com and enter “AskPat.” Awesome. Now here's today's question from Ross.

Ross: Hi Pat, Ross again here, I just wanted to let you know I wasn't able to get into my last message but I do come from a middle class family, my parents made good money, they thought me well, but I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a millionaire. Not necessarily a millionaire, but I wanted that freedom. I wanted that freedom that I know money can buy. Not the fancy stuff that goes with it but the freedom that the lifestyle that I would like to live. I just knew from an early age that's what I wanted and knew than and I know that I'm capable of doing that, I just feel I need the right direction, I need the right steps. I actually meant, I'm looking forward from hearing from you man, I've read every single entrepreneur on the Academy site and you're really one of the guys that I feel like is in the expertise area that I'm looking for. I wanted to just add that in there man, thanks again, my mind state is one in a million man. If you could get back to me, I really appreciate it, thanks.

Pat Flynn: Hey Ross, what's up, thank you so much for the question today, I appreciate the kind words there at the end as well. It's a lot of people dreams to be a millionaire, but I'm really glad you followed it up with, well not necessarily a millionaire, but just what you need to feel comfortable because you are defining more what it is about you that you want, not just this random number, right. I want to encourage everybody who's listening to this right now to learn from Ross, because Ross, you know what you want, you know what kind of lifestyle that you're looking for.

Millionaire to one person is completely different to another. For some, a million isn't enough for the lifestyle that they want, for some it's more than enough. So what I encourage you to do is figure out what that number needs to be, what is that number on the per monthly bases so that you know what you need to do in order to get that, this is how we approach lifestyle design. You figure out the lifestyle that you want and what it might cost to live that kind of lifestyle, for example, how much would it cost to pay your rent or mortgage or the car payments and all that other stuff and all the things that you need and it seems like you are going to be happy with not all the luxury items out there.

But again, write these things down, figure out what that number is, let's say hypothetically that number is $5,000 a month. That may be higher, that may be lower, but I'm just using that as an example. Once you have that number, $5,000 a month, which is $60,000 a year, that will give you much better picture in terms of what you need to do. Because obviously if you wanted to make $60 million a year, you'd have to do something where it's going to be a lot different that trying to earn $60,000 dollars a year. Going from the year to the monthly, that helps break it down. So you have $5,000 per month, and now if you were to divide that by day, that $5,000 divided by 30 for example, that's a $166 per day. Now when you put it that way, it actually doesn't sound quite out of reach, you just have to generate about $167 per day, in one way, shape or form, or through a couple of launches have $5,000 come in every month or, for example, maybe you have a couple of clients, maybe you have five clients, you teach them something or they come to you for advice for something and you charge them a $1,000 a month. If you have five clients, that gets you there.

The business model will sort of depend on what kind of business you're doing and how you want to offer that solution. Because really, when it comes down to it, that's all an entrepreneur and it is, an entrepreneur is somebody who solves problems. So finding a specific market based of off perhaps some expertise that you have, some skills and all those sorts of things, what can you do to serve others who don't have those, or need other people to help them with those particular things. Perhaps you might have some information, perhaps you might be able to create a software product that can help a particular small business for example. In that way, you would be getting a recurring income from people who, for example, pay to continue to use your service or your software over time, and then you would just need X number of people using that every month. And again, it just makes it much more tangible when you break down those numbers like that.

So that's where I would start. Now in terms of where to go from there, it's going to be a little difficult to do this on an AskPat episode for example, I need to consult a little bit more with you, I need to have an hour call or something like that and unfortunately I'm not doing those right now, but you could find other people out there who would do that or you could just dig a little bit deeper and see what else is out there. Now what I would start to write down is a whole list of ideas of things that you feel like you can add to market or a niche that isn't there already.

If you need help, here's a great place to go, if you have some ideas in your head, head on over to Amazon, type in keywords related to whatever it is you talking about and look in the three star reviews for all those different products or books related to those things. The three star reviews everybody are key because the five star reviews are going to be pretty biased, a lot of time people pay for them or just the friends and families know that their existing following is leaving reviews, so you can't really. . . Not that you can't trust them, you just don't want to be swayed by them. You could get some good information about what needed from those, but I would avoid looking at those for research purposes. The one star reviews, they're just going to tell you flat out what's wrong with it, and that could help you. But the three star reviews, for those products and services and books for example, those are the things that are going to give you all the golden information. “Well, this is what I like about this and these are the pros of this item or book, and these are the cons, I wish I had this, this and this.” And that will.

Organically you're going to start to see that you might be able to figure out, okay well, it seems that in this market that a lot of people are looking for this but they're not getting it, and you can go there. I would also get into a lot of conversations with the people in that particular target market or niche so that you can dig deep and figure out trough conversation what those problems are and figure out what that language is that they're using as well, which will be completely helpful for you down the road as well.

There's so many ways to generate an income online, but what you do and how you do it, in terms of is it a product, is it a physical product, is it a information product, is it a service, is it a tool, is it a software, is it recurring payment, are you doing coaching or are you getting in contact with small businesses who pay you a monthly retainer for something or graphic design services. It goes on and on, but once you figure out what that number is Ross, that's going to help you so much in terms of figuring it out and understanding, well where you can start but also where it ends, because I think a big problem that a lot of entrepreneurs have is they just. . . That they go for millionaire when they don't need to be a millionaire in order to be happy, because they create a business that would go for a million, they are not in a business that would actually suite their lifestyle.

So, Ross, I hope that answers your question or at least give you something or a place to start. Obviously there's a lot of content here on AskPat.com and the Smart Passive Income podcast is a great place to start as well. You'll pull a lot of inspiration from the success stories that are shared there as well. And for those of you who haven't listened to Smart Passive Income, I highly recommend it, we have all types of guests on the shows. I've done my own solo shows as well, first for particular strategies and tactics and things like that to help you grow your own online business. But we have people who are famous, like Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss, but the more popular episodes are actually form people who nobody’s ever heard of before, people who have done very well in spaces where you might not think people would do very well. There's a woman named Lane Amen who's making six figures in the scrapbooking industry. There's a woman who just was on the show from Freshlypicked.com, who's making, I believe she has a seven figure business, selling moccasins. I mean it's ridiculous, but not so much, because it's actually possible and it's awesome, so it's not ridiculous at all.

So for those of you listening, I hope this gives you a dose of inspiration for the day. Ross, especially you, and I wish you all the best and I hope this gives you some guidance down the road as well. So Ross, we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. Thank you so much for sharing and asking this question that was featured here today. For those of you who have a question that you’d like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page. Thank you all so much for the questions, because obviously this show would not exist without you.

I also want to thank Freshbooks.com for being an amazing sponsor, on of the first here for AskPat.com actually, and you can get a 30-day free trail by going to FreshBooks.com/AskPat and by entering “AskPat” in the “how did you hear about us?” section. That will give you access to the best tool out there to manage your finances, especially come tax season. I know it's July, or excuses me, August right now, wow it is August, wow. I know it's August right now, but April is just around the corner, the end of the year, all your tax stuff has to be in order. It just makes it so much easier for you or your tax guy or whoever see what's going on in your business. Plus it gives you a pulse on a beat of your business right now, and then also they have an award winning app, so you can check the health status of your business on the go as well. They make invoicing incredibly easy, like I said earlier, and they're just the best, so head on over to FreshBooks.com/AskPat and enter “AskPat” in “how did you hear about us?” section.

Now heres a quote for you Ross, and also everybody else out there who has that doubt in their head about wherever they're going. This is from Steven Pressfield of The War of Art. He said: “Like self doubt, fear is an indicator, fear tell us what we have to do. The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” And all I have to say about that is, amen. Because every time I've been super scared of something in this online businesses world, there's always been something on the other end after I pushed trough. That's for you and everybody else out there who's freaking out right now. It's probably a reason, it's probably because it's important to you and there's something awesome on the other side.

Cheers, thanks so much and I can't wait to serve you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks guys. Bye.