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The business entrepreneur path to financial freedom has many advantages over real estate and paper assets.
- You can grow your wealth faster in business than any other asset class.
- You can achieve personal freedom, the real goal of financial freedom, long before you're actually rich because your passive income is not connected to equity. It's driven by business systems instead.
- You get personal benefits besides just financial wealth including purpose, community, contribution, and a creative outlet.
Unfortunately, the business asset class is the least-discussed path to wealth, even though most people who make the Forbes 400 list are there because of it. The same is true for people profiled in The Millionaire Next Door.
If you want financial independence earlier than old or you need to catch-up on retirement savings because you don't have enough, then this episode is for you.
However, there are risks to growing a business as well. That's why it's important to choose the right business model congruent with your values. The right model will support your success, but the wrong model will leave you feeling stressed and resentful.
To show you how fulfilling business entrepreneurship can be, along with the upsides and downsides, I invited Brennan Dunn, owner of Double Your Freelancing, to the podcast.
Brennan has a long entrepreneurial success streak. He dropped out of college, freelanced as a web designer, started his own agency, then started a SaaS (software-as-a-service) business, and now has a very satisfying lifestyle business.
While Brennan loves his business now, he had to learn many lessons the hard way. These lessons are typical of what most entrepreneurs go through, which is why it's better to learn vicariously through Brennan's experience rather than reinvent the wheel.
So if you've been interested in starting your own business, or you want to accelerate your journey to financial freedom, then this podcast is for you.
In this episode you'll discover:
- How Brennan went from being a college dropout to having a six-figure business, to ultimately having two seven-figure businesses.
- What drives Brennan's entrepreneurial streak.
- The idea of community and why it's so important to a fulfilling life.
- Why being an employee wasn't satisfying to Brennan, despite earning six-figures at the age of 21.
- How employment limits your creativity and how more possibilities open up when you're a business owner.
- How freelancer's blow it by not viewing their work as business ownership.
- How freelancer's and business owners undercharge by using the wrong pricing model.
- Why you need to view your business as a solution to a problem, rather than just a job.
- How to make the service you're offering more valuable by digging deeper into what your potential client actually wants.
- How Brennan re-positioned his marketing to get more clients than he could handle… at higher rates also.
- The valuable lesson that drove Brennan to sell his successful 11 person agency business serving big-name clients around the world.
- Why business owners need to focus on recurring revenue rather than one-off projects.
- The difficulty in productizing a service business and creating uniformity, especially with employees.
- The essential role of business systems automation to scalable growth and freedom.
- How a buyout offer can make you re-think your business model.
- Why Brennan's dream business model required total strangers paying him.
- How to not end up being an employee in your own company.
- How a SaaS (software as a service) business ended up being the opposite of what Brennan wanted, even though it looked great from the outside.
- How to achieve exponential success by listening to your clients.
- The reason why Brennan's lifestyle business is so much more satisfying than his other endeavors.
- How your values determine your business model.
- The Socratic Method Brennan uses to set his business apart and serve his clients better.
- Brennan's tips on how to price services so clients can't say no.
- Why Brennan wouldn't stop working on his business even if he received $50 billion.
- How a lifestyle business can give you the freedom you've always wanted, even before you get rich.
- …and much more
Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include:
- Step 3 of the Seven Steps to Seven Figures Course
- Seven Steps to Seven Figures course series
- The Millionaire Next Door (Book on our recommended reading list)
- Forbes 400 List
- Brennan's site, Double Your Freelancing
- Double Your Freelancing Conference & Meetups
- Double Your Freelancing Academy
- Double Your Freelancing Rate Course
- Free Course – Charge What You're Worth
- @brennandunn on Twitter
- (Please note: some of the links above are affiliate links so if you buy a course or book using these links I will receive a little compensation. Thank you for supporting this site!)
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Anybody can learn to build a secure retirement -- and you don't need a financial advisor.
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