Category: Entrepreneurship

This post is sponsored by DiamondLinks. 

Who is Dan Lok?

Dan Lok is a successful internet entrepreneur and property investor. He is a bestselling author of 15 books and “Unlock It“, published by Forbes Books. He has delivered not just one, but two TEDx talks. At present, he has 3.3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel as well as a wildly successful podcast where he interviews other leading entrepreneurs.

Dan Lok was born in Hong Kong and emigrated with his Mom to Canada when he was 14-years old. Dan’s primary motivation when he started in business was to provide for his Mother.  His wake-up call came when his Dad, a successful entrepreneur, went bankrupt due to a bad business partnership and could no longer support them financially.

Dan Lok’s net worth is now estimated to be between 50 – 86 million dollars. Let us take an in-depth look at how he achieved this massive success and how you can follow in his footsteps.

Why Learn from Dan Lok?

Like most entrepreneurs, Dan has lost money and made money in his career. By age 21, he had 13 failed businesses and he was deeply in debt.

He met his mentor, Alan Jacques, and learned the art of copywriting, or “print persuasion” as Dan calls it.

He worked 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 5 years. Within that time, he built his copywriting earnings to $10,000 a month, scaled his business, and invested in real property.

By age 27, Dan Lok was a self-made millionaire and retired… at least for a month or two.

As Dan joked afterward, “I spent a month on the beach and all I got was sunburn. I did all that for this. This is nothing! It’s boring.” He spent another month watching movies only to find that it was just as boring. He then went back to work and begun to build his digital empire.

Dan now teaches others how to become high-ticket closers, high-income copywriters, and high-ticket influencers. He gets paid handsomely for his courses and mentorship.

He’s taken some criticism online by those who feel his courses are too expensive, but his business advice has made many of his followers and past students their own fortune.

Dan gives loads of free advice and training to his millions of followers via his shows and blog posts on his website.

As you can tell from this introduction, Dan Lok is more than qualified to dish out expert entrepreneurship advice.

Dan Lok’s Best Entrepreneurship Advice

Since I consume most of my content on YouTube lately, I visited Dan’s YouTube channel and started watching videos as my research for this post. I could not stop watching them for 3 days!

Here are just a few of Dan Lok’s golden pieces of advice that resonated with me.

Don’t Kid Yourself!

Dan does not sugar coat it.  Your chances are slim to none that you will become a millionaire, especially if your parents and closest friends are not millionaires. The odds are against you and less than 1% will make it.

However, if you are willing to do what it takes, master high-income skills, and deliver value to the marketplace, you might stand a chance.

He is just as clear that it is not going to happen overnight. People work for years to get to that millionaire status. It takes tenacity and persistence.

If entrepreneurship is your chosen path and you want to reach the top, it is not going to magically fall into your lap. You are going to have to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, for as long as it takes.

“If you don’t sacrifice for your dream, then your dream becomes your sacrifice.” – Dan Lok

Busting Myths

Dan Lok believes that financial freedom is a myth and should not be our focus.

The idea popularized by Robert Kiyosaki that, “financial freedom occurs when passive income exceeds your expenses”, does not sit well with Dan Lok. This is mainly because he believes passive income is a myth too.

It takes hard work and years of dedication to build a successful business that generates passive income.

Even if you have put in the hard work and the hours, passive income is not permanent. You will still have to pay attention to what is happening in the marketplace and put in some work to support your passive income streams.

Dan learned this lesson the hard way. He worked on his passive income plan. He built 20 to 30 sites selling books on Clickbank. Each book was making him anywhere from $500 to $5,000 a month in income. However, when Google changed its algorithm, sales from Google AdWords fell and passive income dropped.

“Just because it’s passive, doesn’t mean it’s permanent.” – Dan Lok

So… what does Dan believe in?

Leveraged income over passive income.

You can achieve leveraged income by using other people’s time (OPT) or other people’s money (OPM).

First, master certain skills yourself, then train up a team to help you build your empire. Once you and your team have built an empire, you can build up an investment portfolio to grow your net worth. Now you have money working for you.

Financial confidence over financial freedom.

Rather than making financial freedom your goal, figure out which skills you can develop to offer value to the marketplace. You are paid according to how much value you offer.

True security comes from knowing how to make money anytime. If you happen to lose it all, you still have the knowledge and skills to make it all back. That is financial confidence.

If you study the world’s richest people, you will find none of them made it their goal to achieve financial freedom or generate passive income. Those terms mean nothing to them. They found something they wanted to offer to the world and did it well.

Entrepreneurs are Empaths

“The amount of money you make is in direct proportion to how deeply you understand your market’s pain.” – Dan Lok

How can you help them relieve their pain?

People don’t buy their way into something; they buy their way out of something. People are looking for a way out of a problem.

What problem can you help someone solve?

Dan Lok’s Wealth Triangle

Dan pioneered the wealth triangle model using his own path to wealth as inspiration.

Step 1: Develop high-income skills in your field that can get you to an income of $10,000 a month. Dan Lok did this as a copywriter.

Step 2: Turn that into a scalable business by employing others or teaching and training others to do what you did.

Step 3: Build your net worth by investing in property or businesses that offer a high return.

Dan owns a property portfolio, and he is a venture capitalist as well.

Which High-Income Skills should You Develop?

So, let’s talk about the high-income skills recommended by Dan Lok. I really enjoyed Dan Lok’s video: 7 Skills that will Make You Rich.

You may recall I created my own video on high-income skills. Copywriting and Public Speaking skills were on my list too.

Here’s Dan’s list…

1. Closing

The ability to persuade customers and ask powerful questions that compel people to buy.

2. Public Speaking

The ability to speak to groups. Can you present your ideas to a group? Can you interact with your audience?

Fortunately, speaking in public is a skill you can learn. Dan Lok learned how to master this skill at Toastmasters International. You can too!

3. Copywriting

Dan calls this persuasion in print and this was the first high-income skill he mastered. Interestingly enough, it was also mine.

4. Leadership

The ability to effectively communicate your vision and your business plan to your team.

5. Priority Management

The ability to manage your time effectively.

6. Financial Literacy

The ability to read financial statements, understand how money works, and manage your money.

7. Mindset

The ability to manage your mind and emotions (emotional intelligence). This includes getting past procrastination, self-limiting beliefs, and going from a poverty mindset to a wealth mindset.

Definition of a Millionaire

In his video on how to become a Millionaire, Dan has a completely different definition of a millionaire than anyone else.

“A millionaire is someone who makes a million dollars a year joyfully – notice I didn’t say passively – they enjoy what they do.” – Dan Lok

He went on to say that there’s no point in making money if you’re unhappy, if your family’s falling apart, or if you have no time for your kids.

If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, do not lose touch with your original motivation for starting a business.

How to Become a Millionaire

To become a millionaire you’ll need to cultivate and develop these 3 things:

A Millionaire Mindset

Millionaires have an ‘abundance’ mindset. They do not believe in scarcity.

People who struggle financially have negative beliefs about money. They believe money is bad and wealthy people are greedy.

If we do not move past these beliefs, we’ll block ourselves from becoming wealthy. This is because to reach the financial goal, we are forced to become one of them – one of those people we despise. It goes against the grain.

Millionaires look at money as neutral, something that can be used for good or bad.  They believe wealthy people are kind, generous, and benevolent.

A Millionaire Skillset

Millionaires have a growth mindset. They never stop working on developing their leadership skills, communication skills, marketing skills, or management skills. They recognize that these are the skills needed to turn their ideas into their reality.

A Millionaire Vehicle

Lastly, every self-made millionaire has a powerful vehicle or platform – their business.  It is not just a business, but a scalable
business where you can put your unique set of skills to work.

To become a millionaire, work on your mindset and the skills needed to build a scalable business. Put in the hours, and do not give up.

Conclusion

For me, Dan Lok has not only mastered the art of print persuasion and public speaking, but he has also mastered every one of the high-income skills he recommends we develop.   He is also living proof that his wealth triangle can work.

Which piece of Dan Lok’s golden advice for entrepreneurs resonated the most with you?

Establishing a business model is not merely about finishing your business plan or identifying which products to pursue. It’s more about mapping out how you can generate ongoing value for your customers.

• Where will the business concept start?
• How must it expand?
• How can you create value for your customers?
• When will you know that you have been fruitful?

You can follow these steps to secure a sound business model.

1. Ascertaining Your Specific Audience

Targeting a broad audience will not permit you to refine customers that truly want and need your service or product.

Instead, when creating business models, it’s essential to narrow down your audience to maybe two or three consumer personas. Each persona is outlined according to common challenges, demographics and the solutions your business can offer.

Jason Vanclef discusses how his business model is driven by ensuring his client’s succeed in this interesting post on The Start-Up Mag. Vanclef runs a financial advisory company which only profits when his client’s profit. If only all business models operated on the same principle.

2. Creating Business Processes

Before the company can go live, you must understand the actions necessitated for a business model to work.

Ascertain key business operations by first identifying the primary aspect of your company’s offering.

Will you be responsible for supplying the service, shipping a product or providing consulting?

3. Recording Essential Company Resources

What does your business require to do daily processes, find new prospects and obtain company goals?

Document critical business resources to make sure the business model is sufficiently prepared for sustaining the needs of the business.

Common required resources might include:

• A website
• Capital
• Intellectual property
• Warehouses
• Customer lists

4. Generating a Solid Value Proposition

How will your business stand out among competitors?

Are you offering an innovative service, ground-breaking product or a fresh variation of an old favourite?

Identifying precisely what your company provides and why it’s better than opposition, is the start of a sound value proposition.

Once you’ve identified a few value propositions, link each one to a product or service delivery method to establish how you can stay valuable to customers in the long run.

5. Establishing Essential Business Partners

No successful business can operate efficiently or obtain established goals without having essential partners to contribute to the company’s ability to serve your customers.

When picking a business model, choose essential partners, like strategic alliances, suppliers, financial planning professionals, or advertising partners.

6. Creating a Demand Generation Plan

Unless you are taking a deep-seated approach to introducing your business, you will necessitate a plan that builds interest in your company, creates leads and is designed for closing sales. Think about how customers will find you.

More essentially, what must they do when they’ve become aware of your brand?

Creating a demand generation plan produces a blueprint of your customer’s expedition while documenting the essential stimuli for taking action.

7. Leaving Space for Innovation

When you initially launch your business and develop your business model, your company plan is based on numerous assumptions.

Until you’ve welcomed paying customers, you won’t truly know if the business model you’ve chosen can continue with meeting their ongoing requirements. This is why it is essential to leave some space for future improvements.

Don’t make the crucial error by thinking your initial business plan is a stationary document. Rather keep reviewing it periodically and incorporate necessary changes when needed.

Conclusion

We hope these seven tips will assist you in generating a sound business plan which is capable of invigorating your start-up’s success. Did we miss any key characteristics of a sound business model?  If so, please share in the comment section below.