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8-Figure Operator - What it Actually Takes to get to $1MM/mo — Transcript

by Tim Luong · 3,976 words · 544 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Every business guru online is telling
0:02you the same thing. Go build your
0:03personal brand. Go make content. And I'm
0:06not sitting here telling you that
0:07stuff's not valuable, but there's also a
0:09whole other world out there where you
0:11can make a lot of money without doing
0:13that. In fact, I scaled to over a
0:15million dollars a month on my brands,
0:17and I was not the expert. I was not the
0:19face of the brand. I didn't make content
0:21for the brand at all. And we still
0:22scaled to over a million dollars a
0:24month. Here's the business model nobody
0:27is talking about. I'm going to break
0:28down the exact model how I did this and
0:30the five operator skills that you need
0:32to know in today's day and age. Whether
0:34you want to make content and be the
0:36brand or not and be the person behind
0:38the scenes. And the funny thing is I was
0:40not good at business when I first
0:41started. I failed my first three
0:43businesses. And especially when I
0:45started this one that I I eventually
0:46scaled, I didn't even know what landing
0:48pages, funnels were, VSLs, like none of
0:51that. I was never able to do any of
0:52that, but I learned along the way and
0:54that made me realize like building
0:56operational business skills to scale is
0:58a skill that can be learned. And the
1:00business I built was a trading education
1:02business. Now, I had credibility in
1:04trading. I was making anywhere between
1:05three to five hundred dollars a day,
1:07which at age 21, 22 was great for my
1:11age, but it wasn't credible enough. Like
1:14no one's going to listen to me back then
1:16being this 21-year-old with broccoli
1:18hair and you know, talking about
1:20trading. Unfortunately, I was like,
1:22well, who can I make a face of an online
1:24education or expertise brand who people
1:27would actually listen to? And the person
1:29who I learned trading from was my dad.
1:31And my dad is the least social media
1:35person ever. He wakes up super early.
1:39He's at his monitors all day long. He's
1:41in his pajamas working from home in his
1:42a home office. Like he was not meant for
1:45social media. Yet, we were still able to
1:48grow and build a brand to that scale.
1:50And it really goes to show that if you
1:51get very elite at operational skills,
1:55you can become an eight-figure operator.
1:56And so, that was the partnership model
1:59that ended up being the case. And he was
2:01not down at first when I pitched this to
2:02him. He was like, "Why would I even do
2:04this or teach anything? Like, I make
2:06great money working from home. No one
2:08bothers me. Like, I spent years learning
2:11my strategy. Like, why do I even have to
2:12go through all these headaches and show
2:13people and also do this stuff?" But,
2:15eventually I was able to convince him.
2:17It took a while. We started off as a
2:18trading education program in person. So,
2:21we taught three-day in-person classes in
2:23San Jose, California. And that was my
2:25model back then. I would run ads to a
2:27local seminar every single weekend on
2:30Saturday and Sundays. I I would do
2:32basically a live seminar, which is the
2:34equivalent today of a live webinar. And
2:36then after that, I would book people on
2:38my calendar where they would come and
2:40meet with me in person for a sales call
2:41and I would sell them on our class once
2:43a month that we would have that was
2:45high-ticket. I think we were selling it
2:46for like, at the peak, $5,000 for a few
2:49days. But, it didn't start off like
2:50that. Like, our very first class, we
2:52were losing money. I I charged for a
2:54three-day class $1,500. They got lunch,
2:58they got breakfast, like they got
3:00everything. And I we lost money, but we
3:02realized the potential it had and and it
3:04was just like fun, great father-son
3:06bonding. And so, that's why we kind of
3:08stuck through it. So, I convinced my
3:09dad. I said, "Hey, why don't you be the
3:11face of the brand? You do the products,
3:13you do the fulfillment, and let me run
3:15the business behind the scenes. I can
3:17build out the sales team, do the
3:18marketing, do the operations." I had no
3:20idea how to do any of this, by the way.
3:21But, I was like, "Let me just handle
3:22that, figure that, and you be the face."
3:25And uh that was kind of the partnership
3:26deal that we structured. And you see
3:28this type of deal go on. Like, I'm
3:30talking specifically about the online
3:32education business. This stuff goes on
3:35even in the biggest businesses in
3:37today's day and age. And that's why I
3:38don't want any misconception of like,
3:40"Oh, well, that was your dad, so of
3:42course it was easy for you to have to
3:44figure that out." No, like people are
3:46doing this even if it wasn't my dad, I
3:49would have learned the business skills,
3:50and I would have found someone else to
3:51do this for. And in fact, I actually did
3:53this. I actually branched off our first
3:56millionaire student and made him the
3:57face of a second trading brand, and we
3:59scaled him in his first 12 months to
4:01zero to $5 million a year. So, the skill
4:03sets I'm about to break down in this
4:04video with you are replicatable and are
4:07super key and if you want to build an
4:09eight-figure operator skill set or even
4:10if you want to get to seven figures a
4:12year. And if you look at every great
4:14business, there is always some sort of
4:15expert {slash} face of the brand and
4:18operator, whether it's in a seek easy
4:20type of business or whether it's in an
4:21education or coaching consulting type of
4:24business. And what most people get wrong
4:26is they think you need to find some sort
4:28of famous expert. You don't. My dad had
4:30zero social media experience. The guy
4:32can barely speak English. He just was
4:34passionate and loved trading. He was the
4:36expert. He knew what he was doing. He
4:37was credible. That's the most important
4:39thing. Is he credible? And because of
4:41that, I basically figured out how to
4:43brand him. And if you're watching this
4:45and you've been grinding as both the
4:47face of your brand and also as the
4:49operator and you've hit a ceiling, then
4:51this video is definitely for you as
4:52well, whether or not you decide to
4:54pursue more of the operator path or not.
4:56And diving into that story where I
4:58scaled another trading education brand
5:00and got that from zero to $5 million in
5:02its first year, the same principles
5:04apply. This was a different expert, but
5:06because I spent so many years building
5:08this operator skill set, I could
5:10replicate the same results. Whether it
5:11was trading, whether it's in a B2B
5:13education company, whether it's in real
5:15estate, I would have been able to same
5:17thing. Because once you learn these
5:19skills, the fundamental skills of
5:20business don't change. And this is not a
5:22new idea, by the way. I think personal
5:24branding and being face of brand is just
5:26the most most popular thing nowadays.
5:28But if you look at Kylie Jenner, guess
5:30what? She has a billion-dollar company,
5:32but do you think she's the one operating
5:33behind the scenes? No, she's not. She's
5:35just the face of the brand. She probably
5:37has input on creative design and and her
5:39product, but there are legitimate
5:41operators behind the scenes and that's
5:43how they get to a billion dollars a
5:44year. Same exact thing. You saw Hailey
5:46Bieber recently sell a stake of her
5:48company. Guess what? You think Hailey
5:49Bieber is the CEO COO of her company?
5:52No, there's a CEO and COO behind the
5:55scenes building and running her
5:57companies. And if you're someone that
5:59doesn't want to be on camera, doesn't
6:00want to be a personal brand, you want to
6:02actually learn the skills of business to
6:04still make as much money and become
6:05rich, you can also do the same thing by
6:08focusing on the operator skillset. You
6:10see this in the education space as well,
6:11right? Alex and Leila Hormozi. Alex is
6:13the face of the brand and Leila was the
6:15operator. That was basically how Alex
6:17had the time to actually focus on brand
6:19and content and blow up while Leila was
6:21running the day-to-day of the business.
6:22There is always an operator behind the
6:24scenes. It's just not a sexy story, so
6:27it doesn't get told. So, what actually
6:29goes into becoming an elite operator?
6:31Well, I've narrowed it down to five key
6:33skills. I had none of them when I first
6:36started and I'm going to break down each
6:37one and they're going to stack and
6:38compound each other. So, by the time you
6:39get to the end of the five skills,
6:41you're going to see what you need to
6:42focus on. Skill one is asymmetric offer
6:46architecture. Most people build an offer
6:48and then they wonder why they hit a
6:50ceiling. And the problem isn't effort,
6:52it's architecture. When I first started,
6:54you can't see 10 steps ahead. I just had
6:56a very simple and basic offer. This was
6:58my in-person trading education class, a
7:01three-day physical in-person class in
7:03San Jose, California. But, I learned
7:06very quickly once I started capping at
7:08100k a month that this was not the right
7:11model in order for me to scale to a
7:12million dollars a month and that's when
7:13I came up with the asymmetric offer
7:16architecture formula. And this is
7:17especially important for you when you
7:19hit a point where your fulfillment can't
7:21keep up with your demand. You have more
7:23demand coming in, leads, clients coming
7:26through your door, and you cannot
7:27fulfill at a high enough quality to make
7:29sure all your customers are happy. And
7:30so, when you hit that bottleneck, you
7:32need to fix your offer and fulfillment
7:33structure or else you won't scale. And
7:36the core idea here is you have to
7:38redesign your offer so that the value
7:40you deliver grows faster than the hours
7:42it takes. And there's so many nowadays,
7:44high ticket, group, hybrid, recurring.
7:46And I can't cover it all in today's
7:48video because the right one depends on
7:50your business. I cover more of these
7:51things on my email list below. It's the
7:53first link in the description. So, if
7:55you're interested, just opt in later
7:56after this video. And again, if so far
7:58this is helpful for you, like, comment,
8:00subscribe to the channel as well cuz I'm
8:01going to be making more videos on topics
8:03like this. And the thing that I see with
8:04most people is they try to grow by
8:06working harder, but you can't grow
8:08inside a broken model. Before you scale
8:11anything, look at whether your offer is
8:12designed to actually scale. In my
8:14scenario, I could only fit 20-25 people
8:17in my San Jose class. I got that to 100k
8:19a month. Could I have filled it up more?
8:21Probably. Probably could squeeze that to
8:23150, 200k a month. Realistically, it
8:26would have been hectic to get to a mill
8:28a month. I would have to have multiple
8:29locations in different cities and I
8:31mapped it and I was like, this is not
8:32sustainable. So, how can I do the exact
8:33same thing? I didn't build it in an
8:35online format where I can reach the
8:36entire US at in one go. And on a Zoom
8:39call when I'm teaching people, I can
8:40have 200 people on a class listening at
8:42the same time getting the same amount of
8:44value versus 50 people in a classroom.
8:47Once you fix the architecture, now you
8:49need to pour fuel on it. That's where
8:51the next skill comes in and this is what
8:52separates people who make 200k a month
8:54from a mill a month. Skill two is paid
8:57traffic at scale. Funny enough, when I
8:59first started, organic wasn't really
9:02that popular. Ads were pretty cheap back
9:04then and so the principles applied were
9:06I could test a lot of different angles
9:08on paid ads and then see what creative
9:11converted and then scale those. I was
9:13literally running local Facebook San
9:15Jose ads to get people to come to an
9:17in-person seminar and then I would
9:19basically sell them for a three-day
9:21event. Obviously, the equivalent for you
9:23nowadays would be the algorithm rewards
9:25just quality content. So, you can test
9:27as many things as you want on organic
9:29content and those winning angles and the
9:31messaging for your customer avatar,
9:33whatever works there, you can then
9:35rewrite that as an ad so that you can
9:37run it as an ad. And now the model I run
9:39that works best for me is I run paid ads
9:42to a landing page to VSL to then an
9:44application that survey that they have
9:46to fill out, and then they can book a
9:47call directly with my sales team. I've
9:50personally spent over $12 million on ads
9:53at this point, so yeah, I just learned a
9:55lot on on that sense. But the best thing
9:58I can tell you is when it comes to ads,
10:00you just have to test a lot. You have to
10:03put yourself in the shoes of your
10:04avatar.
10:05Test messaging, and when you find
10:07winners, you want to squeeze every
10:09single ounce of that. And then while
10:10you're scaling and squeezing that, you
10:12constantly have to be testing. What
10:14people I see is they squeeze that and
10:15they're not testing new messaging
10:17consistently, and then once this one
10:19dies, you know,
10:20you lose it. And because it takes like
10:22one in five, one in 10 ads to actually
10:25hit on a messaging that you can actually
10:27squeeze. So that really tells you how
10:28much volume you need to do. And so if
10:30you're watching this, you have a
10:31personal brand, maybe you don't, but
10:32you're making content and you're doing
10:33100-200k a month, that's fine. Focus on
10:35organic, forget the 200k a month. But to
10:37get to a million dollar a month, you
10:39have to eventually be able to crack paid
10:41ads. It's a non-negotiable in your skill
10:43set. And I'm a big believer to get to
10:45that level of scale, you should be
10:48eventually doing, you know, 20 to 40% of
10:51your revenue on organic, and then the
10:53rest on paid ads. And again, if you're
10:55able to build a massive brand, well then
10:58that's you're an exception or an
10:59anomaly. And if you're an anomaly, you
11:01actually build a massive brand, well
11:02then you can do 80% plus of your revenue
11:05on organic. But again, I'm talking for
11:07most people who don't get to that level,
11:09and you can still have an amazing
11:10business without being a huge personal
11:12brand. People also don't realize that,
11:14and this is where building that skill
11:16set because 80% of your revenue is going
11:17to be driven by paid ads, even if you
11:19have good enough organic. And this skill
11:21set, you have to get very good at
11:24testing. You have to get at CRO, which
11:26is conversion rate optimization, aka
11:28testing different things in the funnel,
11:29landing pages, getting good at writing
11:31copy, VSLs and ads, knowing what a
11:33winning ad looks like, knowing how to
11:35scale your winning ads, knowing how to
11:37cut your losing ads. And all of these
11:39things, they sound daunting at first,
11:40but at the end of the day, I can tell
11:42you this. I knew nothing about this, and
11:45the only thing stopping you from getting
11:46to where I am right now is it's only a
11:48skill gap. It just takes time. It takes
11:51work. I've done this over many years,
11:53and you have to learn, and you have to
11:54be willing to lose money to learn in the
11:56process. But traffic is just leads. You
11:58also need a team that can close your
12:00traffic. And the skill set of being able
12:02to build a sales team is much different
12:04from you learning how to close and close
12:06deals yourself. Skill number three is
12:08building and scaling sales teams. You
12:10can close 100K a month being the closer
12:12yourself, but if you want to get to a
12:14million dollars a month, you have to
12:15learn how to be a leader, and you have
12:17to learn how to get other people to sell
12:19just as well as you, if not better. And
12:21so, what are these skill sets you have
12:22to develop as a sales leader? How do you
12:24recruit closers? How do you onboard
12:26closers? How do you train closers? How
12:28do you manage them on a day-to-day
12:29basis? How do you build systems and SOPs
12:31to make their life easier so that they
12:33can just focus on closing? How do you
12:35build a culture where they want to show
12:36up and work there and push themselves?
12:38How do you hold people accountable? And
12:40so, just know this next phase for you,
12:42from you being the best closer, and you
12:43doing 100K a month right now, is just a
12:45skill set of learning how to lead and
12:47manage and hold people accountable,
12:49specifically sales people. But once you
12:51have a sales team, you're going to
12:52realize that if you don't have the
12:54infrastructure to support them or other
12:56pieces of your business, everything is
12:58still going to break. And that's where
12:59the next skill is. Skill four is
13:01operations and systems. When I went from
13:04literally just me and my dad to at the
13:06peak, we had 60 employees, the reason
13:09why we were able to do that was because
13:10of these systems and infrastructure that
13:12we have built. SOPs that people knew
13:14what to do in their role, org chart
13:16design, role and title definitions,
13:18compensation levels, accurate data
13:21tracking. None of it is sexy, but it is
13:23essential if you want to be able to
13:25maintain and hit an eight-figure a year
13:26business. And just to be clear, the goal
13:28of building operations is not so you can
13:30have more overhead and more people.
13:31Especially with AI nowadays, you can do
13:33a lot more with less. But the point and
13:36reason why it's so important is because
13:37you want to build a business that can
13:39grow and scale without you. You don't
13:40want to have to be in every meeting
13:42putting out every fire. When you're
13:44having an important deal close, you want
13:45to make sure your technical stack is not
13:48break, your CRM doesn't break, the deal
13:50can actually get processed, the payment
13:51gets processed. Or if it doesn't, who's
13:53there to solve it if you're not around?
13:55Without this, you are the system and you
13:57will burn out. Now, the last feel is the
13:59one that most operators completely
14:01underestimate until they hit a wall and
14:03then they realize that they are the
14:05ceiling. Skill five is hiring managers
14:07and leaders at scale. If you're the only
14:10one solving problems in your business,
14:12you are the bottleneck. There was a
14:13moment early on the company where I
14:15think we had like 10 people or doing a
14:17few hundred thousand dollars a month and
14:18I felt like I was the only one who could
14:20put out fires. Every issue came to me,
14:22every problem, every escalation and I
14:25was like, this is not sustainable. And
14:27it took me a long time to get this, but
14:29I basically realized that I was not
14:31leading and coaching my team. I wasn't
14:33properly managing them. I wasn't
14:35properly communicating with them. I was
14:37just doing their jobs when things go
14:39wrong. And the real problem this phase
14:41was that I didn't hire the next level of
14:43talent. If you are the only person in
14:46your business that can solve your
14:47business problems, that means you
14:48haven't built a team good enough. You
14:50have to hire managers, people who are
14:52better than you at specific roles.
14:53Otherwise, you will be forever the
14:55bottleneck and no amount of ads or sales
14:57will ever help you break free from that.
15:00And here's the nuance. When you have a
15:01few people on your team, let's say it's
15:03sub five, sub seven people, that's a
15:05different type of managing and when you
15:07actually have a team where you have 15,
15:0820 people and you can't actually manage
15:10what's going on. With early employees,
15:12you can be very hands-on and casual and
15:14know what people are working on. With
15:15managers, you have to build real
15:16leadership, hold them accountable
15:18without micromanaging, knowing how to
15:20retain them so they don't just leave you
15:21and go work for someone else. How to
15:23develop them so that they grow with the
15:24business. And a good thing to think
15:26about here is like ask yourself, if you
15:28were to step away from your business for
15:292 weeks, would things just blow up and
15:31be on fire? And the thing I want to
15:33summarize here is I'm not saying this is
15:35an either/or thing. It's not like, "Oh,
15:37F personal brand. It's so useless. Only
15:40go become an operator." No, like, "Oh,
15:42frick no."
15:44The point I want to make is there's so
15:47many options and paths to make money
15:49online. For some of you, it is being a
15:51personal brand. For some of you, if
15:52you're trying to be a personal brand and
15:54that's just not you and not the arena
15:55you want to compete in, guess what? You
15:57can also still get good at being an
15:59operator and still make just as much
16:01money. So, figure out what your skill
16:03set is. I spent the majority of my 20s
16:05building my operator skill set and just
16:08now my learning and figuring out this
16:10personal brand stuff. If you look at the
16:11best people as well, they didn't just
16:13start with personal brand. Like they
16:15started after they operated and were in
16:17the arena for sometimes decades. Look at
16:19Chamath, he's a billionaire. He's just
16:21now starting his YouTube channel, but
16:22he's been working for what? 30 plus
16:24years. And the beauty of this is if you
16:26want to build a big business and make a
16:27lot of money, you need both an expert
16:29and operator or the face and operator.
16:31And I'm a big believer because that was
16:33my first path I started that now that I
16:35know the fundamental skills of
16:37operating, there will never be a day
16:39where I go hungry. I can go make money
16:41in any business. I can generate leads. I
16:43can close leads. I can build teams. And
16:45so now when I build this personal brand
16:47stuff, it's only going to amplify and
16:49help me monetize my personal brand more
16:51because I built all these underlying
16:53skills with Like if I just started with
16:54personal brand and I blew up with it and
16:56then I also had to manage making content
16:58in personal brand and also learn the
17:00skills to operate, I don't think I'd be
17:02here today. So, that's just my personal
17:04preference. I'm now adding personal
17:06brand as a skill set because I believe
17:07it's an extra form of leverage where if
17:09I crack both with my operator skill
17:11sets, this is where I'll really make and
17:13grow and and build a big business and
17:15brand. But I just want to share that
17:16there are more paths to business out
17:18there. If you want to go deeper on any
17:20of these videos, again, subscribe to my
17:21email list below, like, comment,
17:23subscribe to this channel, and I'll see
17:25you guys on the next video.

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