Brick & Mortar to Digital Entrepreneur

How good are you at seeing gaps?

Part of every online business is recognizing problems that you can solve. Every industry, every niche that you plug yourself into has these gaps.

Having a successful online business depends on seeing these gaps, and helping people by filling them with your products or services. That's how all businesses are started.

People buy physical products, services, and courses because they have a gap that they need to fill. And, as an entrepreneur, you come along and fill that gap for them.

Today we're going to talk about Greg Todd; he was a physical therapist for 12 years who saw a huge gap in his industry when he started consulting other physical therapy practices.

There were so many things that college did not prepare these physical therapists to tackle. These people knew how to do physical therapy, but they had no idea how to run a business.

Greg saw a gap in his field and realized that people needed his help. But consulting in person was not something that he wanted to do long-term.

He didn't want to sacrifice every weekend with his family to do face to face consulting. He had a wife and kids that needed him.

Right then and there Greg could have called it a day. He already had his practices. He didn't need the extra income. But he had a burning desire to help other physical therapists thrive as entrepreneurs.

Greg took a different approach.

He put his consulting courses out there with Kajabi. This gave him the ability to multiply his knowledge and teach other physical therapists without being physically present.

From the comfort of his man cave, he built his online business teaching other people life-changing skills they never learned in school.

Even if you're not a physical therapist, there is so much valuable information in Greg's story for any entrepreneur.

ANYONE can build an online business.

YOU can build an online business.

All you have to do is recognize the gaps, like Greg did, and create content and courses to fill those gaps for other people.

College may not be the answer.

One of the big motivators for Greg was seeing a significant shift in what new physical therapist go through to get into the field.

The requirements for the career are more rigorous and more expensive than what he experienced 12 years ago. And to make matters even worse: physical therapists aren't getting paid any more than they were 12 years ago.

The norm used to be this: graduate high school, go to college so you can get a good job, get your degree, and start a profitable career.

Things have changed a lot if you haven't noticed.

The average college student takes on $37,000 in debt to go to a basic 4-year college. And if you're in the medical field, 87.6% of graduates are shouldering a whopping $139,517 in debt.

You may have more opportunities in the workforce with a degree, but a job is not guaranteed once you get out of school.

And a lot of times it will take you years and years of work to even make enough to pay off your debt.

Is it just me, or does it seem like this system is broken?

Nothing against college or degrees, but it's not the only way.

There's a different way that works.

You don't need a degree to build a business online.

You can ditch this system and create an online career for yourself.

Nearly any online business can be started today, debt free, with minimal upfront cost.

A shift in how people make money.

And just like you don't need a university to build a successful career for yourself, you don't need four physical walls around you to build a business.

Here are some average startup figures for new businesses:

• Retail: $32,000
• Arts and entertainment: $16,000
• Finance or Insurance: $52,000
• Service businesses: $14,000-$18,000

These are just a few examples

Want to know the best part?

You can do every single one of these things at home with a computer.

Sometimes shortcuts are smarter.

It can almost feel like you're cutting corners or tricking the system. But why make things harder than they need to be?

If you want to own a business, you can:

1. Go to school and pack on $37k in debt for a degree. 
2. Add another $14,000 to $52,000 on startup investment. 
3. Then start making a profit... eventually... after you pay off your debts... years down the road.

Or you can:

1. Skip all that debt. 
2. Start your business for barely a fraction of that. 
3. And start making money within months, maybe even weeks or sooner.

Which sounds like the better option?

If you eventually want to have a brick-and-mortar shop, you can totally do that, but there's power in starting smaller and smarter.

Run your business like a business.

You want to start your business online, and that's great. But if you treat it like a hobby, that's what you'll get.

I know it's hard when people don't take you seriously.

Unless you have online entrepreneurs in your family, you may get some weird looks from people when they hear what you want to do. Don't let that shake you. All they see is you spending a lot of time at your computer.

Mentally become the CEO of your business from day one and big things will happen.

Not only will you win over your doubters.

You'll blow them away.

So where do you start?

What if I have no clue how to start a business online?

Don't be afraid to learn.

Greg didn't know how to run an online business when he started. He invested in the online education he needed to learn.

And when he hit a roadblock where he just wasn't getting it; he outsourced to virtual assistants.

That can be terrifying when you're starting out.

You may think, "I haven't even gotten this off the ground! Why would I hire someone? Shouldn't that come later when I've grown?"

Think of it this way. If you built a big restaurant, would you hire your cooks and servers before opening? Or would you wait and see if it takes off before you hire any help?

Doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

Part of treating your business like a business is recognizing your limitations, and delegating to other people who know what they're doing. You will get through roadblocks faster instead of getting stuck for days, or even months.

Greg employees several VA's for his business, and his business got up off the ground so much quicker than if he would've tried to go it alone.

Sometimes we think we have to do it all alone.

You see the bloggers, YouTubers, and course creators who are in the spotlight, but you don't see what goes on behind-the-scenes.

The truth is, not many successful online business owners go it alone. Whether it's answering emails, managing social media accounts, or designing logos, a lot of times there's someone behind the scenes helping them build their business.

Before we wrap it up today, I want to break down a list of Greg's business tactics that helped him to be so successful with Kajabi. You can use these strategies in any online niche you can imagine. Once you recognize the gaps in your niche, it's time to take the next step.

Keep costs low.

Even now, Greg has one $49 light, one $50 microphone, a laptop, and iPad to run his business.

But you don't even really need that.

I've seen so many people use Kajabi to start their businesses using only an iPhone and a computer.

The beauty in keeping your costs low it makes the barrier to entry so easy to blow right through. Do that, and you can focus on your content: what do you want to share with the world?

Everything else is just extra.

Use Facebook live as a business tool.

4 to 5 times a week Greg picked a topic for a live video that would be valuable to his niche. He talked for 7 to 12 minutes in each video, and it did so much for his online presence.

I know going live can be intimidating for a lot of people (um... guilty), but once you get used to it, live videos are such an awesome tool for your business.

Build your list better not bigger.

We say this with almost every Hero we interview, but it is so important that you get this.

You don't need a huge list to build a successful business.

Greg's list has under 2000 people. He only has 106 paying students, but his business is doing so well it helped him buy a vacation home!

Why is that?

Because he built a list that valued what he had to share. He bridged knowledge gaps in his field. And people were happy to pay. Greg has changed so many lives with his content.

Serve your people.

To build a successful business you need to be an expert at finding gaps. The best way to see gaps in your niche is to listen to your audience.

Actively ask them things like:

"How could I help you?"

"What are your frustrations?"

"What do you need to know more about?"

Then you create content and courses based on what they want to know. Find a way to bridge each gap and keep looking for more gaps that you can fill in the future. You'll have customers indefinitely, and you will expand your reach to change even more lives.

Leverage the power of VA's.

There is a VA for everything you can imagine. You can hire designers, someone to answer customer emails, and someone to manage social media accounts.

Some people are great at talking to a camera but don't enjoy writing content, so they hire writers who know what they're doing.

Delegate the tasks you don't love or have problems doing to someone else so you can focus on what you're really good at.

What if you can't afford to hire a virtual assistant? Reach out to people you know who have a talent for what you need until you CAN hire a VA.

You never know you may end up with a lifelong business partner that you love working with.

Keep building on what you started.

One tip that Greg mentioned in the interview was mind blowing when it comes to content creation.

He can take one live video put the audio on a podcast, turn the dialogue into an article, or even split each live video of into smaller videos to create a series for Youtube.

When you do this you get so much mileage out of your content it snowballs to expand your reach even more.

Kajabi: the secret to squeezing as much money out of your time as possible.

In a recent Kajabi Hero story, we talked about how life is fleeting and so precious.

Every single one of us has the same 24 hours every day.

Some people spend 8 to 12 of those hours working for just enough to get by, debt on their shoulders, hoping one day if they work hard enough, and long enough they'll eventually get a promotion.

Some people, like Greg, decide that's not the life they want. Some people want freedom. So they create a career for themselves where they can make more in an hour then some people make a full 12 hour day.

I see it happen every single day.

You can have that freedom too.

You have something inside of you that will make the world better.

Are you going to keep that to yourself?

Or are you going to do something with it?

You can live to work, or you can work to live the life you want today.

The choice is up to you.

Kajabi is here to give you control over your life by helping you build a business today that can change your life and the lives of others.

You have 24 hours.

What are you going to do with it?

You could be out next Kajabi hero.

So before we finish up, I've got a little homework for you:

• On a piece of paper, write down what you want to share with the world. 
• Then write down what the first step is to get it out there.

Maybe you need to start a website with Kajabi. Maybe you need to start planning a course. Or maybe you need to hire someone to get you over a roadblock.

Once you're done, share this story on your favorite social media and tell the world, "I want to be the next Kajabi Hero!"

I'm just saying... these t-shirts are nice. Super nice. I can't wait to send yours soon!

If you want to be the next Kajabi Hero but have questions about how Kajabi works and what it can do for you, reach out to me in the comments below. We'll get back to you with answers so you can get started, and change your life.

And if you want to learn more about Greg and his courses, check him out here.

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