I am the founder and CEO of Prep Expert, a test preparation company that offers online SAT and ACT prep courses to high school students. I started the company 8 years ago out of my dorm room with $900 that I had leftover from my college scholarships. Today, my SAT & ACT prep courses, books, and licensed products have generated over $20 million in sales! I even pitched Prep Expert on ABC’s Shark Tank in 2016, and closed an investment deal with billionaire Mark Cuban.
I have learned a lot on the way from taking an idea in my head to a multi-million dollar business. Here are some tips on how you can do the same.
(1) Use the Most Powerful Marketing Machine in the World
When starting or running a business, you should always be focused on the most powerful marketing machine in the world: word of mouth. Word of mouth is more powerful than any other form of marketing, including Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and traditional television/radio/print advertising. If you provide a product or service that is truly incredible, then the initial users will tell others about it organically. Not only is this the best form of marketing, but it is also the cheapest.
For the first five years of my business, I did not spend any money on marketing at Prep Expert. Yet, the company continued to double in revenue every year. Why? Because we provided SAT prep courses that would improve students’ scores hundreds of points. Therefore, parents would tell other parents that they should enroll their child into a Prep Expert SAT course. This allowed us to grow rapidly at no cost.
Chances are the best products or services you use came from word of mouth. For example, did you download the Uber app because you saw a marketing advertisement for it or because a friend told you about it? If you own a business, you should laser-focused on how to improve your product or service so that customers tell others customers about it. There is no better form of marketing.
(2) Generate Millions of Dollars in Free PR & Media Exposure
While word of mouth is great, you can’t generate word of mouth unless you get a few initial customers. If you don’t have money to spend on marketing to get these first customers, then a great way to get them is to leverage the audiences of media companies. Getting your business featured in media outlets is a great way to get free marketing exposure.
When I first started Prep Expert, I got my first few customers by appearing on a local television station. I pitched the news station that I could come on and do a segment about tips on how to prepare for the SAT for parents and students. Next thing I knew, I was invited to the studio — before I even had a customer. Of course, after the television interview aired, I had lots of customers!
Most companies pitch the media in the wrong way. They try to pitch media reporters about their business. Newsflash: the media does not care about your business. They only care about providing value to their audience. Therefore, think of some ways you could provide value for their audience, either by offering some tips or an interesting story. While your business might not be the focal point of the article or interview, it will get mentioned — and that’s a huge help to both acquiring customers and establishing credibility. RocketReach is a great tool that can help you find the emails of potential media reporters to pitch your story!
(3) Stop Waiting for Handouts
When you are first starting out as an entrepreneur, you often expect others to help you. Because you often have no connections in the beginning, you want others to help you gain influence. Stop depending on other people to hand you success. Go out there and create your own.
When I was first starting out, I wanted to publish an SAT prep book. Because I had raised my SAT score from average to perfect, I wanted to help other students do the same. I thought that an SAT prep book written by a perfect-score SAT student would be revolutionary for the test preparation industry. However, when I pitched my book proposal to over 100 literary agents and publishers, every single one rejected me stating that the SAT prep market is too competitive and that I didn’t have a platform to write such a book.
I sat around hoping for a book deal for 6 months, wishing that someone would give me a chance. It wasn’t until I realized that I should just take the material I had written and turn it into an SAT prep course that my luck changed. The students in my pilot class had an average SAT score improvement of 376 points to their scores (equivalent to going from the 50th percentile to the 90th percentile). This was proof that the SAT prep material worked. Shortly after I created my own SAT prep courses, McGraw-Hill, the world’s largest education publisher that previously rejected my book proposal, came back to me and offered me a publishing deal. My McGraw-Hill SAT prep book went #1 on Amazon for SAT prep and sold tens of thousands of copies.
Stop waiting for handouts. Create your own success.
(4) Use the #1 Secret to Entrepreneurial Success
I am often asked, “What’s the secret to success?” The answer to that question is simple: self-control. Self-control is the most accurate predictor of success, not only in business, but also in all aspects of life. If you want to be successful, practice self-control.
The famous Stanford marshmallow experiment proved that self-control is the most accurate predictor of success. Researchers conducted a study on approximately 600 children between the ages of 4 and 6 years old. They placed each child in a room with 1 marshmallow, and told the child that he or she could either eat the marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow and be rewarded with a second marshmallow. The research study was testing how many children had enough self-control to delay gratification. The researchers found that approximately one-third of the children were able to stay in the room for 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow immediately. They then tracked the children over time, and found that years later, the children who had self-control were found to be more successful in almost every aspect of life: they earned higher salaries, they scored higher on the SAT, they were more popular with their peers, they had lower BMI’s, and they had less drug and alcohol problems.
Entrepreneurship requires a tremendous amount of self-control. You don’t have a boss telling you what to do and when to work. You have to be your own boss. Practice self-control to avoid all of the distractions of life if you want to be an ultra-successful entrepreneur!
