49 business lessons I'd teach my daughter

My daughter is 7 years old, and I've been building online businesses for longer than she was alive.

I think about this sometimes.

She doesn't know it, but her extremely privileged life is only possible thanks to what Daddy has learnt about doing business on the internet.

Now, I don't imagine for a minute that she'll want to follow in my footsteps.

Last I heard, she wants to be a vet. And an actor. (Did you know you can do both?)

But, all the same I would quite like to teach her what I know.

So that, if she ever decides to go into business for herself, she has the knowledge she needs to do what fewer than 7% of businesses ever do.

Make $1 million in annual revenue. Know what I mean?

49 lessons on building a 7-figure business

So here are 49 lessons I would teach my daughter about growing an online education business to 7-figures.

I’ve chosen these things because you won’t learn them in courses. You only learn these things from experience.

A combination of vicious black eyes, dizzying highs and existential crises.

I suppose you could make the case that, if you'll only learn these lessons from experience, how can they be taught? And it's a fair point.

But I've found that if you know what to look for, the lessons are easier to learn once their time comes.

Have a read through these 49 lessons –– and vote on your favourites in the comments!

1. Whenever anyone tells you their numbers, assume they are lying
2. Make sure you can describe your business in sentence. (e.g. “Learn a language through stories”)
3. Ask who, not what
4. Don’t sell the peak of the mountain, sell multiple peaks along the way
5. Wisdom is trusting your own decision-making. This means making a lot of bad decisions, before you make good ones. That’s fine.
6. Audience is your most valuable asset. Treat it as such.
7. “An inch wide, and a mile deep” at all times
8. Have a three-year plan. Decisions look different based on the time-frame involved.
9. Results come from future-based planning. Happiness comes from alignment in the now. Success means learning to balance these two things. (I don’t know how to do it.)
10. Split testing sounds cool, but is largely a waste of time (for now)
11. Hire from within your audience. Look for aptitude and cultural fit. Skills can be taught.
12. “Because it feels right” is justification enough for any decision
13. Fire yourself from at least two jobs every year. Otherwise, you don’t have a business… You have a job.
14. Always sell a dream, not an improvement
15. Go to fewer conferences. Visit friends instead.
16. Price and offer are your biggest leverage points. Playing with these alone is likely enough to reach 7-figures.
17. Reinvest at least 30% of revenue into marketing
18. Keep six months of business cash and 12 months of personal cash at all times
19. Always, always, always do the right thing. (Even Especially when you’re right and they’re wrong.)
20. All “making more money” will do is amplify your existing insecurities
21. Learn to use monthly management accounts - they will help you make better decisions, wean yourself off checking stats, and sleep at night
22. Whenever something has been bugging you for six months, do whatever it takes to solve it and move on
23. Surround yourself, with young, hungry, people who will go the extra mile. It makes everything easier.
24. Profit is founder’s privilege. Never feel guilty about it.
25. Practice non-attachment to outcomes
26. Learn to make decisions decisively, even if they turn out to be wrong. (“Any decision is better than no decision.”)
27. Do the basics well, over a long period of time, without giving up or changing course
28. It’s better to apply one method thoroughly, than to dabble in five different methods
29. Whenever you say “Only I can do this!”, you’re wrong.
30. People put their entire life’s knowledge in books. Read business biographies
31. Never go for longer than 12 months without a coach or mentor
32. Take your personal finances seriously, maximise every tax break, and automate everything
33. Run operating margins of 30% or higher
34. If you want something to be remembered, tell it in a story
35. Ensure your best customers always have a way to spend more money with you
36. There is no decision to be made until there are at least three options on the table
37. Study copywriting like your life depends on it. (It does.)
38. There are no business problems, only mindset problems
39. Slow down. Everything gets easier when you’re not in a hurry.
40. Look at your bank balance no more than once a week
41. When you learn to say “no”, you’ll get where you’re going faster
42. Sooner or later (and when you least expect it), finance will become the biggest headache in your business. Learn about it. Talk about it. Be curious.
43. Create KPI dashboards that track every metric you care about
44. Whatever problem you face, look for the person who’s already done it
45. Ask for help
46. Spend most of your time on marketing. Don’t know how to do it? Spend most of your time learning marketing.
47. Don’t try and change the world. You haven’t earned the right yet.
48. Look for flywheels in everything
49. The most dangerous day… is the day you start believing your own B.S.

Now some of these might need some more explanation.

By the time my daughter gets to the age where she actually wants to know... hopefully I'll still be around to explain.

But in the meantime, which of these are you most curious about?

Let me know in the comments and choose the numbers you’d like to hear more about. I’ll write a future newsletter about it.

Until next time,

Namaste,

Olly