Category Archives: Case Studies

Blogging’s Not Dead: A $120,000 Monthly Success Story

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In a world where some believe blogging has met its demise, Sophia Lee stands as a testament to the contrary, earning an impressive $120,000 per month through her blog. Here’s what she did to earn this income, year by year.

Year #1: Focus on Fast Income

Sophia, a struggling college sophomore, stumbled upon a Pinterest pin claiming $10,000 monthly earnings from blogging. Intrigued, she deleted her original blog posts and concentrated on making quick income.

Recognizing the potential in ads, she aimed for ad agency approval, focusing on generating page views through Pinterest. To fast-track her learning curve, she invested $100 in a blogging course and promptly applied the newfound knowledge. (There’s a hint in there somewhere, people.)

Year #2: Focus on Affiliate Marketing and SEO

In her second year, Sophia shifted her focus to affiliate marketing, primarily utilizing Amazon Associates. While advising against early engagement in affiliate marketing, she emphasizes the necessity of SEO.

Acknowledging her need to learn, she mastered the art of SEO over time, reiterating her pattern of continuous learning, implementation, and adjustment. (If you want to start with Affiliate Marketing, today there are more profitable choices to be made than Amazon.)

Year #3: Focus on Email List Building and Social Media

Sophia, finally realizing the importance of an email list and regretting not having built a list from day 1, finally focuses on building her list. She stresses the need for helpful, reader-centric content, steering away from self-centric narratives. (Build your list, people!)

Engaging with social media on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, she maintains consistency with daily Instagram stories and weekly YouTube videos. (Consistency in posting is important.)

Coping with increased workload, Sophia begins hiring part-time freelancers, building a supportive team. (Smart move.)

Year #4: Focus on Course Creation

Entering her fourth year, Sophia ventures into course creation, recognizing the financial potential in digital courses. Simultaneously, she pursues another passion, launching an interior design business.

With accumulated experience and financial stability, she embraces a more risk-taking approach, expanding her entrepreneurial portfolio. (If you’re able, you might start creating your first course on Day 1 rather than Year 4.)

Year #5: Focus on TikTok and Hiring Full-time Employees

In her fifth year, Sophia strategically adopts TikTok as a platform for visibility. Expanding her business ventures, she transitions from part-time to full-time employees, improving workflow efficiency.

Justifying the preference for full-time staff, she highlighted their increased focus and involvement in business operations.

Could You Make $100,000 a Month in 5 Years?

Sophia Lee’s journey offers a blueprint for aspiring bloggers. With a meticulous five-year plan, she transformed her blog into a lucrative venture, now earning $120,000 monthly.

If you want to make money blogging, you might start with a smaller project as a preliminary step toward potential success while adding a podcast as soon as possible.

 

 

This Mistake Cost Roughly $1,500,000 in Profit

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Here’s a mini-case study from a self-described ‘absolute idiot.’

In 2020 Stanley Tussy started an ecommerce brand with great success. Covid helped the business to gain traction and in the first-year revenues were nearly $2 million.

Stanley says that’s when he got lazy and complacent.

Thanks to the pandemic, ads were cheap, and he was happy to generate 100% of his revenue and sales through paid ads.

But when things went back to normal after Covid, ad costs rose, and his business experienced a massive decrease in profit.

The one thing he neglected was as he says, “The most BASIC and FUNDAMENTAL thing for every business,” – sending out emails.

He had an audience and customer base that he built through paid ads, and yet because of his complacency he did not send out a SINGLE promotional email until 2023.

Emails were something he thought he would do later once he’d grown the business more.

Now emails account for 35% of his revenue and net 70% of his sales. He could operate at break even or even at a loss acquiring new leads and customers because his email revenue will more than make up for that. He says, “I’m basically just printing money at this point, and my open rate, click rate, and placed order rate are going up with each new campaign I send out.”

And his emails are simple: A logo, a simple image with a promo code using a Canva template, 4-5 lines of text talking about the promo and how subscribers will miss out if they don’t grab it.

He spends more time creating the subject line than the email itself and uses a swipe file to create a subject line that will work.

The money he’s lost is an estimate based on last year’s revenue, and just thinking about it makes him feel ill.

Stanely says, “At the end of the day, success in ecommerce or in any industry, in my opinion, is really just about the fundamentals. You need to put in the groundwork by first creating or branding a product that fulfills a need/want in your niche, promote the hell out of it through paid ads/posts, and then cultivate a relationship with the audiences you’ve built through these channels.”

The one takeaway he wants everyone to remember is to not make the same mistake he made and neglect promotional emails. He says if he were starting over, he would be sending emails from Day 1 and promoting his product on social media as well.

 

 

Mini-Case Study – Creating a New Product

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You get an idea for a product, you build the product based on that idea, you launch your product to the world and make a ton of sales. Right?

Except it almost never works that way.

Here’s what BlaxkmanJr says about creating the app they’re about to launch – emphasis is mine:

After 8 months of talking to users, going through multiple iterations and speaking to professional researchers, I can proudly say that me and my co-founder have created an app that’ll be released on the App Store in December!

MyndMap started as an idea to me, and it’s crazy to see how far it’s come when you don’t let self-doubt and perfectionism cloud your eyes (which I think a lot of first time founders do) and focus on the one true thing that matters – user feedback and iteration. A great idea is nothing without iteration, and so if you’ve got something that you think will be a good idea, go ahead and do it!

Notice the key points here: Talking to users and creating multiple versions until they (hopefully) got it right, according to user feedback.

When you’re creating a brand-new product, ideally you want to make successive refinements or improvements to that product based on user feedback. The goal of having several product iterations is to enhance the product’s features, functionality, and overall performance to better meet customer needs and preferences.

And this process can be used not just for software, but for any product including information products. That’s why courses are often developed in conjunction with beta users, so that user input can strengthen and improve the course as well as providing the first testimonials.

BlaxkmanJr also mentions overcoming self-doubt and perfectionism, two things that probably kill 95% of product ideas. Not believing in yourself or trying to create the ‘perfect product’ can stop you from building or finishing your new product. You can overcome self-doubt by focusing on the product and your users instead of focusing on yourself. And you can overcome perfectionism by acknowledging in advance your product will not be perfect because (spoiler alert) it never will be.

Finally, they mention focus – getting that minimum viable product out there, letting users try it, getting feedback and repeating the process over and over until they get it right. They could have given up and tried something else, but instead they stayed focused on the goal and got it done.

Incidentally, the app is called MyndMap and it’s designed to… help individuals, especially those with ADHD, to better manage their daily lives. It’s a digital platform that combines task management, mood tracking, and personalized reminders with AI-driven insights.

The idea behind MyndMap is to provide a structured yet flexible framework that assists users in organizing their tasks, setting priorities, and keeping track of their emotional well-being. It’s not just about getting things done; it’s about understanding how different aspects of your day affect your mood and productivity.

They’re launching in the App Store in December and releasing an android version the following month.

 

501 Days from Business Start to Strategic Exit

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At 30 years old, Jana recently closed a significant chapter in her entrepreneurial journey – selling her first one-person consulting business. Reflecting on the 501 days it took to reach this point, she shared with me the path she took from inception to selling her business, along with plans to build her next part-time business venture.

Embrace Imperfection and Just Start

For two years, Jana was stuck in the “I-want-to-start-a-business” mindset, endlessly consuming information without taking any real action. She was waiting for the flawless recipe that would show her exactly what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

Finally, she realized this perfect plan would never materialize, and the only way to get started was simply to start. She challenged herself to make incremental progress, to allow herself to pivot as needed, to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and to believe that if she continued to move forward, then the next step would always appear.

Looking back, she says it’s not how you start, but rather that you simply start. If you’re afraid, it’s okay, as long as you keep moving.

Consistent Action Beats Reading More How-to Books

Jana says Henry Ford was right, “If you believe you can do it, then you can do it. If you believe you can’t, well, you’re right about that, too.”

She found that her own beliefs in herself and her business were strengthened through consistent action. Instead of getting lost in reading more books or posts on how to begin, the key is to show up every day and move your business forward by at least 1%.

Consistency compounds over time, reinforcing the belief that you are, indeed, an entrepreneur. Every day of showing up is a testament to your commitment.

Follow Your Obsessions

Jana says to discover what truly captivates you, what makes you unique, and then lean into it, even if you think it’s strange. Embrace the quirks that define you because these can be your unique offerings to others.

What may seem too different from mainstream can often be turned into a scalable business model. Your passions, no matter how unusual, can fuel a successful business if leveraged correctly.

Leverage Your Weaknesses and Shortcomings

Recognize and harness your weaknesses and shortcomings and turn them into assets. Jana was building a business in an industry dominated by old white men, while she is a young African American woman. Jana has a psychological quirk that most people would want to hide, but instead she spoke about it openly and used it to her advantage in the business.

Sometimes the things you think are holding you back are your greatest strengths. But you’ve got to realize that and figure out how to use them to your advantage, setting you apart from everyone else in your niche.

Zero in on Your Unique Voice

Jana discovered that combining your obsessions with your unique assets creates an unfair advantage in your niche. You have no competition because no one can replicate you, and there’s immense power in that. When you are true to yourself and build a business around your genuine interests, weaknesses and strengths, you automatically stand out, making the concept of competition irrelevant.

Prioritize Long-Term Relationships

In business, relationships are everything. Jana cultivated meaningful connections and avoided toxic ones. She became adept at judging character and trusting her intuition.

If you can’t envision a long-term working relationship with someone, don’t engage with them. Building a network of reliable and trustworthy connections is a fundamental aspect of sustainable success.

Let Go of Expectations

Jana didn’t start out thinking she would sell her business in 501 days, or even perhaps ever.

She began by learning what kind of help people wanted, needed and were willing to pay for.

Then she worked like crazy to deliver it. She focused on servicing her customers first, building her business second, and long term goals weren’t even on her mind at the time.

By focusing on servicing her first customers, she found it easy to get testimonials and referrals. This made building her business easy, too.

But she didn’t rely just on referrals. She created a great deal of content that drove people to her podcast and her website, and some of those people became clients, too.

The point is, she focused on what needed to be done each day and let the long term picture take care of itself. This isn’t what most experts would tell you to do, but it certainly worked for her.

What’s Her Next Move?

Digital products. She’s sold her business for six figures plus a consulting contract that runs for three years. During these three years she will continue to occasionally work in the business and mainly consult with the new owner on working ON the business.

Her time commitment for this is 10 to 20 hours per week, leaving her plenty of time to begin creating digital products. Now that she’s built a business servicing customers, she looks forward to building a second business where she does the work one time and gets paid over and over for it.

Notice she didn’t start with digital products. Getting the experience of helping real people to achieve real results has given her a tremendously firm foundation on which to create and sell digital products from now on.

And because she’ll still be consulting, she’ll get even more experience in the niche that she can continue to parlay into new products.

Here’s What She Told Me to Tell You

There are a few lessons she learned early on that might help you in your own online journey.

First, know in advance that your journey is going to be marked by imperfections and mistakes. That’s okay because it’s simply part of the process.

Second, if you can become obsessed with helping people in your niche, then there’s no way you can fail.

Third, leverage your unique strengths and weaknesses to build a business that has no competition.

And finally, by focusing on consistent action, cultivating meaningful relationships, and staying true to your authentic self, you can build a business that succeeds beyond your wildest dreams.

 

 

$11 Million in 1.5 Years from One Simple Marketing Strategy

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Meet Oliver Brocato, the 21-year-old entrepreneur who turned a small box of chocolates into a whopping $11 million within just a year and a half. How did he pull off this sweet success story? Here’s what he did:

  1. Viral Product Idea

First things first, let’s talk about Oliver’s unique product, which he affectionately calls “Tabs” or “sex chocolate.” Picture this: a minimalist brown box containing three tiny squares of chocolate that can be shared with a partner. What’s so special about it? It claims to spice up the bedroom action, enhance sensations, and build sexual excitement. Ooh la la!

Now, whether this “sex chocolate” truly works as advertised isn’t our focus here. What matters is that Oliver recognized the potential for his product to go viral because it was, well, controversial. It grabbed people’s attention and ignited conversations on social media.

  1. The Marketing Magic

But here’s where things get interesting, and it’s a strategy you probably haven’t tried yourself. Oliver hired “UGC creators” to craft TikTok videos showcasing his product and share them on their very own “branded accounts.” What’s UGC? It stands for “user-generated content.”

These UGC creators are often micro-influencers with small to moderate social media followings. Some of them might not even have their own social media accounts; they’re like everyday folks. What makes UGC so effective is that it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a typical ad.

Oliver’s masterstroke was in hiring just about anyone with a phone to make videos about his product. These creators would set up a TikTok account in the brand’s name and post their videos there, sparing the business from managing all that content.

Oliver didn’t give the creators strict video-making rules because, as he wisely put it, “you never know what will go viral.” And guess what? Some of those videos did indeed go viral, racking up millions of views.

3: The Mind-Blowing Part

Now, I know that posting a bunch of product videos on TikTok isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But it’s what Oliver Brocato did next that had my mind doing somersaults.

Those initial videos created by the UGC creators weren’t trying to generate sales; they were all about raising awareness of the product.

When folks on TikTok saw these UGC videos, they started flooding the comments section with questions like:

“Where can I buy this?”

“How does it work?”

And when viewers left questions, the UGC creators didn’t just leave them hanging. They whipped up follow-up videos and used TikTok’s nifty “respond to comments” feature to post them.

Now, here’s the real “Aha!” moment:

When you post a video responding to a comment like this, it doesn’t just disappear into the ether. It gets shown to the same folks who watched the original video. Yeah, you read that right.

Let’s say a cool 2 million people watched the initial “awareness” video. Those same folks would also catch wind of the follow-up video, answering the commenter’s questions.

It’s like free retargeting and social proof bundled into one mesmerizing strategy.

I feel compelled to say that again…

It’s like free retargeting and social proof bundled into one mesmerizing strategy.

Honestly, this approach seems way cooler than your run-of-the-mill TikTok ads (the ones most people casually swipe past). When a brand pops up to answer a viewer’s question, it doesn’t feel like an ad so you’re more likely to stick around and watch.

Plus, when people see others getting curious about a product, they can’t help but get curious themselves. Fear of missing out, anyone?

Just to drive home how powerful this is, Brocato spilled the beans about one of their “awareness” videos going viral on TikTok. It snagged a cool 30 million views and brought in $40,000 in sales. But here’s the kicker: After several follow-up videos in response to viewer comments, their sales skyrocketed to $130,000 within days, and they hit seven figures in sales for that month.

Mind = blown.

4: Making It Work for You

After learning all this, I couldn’t help but wonder how I could unleash this strategy in my own biz.

First, where do you find these UGC creators? It turns out there are over 4,000 UGC services on Fiverr, starting at just 10 bucks and going up to over a hundred per video.

And TikTok’s got its very own Creator Marketplace, where you can hunt for video creators, shoot them collaboration invites, and track the results of your campaigns.

But I get it; not everyone’s rolling in dough to hire creators. I mean, I’m all for spending smartly on tasks that’ll boost my business, but my inner penny-pincher kicks in too.

So, I’m thinking, why not try making these videos myself to test out that “respond to comments” feature?

Who knows, I might just surprise myself.