I received a great question from a Perpetual Traffic listener:
“If you were to start over with nothing but your experience and wanted to start a new business in 2024, what types of businesses would you consider going into?”
The following is my best shot at an answer.
First, it’s super important for anyone starting out to realize they won’t get it right the first time.
The odds of picking a perfect business (service, industry, geography, client base, etc.) right out of the gate are close to zero.
So…
Build a business around the Corridor PrincipleThe Corridor Principle states that the mere act of starting a venture enables entrepreneurs to see other venture opportunities they could neither see nor take advantage of until they had started their initial venture. (ScienceDirect)
You’re not starting your forever business; you’re starting a business that will put you in a position to see where the “real” opportunities exist.
This means you intentionally ignore conventional wisdom (niche down, be specific with your offering) to broaden your view.
Conveniently, the best example of this is a digital marketing agency.
More specifically, a “full-funnel” agency. Ironically, these are the agencies that “real” agencies ruthlessly criticize. They’re more or less digital handymen who’ll do anything for money and offer way too many services.
Criticisms aside, the beauty of these agencies is people come to you with their problems. ALL of their problems (expecting you to fix them). So, the sword cuts both ways. The nice thing is that you’ll get immediate access to massive wells of opportunity (i.e., other people’s problems).
So, start a full-funnel marketing agency and focus on small businesses.
They’re the most accessible and largely underserved.
There’s no marketing budget here, so we will take what we can get. You don’t need to be good at sales to get SMB clients. They’re everywhere.
My introductory service would be an “Action Plan,” e.g., I’d learn everything I could about the business (offer, avatar, pricing, competitors, struggles, history, etc.) and then develop an action plan for the first 90 days.
I might expand that timeline if the business is super simple.
While I’m still desperate for clients, I’d charge something nominal ($750?) until I started closing deals.
Then, I’d increase my pricing to see what the market will bear. If I can’t close clients at that rate, do it for free. Yes, free. You’re starting; that’s the price you pay to learn.
The offer comes with my “3x Guarantee”: Guarantee #1: If you’re unhappy, I give you 100% of your money back, no questions asked. Guarantee #2: You can take what I’m going to prepare and do it yourself. Guarantee #3: The cost of the action plan is a credit toward future services.
This works great as a sales tactic: It kills all objections and makes them feel like they’re wasting $750 if they don’t hire you. I would build the action plan around some recurring service(s); obviously, they’d depend on what I figured out in the audit process.
Then, I’d do it repeatedly until I see some thread or pattern I can niche down on.
The problem with this model is that every new client is effectively a new business, so it’s not scalable at all! So you don’t want to stay here. This is to architect the corridor where you find your niche.
And don’t forget the 3X Freedom Principles! I’ve written about them before: Entrepreneurship is NOT fulfillment; be the guide (not the expert); focus on recurring revenue; the riches are in the niches; own the community, etc.
I realize this isn’t a complete answer; that’s part of the beauty of the plan.
If there were a complete answer, then the question would be irrelevant.
This is a tricky question because knowing where to start is impossible. This puts you in the best position to figure that out.
How about you? What would you do if you had to start today with nothing but your experience?