ultimate guides

How I Started a 5-Figure Coaching Business With Ultimate Guides

In my first year of running an online business, I made $38k from scratch.

I had no former business education.

No rich parents or connections.

Not even a website.

All I did to do is used ONE key strategy that I’ll reveal in this post (and I’ll show you EXACTLY how I used it to get my business off the ground).

Let’s dive in!

I went through 2 failed business ideas until I found a great one

A few years ago, I was studying computer science at the university and working in a cubicle as a software developer.

I was sick of working for someone else and loved the idea of becoming my own boss, so I invested $1,000 into Ramit Sethi’s Earn1k course that taught me how to start a freelance business.

Unfortunately, things weren’t as easy as they might sound when you take an online course. It took me 7 months to actually find a great business idea since purchasing the course.

Even though I went through the course and put it into action, my first two business ideas didn’t work out.

My first business idea was to create websites for companies in Slovenia, which I spent quite a few months on.

There were two problems with that idea.

The first problem was that I was working on it with a team that wasn’t as motivated as I was, so while I would do the work, they wouldn’t and would find countless excuses to not make anything happen.

The second problem was that I just wasn’t very good at making websites, so it was hard for me to pursue this idea on my own.

After a few months I moved to another idea, which I hoped would be more promising.

Since I read a lot of books about productivity, I had an idea to work with companies and help their employees become more productive.

I spent another month on that idea and came close to making my first sale with it, but then a few days before we were supposed to start working together, the company let me know that they couldn’t hire me.

I was discouraged that another one of my ideas bit the dust, and for the next few months or so I didn’t really focus on starting a business.

The crazy idea that turned into my first successful online business

Then, one morning, I woke up at 6am morning and had this crazy idea that I could teach online poker players how to be more productive.

I used to play online poker myself and was pretty active in a community, and since I stopped playing it I learned how to become a lot more productive myself.

I connected the dots, and realized that if I could help poker players become more productive and focused, they could make more money while playing poker, and pay me to help them do that.

That’s how the idea about productivity coaching for online poker players was born.

I wasn’t sure if my idea was going to work out. I was afraid that people would make fun of me.

Like, “who is this guy? He’s never made millions with poker, so how can he teach me about productivity? And I don’t need anyone to teach me how to be more productive… That’s for losers”.

Still, I decided to give it a shot. So in my dark room in my parent’s apartment, at 6am in the morning, I decided to write an article and publish it on the poker forum that I’ve been active in in the past. I gathered all the information I could from various sites, like Six of the best, to make my article as authentic as possible.

I called it “The Quick Guide to Skyrocketing Your Poker and Life Productivity”:

How a “short article” accidentally turned into a 26,000+ word Ultimate Guide

I wrote just a few paragraphs about how important it is to have a clear vision and goals if you want to be successful, and went back to sleep as I was finished at 7:10am:

At 11:38am, I woke up and immediately checked my post to see that there were 3 encouraging responses to it:

This wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to gain some momentum and confidence to keep writing more (at least my worst nightmare of people hating my content didn’t come true).

After that, I consistently kept writing more and more chapters for the guide, every 1-3 days:

Some of these chapters were shorter, others were longer. I kept writing about what I felt was important, and also addressed the questions I would get along the way in the comments that I got on the guide (here’s a comment that made me write a whole chapter on sleep):

With every chapter, the “short article” grew bigger and bigger… And eventually it became a 26,000 word Ultimate Guide – the most detailed and comprehensive piece of content about productivity for online poker players.

Writing the guide wasn’t always easy.

In fact, it took me more than 6 months to finish the guide.

For the first two months, I was able to get a new chapter of the guide out every 1-3 days. Then, as other opportunities came to me because of writing the guide (more on that shortly), I got distracted and fell off track.

It was harder and harder for me to get back on track, so it took me a week to write the next chapter, then two weeks, then a whole month… Until I finally finished the guide in November (I began writing it in April).

The important thing is that I finished it though (the final version of the guide had over 26,000 words), so it wasn’t this thing that would keep nagging me in the back of my mind any more.

How my guide went viral and got 223,000+ views

Because of a combination of reasons, the guide was getting more and more attention in the poker community:

There was nobody else talking to poker players about productivity. I was the only serious person doing it, and I created content that was 1000x better than anything else out there. And I kept creating more and more of it.
Because I posted the guide in an online forum that was visited by thousands of people each day, there was plenty of new traffic coming to the guide as long as it was on the front page of the sub-forum it was in.
I made sure I frequently updated the guide and responded to the questions in the guide. This helped me build the relationships with the readers, add more value to them, but also bumped up the guide frequently so it was constantly on the first page.
Because the guide was so much better than any of the other content out there and there was a real need and demand for it, it was featured in the news section of the forum, and a lot of people kept linking to it from their forum posts, sharing it with others, etc.

Over time, the guide got more and more views. I was excited when it hit 1,000 views. Then 10,000 views. Then 100,000 views. The guide was more popular than I ever imagined it being.

Ultimately, the guide got over 223,000 views and over 452 comments:

When your guide is incredible, people will go out of their way to share it

Because the forum I posted the guide in had multiple non-english communities (German, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese…) who were very engaged, certain members of these communities voluntarily translated the guide into 7 different languages because they liked it so much.

This allowed the guide to reach even more people – for example, the German version of the guide got over 37,000 views and 129 comments:

And to this day it’s by far the most detailed and known piece of content on the internet about productivity for online poker players.

All of the 6 months that I spent on the guide were paying off. When you put in the work to create something incredible that nobody has put together before, people notice. And they talk about it and spread the word about it for you, without you even asking them to do it.

Together with all of the translations, my Ultimate Guide was seen by over 300,000 people. That’s 1.5 times the population of the capital of Slovenia where I live in!

How I made my first sale with my Ultimate Guide

Because the guide was so popular, a couple of interesting things happened.

The first thing that happened as I wrote the guide was that a few poker players reached out to me to work with me 1on1 on helping them become more productive, which is how I made my first 50EUR online (around $50):

Shortly after that, the owners of the poker forum that I wrote the guide on got in touch with me and asked me if I wanted to create monthly educational videos and host weekly live coaching classes where I would work continue to build on the concepts that I shared in my guide:

I made a total of 40 videos, and each of them got between 5,000 and 10,000 views (sometimes more). This means that all of my videos were seen about 300,000 times.

I also had regular 2 hour long live coaching calls, which had around 50-100 people on the call each week.

Helping so many people make a difference in their life at such a young age (I was around 22-24 at the time I did this) felt incredible. It also helped that I was able to create these videos on a recurring basis and have a reliable, sustainable source of income.

I got paid around $50/hour for my live coaching calls and around $200/video, which took me a few hours to create:

I wasn’t making crazy money in the beginning, but earning $500-$1,000/month doing something I loved on a consistent basis was a lot of money for me since I was still living with my parents and had no real expenses besides renting the office that I worked from.

To me, it was more important to see that I CAN do this. That I can be my own boss. Work on my own terms. Make peoples’ lives better.

That I didn’t need to rely on my boss while programming in a cubicle to decide what I’d get paid, that I could work from home, when I wanted to, on what I wanted to.

Knowing this allowed me to keep consistently making progress in my business and ultimately get me to where I am today.

From $50/hour to $38k in a year

Since I was able to record more and more videos and have more and more live coaching calls, the consistent revenue from my freelance work quickly added up.

40 videos at $200 each brought in around $8,000 in revenue. A similar amount of live coaching calls over time brought in another $4,000, bringing the total revenues from my guide to $12,000.

The videos and the live coaching calls were a nice, consistent stream of income, but they weren’t the biggest source of income for me.

As so many people saw my guide, the live coaching calls and the videos, more and more people wanted to start working with me. I went from charging $50/h for 1on1 coaching to up to $400/h.

This meant that the $50 invoices turned into $5,000 invoices:

The number of coaching clients varied – one month I would get 5 new clients, and the other month I’d get none – but as I gradually increased my rates from $50/h to $75/h to $100/h, $125/h, $250/h and finally $400/h, the revenues added up.

Within the first year of starting my business, I brought in an additional $20,000 in coaching revenues, bringing the total revenues from my guide to $32,000.

As I got more and more coaching clients, I was working with 13 different clients ad one point, which was great money-wise, but I was slowly starting to burn out.

I wanted to help more people while investing less time, so I started a month-long group coaching program together with another poker mindset coach.

40+ people signed up for the program and we each got $150 per client, so this program brought in additional $6,000 in a month – bringing the final revenues to $38,000 in a year.

All of this was the result of just ONE Ultimate Guide that I wrote.

BONUS: How I got 278,958+ website visitors, 6,150+ email subscribers and made $300k+ in revenue

Writing my first Ultimate Guide was just the beginning of my online business.

Since that point, I’ve written multiple Ultimate Guides that have helped bring 278,958+ website visitors, 6,150+ email subscribers and $300k+ in revenue to my online business.

Want to know EXACTLY how I did it (and how you can too)?

I’ll tell you ALL about it in my FREE 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide Checklist.

All you need to do is enter your name and email below, and I’ll send it straight to your inbox!

I’ll see you on the other side :).

-Primoz

How Nick Earned $3,049 (And Got a JOB OFFER) Within Days of Publishing His Ultimate Guide

By Primoz Bozic Leave a Comment

Here’s a question I get a lot…

“Can I actually make money with an Ultimate Guide?”

The answer is yes. HELL YES.

Today I’m thrilled to introduce you to Ultimate Guide System graduate Nick, who used his Ultimate Guide to bring in 4 consulting clients (worth $3,094) AND a job offer within days of publishing his Ultimate Guide.

Meet Nick Wolny:

Nick is known for two things:

Eating peanut butter & scrambled eggs for breakfast during the Ultimate Guide System live calls
He’s establishing himself as the go-to expert in Facebook Advertising and Digital Marketing for local fitness and yoga businesses

A few months ago, Nick was still working as a general business coach for fitness businesses. He saw some initial success with his business idea as he got the first few clients through his network, but then the things slowed down.

He exhausted his network and knew that he needed to build an audience.

He knew that in order to do that, he would need to stand out and find a more specific niche. He decided to pivot to digital marketing consulting, as he saw a gap in the market when he worked with his first few clients.

As he did that, he had a huge imposter syndrome when he thought about writing about digital marketing, as he felt like he was competing with companies like Digital Marketer. Those people had 10+ years of experience, while he acquired his skills just over a year ago. Why would anyone listen to him?

Still, he put himself out there. He started writing. He tried to create truly remarkable content.

And that’s where he got stuck.

He knew he needed to create remarkable content to cut through the noise, but didn’t know HOW to do it.

He didn’t know how to create remarkable, meaty content that people would find insanely valuable and want to work with him after reading it.

“The content i created wasn’t research driven, and wasn’t rigorous (which makes the difference in content). I tried to be too charming in my writing. I tried to wriggle my way into creating valuable content by making people laugh. But the content I created wasn’t deep and valuable. It was charming surface level content, and that was it. There was no meat in my content.

My email subscribers responded to my emails with responses like “LOL”, and not with detailed emails about how they’d implement my strategies in their businesses. I wasn’t attracting clients that wanted to do the work. I attracted readers that wanted to be entertained.

Every time I tried to write a post longer than 1,500 words, I failed. I couldn’t deliver a long, valuable piece of content. I didn’t know how to do it, what to talk about or how to structure it. There were so many tripwires where I got stuck and never finished my writing. From coming up with a title, to validating the idea with my market, to creating a table of contents… I was never able to finish my pieces.”

That’s when Nick joined Ultimate Guide System. In fact, he was the first person to sign up for it.

“I wanted a system that would help me get email subscribers that didn’t feel like sh*t”

“I noticed how I behaved through Ramit Sethi’s Ultimate Guides. Whenever I saw one, I stopped everything I was doing and read them. I wanted to get every single bonus with the guide. I wanted to read everything. There’s just something magnetic about Ultimate Guides. I wanted to do that for my audience too.

I wanted a system that would help me get email subscribers that didn’t feel like shit. I didn’t want to do things like 5 day challenges or messenger bots. I wanted to focus on ONE QUALITY way of getting email subscribers. I knew writing an Ultimate Guide would force me to focus on one thing that works. It would put guard rails around what I’m doing, and allow me to go really deep on a topic.

I really just wanted to say “hey, I’m Nick, I’m going to offer this super valuable thing to these people who think just like me, and see what happens”.”

Nick ended up successfully writing his first Ultimate Guide with Ultimate Guide System:

The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Monetizing Facebook Live For Your Fitness Or Yoga Business

Just a few weeks into the program, as he was doing the research with his Ultimate Guide, Nick not only got one, but TWO paying clients:

Nick sharing his wins in the UGS community

Nick’s first client with his Ultimate Guide

This essentially paid for the whole course within WEEKS of joining it.

So how did it happen?

“Two people reached out to me when they saw me do the market research validation on my Facebook wall. We sat down, talked about what they needed, and they signed up with me as consulting clients. I made my full investment for the course back within weeks of joining it.”

Once he published his guide, he got 2 more consulting clients from it that reached out to him:

A potential client reaching out to Nick after he published his Ultimate Guide

Nick’s $1,500 3-month retainer client

This brought the total revenues from his guide to $3,094 within a few days of publishing his first guide.

But here’s the best part of Nick’s story.

Shortly after publishing his guide, a CEO of a company reached out to him to offer him a job interview for a marketing director position because of his guide:

Since then, Nick has made it to the 5th round of interviews over the past 5 weeks, and he might very well be getting a new job because of his Ultimate Guide. Even I never expected that something like that would happen through an Ultimate Guide. That’s absolutely insane.

“People now perceive me as an expert. They want to work with me because I know what they need, even if they don’t.”

Here’s what Nick loved the most about his new clients:

“With all of my 4 clients, they came to me and said “I’m not sure what I need, but I’m ready to pay – just name the price.” This was super interesting to me and SO AWESOME, because I was never good at sales, pitching or cold calling.

I didn’t need to “sell” these people, they were already sold. For them to come to me and for that to happen multiple times, and to say “I’m not sure what I need but I want to pay you because you know what I need”, that’s incredible. It feels like people perceive me as an expert. They want to work with someone who will know what they need, even if they don’t, and that person is now me.”

“More and more cool things are happening to me because of my guide”

“After I published my guide, Leadpages reached out to me and wanted to interview me about my guide. They’re planning on featuring me as an expert in their next Ultimate Guide that’s coming out later this week.

Another cool thing that happened was that some of my idols and heroes from the online business world that I followed for a while signed up to my email list. Now I know I really gotta bring it. I need to keep my email list engaged, and I’m expected to bring my A-game.”

No more “LOL!” email responses!

And guess what? He’s no longer getting “LOL!” email responses, but actual detailed emails with questions from his potential clients instead:

“Now it’s EASY for me to consistently create remarkable content”

Remember how Nick struggled with creating remarkable content?

Well, over the past few months, he:

Successfully published his first 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide
Wrote 3 Huffington Post articles that were between 1,500-2,000 words long
Is 6,000+ words into writing his second Ultimate Guide

Nick’s new Huffington Post articles

“Now I’m confident from start to finish what creating remarkable content looks like. One of the biggest confidence markers is that I wrote my Ultimate Guide in the time frame of the course. Now I know that writing a new blog post won’t last for 6 months or 10 months.

I’ve written 3 pieces for Huffington Post in the last month. I’m building a digital footprint and writing regularly. I reached out to a few gyms, wrote about them in Huffington Post, which allowed me to connect with the local gyms, they’re sending me contacts, and creating buzz for me.

I’ve had the opportunity to post on Huffington Post since September, but never did it. Now I’m creating 2k word rigorous blog posts ON THE SIDE, and it’s not a big deal to do it.”

“I’m coming from a position of power, not force”

“I’m increasingly confident about building my business with power, not force. I’m not saying hurry the fuck on my list and i’ll take your money like a lot of people in my industry do. You want to join my list because we have a similar mindset, and I’ll show you a quality approach to digital marketing for your business.

In the marketing space there is an abundance of join now, buy now. For me, less is more. I know there’s people out there that are looking for solid information, without being sold to like crazy. I want to help those people.”

Nick’s future: from $3,000 online courses to becoming a Forbes contributor

“I eventually want to create a high end group program, with a live call approach like in Ultimate Guide System, with a community for a period of time, where I work together with fitness business owners on their marketing. I know that to have a 6-month semi-personalized experience at $3,000 is a steal for them.

I also want to become a Forbes contributor that talks about the intersection of fitness and capitalism. A lot of people are tapped into how people want to feel and look. It’s a multi billion dollar business. There’s a business conversation to be had around that, and also exercising together, working out together, talking about community, and the transformation that comes with it.

Fitness is leadership, needs to be talked about, and in a platform like Forbes, people will take it seriously. Now I’m working on building my digital footprint to be able to get there.

Now I’m more savvy than before. I want to get media attention about my work, not about me. I don’t want to be quoted in Time, I want to write an article for Time. I don’t want to be mentioned in media to put a logo on my site. I want to write a killer guest post that people will actually find valuable.”

3 Changes that Nick made to his online business with Ultimate Guide System

Let’s talk about some things that worked really well for Nick, that you too can use to grow your own online business.

1. He gets feedback on his writing early

“One of the big things I learned from Ultimate Guide System is to get feedback on my work early. It’s so powerful.
In the course I asked for feedback on everything. My title, my table of contents, my writing. Even when it wasn’t great yet. It helped me get things right and move forward.

Now I always ask for feedback if I’m not behaving the way I want to behave. I know that if I wrote just 500 words in 3 days that some feels off, and I need to go talk to someone about it to figure out what’s going on.”

This is a great habit of high performing entrepreneurs. They get feedback on their writing earlier rather than later, which helps them move forward whenever they see they might be getting stuck, and keep the momentum going.

2. He writes daily (for the last 70+ days)

“When I started Ultimate Guide System I did this thing where I would write 1,000 words/day each day to finish my guide on time. I streamed it on Facebook Live from a coffee shop every morning.

I’m still doing it to this day, for 70 days, and I’m going to do it for a year. I have this Facebook page where I go live every day. This is where the rigor comes in. I do it every day. I’m doing this, I’m here. Even if I feel like shit and I’m on my couch, I’ll write for at least 15 minutes.”

“When I do it for a year, I’m going to document my experience and share it, and how it changed my business. I already know there’ll be 50 ways in which I could talk about it. How my attitude changed. What changed in my business.

And I know I’ll be able to create more remarkable content and Ultimate Guides consistently this way.”

You don’t have to write for a year, write 1,000 words/day or stream yourself to the world like Nick – but there’s a lesson to be learned here.

If you commit to writing every single day (at least during the week) before you go to work, even if you write just a little bit, writing can become a habit, and creating remarkable content consistently gets easier.

The more uninterrupted time you block off for writing, the more writing you’ll get done.

3. He committed to attending every call and completing the course on time

“When I joined Ultimate Guide System I said to myself I would come to every call and make sure I finish my guide on time. I made it to all but one call. I asked for feedback whenever I could. And I finished the course on time. It took a lot of time, and more than just 3 hours a week, but Primoz told me that right off the bat when I asked him how long it would take. So I was ready.

I loved the live format of the course. I feel like it’s really the best structure out there, to have a lot of concentrated work in the beginning and then support for a long period of time. There’s just SO much value in having the opportunity to work with someone live. But you have to do the work. You have to come to calls, ask questions in slack, get feedback and move forward. And if you do that, it just works.”

This is something that I noticed with my students. The more calls they attended / watched, and the more active they were in the Slack (our chat community), the more they got out of the course and the faster they wrote their guides.

If you really dedicate the time to go through the course as planned, and use the community and all resources available to help you out, you WILL have an Ultimate Guide written by the end of it.

Writing an Ultimate Guide on your own is hard unless you’re the type of person that can write 10,000 words like nothing by themselves, and having a community to support you and to turn to for help is a big piece of consistently creating incredible content.

Here’s what Nick said about Ultimate Guide System:

“Ultimate Guide System was the BEST online course I’ve ever been in. I feel like a schmuck for stealing from Primoz.”

“I’ve learned so many things in Ultimate Guide System. How to methodically define and validate a piece of content before you start writing. I’ve written things that didn’t go anywhere because I missed that step in the past. Now I’m more clear than ever that the first step is the most important.

I now have really strong tools that I can use and leverage to write really remarkable content. It’s getting harder and harder to do it as more people come into the space, but I’m confident I can stand out from them and continue to grow my business.

It was cool to have a list of places in the course where people historically got stuck, so I could pay attention to it and avoid it. Primoz always told us “this is where my 1on1 clients got stuck, this is what might happen, this is how you avoid it”. He was always keeping an eye out for us.

It was great to have a community of 30+ people, writing their guides, each in a slightly different way. Some of them spent more time designing these gorgeous guides. Others like me just wanted to keep moving. Now I know that there’s no one way to create remarkable content, you need to find your own way. This course was really different than any other course out there.

It’s a joke, it’s so cheap. Compared to other things I spent this kind of money on, I feel like a schmuck for being in this course. I got exactly what I wanted out of the course. My guide wasn’t even published and I already made back my investment. And I know that this is just the beginning for me.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed Nick’s story, and I have more stories of our students coming your way in the future, plus exclusive resources that will make writing your first Ultimate Guide easier than ever before.

To make sure you receive those exclusive resources (I’ll only share them with my email subscribers), and be the first to know when Ultimate Guide System opens again, download your free copy of the Ultimate Guide Checklist.

You can use it to get started with writing your Ultimate Guide, and learn all about how you too can use Ultimate Guides to get your online business off the ground (or take it to the next level).

Download your free copy of the Ultimate Guide Checklist.

Source: 1daybanner.com

How Top Experts, Companies and Entrepreneurs Grow Their Businesses With Ultimate Guides

By Primoz Bozic Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, Ramit Sethi released his new e-book called “Your Move: The Underdog’s Guide to Building a Business.”

Since he published it, the book has become a huge success.

Tens of thousands of people have bought the book. It hit the #1 best seller in many categories on Amazon. It got hundreds of raving reviews:

It even hit the #1 place of non-fiction books on Wall Street Journal:

I’ve read the book an it’s phenomenal. It’s easily the best e-book you’ll ever find for $3.65 online. If you haven’t done so yet, make sure you pick up your copy!

So what do I love about the e-book most?

Surprisingly, it’s not that my story is mentioned in it (even though that’s REALLY cool).

What I love about it the most is that it’s not just an e-book… It’s an undercover Ultimate Guide that’s marketed as an e-book.

It’s not called an Ultimate Guide, but an “Underdog’s Guide”, but that’s ok – not all Ultimate Guides actually have “Ultimate Guide” in the name.

You have Ultimate Guides that are called “Beginner’s Guides”, “Essential Guides”, “Complete Guides”, “Advanced Guides”, “Parent’s Guides”, and so on and so on.

The name doesn’t matter as much as what an Ultimate Guide actually is – the most detailed piece of content on the internet on a specific topic (that usually comes with plenty of stories, examples, and a table of contents).

And that’s exactly what Ramit’s new e-book is. It’s by far the best, most comprehensive and detailed piece of content out there for underdogs who want to build a business.

It’s not a book as there’s no publisher or a physical copy. It also didn’t take Ramit years to create like his first book – it was completed in months instead.

Why did Ramit publish his e-book on Amazon instead of his blog?

It’s interesting that the guide was published on Amazon rather than on the website – and Ramit explained his decision in one of the emails to his readers.

He essentially said that he didn’t just want to rely on Google to drive more traffic to his website and that he wanted to get more readers through Amazon, which was an untapped market for him.

I think that at his stage of the business, with a huge audience that he’s already built, that absolutely makes sense. He can use the existing audience to get the 124 incredible reviews and propel the guide to the #1 spot on Amazon where it will stay for years to come. It also makes sense as he’s already getting a ton of traffic from Google and other sources.

Would I publish an Ultimate Guide on Amazon rather than on your own website when just starting out and don’t have a big audience?

Probably not, at least not exclusively. It’s unlikely you’d be able to replicate Ramit’s results when starting out.

Instead I would start with publishing it on your website, and THEN if your guide becomes a huge success you can think about putting it on Amazon as well, to create another stream of traffic to your website through it.

That’s actually something we’ll look into with some of our Ultimate Guide System students that have written 25,000+ world Ultimate Guides… As they are essentially small books already, and republishing them on Amazon might be a great way to spread the word about them.

That’s the beauty of creating an incredible piece of content like an Ultimate Guide.

Once you write a piece of content that’s 10x better than anything else out there on the topic you’re writing about, you can use it in many different ways to grow your online business:

You can publish it on your blog and bring more traffic to your website for years to come
You can use a PDF of it as a free gift for your email subscribers, and convert more of your new and existing readers into raving fans
You can use an Ultimate Guide to kick off your product launch, establish yourself as the go-to expert on the topic you’re talking about, add massive value to your existing readers and boost your launch revenues

Or, you can even republish it on Amazon, create an audiobook out of it… There’re endless options in which you can use an Ultimate Guide to grow your online business.

A lot of online business experts know how powerful Ultimate Guides are, which is why many of them create them.

For example, Ramit has written Ultimate Guides about social skills, starting an online business, finding a profitable business idea, creating remarkable content, personal finance and others:

And as he says himself, “this is hands-down the most popular content on his website”.

Ramit isn’t the only online business expert that understands the value of Ultimate Guides.

Selena Soo has written an Ultimate Guide to Meeting People at Events which she used to kick off her INFLUENCE product launch:

Her guide got featured in Business Insider (3 times!), Inc magazine, Huffington Post and I Will Teach You to be Rich which helped her reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and bring in thousands of high quality email subscribers.

Selena shared her whole story of:

Why and how she created her Ultimate Guide
How she used it to bring in thousands of high quality email subscribers
Why she things Ultimate Guides are one of the best ways to start an online business

In this interview we did together:

You can watch the whole interview here.

Another example of an expert using an Ultimate Guide to grow their online business is Bushra Azshar from The Persuasion Revolution.

Bushra rapidly built a 7-figure online business over the last few years, and recently created her Ultimate Guide to Persuasion:

She’s using her Ultimate Guide all over her website to capture more email subscribers (and blow them away once they sign up for it), and sell more of her Mass Persuasion Method program.

If you ever even remotely looked into SEO to grow your online business, you’ve probably heard about Neil Patel.

Neil is considered one of the top SEO experts out there (and he consistently gets well over 100,000 visits to his website), and that’s not an accident.

Neil has created his own library of 12 Ultimate Guides on his Quick Sprout blog that established him as the go-to expert on SEO and more or less everything related to it:

Whenever I want to look something up regarding SEO, his guides are the first place I look at. And whenever someone asks me about SEO, his guides are the first thing I point them to.

Neil was actually the person that made writing detailed guides popular back in 2014. In the past he wrote about why created 10+ Ultimate Guides and how he got 361,494+ visitors and 8,421 email opt-ins with one Ultimate Guide.

He also wrote this EPIC data-driven post about why 3,000+ word blog posts get more traffic than shorter ones. If you want to learn more about WHY Ultimate Guides rank really high on Google and take off, I’d definitely read that post.

Now I might not necessarily agree with everything that Neil shares about sharing Ultimate Guides. I don’t think you should blow $5k-$20k on a design of an Ultimate Guide when just starting out. I don’t think you should ask people to share your guides before you’ve built a solid relationship with them (and even then it might come off as needy).

I know that creating Ultimate Guides is about a lot more than just numbers and SEO, although that is a part of it (we talk more about how to create incredible Ultimate Guides in Ultimate Guide System that’s opening soon).

The point is – Ultimate Guides work. And they work REALLY well. How often do you see someone say that they got 361,494 visitors or 8,421 email subscribers from ONE post on their website? Pretty much never.

So far we’ve only talked about online business experts that create Ultimate Guides. But they aren’t the only people creating them and reaping the benefits of them.

Software companies use Ultimate Guides to sell more of their software.

Leadpages (one of the leading companies that offers landing pages whose software I personally use as well) recently wrote the Ultimate Guide to Landing Pages:

I absolutely love their guide and there’s many innovative techniques they used to create it that we break down in the Ultimate Guide System.

Their Ultimate Guide is ranking as the #1 result on Google for “Landing pages guide” and makes it to the first page of google for searches like “landing pages” or “how to create landing pages”:

In such a competitive field as landing pages, that’s pretty awesome. I’ve also heard that Leadpages is working on their next Ultimate Guide already, which just goes to show how valuable Ultimate Guides can be, even for software companies.

Another software company that uses Ultimate Guides to bring in more sales for their business is called Zapier. If you haven’t heard of it yet, Zapier helps you connect different apps (like gmail and Evernote) and automate your every day tasks to make your life a lot easier and save you a ton of time.

Zapier has written tens of different Ultimate guides, covering topics from using Google Sheets to Customer Support to eCommerce:

And of course, many of these rank as the #1 result on google for their topic:

What Zapier is doing here is super smart. They’re taking different audiences (like the customer support people) and different tools (like Google Sheets) that Zapier works well with, and writing the best pieces of content on the internet around them.

As the readers read their Ultimate Guides, they constantly see different case studies, ways in which Zapier makes their work easier, and so on – and they see signing up to Zapier as the next step after reading the guide. Brilliant.

Now you might be wondering… What if I’m not an online business expert or a big software company? Can I still use Ultimate Guides to grow my online business?

I’m so glad you asked. The answer is HELL YES. In fact, Ultimate Guides are ESPECIALLY useful for you if you’re not an established expert in your niche as they are the best way to become one.

So let’s look at some examples of how new business owners just like you used Ultimate Guides to make a name out of themselves and kick-started their online businesses.

First, there’s Peter Nguyen from Essential Man. Peter used to work as a leather jacket designer and wanted to build an online business around helping successful men dress better (or, as he would say it, look really f*cking good).

He wrote Ultimate Guides about things like buying a leather jacket, a beginner’s style guide, a summer style guide and others to jump start his online business:

The result? Peter built a following of thousands of email subscribers, doubled his traffic with Ultimate Guides, and created a consistent stream of sales for his Essential Wardrobe online course.

A few years ago, nobody knew about Peter. Now even Ramit Sethi is linking to his website when his students ask him what to wear to his events!

How powerful is that? How would YOU feel if an expert like Ramit endorsed your website?

I actually love Peter’s story so much that I asked him how he writes 1-2 of his Ultimate Guides / months, and he’ll be sharing all of his systems, strategies and results with you guys very soon – so stay tuned!

Then we have Ultimate Guide System student Nick who is rapidly establishing as the go-to expert on Facebook advertising for fitness & yoga studies with his Ultimate Guides.

He just published his Complete Beginner’s Guide to Monetizing Facebook Live For Your Fitness or Yoga Business:

Nick has been absolutely crushing it with his Ultimate Guide.

When he was just doing the research for his guide within the first few weeks of joining Ultimate Guide System, he scored two 1-on-1 coaching clients:

But when he released his guide, opportunities just started flying his way.

First, a major software company saw his Ultimate Guide and wanted to feature him as an expert in their upcoming Ultimate Guide:

First, he got a POTENTIAL JOB OFFER because of his Ultimate Guide:

How crazy is THAT?

And it was just the tip of the iceberg.

Shortly, Nick told me that a few of his 7-figure heroes opted into his email list:

And another person reached out to Nick for 1-on-1 consulting:

And did I mention that this guide was Nick’s FIRST post on his website? He got all of those opportunities WITHOUT having a following beforehand. And now he’s already working on his second Ultimate Guide.

I’ll write more about Nick’s story and how he developed his Ultimate Guide over the next few days too – so you’ll be able to hear all the juicy details of it.

Next up we have another Ultimate Guide System student Diana, who helps online entrepreneurs create and manage profitable online communities.

She just published her Ultimate Guide to Building a Profitable Online Community From Scratch:

Diana’s guide is one of the best and most detailed guides I’ve ever read. She worked her ass putting it together, and it shows.

Like Nick, this is Diana’s first post on her new website, and she already got 40 email subscribers within the first week (and she’s just getting started with spreading the word about it).

Selena Soo loved Diana’s guide so much that she shared it with her audience:

She’s getting raving emails from her email subscribers about her guide:

And even the top experts in the industry are now reaching out to her to get feedback on their communities.

Before she worked on her Ultimate Guide, not many people considered the go-to expert on creating profitable online communities – but over the next few months and years they definitely will.

And as you might have guessed, I’ll also be sharing Diana’s story (plus a few other stories) of how she wrote her guide with you over the next few days.

There’s also other Ultimate Guides that my readers and clients have written that you can check out, about a variety of different topics:

Some of these guides helped my readers get hundreds of email subscribers, others helped them get new paying clients, and all of them helped them get a consistent stream of new high quality readers to their websites.

And we have plenty of new Ultimate Guides in the works – from guides about traveling, to songwriting, to teaching your kids about money.

As you can see, a lot of people see that there’s a huge opportunity in creating Ultimate Guides.

From top experts to software companies to driven entrepreneurs who want to make a name out of themselves and get their online businesses off the ground.

So WHY do they do it?

There’re many ways in which you can use Ultimate Guides to grow your online business (I cover 9 of them in my Ultimate Guide Checklist, and I’ll share more of them in the near future).

But the MOST important reason for creating Ultimate Guides is simple.

Ultimate Guides are the best and fastest way to establish yourself as the go-to expert in your niche.

If you write an Ultimate Guide for your audience that’s 10x better than any other resource out there on the same topic, then your Ultimate Guide becomes the go-to resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the topic.

And when you create something that’s 10x better than anything else out there, people notice that. They’ll notice you. They’ll read whatever you write for them. They’ll help you spread the word about it. They’ll want to talk to you, connect with you and work with you.

Ultimate Guides are your opportunity to stand out in a crowded market (like Peter did in the style world), transition into a new niche (like Diana did – she was in a completely different niche before), or even get your online business off the ground (like Nick did).

Once you create content that’s 10x better than anything else out there, you’ll automatically be different than anyone else.

You won’t need to worry about a crowded market, you’ll actually be able to use it to your advantage and bring in all the people that are interested in your topic.

It’s hard to do that with regular blog posts or an occasional guest post. There’s far too many of those out there nowadays, and it feels like everyone can have a blog nowadays given how easy it is to start one.

But I bet that very few people are creating REALLY good content like Ultimate Guides in your niche, and this is your opportunity to make a name out of yourself and become an industry leader.

As you do that, the rest will come:

You’ll have more and more website visitors (like Peter who doubled his traffic by writing less blog posts and more Ultimate Guides)
You’ll be able to grow your email list (like Neil who got 8,421 email subscribers from one guide)
You’ll be able to get your first few paying clients (like Nick who got 3 paying clients and a job offer with his guide)

And the best part? You’ll be able to grow your online business with Ultimate Guides over and over again.

Remember how Ramit, Neil, Peter and Zapier wrote multiple (often 10+) Ultimate Guides to continue growing their online businesses?

You can do the exact same thing.

You don’t have to worry about regular blog posts, guest posting, Facebook ads, SEO, Facebook challenges, and other tactics to grow your online business.

You can pursue them if you want to of course… But you know you won’t NEED them to grow your online business.

You can just create more Ultimate Guides down the line, and you’ll KNOW that with each Ultimate Guide you publish, your business will grow more and more – for years to come.

And the thing is, while anyone can write blog posts or use Facebook ads for their business, not anyone can, wants to, or is willing to write Ultimate Guides.

The barrier to entry with them is way higher, as they require weeks (and sometimes months) of work to complete.

There will always only be a few people in each industry who are willing to put in the work to make them come to life, and reap the benefits of them. And you can be one of those people.

Get started with creating your first Ultimate Guide TODAY

If you want to start working on your first Ultimate Guide, I invite you to check out my FREE 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide Checklist to get started.

It’s by far the BEST, most comprehensive and detailed FREE resource you’ll find online on creating Ultimate Guides.

Here’s what you’ll learn in it:

The biggest mistakes people make when creating Ultimate Guides (and how to avoid them)
9 Ways in which you can use Ultimate Guides to grow your online business (whether you’re an established business owner or just starting out)
My never-before-seen checklist for creating Ultimate Guides (with real life examples and secrets I’ve discovered over 5+ years of creating them)

…and a lot more.

I’ll also be releasing another awesome resource to my email subscribers shortly that will make writing Ultimate Guides easier than ever before – and to make sure you get an email with it too, make sure you get your free copy of the Ultimate Guide Checklist.

-Primoz

7 Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Your First Ultimate Guide

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

Writing an Ultimate Guide isn’t easy.

Even with the right support, it can take MONTHS to get one written – and many people get stuck in their perfectionism and never finish it.

Over the past few months, I worked with my 1on1 client Matej on creating his Ultimate Guide about “How to Find More Time and Energy to Start an Online Business”.

I’m super proud of all the work that he’s put into the guide, and it’s a really incredible piece of content.

After he finished writing the guide, Matej reached out to me and shared with me a few key lessons that he learned from writing his first guide, that he will use to write his next Ultimate Guide in half the time.

I absolutely loved these lessons because they show the other side of writing really exceptional content that very few people talk about.

I loved how Matej openly shared the mistakes that he made, as well as the specific ways in which he will avoid them next time – so I decided to share them on my blog.

If you’re thinking about (or in the process of) writing your first Ultimate Guide, this is a must read.

Matej, take it away :).

Matej’s mistakes and key takeaways from writing his first 25k word ultimate guide

In late December 2016 I started working on a bigger project for my side business – writing an ultimate guide “How to Find More Time and Energy to Start an Online Business”.

I knew it does not have to necessarily be a huge project lasting for months. However, I wanted to make it great, highly valuable for my readers for the years to come so I wanted to put a lot of effort into it.

With the demanding full-time job and two small kids at home (2 and 5 year old) I knew it’s going to be a challenge but exciting one. I wanted to write an Ultimate Guide for months but was always avoiding it.

Suddenly, my mentor Primoz Bozic shifted his business to helping people writing Ultimate Guides and I’ve become one of his first 1on1 clients. So we started working together.

Expected time frame for publishing the guide was 2-3 months.

I was very excited to make it happen.

Looking back, it has been 5 months until I finally published my Ultimate Guide.

I know I could have published my guide a lot faster, and now I know exactly how to write and publish my next Ultimate Guide in half the time.

Today I want to share with you the biggest mistakes I’ve made while writing my first Ultimate Guide and the key takeaways from the process that you can use to successfully write your first Ultimate Guide without spending 5 months on it like I did.

Mistake #1: I tried to make the Table of Contents too perfect

When Primoz and I started working together, things went really well. I had a lot of my free time since there was a Christmas holiday, and I didn’t need to go to work.

I spent most of that time jumping on calls with a few of my readers and friends to narrow down and validate my idea for the Ultimate Guide.

Validating my business idea by talking to people had always been tough for me, but finally I’ve managed to do it and it was actually a ton of fun.

Not only did those calls help me with my idea, but I’ve also aimed to add massive value to those people as well.

Every time I jumped on a call with someone to help me with the idea, I also offered to help them out with any questions they would have about finding more time and energy to work on their side business.

As I did that, one of the readers loved my help so much that he wanted to work with me.

That’s how I landed my first ever client from my side business:

Once I was confident about the idea I’ve started working on the Table of Contents.

The first draft was done pretty fast, but then I hit a roadblock.

I was not sure if it’s great enough. And because I wanted to make it perfect I was tweaking the Table of Contents for about two weeks.

I went back to the people that helped me validate the idea for my guide and asked them to give me feedback on my Table of Contents.

The problem was that I needed to wait for them to get back to me, then incorporate their feedback, and repeat the process over and over again.

This lead me to procrastinating on my guide because I did not feel like working on it again and again. There were quite a few days when I was not working on it at all because I did not feel like it.

Luckily, Primoz stopped me from further procrastination and told me that my Table of Contents was good enough to move forward.

I spent just one more day polishing the final version of the Table of Contents by jumping on Skype calls with two friends who helped me finalize it right on the spot in the way I was confident that it’s great.

Here’s what the final version of the Table of Contents looked like:

What I’ll do differently next time:

After writing the first draft of the Table of Contents, I’ll get on a call with 1-3 of my ideal readers and go through it live together.

It’s much easier and faster for both parties than waiting for people to leave you comments in the google doc. It’s also much better talking through what they think about the guide and how they feel about it.

Together, we can easily tweak some of the headlines to make them more compelling and find the right order of the chapters so the guide flows well.

I won’t spend more than one week on the Table of Contents because I know it will lead to procrastination and doubts if it’s great or not.

I’ll spend a week on it, make it good enough, and then make further changes as I’m writing the guide if I need to.

Mistake #2: I bit off more than I could chew

As soon as I completed my Table of Contents, I knew that the guide would be huge.

I knew that because I always write very long posts where I try to explain everything in detail to give as much value to my readers as possible.

I thought that was OK since I wanted my guide to be really great, and the best piece of content on the internet on that topic.

However, looking back and seeing that this was my first ever Ultimate Guide, I would probably split the guide into a few smaller topics.

This way, I’d cover just one specific topic in great detail (like how to find the energy to work on your side business after you come home from work), and write a guide that’s about 10k words long instead of going for that 25k beast:

Doing this would help me create the guide two or three times faster, and I’m sure it would also be easier to keep the momentum while writing my guide.

What I’ll do differently next time:

The next guide I’ll create will be about a smaller, more specific topic.

I’ll aim for something like 7-12k words with it, and focus on getting it out there faster.

If you’re planning on writing your first guide, I encourage you to start small too.

You want to test how Ultimate Guides resonate with your audience andlearn how to create them while having fun.

You don’t want to spend months figuring things out or getting lost in the process, especially if you do not have anybody to hold your hand along the way.

I also encourage you to take into account what kind of a writer you are.

If you don’t have a problem with writing long posts, then it’s OK to create a longer guide. But if you tend to write shorter posts and struggle with writing really long ones, pick a guide that’s shorter and create a longer guide down the road when you’re more comfortable with it.

Mistake #3: I wrote about topics I was not too confident about

If you do a lot of research for your Ultimate Guide in the beginning, you will get a lot of feedback on what you should include in the guide.

This can be good and bad.

When I started writing my guide, I knew that mindset issues plays a huge role in our performance and achieving the results especially with business on the side.

From the feedback I’ve gotten, I saw that other people would want to learn more about solving them.

The problem for me was that I did not have proven solutions and experience with solving them. I have some good tactics which helped me, but I wasn’t too confident about giving too much advice on that topic.

However, because I really wanted to help my readers, I still wanted to write a chapter about those things to satisfy them. That’s what they told me that they want.

And we always tend to please people.

This lead me to a lot of procrastination on writing that chapter.

I did not want to start writing it because I did not have the best of ideas to write about.

Instead, I spent a lot of time researching the materials I could include in the guide. I was trying to learn more about those problems so I could better explain them in the post.

That was a big mistake, because this one chapter delayed writing the guide for a few extra weeks.

What I’ll do differently next time:

Whenever I won’t feel confident about writing about a topic that’s in my Table of contents, I’ll skip it.

I’ll remove it from the Table of Contents and perhaps revisit it down the line once I’m more confident in giving advice about it.

I know that there’s a lot more I can write about. Removing one chapter from my guide will not make or break it.

I encourage you to do the same.

As you’re writing your guide there will also be times when you’ll face the writers block or you will feel like you do not want to write about one section at the moment.

If you’ll still be confident you can write it it does not mean you have to remove it from your guide.

Just skip the chapter for a week or two and jump to the next exciting one. You can always come back later when the inspiration strikes you, or you remember those nice stories you wanted to cover in that chapter.

The most important thing when writing your Ultimate Guide is to keep your momentum going, and keep writing as much as possible in succession which will pretty much ensure that you won’t get stuck.

Mistake #4: I spent too much time editing my guide

I have to admit that my perfectionism prolonged the publishing of the guide by 2-3 months.

That’s because I wanted to make it the most epic guide which would stand out and stand the test of time.

Because I wanted to make sure this would really happen, I spent about 2 months editing the guide.

The guide has 25k words which took quite some time to go through.

As I edited the guide I was played too much with the content, grammar, styling the phrases.

Many times I’ve rewritten sentences more than 5 times to make them easier to read and more “compelling” as if I’d been writing a sales page.

There were also many sections which I thought were not good because I had written them during the sessions where I had lower energy.

I really saw the difference in the quality. And my mentality urged me to rewrite them completely.

And that’s what I did.

This added tens of hours into the process of getting the guide finished.

What I’ll do differently next time:

Next time I won’t spend so much time editing my guide.

I’ll do just one round of editing while focusing just on fixing only broken sections, things that are truly hard to understand, or things that do not fit well the guide as a whole.

I won’t try to make it perfect.

I know that the most important thing is to share my highly valuable advice with my readers.

One unclear sentence or paragraph here and there does not make a huge difference in this long piece of epic content.

What makes the true difference is the content itself.

Instead of making my next guide perfect, I’ll just focus on making it more 10x more epic than anything else out there.

Mistake #5: I tried to include every influencer I knew in the guide

I knew that I can add value to the influencers I wanted to build relationships with by mentioning them in the guide.

Especially by sharing their advice that I’ve implemented in my life. Mentioning the things that they taught that worked for me.

I wanted to spread the word about as many people as possible in my guide, and I created a huge list of people I wanted to include in it:

It was a good intention. But, it cost me many hours by browsing through the articles of influencers to find the best fit for my guide.

And while doing so I got often caught up with reading new articles and then thinking about new ideas. This took my focus away from writing the guide.

What I’ll do differently next time:

Next time, I’ll pick just a few influencers that I want to build relationships with whose advice is already a good fit for your guide.

I won’t try to include everyone, just the people who I already know and that have already helped me with their advice.

I’ll mention the influencers who made a difference in my life or life of my clients that are directly relevant to the topic I’m mentioning in the guide.

If I find myself browsing through their articles to find one that’s a good fit, I’ll skip the influencer and possibly talk about them in one of my future guides.

Mistake #6: Spending a month on my content upgrade

Working on my Ultimate Guide helped me get a lot of clarity around my business idea.

Because of that I decided to create an email course as a main opt-in carrot for my website. I would also use that free course as a content upgrade for the whole guide:

Initially, I thought it’d be easy and fast. I was really convinced and confident.

It turned out to be quite the opposite.

Again, I wanted to make it as best as possible, so it took me ton of time to write email sequence.

Not only writing it took me so much time, but setting everything up on my website and in the email service provider was a lot of work.

It was a whole new project which should have been done after publishing my guide.

This was another thing that delayed publishing my guide by another mont..

What I’ll do differently next time:

I know that creating a content upgrade is a great way to maximize my opt-ins from the ultimate guide.

However, next time I won’t spend a whole month on it and try to make it really big.

Instead I’ll create something crunchy for my readers. Something they could easily implement and will give them immediate results.

For example, I could create a quick cheat-sheet of the tactics from the guide, or a one-page worksheet that would help them implement my advice faster.

Mistake #7: I didn’t enjoy the process all the time

Probably the worst thing I was doing through this project was thinking about the outcomes of it.

I was super excited at the beginning and had a ton of fun working on my guide for the first few weeks.

But then it got into my head and I started to think about the number of subscribers, or even potential coaching clients I could get as a result of publishing the guide.

That’s why I wanted to make it perfect and was doing all of those mistakes mentioned above.

In the process I forgot to have fun with it, to enjoy those quiet early mornings, working sessions in my favorite coffee shop, or the late nights sipping the red wine.

I’ve lost the excitement because I was pushing myself to make it fast and perfect.

What I’ll do differently next time:

Next time I’ll focus on having a lot more fun with my Ultimate Guide. I’ll enjoy the process.

I’ll write about the topics that I like talking about with people. About the advice I give to my readers. And the things I thrive learning more about myself.

If you’re writing your first Ultimate Guide, the best piece of advice I can give you is to have fun with it.

You’ll learn a ton and also get a lot of experience throughout the whole project.

Don’t worry so much about the outcome, and focus on the fact that you are creating something amazing.

Want to get started with writing your first Ultimate Guide?

I hope you’ll be able to use some of this advice to successfully write your first Ultimate Guide.

If you do so, I’m sure it’ll help you create an amazing and very helpful piece of content for your readers.

While enjoying the process and having a lot of fun along.

If you want to take a look at the Ultimate Guide that I wrote, you can read the whole guide here:

How to Find More Time and Energy to Start an Online Business [The Ultimate Guide]

If you want to get access to the whole framework that Primoz and I used to help me write my first guide, make sure you read Primoz’s Ultimate Guide checklist below:

Get your FREE copy of the 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide Checklist

And if you’re guilty of making one of these mistakes yourself, share which one it is with us in the comments below.

To your success!

-Matej

100 Happy Clients: The ONLY Goal You Need to Grow Your Online Business This Year

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

So many people these days focus on helping you “grow your online business” with every tactic, trick and hack imaginable.

Facebook Ads, SEO, Tripwires, Early Bird Bonuses, Facebook Messenger Bots, Subscriber Bribes…

There’s a million and one tactic out there to help you get more of everything.

I used to be one of those people who WANTED more of everything.

I thought that only 3 things mattered in online business:

-Traffic
-Email subscribers
-Sales

And that I should strive to get as many of them as possible.

I was wrong.

There’s a BIG problem with the online business industry that nobody is talking about

Nowadays, everybody is teaching you how to build an online business.

Why?

Because so many people want to create one. There’s a ton of demand.

So it’s easy to say “I’ll be a business coach” and easily make some money.

The problem is that just making money and getting more paying customers isn’t enough.

I’ve joined countless online courses in the past, and while I personally loved them and got great results with them, there was also a big issue with them:

Only a fraction of people who take online courses succeed with them

Yes, there’s always case studies out there that show the courses work.

I’m often one of them – I wrote how I got incredible results with Ramit Sethi’s Zero to Launch and Derek Halpern’s Sales Page That Converts on my blog.

The problem is that people like me are mostly outliers, and not the majority of people who join the courses.

So where’s the problem?

Is it in the courses?

Is it in people joining them?

Is it somewhere else?

I’d say it’s in a little bit of everything.

In the past I focused just on getting more customers, email subscribers and sales.

And my business did well.

I kept getting more and more traffic to my website.

My email list kept growing.

More and more people joined my online courses.

But there was one thing that was constantly at the back of my mind.

This is incredibly hard for me to admit, and even share publicly, but I feel like it NEEDS to be heard.

Very few people that joined my courses actually followed through with them.

Many people would buy my courses, and I’d be happy when I saw that the payment came through…

But then I’d never hear from them again.

This sucked.

It sucked because I wanted to genuinely help people change their lives, but I felt like I wasn’t really doing.

I did all the hard work to get the people to buy… And then I stopped taking care of them.

It’s not that my courses were crappy.

I spent a lot of time creating them, and I know that if people implemented my advice, they would get the results from it.

Unfortunately, many people didn’t actually follow through with my courses – and it was my fault.

I was so focused on getting more of everything, that I forgot about the most important thing.

Going above and beyond for my clients.

Now I have a completely different approach to running my online business

This year, as I launched the Ultimate Guide System for the first time, I said things would be different.

I had a conversation with my mentor and friend Marc Aarons, and I asked him about what kind of an early bonus I should create for my program and when I should release it.

He didn’t give me the answer, and instead asked me an important question:

“With this launch, are you optimizing for revenue or learning?”

At the time, I just said learning.

I wanted to find out how my program would sell without any marketing tactics.

So with my launch, I didn’t include any early bird bonuses, discounts or tiers.

And I’m so happy I didn’t.

As soon as I closed the cart for Ultimate Guide System, I noticed that I had the BEST group of students in the program I’ve ever had.

These were ultra-ambitious entrepreneurs with BIG visions to change the world, who were willing to do whatever it takes to write their Ultimate Guides and grow their online businesses.

Fast forward a few months.

We have 2 coaching calls remaining of the initial Ultimate Guide System intensive training.

And guess what?

Around 50% of the people who are in the program are in the process of writing Ultimate Guides (or finished with them).

And 100% of my 1on1 clients will follow through with writing their Ultimate Guides.

Altogether, my students have written well over 100,000 words, and their Ultimate Guides are looking incredible. Together with my 1on1 clients, that number is closer to 200,000 words.

Some of them are even writing their second guides already.

I’m not making this up. Let me show you some guides that my students have written and published over the last few months:

Now I’m not showing you this just to brag, even though I love bragging about the amazing work that my students put out.

The point is that for the first time ever, I created an online course that works REALLY well, where my students actually follow through with it.

The success of my CUSTOMERS is now the thing that matters most.

Getting more traffic, email subscribers and sales is secondary.

How focusing on my CUSTOMERS changed my online business

Focusing on making my customers successful made a HUGE difference in my online business.

Well, first of all I feel a lot better when so many of my students are actually following through with the course.

I’m excited to see them grow their online businesses, and make their lives better while doing it.

It makes me feel like I’m not just taking money from people, but actually delivering on the promises that I’ve made to them.

I know that because students are seeing such success with my course, they’re far more likely to buy future courses from me once I create them.

And I know that if I just make them successful, I won’t need to worry so much about spreading the word about my business, since they’ll do it for me.

And it’s already happening.

Here’s what one of my student wrote in their recent Facebook post:

Here’s what another student wrote:

And another one:

These are just some of the many examples out there – and if you follow me on Facebook, you’ll notice that a lot of people are talking about the work I’m doing with them on their Ultimate Guides – and it’s not a coincidence.

Now I know that if I just focus on getting MORE success stories from my work, more and more people will know me, spread the word about me and want to work with me.

It’s that simple.

I don’t need to worry so much about getting more traffic, more email subscribers or more sales any more, because those things will happen anyway as I create more and more success stories.

On the other hand, I do know that I’ll need to spread the word about my business and get more of the RIGHT people into it if I want to create more success stories.

Notice I didn’t just say I need more of ANY people.

I don’t want to get 10,000 more email subscribers that won’t buy my courses or follow through with them.

I want to get more of the RIGHT people who will be the perfect fit for them, and who I know have the best chances of getting great results with them.

In a nutshell, there are only 2 things I need to focus on in my business:

Getting more of the RIGHT people to work with me (through Ultimate Guide System or 1on1)
Making sure that the people that work with me follow through with creating incredible Ultimate Guides

And to take it a step further, I can connect both of these things to just ONE main goal, that I set for myself this year.

My main goal for the year is helping 100 of my students publish their Ultimate Guides

I know that if I manage to create 100 powerful success stories this year, everything else will take care of it’s own.

More and more of the RIGHT people will visit my website (who are actually interested in learning more about Ultimate Guides).

More of my existing readers will join my courses because they’ll see the results that the students are getting with them.

I won’t need to “sell” my courses hard, because they’ll sell themselves.

I also know what are the things I’ll NEED to do to make these 100 Ultimate Guides happen.

I’ll need to spread the word about my business and get more of the RIGHT people to hear about me
I’ll need to make sure my students follow through with creating their Ultimate Guides
I’ll need to help my students consistently get great results with their Ultimate Guides

To spread the word about my business, I’ll create more incredible content like Ultimate Guides myself.

I’ll get more publicity for my business in the right publications / website so more of the RIGHT people hear about me. I’ll build the relationships with other top experts in my niche and find more ways to add value to their audiences.

To make sure my students follow through with creating their Ultimate Guides, I’ll make sure to support them as best as I can in doing it.

I’ll go out of my way to check in with the students that are writing their guides and personally help them finish their guides. I’ll listen to the obstacles that prevent them from finishing their guides and find ways to remove them.

To make help my students consistently get great results with Ultimate Guides, I’ll continue to improve the Ultimate Guide System course.

I’m already making a few major improvements to the program, and I’ll be launching UGS 2.0 in the near future. I’ll bring in other experts who wrote their Ultimate Guides and have them share what worked for them with my students. I’ll really make sure that Ultimate Guide System is the BEST course on creating Ultimate Guides.

And this is literally ALL that I’ll be focusing on this year. Just these 3 things.

No fancy marketing tactics. No new online courses. No other stuff that would distract me from helping my students create 100 Ultimate Guides.

I know that if I just focus on that one goal and those 3 strategies to achieve it, everything else will take care of itself.

Now you might be thinking to yourself “this is great for you Primoz… but what can I do to grow MY business this year?”

I thought about that as I talked to my high performance coach about my main goal for this year.

As I did that, I realized… That while you might not help your students create 100 Ultimate Guides, you CAN get 100 happy clients for YOUR online business.

That’s how the concept of “100 Happy Clients” was born.

And I’m excited to share it with you and walk you through it today!

The 100 Happy Clients Framework

If you just focus on getting 100 happy clients with your business, then everything else will take care of itself.

You won’t need to worry so much about growing your email list. You won’t need to worry about making money or hitting a certain product launch revenue. You won’t need to ask yourself “am I really focusing on the MOST important tasks for my business?”.

Because if you just get 100 happy clients, everything else will become 10x easier.

From attracting more of the right readers to your business, to selling more of your online courses, and getting more 1on1 coaching clients.

You’ll just have ONE goal for your business: 100 happy clients by the end of this year. That’s it.

Before we get into details about how to actually GET 100 happy clients, we need to talk about what a “happy clients” actually is.

What does a “happy client” look like for YOUR business?

By a happy client I mean someone who successfully achieved a result that you promised them to achieve.

It could either be with your FREE, or PAID materials.

For my Ultimate Guide System, a happy clients would be a client that has successfully finished and published an Ultimate Guide.
If I created an online course about writing 10,000 words / week, a happy client would be a client that would successfully write 10,000 words in a week.
If you’re running a weight loss business, a happy clients might be a client that has successfully lost 10lbs.
If you’re running a business about creating online communities, a happy client might be a client that has successfully created a profitable online community.
If you’re running a business about setting up wordpress websites, a happy client would be a client that has successfully created their wordpress website.

To find out what a happy client is for YOUR business, just ask yourself this question:

“What does success look like?”

What would make your student from an online course or coaching program successful?

What end results are you promising to them?

What results would make them really happy?

If you’re not sure, you can also ask your current students some of these questions.

What does success look like for THEM?

Once you’ve answered these questions, try to define a measurable outcome (like losing 10lbs or creating an Ultimate Guide).

Your measurable outcome should be something that you can immediately put a finger on. You should instantly be able to know if someone has successfully achieved your outcome or not.

Something like “I want to help people write more” isn’t measurable. Writing 10,000 words in a week is.

You don’t need 10 things as your measurable outcome.

Just pick the ONE thing that would be the biggest indicator of your success.

A happy client is a client that has successfully reached your measurable outcome.

That’s it.

Now that you know what a happy client is, let’s look at how we can actually get 100 of them.

Your 3-step roadmap to getting 100 happy clients

To get to 100 happy clients, you really just need to do 3 things:

You need to give people the OPPORTUNITY to become happy clients
You need to bring more of the RIGHT people to your business (so they can become happy clients)
You need to help your students BECOME happy clients by helping them follow through with your advice

If you get those 3 things right, getting to 100 happy clients is just a matter of time.

STEP #1: Give people the OPPORTUNITY to become happy clients

To turn your readers into happy clients, you can help them get to their desired results in one of the following ways:

You can help them through your free materials that you publish on your website
You can help them by answering questions / jumping on calls with them
You can help them by coaching them or helping them through your courses

These are just some of the top ways in which you can create happy clients – of course there’s other avenues as well like public speeches that could work too – but that kind of falls under helping people with free materials.

As you might notice, you don’t NEED to charge people and get 100 PAYING clients in order to get 100 happy clients for your business.

You could create incredible FREE materials like Ultimate Guides on your website that help your students get amazing results and become happy clients.

Like my reader Leslie who created her Ultimate Guide using my Ultimate Guide Checklist and got 500 email subscribers with it in 3 days.

You could help them by answering their questions via email once they subscribe to your email list.

You could jump on 1on1 calls with your email subscribers, like my friend Diana is doing (she’s offering 100 FREE reviews of communities to people signed up to her email list).

You could even host “office hours” or an “ask me anything” in an online community you’re a part of to begin making a name out of yourself and collect some initial happy clients.

I did this when I first started talking about Ultimate Guides (I talked about “epic content creation”, which later turned into Ultimate Guides):

e, you can also offer a coaching program or an online course where you help them achieve the results you’re promising them.

Zero to Launch is a great online course that can help you do just that.

STEP #2: Bring more of the RIGHT people to your business

The BEST way to attract ore of the RIGHT people to your business is by creating incredible content for them.

When you create free content that’s 10x better than anything else in your industry, you won’t just attract more of the right people to your business. You’ll also start collecting happy clients (as mentioned above).

By incredible content, I mean content that people that isn’t just a quick 500 word article, that makes people think “oh, that’s nice” and move on.

I mean content that’s actionable, that actually gets your readers results (and gets you happy clients).

Now of course, creating incredible content isn’t easy.

If it was, everyone would be doing it.

Luckily, there’s a way to LEARN how to create incredible content.

And one of the best ways to do that is by creating an Ultimate Guide – which is usually the most detailed and comprehensive piece of content on a certain topic.

Once you know how to create an Ultimate Guide, creating an incredible blog post or guest posts becomes EASY.

I share my step-by-step system for creating Ultimate Guides (as well as 9 ways in which you can bring more of the RIGHT people to your business with them) in my FREE 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide Checklist.

You can grab your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide Checklist here.

Once you know how to create incredible content for your business, the next step is to spread the word about your amazing content.

To learn how to do that, check out this free interview I recorded with my friend Selena Soo, who’s the go-to expert on getting more publicity for your business:

In the interview, we go over the specific ways in which you can get more publicity for your Ultimate Guides (as well as how to use Ultimate Guides to get more publicity for your business).

Even if you’re not interested in creating a 10,000+ word Ultimate Guide right now, you can still watch the interview – as the advice Selena shares is widely applicable to anyone who creates really incredible content.

Once you have a consistent stream of new high quality readers coming into your business, there’s just one thing left to do.

You need to turn them into happy clients.

STEP #3: Help your students BECOME happy clients

There’s just one thing you need to do to help your students become happy clients.

You need to go ABOVE AND BEYOND for your students while working with them.

What does that mean?

Let me give you some examples how I go above and beyond for my Ultimate Guide System students (which helps me get a 50% success rate with the program that almost nobody else has):

I designed the program in a way that it’s 1 year long, rather than just 8 weeks, because I know that writing Ultimate Guides takes time and I want to be there for my students with every step of the way. If they fall behind, I still want to help them follow through with their guide. If they want to create more guides, I’ll happily help them with that as well.
I extended the first part of the course from 10 weeks as originally planned to 14 weeks or so, to prevent students from being overwhelmed and falling behind when the writing phase began – so I’m pacing the course based on their progress.
When I launch a new cohort for the course, my old students will have a chance to attend all the live calls etc. again, so they can create their next guide or restart working on the first one if they fell off track.
I welcome every student with a 1on1 call, to get to know them and build a relationship with them. I know more or less all of my students by names, their guides that they are working on, their business ideas, etc. – this makes them feel special and helps build a really strong community.
I go out of my way to leave feedback for my students on their guides. I review their guides in google docs, give them step by step feedback, help them rewrite some of their copy, etc.
I jump on 1on1 calls with them if they really get stuck or need my help.
I make sure to always encourage them and celebrate their wins with them, no matter how big or small they might be.
I’m happy to go over time with our 90min calls if we need to, in order to help every single student with their guides.
I’m jumping on 1on1 calls with all students that have started creating their guides over the next few weeks to help them finish their guides and get them over the finish line
I’ll go out of my way to promote their guides once they’re written (of course!).

Most people that run online courses don’t do ANY of these things – and some only do a few them. By doing all of them, I’m able to get such a high success rate with my students, and get so many more “happy clients” for my business.

Feel free to steal some of these ideas to go above and beyond for your own courses, coaching programs or even free materials. They should give you a great start.

Beyond that, you can brainstorm other ways in which YOU can go above and beyond for YOUR students.

To do that, ask yourself questions like:

What can I do to help my students follow through with my advice?
What are the biggest challenges that might prevent my students from following through with my advice, and how can I remove them for them?
What can I do to make it 10x more likely for my students to succeed with my advice?

Don’t be afraid to get creative with this step. It’s totally cool to test your ideas, no matter how crazy they are.

The craziest ideas are usually the best ones anyway, and will really make you stand out from everyone else in your industry.

Once you have some ideas ready, go ahead and test them out!

Share the ideas with your email subscribers. Give them an opportunity to work with you. Go above and beyond for your current clients and students in your online courses.

Slowly but surely, you’ll get more and more happy clients for your business

The secret I didn’t tell you about yet

There’s one thing I left out when I talked about the 100 happy clients framework.

It might actually be the BEST part of the framework.

So hear me out…

All of these strategies work TOGETHER with each other, build off of each other and help you get exponentially more happy clients for your business.

Let’s say…

You can get 10% more of the RIGHT PEOPLE to your business
You can give your readers 10% more OPPORTUNITIES to become your happy clients
You help 10% more people that you help actually BECOME happy clients

How many more happy clients will you have for your business?

You’ll have 33% more happy clients for your business (1.1*1.1*1.1).

So even if you just SLIGHTLY improve the amount of the right people you get into your business, give them one more opportunity to work with you, and help 10% more of the people actually follow through with your advice, you’ll get 33% more happy clients for your business.

Now let’s ramp up the numbers to something more ambitious.

What if you could DOUBLE the amount of the RIGHT PEOPLE you bring to your business, the amount of OPPORTUNITIES they have to work with you, and the amount of people that FOLLOW THROUGH with your advice?

You’ll have 800% more happy clients for your business (2*2*2).

This means that if you have 10 happy clients right now, you’d be able to get 80 happy clients by doing this.

How cool is that?

Now of course, doubling all of those numbers isn’t as easy as it sounds on paper, but that doesn’t mean it’s not doable.

It’s TOTALLY doable in a year, even in half a year, or even in a few months, IF you focus on the strategies above.

How to get started with getting your 100 happy clients TODAY

If you’re onboard with the idea of getting to 100 happy clients for YOUR business, I suggest you do three things over the next 2 minutes to get started today.

Start out by committing to getting to 100 happy clients in your business this year. You can also leave a comment below with your commitment.
Define what a happy client looks like for your business. What’s the one measurable outcome that would make your client a happy client?
Get started with the first step of the “Happy Client Framework” – getting more of the RIGHT people into your business.

My favorite way of doing that is by creating Ultimate Guides.

With Ultimate Guides, I’ve attracted 278,958+ website visitors and 6,150+ email subscribers to my website – and they helped me generate $300k+ in revenue with my online business.

You can learn all about how I did that (and how you can use Ultimate Guides to get to your 100 happy clients) by getting your FREE copy of my 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide checklist.

Just leave your name and email below and I’ll send it straight to your inbox!

Enjoy!

-Primoz

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