<ul><li>The not-so-secret to improving income in an existing business is through tweaks: small changes that create a big impact.</li><li>If you operate a service-based business, consider how you can introduce a “productized” version of the service.</li><li>Providing both a product and a service helps with your marketing as well.</li><li>To get an unfair advantage, provide remarkable service.</li></ul>

Small Changes = Big Impact

“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him . Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

<ul><li>Give people what they really want, not just what you think they should have. Give them the fish!</li><li>(Passion + skill) → (problem + marketplace) = opportunity</li><li>You just have to find the right passion, the right audience, and the right business model.</li><li>The first $1.26 or first sale is the hardest, so find a way to get your first sale as quickly as possible. Then work on improving the things that are working, while ignoring the things that aren’t.</li></ul>

Give Them The Fish

<ol><li>Price your product or service in relation to the benefit it provides, not the cost of producing it. </li><li>Offer customers a limited range of prices.</li><li>Get paid more than once for the same thing.</li></ol>Also, having a high-end version creates an “anchor price.” When we see a superhigh price, we tend to consider the lower price as much more reasonable … thus creating a fair bargain in our minds.

Three Key Principles to Focus on Profit

<ul><li>Follow-your-passion model.</li><li>Build something that people want and give it to them.</li><li>Low startup cost.</li><li>At least $50,000 a year in net income.</li><li>No special skills.</li><li>Full financial disclosure.</li><li>Fewer than five employees.</li><li>Could you explain what you do to your grandmother, and would you be willing to?</li></ul>

The $100 Startup Model

We tend to default to talking about features, but since most purchases are emotional decisions, it’s much more persuasive to talk about benefits.Example: A feature is descriptive (“These clothes fit well and look nice”) and a benefit is the value someone receives from the item in question (“These clothes make you feel healthy and attractive”).

Features Vs Benefits 

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”

……“A successful partnership (or any type of collaboration) should create a combined business which is at least 33 percent larger than the sum of what the two individuals could achieve on their own.<ul><li>Big problems create big opportunities.</li><li>Our future is tied to what we do, decisions we make.</li><li>Be sure to get the paperwork done first.</li></ul>

why 1 + 1 can equal 3:

<ul><li>But in the overlap between the two circles, where passion or skill meets usefulness, a business built on freedom and value can thrive.</li><li>Not-so-secret recipe for microbusiness alchemy: Passion or skill + usefulness = success</li><li>There’s no failproof method; in fact, failure is often the best teacher.</li></ul>

Passion And Usefulness 

Strategy 1: Dig Deeper to Uncover Hidden NeedsStrategy 2: Make Your Customer a HeroStrategy 3: Sell What People Buy<ul><li>If your business focuses on giving people more of what they want or taking away something they don’t want (or both), you’re on the right track.</li><li>Businesses that help their customers be happy are well-positioned to succeed.</li></ul>

HOW TO PUT HAPPINESS IN A BOX AND SELL IT.

<ol><li>Impact : Overall, how much of an impact will this project make on your business and customers?</li><li>Effort: How much time and work will it take to create the project?</li><li>Profitability: Relative to the other ideas, how much money will the project bring in?</li><li>Vision: How close of a fit is this project with your overall mission and vision?</li></ol>

Questions Before A Startup 

<ul><li>In the battle between planning and action, action wins.</li><li>You need to show people how you can help remove or reduce pain.</li><li> Mission statement: We help [customers] do/achieve/other verb [primary benefit].</li><li>“Plan as you go” to respond to the changing needs of your customers but launch your business as soon as possible, with a bias toward action.</li></ul>

Launch

<ul><li>Spend as little money as possible and make as much money as you can.</li><li>Spend only on things that have a direct relationship to sales.</li><li>Borrowing money or investing a lot of money to start a business is completely optional.</li><li>Maintain a practice of regular rate increases so that it becomes normal and expected.</li></ul>

Show Me The Money

“Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes you look smart.”

To start a business, you need three things:<ol><li> A product or service, </li><li>A group of people willing to pay for it, and </li><li>A way to get paid. Everything else is completely optional.</li></ol>Ask three questions for every idea: <ol><li>How would I get paid with this idea?</li><li>How much would I get paid from this idea?</li><li>Is there a way I could get paid more than once?</li></ol>

To Start A Business 

<ul><li>Horizontally, by going wide and creating different products to apply to different people. Horizontal expansion involves going broader by serving more customers with different (usually related) interests;</li><li>Vertically, by going deep and creating more levels of engagement with customers. Vertical expansion involves going deeper by serving the same customers with different levels of need.</li></ul>

You can grow a business one of two ways:

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

<ul><li>KEEP COSTS LOW</li><li>GET THE FIRST SALE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE</li><li>MARKET BEFORE MANUFACTURING</li><li>RESPOND TO INITIAL RESULTS</li><li>MAGIC FORMULA: THE RIGHT AUDIENCE, THE RIGHT PROMISE, THE RIGHT TIME = OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE.</li><li>Work “on” your business by devoting time every day to activities specifically related to improvement, not just by responding to everything else that is happening.</li></ul>

Magic Formula

“Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”

<ul><li>The secret to a meaningful new career was directly related to making people feel good about themselves.</li><li>You can pursue freedom for yourself while providing value for others.</li><li>Value means “helping people.”</li><li>The more a business can focus on core benefits instead of boring features, the more customers will connect … and purchase.</li></ul>

Make People Feel Good

<ul><li>Style without substance = flash (No one respects these people.) </li><li>Substance without style = unknown (Everyone who knows these people respects them, but not many people know them.) </li><li>Style with substance = impact (This is the goal.) </li><li>Remember that most core needs are emotional: We want to be loved and affirmed. Relate your product or service to attractive benefits, not boring features.</li></ul>

Substance And Style

<ul><li>If you’re not sure where to spend your business development time, spend 50 percent on creating and 50 percent on connecting.</li><li>The difference between a good offer and a great offer is urgency (also known as timeliness): Why should people act now?</li><li>The message you want to communicate is: “This is why this project will be a game changer, here’s how people will benefit, and here’s why you should care.”</li></ul>

Urgency 

Shares advice for transitioning away from unfulfilling jobs to embark on adventurous, meaningful careers, outlining recommendations for starting a personal business with a minimum of time and investment while turning ideas into higher income levels. 60,000 first printing.

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Books

Lead a life of adventure, meaning and purpose—and earn a good living.   “Thoughtful, funny, and compulsively readable, this guide shows how ordinary people can build solid livings, with independence and purpose, on their own terms.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project   Still in his early thirties, Chris Guillebeau completed a tour of every country on earth and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.    Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and focused on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.   Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise”—even if you don’t consider it such—and what other people will pay for.  You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.   Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. Among Chris’s key principles: If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish—sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.   In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives. And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs. This remarkable book will start you on your way.

Chris Guillebeau is the New York Times bestselling author of The $100 Startup and other books. During a lifetime of self-employment, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Every summer in Portland, Oregon he hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people. Chris also hosts Side Hustle School, a popular podcast that is downloaded more than 2 million times a month.