5 Secrets to Earning Six Figures (or More) In Business

As business owners today, we have access to so many tools and resources to make building a business easier. But why aren’t more entrepreneurs building businesses that thrive? According to a 2008 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation study, only 6% of all entrepreneurs ever achieve 6-figure business success, only 2% ever achieve 7-figure success, and more than 50% of all business owners never exceed $25,000 each year. Why do you think that is?

Many entrepreneurs don’t know and understand the five critical keys to unleashing a 6-figure business: mindset, message, market, money, and methods.

1. Mindset

Ninety-five percent (95%) of business success depends on your mindset, so get your mind right. This includes your motives, or why you are looking to build a solid, thriving business. Wanting to make money is not the same as sharing your divine gifts with the world.

Recognizing the power that your subconscious mind and beliefs have over your actions is pivotal. Your thoughts are equal to your feelings and beliefs which affect your actions and dictate your results.

Some of my favorite ways to get my mindset right are vision-brand-and-why boards, affirmations, mantras, goal cards, and meditation. The key is to master mindsets that are business-building and life-affirming. It’s easy to let fear keep you from building your business; successful entrepreneurs feel the fear but position themselves to do it anyway.

2. Message

Get your message tight. Yes, I said tight. You’ve got to have a clear message, one that resonates immediately with those who are actively seeking your services. Make sure you solve a real problem. You want to be able to answer what you do, how you do it, and the results others get when they work with you. If you serve more than one type of client, you need a clear marketing message for each of them. You can’t expect different people to respond to the same message.

3. Market

This is a big one: get your market precise. To build a business, you must know who you are desiring to serve or who can best benefit from your offerings. This is tough for many entrepreneurs. There are those experts who tell you to target a group based on demographics, but that doesn’t work.

There are those who tell you to identify a niche and start to define a specific problem for a group of people. But I think you need to go deeper and build an audience of one, one type of person with one distinct problem to which you provide one robust solution. Yes, you can have more than one audience of one, but you will communicate to them separately to ensure that they get it.

Picture yourself in a crowded room and trying to talk to someone on the other side. You can’t move but you need to get them a message. From your current position, it’s not likely they will hear what you are saying, but imagine that suddenly there’s a parting, if you will, and a path becomes clear for you to get up close and personal with them.

Not only would they now be able to hear you, but they’d also be able to communicate with you and share feedback. When you build an audience of one profile, you are able to get up close and personal with your ideal market and give them what they want so that they see you as the only solution.