333 Top 5 Ways to Succeed as an Online Entrepreneur

"Business is about serving people and you want to make sure you give them the best experience possible." - Lewis Howes If you enjoyed this podcast, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/333 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 333 and you are entering the solo round. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to a beautiful day here in Los Angeles. I'm looking out over the Hollywood Hills and the Sunset Strip and all of West Hollywood here in the Greatness Studios and I'm so excited to connect with you today. Now today I thought I would do something different. You know, every Monday and Wednesday we do interviews typically, but I've been getting a lot of requests from you saying, "Hey, we want more of you, Lewis. We love the guests you bring on, bringing on a lot of great guests, but we want to hear more about you, more of your tips and strategies for business and lifestyle and chasing your dreams and all that great stuff." So I'm flattered. I appreciate it and I thought I would do a quick little solo round. And this is the top five ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  Now, a lot of the questions I get is about building a business online. It's about figuring out what your dream is and how to make a full-time living doing the thing that fills you up. Because that's what life is all about. It's about chasing the thing that makes you come alive and getting paid to do it. Now, some of you are already entrepreneurs and you're looking to get to the next level online. You're looking for leads, traffic, sales. You want to make more money. That's what it's all about. Bigger audience, bigger bank account, right? Which could help you create bigger impact on the community and the world. And some of you are at jobs or you're just graduating or you're just, you want to do something on the side.

• 2:01Lewis Howes?

  You know, and then there's other people listening who... You like the team you're on right now, you like the company you're at. And, you know, starting something new terrifies you and it's really not what your strengths are. You don't want to start something and manage it all on your own. And that's okay, but there are ways you can build the brand of you from what I'm going to be talking about. So if you're not thinking about being an entrepreneur, I still highly recommend this because you are an entrepreneur, whether you're working for someone or not. You're always going to be selling yourself. So this is the top five ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur. Again, I've been doing this for about seven, eight years now, building a business online. We've done, you know, multiple, multiple, multiple seven figures over the years.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  Had a ton of mainstream press, you know, featured in, you know, New York Times, number two in the New York Times bestseller list for the entire month. Been featured in People Magazine, you know, covers of magazines. Pretty much every mainstream press you can think about. Fox, ABC, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Inc., Entrepreneur, you know, pretty much everything you can think of. We've got a lot of press covered in it. And it doesn't happen by accident, right? We don't just generate these sales by accident. We don't just put something out there and it works. There is a system, there's a strategy, there's a formula. And I want to talk about these five key things. You know, these are some basic things that a lot of people missed out on. A lot of people don't think about.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  And they get too caught up in what they're doing that they forget to really build something sustainable and something inspiring and something that is smart. So we're going to talk about those five things today. And also at the very end, I'm going to give you guys a resource. I'm going to give you guys a brand new free resource. If you stick around at the end, I'll talk about how you can get my free resource on my top 10 must-have resources for online entrepreneurs. And I'll give you the link for that at the end because we just released it and I want you guys to get that right now. And I'm gonna be doing more business and entrepreneur content because you guys have been asking for this. We just did a podcast about the power of high-end masterminds.

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  Big response on that. So we're gonna be covering a wide range of topics in the future like we have been, but I want to get into some really of the online entrepreneur stuff because these have been questions that have people have been asking me more and more lately. So make sure to stick around to the end. We'll talk about the resource and how to get my top 10 must-have resources for successful online entrepreneurs. Okay, guys, let's dive into this. This is a solo round and I'd love for you to share this out with your friends as well. It's lewishouse.com/333. The top 5 ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur. And let's dive in. The first thing, now this is a thing that so many people, they just, they just aren't clear.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  They aren't clear on what it is they want. And because they're not clear, it hurts them. They're constantly going from thing to thing. So number one is to commit to a clear vision. Make sure to write this down right now. Number one, commit to a clear vision. And Seneca said, "To the person who does not know where he wants to go, there is no favorable wind." Okay, guys, what does that mean? Here's what I get. Questions and people Snapchatting me and posting comments on YouTube and Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and emailing all the time, asking for advice about this. I don't know how to build my business. I don't know how to go after what I want. I don't even know what I want. You gotta get clear first.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  And I remember, you know, I am very clear. This is the thing about me that is one of my advantages. I have like this deep desire in my gut that is like my soul is aching for these dreams that I have. And so I don't know if this is just how I'm made up or the messed up and screwed up things I've gone through in my childhood that have made me, you know, want to create great things in the world and be better in the future and have these big dreams for myself. I'm not sure what it is, but I've always had these big dreams. And I think- All of us have dreams inside of us. We all have something we desire, something we want, something that we see that's a symbol for us that we say, wow, one day it'd be cool to be

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  that, to create that, to have that, to do that. But somewhere along the way, we fail over and over, people ridicule or criticize us, um, we lose the, the dream, we lose the worthiness, we lose the imagination. A lot of it comes down to having imagination. And when we're stuck to our phones constantly or applying to the busyness of the day, day-to-day grind, just to like get by, it's hard to imagine what's possible. It's hard to imagine something we want to create. So first things first, guys, is we gotta get clear. We gotta get really clear on what it is we want. And I like to focus on bigger dreams, um, you

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  know, in the future, you know, I'll give you an example. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an all-American athlete. And it was hard to say, okay, in 15 years, I'm gonna be an all-American athlete when I go to college. But I just focused on the smaller goals. Every six to 12 months, I would break it down. Now I'd say, what do I need to do in these next six months to get better, to achieve the mini-goal, making the freshman team, making the JV team, making the varsity team, getting a college scholarship, you know, and then setting myself up to be in a position to achieve the, the vision. And the vision and the dream may not always happen. Here's the thing, guys, things happen along the way. Accidents happen, um, you know, we fail, we realize we don't love it anymore, whatever

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  it may be. You may not build the business that you want, or hit the exact numbers that you want. If you say you want to make a million dollars this year in the next 12 months, you may not exactly hit it. You gotta be very disciplined to hit these big goals. You know, big goals and big dreams require big responsibilities and big committed actions, okay? So this is the thing. I, you know, another, another thing that I did as like, eight years ago, I said, I want to be a New York Times bestseller. That was just like a dream of mine. You know, I was on my sister's couch, injured, had no college degree, no experience. I was in debt, had never made money in my life, except for truck driving and being a bouncer and making $250 a week

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  as an arena football player. And I almost flunked out of English in high school. But I had the imagination. I was allowing myself to dream and said, one day, I want to be a New York Times bestselling author. Now, I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I knew I had to take consistent, big actions on a daily basis to develop new skills and create results so that I could build the audience, get the resources, get the experience to eventually write a book and then have the opportunity to maybe hit the New York Times list. All we're looking to do is create the opportunity for ourselves to hit that vision, to hit that dream.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  You may not always hit it though, and I may have not have hit it. You know, I may have spent eight years developing myself as a human being and building businesses and making millions and all these things to position myself to eventually achieve my vision and my dream, and it may not have happened. But I would have created so much great things along the way and had so many other successes that, hey, the journey would have still been worth it. But a lot of us hold back our visions and our dreams. We never allow ourselves to imagine. So I want you to take a moment today to imagine, if I could have anything, be anything, do anything, create anything,

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  no matter how big, stupid, or silly it sounds to me right now, what would that be? And then you think about this in terms of your business. What do I want to create? And then why do I want to create it? If it's to prove someone wrong or to whatever, if it's coming from a negative place, then it's not going to be rewarding. So you've got to think of this from a place of inspiration and love and joy. Not a place of, uh, I'm doing this to prove my parents wrong or something, you know? It's got to be to, to inspire and serve other people. So that is number one. Commit to a clear vision. What do you want in your business? How much money do you want to make? What is the message? What is the offering? Why are you doing this?

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Get clear and all, listen, please, please, please, please. Only focus on doing the stuff that you're, you enjoy doing, that you love. And that's, it brings you joy. You know, if you're just doing something to make money, and I get it, there might be like a couple of years, a year or two where you've got to work on something that you don't love because you don't have the time or the resources or whatever to pay someone else to do those tasks. So there's going to be some stages that you may have to do some stuff you don't love. But if you're working towards your vision that you love, then that's all good. If you're just selling something, if you're a guy that hates, I don't know, beauty products and you decide to sell fake nails to girls, but you hate the product. But you think like, oh, I could make money doing this.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  I would say, don't do that. It's not going to be fulfilling or rewarding and it's not what your soul is calling you to do. So get very clear on what you were born to do. I'm telling you guys, this is going to help you create so much more momentum. It's going to help serve you when things get challenging and exhausting and rough and, and rocky. Because there are moments and seasons that it's going to happen. You can't always just be smooth all through life. The bigger the dream, the bigger the obstacle. So find the thing that your soul is speaking to you about. And then start moving one step at a time. Take one step every single day towards that bigger vision and bigger dream. That's the first thing. Commit to a clear vision.

• 12:07Lewis Howes?

  Number two, create captivating design over quick dollars. Now here's the thing, guys. If you chase the dollar. With crappy design, you're gonna be ignored long-term. You gotta make sure that you are constantly looking for ways to improve and increase your design. The way things look matter. Now, I'm not saying you need to be constantly putting on a fake image and focused on your image in this process, but you need to be intentional with the way you're connecting with your images, your messaging, your design. What you put out into the world online matters. And when you create something that's cheap-looking, you're gonna get those type of results.

• 12:52Lewis Howes?

  Cheap results, cheap customers, you know, cheap excuses, all those other things. When you put something out, quality design, and you focus on it, people resonate with that design. You know, you're going to attract what you put out there. Put out quality, high-end, beautiful, clean, simple design. It doesn't have to be this crazy expensive thing, but you need to be intentional and grounded about what you wanna put out there. Then you're gonna attract the quality of customer, lead, opportunity, business deal, speaking gig, book deal, etc. That you want and deserve. But if you do this rush it and just throw it out there without being intentional or having the skills to do it, then you're gonna get that type of results.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  Now, I get it. Your response may be, "Well, I don't have the time. I don't have the money. I don't have the skills to do this myself." You gotta get creative here. You know, if you want something bad enough, you gotta be willing to be creative to get out of your comfort zone. So, use designcrowd.com or some other, you know, fiverr.com to get started. But just make sure you're constantly evolving and improving your design and being very intentional about it when you get started, okay? Now, when I got started investing my design, my first website design was horrible-looking. If I could find a screenshot of my first design, it'd probably make me wanna puke. I, you know, I pretty much just had like a weird-looking banner of a photo of myself and a bad little logo of my name. But that's what I had to get started. And I, I still even, I spent more money than I had on that.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  You know, I still spent like 500 bucks on a designer to do that for me. And, listen, at the time, it was- Wasn't as bad. This was like eight years ago, but for me like looking back, it's thinking about it. It's like horrible. But if I would have said, well, I'm going to wait till I have the money. I'm going to wait till I have the resources. And then I'm going to design something that I'm really proud of. You know, I'd have been waiting for years. So you've got to create captivating design. As opposed to just trying to make the quick dollar. And even if you're don't have a website, whatever you put out there, if it's just social media to start, that's fine. But just make sure that you have great photos, you know, I'm constantly, I just did a photo shoot in Nashville last week.

• 14:59Lewis Howes?

  And spent an hour, about an hour and a half with a photographer and got like 15 to 20 incredible shots that were amazing. And we just did a little trade. I said, listen, I'm going to help promote you with these photos. It's also, you know, if I can help with any advice on this new startup you have. I'm happy to give feedback and advice and give you some strategy. But I'm constantly doing, you know, photo shoots every two to three months because people care about. I mean, it matters to be top of mind. You need nice quality images. Images are what we connect and resonate to the most. If you have a headshot of yourself from five years ago and use the same photo for everything you have on all social media and you're not intentional about it.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  You're going to get that type of result. So invest in design, invest in your brand. Invest in the high quality photos, you know, I've got a full time designer on my team now because. I was outsourcing so many products to different places. But I just said, you know what? I really need to unify my design and brand and it's helping me sell more. It's helping me get more high end speaking deals. I mean, my speaking gigs are going through the roof. People are signing me up for 25 grand a pop left and right right now. And design helps create that perception. So focus on creating captivating design over just going for the quick dollar. Number three, stand for quality content and quality messaging. All right, guys, this is the thing.

• 16:27Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you know, before I. Really built an online, you know, website and presence. I was making a lot of good money. I was making good money just doing webinars and selling directly to a sales page. I didn't even have really like a website. I had LewisHowes.com, but I was posting like once every few weeks just to have like a personal brand site, but it wasn't really building my audience from that. I was building an audience just from using webinars and generating leads that way. And then I was selling every time at the end of the webinar. And, you know, we were making 2.5 million a year for a couple of years there, just doing that process. But I never built up any content that was really consistent with the message of who

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  I was. And I wanted to start putting that out there. So three and a half years ago, I shifted and started doing a weekly podcast and the school of greatness began and started. And man, has my life changed. My business has transformed. Since I started putting out quality content and quality messaging. Ann Handley says that good content is not storytelling, it's telling your story well. And the thing is, as I started my podcast, I had no clue really how to interview people or how to run a podcast. I asked some friends and, you know, did some research and I got the information I needed or whatever, but really you're not going to become great at something until you do it, until you apply it.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  So again, there's so many people, there's someone told me the other day, they're like, I want to start a podcast and I want to launch it four months from now. Once I have everything ready and I feel good about it and this and that, I'm like, you know, you should try to launch it in the next two weeks because you're going to miss out on four months of putting content out there and building an audience to wait and hope that you're ready. You're never going to feel ready. Like I've, this is episode 333, and I still feel like I'm not fully where I need to be as an interviewer. I'm still learning. I'm getting feedback. I review how I show up, how the questions I ask, how I'm responding. Am I interjecting too much? Am I asking too many questions at once? You know, I'm listening to myself and learning every single time.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  The thing is, we're human beings. You gotta give yourself a break, put something out there and then focus on being better the next post, the next piece of content. Focus on improving through the learning and the action taking.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  But you gotta stand for quality, consistent content and messaging. And, you know, I started off with my first interview. It was like an interview I did on my computer over a webinar. And it didn't even sound that good, but it was good content. And you just gotta be willing to put yourself out there and say, alright, I'm gonna get better tomorrow. And focus on that next day. If I would have waited, you know, the last three and a half years, I wouldn't have been able to. I've got an incredible team of about eight or nine people on my team right now, full time and part time. You know, I hit my dream of being a New York Times bestseller because I started putting out consistent quality content. I had, I think, about 12,000 people on my email list before I launched my podcast. And now I think it's, I don't know, 175,000 people on the email list.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  And it's because we've been putting out great content, you know. I'm investing so much in the production of my podcast, the quality of my content. Reaching out to big name guests to bring them on, you know, flying around the world sometimes to do these interviews. Whatever it may take to put stuff out there that is going to resonate with my audience. So you've gotta be willing to say, hey, here's the thing I love. Here's my product, my service, my business, my software, my event, my coaching, whatever it may be. And I'm going to serve my audience for free by putting out resourceful, informational, inspiring content. And in that process, I'm going to give you clear messaging on how it can support you.

• 20:23Lewis Howes?

  Clear steps, processes, systems that's gonna help you overcome a challenge, make you feel better, healthier, happier. Whatever it is that your service is, you've gotta create inspiring content around that. And you've gotta do what works best for you. You know, I'm not the greatest writer. It's like harder for me to write all the time, but I enjoy connecting with people. And I love asking questions and interviewing people. So for me, I said, okay, I'm gonna do a podcast. And I just started off with audio. And then I said, you know, at the beginning of this year, I was like, I really wanna maximize on YouTube and Facebook video. So I hired a full-time videographer to shoot and edit, and now we're doing video interviews. So we're just taking it to another level every time. I have the resources and the skills.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  It's like, let's step it up. Now let's step it up. One day at a time, one day, one step at a time to get closer to the big vision that we have. So, number three, stand for quality content and clear messaging. And I did an interview. The other day with Don Miller and he said that, you know, we want to speak in a we want to have messaging that's for a fourth grader. If our messaging is more sophisticated for an eighth grader, we're going to lose people. So keep it to a fourth grader level of the messaging on our website, on the things that we say when we're delivering our product or service, it's got to be very simple for people to understand.

• 21:49Lewis Howes?

  Number four, so number four of the top five ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur is to choose the best systems and build a great team. So systems, systems and team kind of go hand in hand for me. Uh, that could be two different bullet points, but I'm putting them together. And Michael Jordan says that talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. So if you want to achieve world-class results, whether you're, uh, you know, trying to get six figures, seven figures, eight figures, whatever, however many millions you want to make, or however much you want to make.

• 22:29Lewis Howes?

  If you're trying to achieve the best results that you can and be one of the best in your industry and be reputable and have great, um, integrity and great customers and really be at a high standard. If you want to be, you know, the only way to do this game in life is to work towards being at the highest standard we can be, especially in business, seeing that there's so much noise and distraction and crappy business people out there that are just, I don't know, I just feel like people aren't doing it to the best of their abilities, or they're at least not even trying. You know, listen, when I started out, that was the best of my abilities at the time. And, uh, you have to measure where you're at in your, your life and the finances you have and the skill sets you have.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  And it's all depends on where you're at. I couldn't have done this seven, eight years ago because I didn't know these things. Right? So I'm trying to help you guys really get ahead here. You gotta choose the best systems and the team. And you know, I'm starting, I'm launching a huge course next month, my biggest course ever. So many people have been asking me again for a course like this. It's called Legacy and it's teaching people how to build an online empire. So everything that I've done from building the audience to generating the traffic, to doing the design, to creating the courses and the products and the offering and price points and the marketing, systems, teams, legal, accounting, everything that I've done to build my brand, all the facets, all the ways I've brought in money, all of those things.

• 23:54Lewis Howes?

  People have been saying, "How do I replicate everything that you've done, Lewis?" And we're putting an entire course out there, a premium level course that teaches just those things. I've spent the last six months developing this. It is so much detailed, step-by-step, video training content, beautiful design, resources, process maps, everything that you need, all-in-one training. And I said, "The only way that I'm going to be able to create my best course ever, the highest level premium course that's going to help people build their business and build their own empire around doing the thing that they love the most, is if I have the team and the systems in place."

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Because there is no way that I can create all the content myself, write it all out, record it myself, use the teleprompter myself, design it myself, code it myself, you know, all the different elements of creating a high-level product. There's no way I can do it alone. So I started hiring my team. I hired my full-time video person, I hired a full-time designer, we hired the programmer, my project manager, content creator, all the elements of the team. We found A-Team players to create an A-Team product. So we can help people get quality results. And that's the goal. If you've got an offer, product, service, coaching, you want to make sure that you're creating the best solution you can

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  to get the best results for people. That's what this is all about. Business is about serving people. And you want to make sure you give them the best experience possible in that level of service. Tweet that out if you like that one. I like that one. And here's the thing. Team and systems. You can get the great team, but if you don't have systems in place, man, it's going to take a lot more work. It's going to take a lot more energy, time, money, frustration. It might actually break your team up and confuse people because if there's no processes and systems in place, it's going to be exhausting. Your team is going to be fighting as opposed to coming together. So there are a number of things that we do to have systems and processes in place.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Um, you know, one of the things that I found extremely beneficial, just a simple thing that can go a long way. And in my course, we break down every system and process that I have specifically and how you can use it. So be on the lookout for that when it comes out. But the simple thing that everyone should do right now, whether you have one person on your team or a hundred people on your team. I really believe in the power of coming together once a week. And we do this on my team. This is just what works for me. And we've got again about nine, 10 people total. Um, who are kind of in the internal team. Then we've got, um, you know, companies that we hire, agencies that we hire, uh, uh,

• 26:47Lewis Howes?

  on the outer limits of the team that work with our team. But I don't bring them into the mix here because they're not in-house. And what we do is we meet for about 45 minutes on Mondays. Um, we pick a time every Monday and we, we get on a video conference call because I like to see my team members because about half of them are here in LA. The other half are kind of spread out in the country. So for me, I want to see my team once a week at least. And obviously there's check-ins throughout the week and other systems that we have in place to manage all that. But I like to see everyone once a week. And in this process, I usually ask three simple questions. Um, the questions vary, but the first one is always the same. What are you most grateful for? We start the week with gratitude.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  We start the week with what we've been excited about, what we're grateful for. That kickstarts us into really reminding us.

• 27:39Lewis Howes?

  How much good we have in our lives, how much we good and people share personal things, business related things, whatever it may be, but what are you most grateful for right now? And that sets the tone for the week. Gratitude sets the tone to bring in more abundance in your life. So focusing on that. Um, and then I usually ask, you know, what's a big challenge that you want to overcome this week? Or also, what's the thing you're most excited about completing? Um, you know, I'll ask a few different questions after that, but those are a couple that I do. We use a thing called Zoom. I believe it's called Zoom. You can use Google Hangouts or something like that or Skype. But we use Zoom and it's a like a video conferencing app on your computer and allows you to connect with your team. So for me, I find it so valuable.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  The people who are in LA come and we meet in person and the other people, uh, we just meet over Zoom and it's so powerful. You've got to be willing to build the team, create relationship with your team and have the systems in place for your team to help them and empower them to build your business and build the engine for you because you can't build the empire on your own. If you want to be a successful online entrepreneur, you've got to learn to empower a team players around you and build the systems in place and the processes in place. So the engine runs even when you're not working. That is the key. That's one of the main things we talk about in my new program, Legacy. So that's point number four, choose the best systems and team.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  And point number five, this is a big one, the final one. So this is the top five ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur. Point number five is to learn to promote and market yourself. Now, Tom Fishburne said, the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing. You've got to learn and to embrace to bring the promoter out of you. I don't care, you know, who you are, what you're afraid of, your challenges. If you cannot put yourself out there, it's going to be hard to build an empire and be a successful online entrepreneur. You've got to be willing to do it to start if you're a solo entrepreneur, but eventually you've got your team who can support in the messaging and the marketing.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  But here's the thing, I started out not knowing anyone, having zero connections, zero business experience, no money, all these different things we talked about.

• 30:06Lewis Howes?

  And I was terrified to put myself out there, but I said, the only way to build is to build relationships. And so I started building one on relationship, one on one relationships over LinkedIn, where I'd email people and put myself out there that way. Then I started going to little local social media meetups and tweet ups. And then I started creating my own LinkedIn networking events, putting myself out there. And I was terrified. I was so terrified to host my first event. Like, I was this 24 year old kid with no experience. I remember I only had one suit jacket. And I like wore this suit jacket and a button up white shirt and a, you know, nice pants. And I went to this thing and I was terrified because everyone was like in their 30s and 40s and were

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  business owners and had created a lot. And I just created this group on LinkedIn where I started promoting and, and putting this event together for everyone. But I needed to do something to get out of my comfort zone so that I could build quality relationships. I did that online. I did that offline. And it's allowed me to cultivate an audience, attract an audience, because I've been willing to put my content out there on the line. Been willing to promote myself, promote my products, my services. I've gotten to the point, guys, where I will call people one by one if I need to. If I need to sell something out or get people to sign up for my book launch, I was emailing people one by one, messaging people on Facebook, Twitter, one by one, calling people, showing up

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  at people's houses and asking them to buy books, one by one. I was so committed, again, to number one, my committed to a clear vision. I was so committed to my book being a New York Times bestseller and hitting the sales results that I, uh, that I wanted, that I said, okay, that means I get to promote myself and market myself the way I know how to online, but also that means I gotta get out of my comfort zone. If I want to create crazy dream results, right? If I want to create big time results, I gotta be willing to do big time moves. I gotta be willing to be a big time player and step up and be willing to do whatever it takes to get out of my comfort zone, to connect

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  with people and ask for them to buy. You've got to be willing to promote and market yourself even when it feels uncomfortable. That's the way you build a business, by getting your message out there. Do it in a way where you create content you love and that helps other people. And you won't have to promote yourself as hard because the content will share itself. If you inspire and educate and entertain people and give great resources, that's something that someone else will want to share and they'll help build your audience for you. So, once you start putting in the work, learning the systems, building the team, standing for quality content and messaging, creating captivating design over quick dollars,

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  and committing and getting a clear vision, then the things start to build positive momentum. The engine starts to fuel itself here and you really start to see the benefits. The thing is, when we miss out on a few of these things, even one or two of these things, say we have number two through five, where we've got great design, we have quality content, have a great team and good systems, we're there to promote and market our products and services. But if we don't have number one, if we don't have a clear vision, man, the team is going to be like, what are we doing every day? What's going on? What are we promoting? Why are we changing from thing to thing? Who's the leader here? What are we really working towards?

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  People want to be inspired by a dream, by a mission, by something bigger than themselves. And if you are not clear, then your team will not be clear and they will be off to someone bigger and better or a better company than you. So, you've got to get clear. Again, if you have number one through five and you leave out design and you have crappy design, maybe you've got a great offer, but you've got really spammy looking design or just not intentional or focused in any way, then people aren't going to sign up for as much. So, it doesn't matter how good the content is, doesn't matter how good the team and the systems are, doesn't matter how much you promote it, if it looks like crap, no one's going to want to buy crap. So, again, each one of these points builds on another.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  Number one, I'll say them all over again, commit to a clear vision. Number two, create captivating design over quick dollars. Number three, stand for quality content and messaging. Number four, The best systems and hire an incredible team. And number five, learn to promote and market yourself or your brand. That's it. Top five ways to succeed as an online entrepreneur. Obviously, there's a lot more that goes into this and I cover a lot of this in my brand new course that comes out in about a month. Called Legacy, all about how to build your online empire. Now, I told you guys about a free bonus gift for sticking around.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  And if you want to get my top 10, a lot of people ask me this, hey, what's your top resources? What do you use? What are the tools, the systems, the softwares that you use to help you be successful online entrepreneur? So I decided to put a kit together and it's absolutely free. It's called my top 10 must have resources for successful online entrepreneurs. And if you go to this website right here, write this down and go there right now. LewisHowes.com/business. LewisHowes.com/business. Open it up on your phone, on computer, wherever you are right now, go there, open it up. And you just have to type in your name and your email. I'm going to send you a beautifully designed PDF with my top 10 must have resources.

• 35:51Lewis Howes?

  That all successful online entrepreneurs have. Again, these are the things that I use and a lot of my big entrepreneur friends use. I've asked them what they use and this is it. So if you want to know if you're doing it the right way, if you're using the right tools, the right things in place for your business to build your systems. Then make sure to download this guide right now. Don't wait, do it right now. LewisHowes.com/business. Today's episode was brought to you by Lisa Mattresses. Again, I've been trying this new mattress, guys, for a few weeks now and I'm getting great sleep and I love the quality of it. I love to optimize my performance in all areas of my life. And the cool thing about it is this mattress isn't that expensive.

• 36:34Lewis Howes?

  They start at 525 bucks and again, they're 100% American made. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to go to the store to go pick it out. They shipped it to me. I just took it out of the box, put it on my box springs and There I had a brand new bed. Now, the Wall Street Journal again is calling Lisa the Uber of mattresses. And on top of that, the Lisa donates one mattress for every 10 they sell to a shelter. So think of them like Toms and Warby Parker but for mattresses. Again, you can try the mattress today, risk-free, plus get $75 off your purchase by going to lisa.com/greatness. Again, that's L-E-E-S-A dot com slash greatness. Go ahead and check it out.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Check out the site, see all the great reviews, and let me know what you think. Again, lisa.com/greatness today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share this with your friends. I want to do more entrepreneurial, business mindset-focused, not interviews, but interviews with myself, I guess, solo rounds. So if you enjoyed this, leave a comment on the blog. It's lewishouse.com/333. We'll also have a link to the show notes with all the things that we talked about, with the bullet points from this episode. And also, we'll link up the free resource, the top 10 must-have resources for online entrepreneurs there as well. So we'll have that link there.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Go to lewishouse.com/333, the number 333. Go there right now and share this with your friends. If you enjoyed it, share it on Facebook, Twitter, tag me on Instagram, post it on LinkedIn. Let me know that you enjoyed it by sharing it out with your friends and leaving a comment below. So if you leave me a comment below, let me know what you want to hear next, what type of business resources or content you would like me to talk about next. Would you want more about branding and design? We talk about more about books, about what topics on entrepreneurship would you like to know? So let me know in the comments below at lewishouse.com/333. Download the brand-new free guide.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  We just put this thing out. So download that right now and let your friends know. Share this out with your friends. Again, lewishouse.com/333. You guys have been incredible. I hope this was valuable. Valuable for you and I hope you got a lot of wisdom out of this and it was helpful for you. Again, let me know what you want to hear next. We've got some big interviews and episodes coming very soon. The, the growth of this podcast has been so inspiring and uh, it makes me want to find the biggest names in the world for you and tap into their heart and their soul and learn their biggest secrets about how they got to where they are to give it to you. So the more you share this, the more you listen,

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  the bigger the names and guests I can bring on to bring you even more wisdom. And again, this is an absolutely free podcast. So if this is your first time here, just click on the podcast app right now and click on subscribe. And uh, you know, come back. We do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So, thank you all very much for being here. I love you very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.