Infusionsoft, Salesforce, Brendon Burchard and Ken Courtright Have All Proved That Money Follows Mission
The following five principals apply to the most successful entrepreneurs, from major corporations to home-based entrepreneurs who have built multimillion-dollar brands.
By Ken Dunn •
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What do Infusionsoft, Salesforce, Brendon Burchard and Ken Courtright have in common?
Some of these names will be familiar to you, while others will be new. But the answer to the question is that all four entities have used the sharing of learned information to build successful businesses. Although two of the examples are major corporations, the other two are home-based entrepreneurs who have built multimillion-dollar brands.
Related: Brendon Burchard Wants You to Live, Love and Matter
Infusionsoft and Salesforce both use a model where they teach the prospective clients how to be successful in their space. For Infusionsoft, it's employing professional speakers to run around the U.S. and teach entrepreneurs how to email-market. Salesforce hosts large conventions and conferences to teach the power of automating and organizing the sales process.
Brendon Burchard is the reigning world heavy-weight personal development and expert educator. Brendon uses books, courses, seminars and speaking to teach his clients how to take control of their lives, build an expert platform and make money. In doing so, he makes a handsome returns for himself.
Ken Courtright is, without doubt, one of the top digital content curators and online traffic-cops on the planet. With 700 of the world's top revenue-generating websites under his guidance at IncomeStore, Courtright partners with entrepreneurs and hedge funds to turn their flat-lining websites into digital cities that kick-off massive amounts of advertising revenue.
As I studied these four "machines," I discovered a path to success that any entrepreneur could follow -- if they wanted to make serious money with their expertise or ideas. The idea is simple: There are people waiting to learn the things that you have already experienced, and they are willing to pay top-dollar to for that education. If you are interested in following along in the footprints of these four examples, then follow this path.
1. Passion
In all four examples, the businesses started with the founder realizing that he / she was deeply passionate about a specific topic. In the case of Salesforce, Benioff realized that the business world needed to radically evolve in how it managed the sales process. He "bet the farm" and build a system to fix the problem. His passion was so strong that he worked 24 hours a day (and likely still does) and would not let any challenge slow him down.
In Burchard's case, he was in a major car crash as a young man. He saw surviving the crash as a "new lease on life." He started studying personal development and parlayed that into a multimillion-dollar expert training platform. You have to be deeply passionate about your platform.
In Burchard's book, Millionaire Messenger, he gave a strong warning about your passion. Burchard explains that if you are going to build a business around your passion, make sure it is something that you can see yourself talking about, 24 hours a day, for the next five years.
He gives an example of a women who attended a seminar of his. During a general session, the women blurted out that four years after she launched her passion-based business, she hated it. It turned out that she had been given advice on starting a business around educating high school students about suicide. She had been through several suicides in her own family. She developed a strong dislike for her business, because she found herself speaking all over America and being forced, on a daily basis, to relive the childhood suicide of her sister. Make sure you are ready to be an evangelist for your passion.
Related: 6 Skills of Self-Made Millionaires That You Should Be Using, Too
2. Purpose
Each of the examples has a heart-centered belief that their purpose was to share their passion with people who needed it. Years ago, Courtright started studying online traffic generation / direction. He also started analyzing how the content, if created properly, could lead to massive increases in the amount of people who went to his website. Then he installed a Google Adsense account, and Google started paying him thousands. He realized that he has created a very specific, in-demand expertise, and he became overwhelmed with a desire to teach others how to do it.
3. People
Once the aforementioned people discovered their passion and realized that they had a purpose to share, they all focused on who to share it with. Infusionsoft is, unquestionably, the world leader in customer relationship management and online sales funnels. The founders developed a platform that people could use to build an email list, develop products and sell.
Once they realized it was their passion and purpose, they asked themselves, "who are the ideal people for our products?" They quickly realized that they needed to focus on the one-man show. Solo-entrepreneurs and small businesses were quickly identified as the people who needed their customer the most, so they focused their entire business on that demographic. When identifying your perfect customer, remember that if you market everybody, you market to nobody. Take the time to really identify who most needs your information or product.
4. Projects
How are you going to get your information or products to your people? Salesforce used publicity and the media to get Benioff out trumpeting the company's name. Infusionsoft has created an army of professional speakers who travel the country teaching email list building and selling. Burchard has developed the world's best online sales funnels and gives away free content. Courtright teaches the masses how to build authority websites at live events and offers a consierge service where he will even build the site for the client.
The bottom line is that there are many strategies to get your products and offerings to your people --- just make sure you identify passion, purpose and people first.
Related: Advertising Guru Explains How to Find Your Business Goliath
5. Profits
If you focus on the first four Ps, the profits will come. I know this sounds very cliché, but it has worked for my four world-caliber examples. I've had the pleasure of attending several of Burchard's events. I would recommend them to anyone. In his Millionaire Messenger book, he explains that if you focus on the first four Ps and truly adding value, the money will come. Money follows mission.
