The "Lazy" Way To Earn $600,000 per year

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Here’s the fascinating story of an entrepreneur who took his income from $60,000 to over $600,000/yr by using leverage.

All while working 30 hours less each week.

How? He builds productized services businesses using a repeatable playbook and outsources them so that they run with just a few hours of work per week.

The challenge is if you don’t understand a few key principles of this business model, you’ll likely hit a hard ceiling of $50,000 to $200,000 per year - today, we’re going to give you those principles.

The “Lazy” Path To Make $600,000

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

• A $60 -> $600k Case Study: How Michael Greenberg made $600k working just 20 hours a week.

• The 6-Step Productized Services Playbook: How to find your idea, outsource your service, and build repeatable system to grow it fast.

• How To Grow Your Wealth Using Producized Services + Real Estate: We explore wealth building with recurring revenue and multi-family housing.

• A Productized Service Business Idea You Can Start Immediately: Want to help people stay accountable and reach their goals? Here’s a productized service business you could start tomorrow

Today’s guest is Michael Greenberg. As I see it, he’s building a conglomerate of productized-service businesses.

He’s also building it in public, and I find that fascinating. Check out his plan below.

He’s well underway with this plan:

• He built his first business to $600k and sold it.

• Just last month he launched another business and is collecting $1,200/month entirely passively.

• His next objective is to go big. The goal is $20M+ in revenue.

We’re going to see a lot from him in the coming months. Keep an eye out for his newest business ClickDown - it could be a $20M bagger 🤑.

Make sure to follow him on Twitter at @GentofTech.

Let’s get after it!

A $600k Case Study: How Michael Greenberg made $600k working just 20 hours a week

While I don’t agree, Micheal does not consider himself a great entrepreneur.

His super power is his ability to be maniacally systems driven–Instead of taking the brute force path of working 24/7 he creates processes with the same inputs and outputs consistently over time. He is able to course correct himself to where he wants to go and is patient enough to stay in the game long enough to get there.

This, it turns out, is the key skill necessary to build a productized service.

In this section, we’ll cover:

• The problem Michael solved

• How he productized the services

• And the specific growth lever he used to scale it

How Did It All Start?

Back in 2016, Michael was running his own media business aptly named “Call For Content”. As is often the case in the start-up world, Call For Content was born out of necessity. He wanted a business where he could make money, sell a service, but more importantly, learn entrepreneurship from the people he worked with. Because he had in-depth experience working in podcasting and high-ticket corporate coaching, it seemed like the natural place to start. Call For Content was born.

Call For Content provides white-label production services for podcasts. From crafting the messaging to how to position the company handles everything to allow agencies and consultants to assist their clients with podcasting. This includes guest bookings, scheduling, show notes, audio engineering, social post creation, and market placement.

The client’s only responsibility was to record the episode. Call For Content handles the rest.

What Made It Unique?

Most podcast services focus on downloads and subscribers. The strategy there revolves around monetizing the audience with advertising. Michael flipped this idea on its head with the idea that the podcast only needed an audience of 50 people. Namely, the guests interviewed on the show each week who were potential clients for the host.

The only person who needed to be happy with the episode was the guest!

Under this model, audience size is almost irrelevant and the podcast becomes an asset in and of itself. This approach also makes the deliverables very easy to achieve versus trying to decipher the finicky algorithms that are responsible for reach and therefore subscribers. The goal is leads and relationships.

Solve A Specific Problem - Podcast Editing:

Remember when I mentioned that Michael is a monster at building systems? That’s where this skill becomes critical

Because he was booking so many podcast interviews for his clients, he needed to figure out a system to edit a lot of podcast episodes while maintaining a high quality bar.

It became clear that podcast editing wasn’t just a recurring challenge for him, but any agency hoping to offer podcast editing services to its clients – this was the “aha” moment.

How Did He Productize The Service?

With a specific problem to solve Michael got to work building the solution.

It wasn’t easy, but after 10-12 attempts, he’d build the ideal process. It looked something like this:

• First, he documented a high-level podcast editing process.

• Next, Michael discovered novel podcast editing tools to make the editing process much faster (e.g Descript).

• Then he worked with a few clients by himself to learn the most efficient editing process.

• Next, with a playbook in hand, he identified lower-cost overseas talent to outsource the operations (actually doing the editing).

• He spent 30 days upskilling this outsourced team on his system, and the modern editing tools.

• With the process in place, he continued to iterate with rigor until he had a streamlined machine.

Now, he had an asset on his hands - a purpose-built system to edit podcasts cheaper, faster, and with better quality than anyone else around.

How Did He Scale It?

Initially, Michael built the business in the beginning exclusively with cold outreach so there was minimal cost to acquire a customer other than his time.

But here’s where sales strategy is key. A principle Michael learned very quickly was that it is extremely difficult to scale a $500/month (the price of his podcast editing services) business to $100,000/yr, let alone $600,000 - he would need to single-handedly close 100 clients at $500/month. That would take years.

Key Principle: Identify Growth Levers - find opportunities where 1 relationship could equate to 5-10 customers.

Michael decided to white-label his podcast editing service. What this meant was that he would partner with agencies that either did not offer podcast editing services or agencies that wanted to streamline their costs, and he would offer the service under their brand.

With this model, the agency would maintain the client relationship (great, less work for Michael) and set their own prices, but Michael would still make $500/month for every new customer.

Here’s what the numbers look like with this new strategy:

1 Agency Partner = 5 to 20 new customers

20 customers @ $500/month = $10,000/month = $120,000/yr!

With this leverage, the business took off. And because he’d designed the system to scale, all he had to do was find 10-15 agencies to partner with.

Not bad for working 20 hours a week.

Many entrepreneurs would take this business model head to head against the grind of the classic start-up VC play.

The Productized-Services Playbook: How To Find The Perfect Idea, Automate Fulfillment, and Scale It.

This process can be broken down into a 6-steps:

1. Idea Generation: Build a repository of high-potential ideas

2. Idea Scoring: Grade those ideas with a set of criteria

3. Create A Map: Map out your service

4. 10x10 Outreach: Reach out to potential customers

5. Productize Fulfillment: Create a repeatable operating system to do the work. Plug in freelancers and tools.

6. Plug Into Growth Levers: Seek opportunities where 1 relationship can become 5-10 sales

7. Replace Yourself: Work on the business, not in the business

Step 1: Idea Generation

The overarching heuristic when coming up with ideas is to try and find a single problem for a single niche that can scale. Its critically important that the service is simple. Complexity does not scale.

Let this simmer in the crockpot as you go about your day. Make sure you have a method for capturing that you always have with you and start brainstorming ideas (e.g, Notes app). Keep a running list. This is not a one-time brainstorming session. There is a gestational period to creation. Respect it.

Some useful prompts when thinking about this are:

• What repeatable yet high-value tasks do you find yourself doing at your day job?

• What services do agencies offer that you could do cheaper and faster?

• Where do I have a unique advantage? (e.g Zone of Genius, Experience, Network)

Once you have a sizable list of 10-20 decent ideas, you can shift from idea generation to idea scoring.

Start to narrow down idea list to the top 5 based on what you think can be made profitable quickly with a low time investment and where you have an advantage.

(you can use the criteria in Step 2, to help you shrink this list)

Now it's time to grade our top 5 list.

Step 2: Idea Scoring

Michael has a scoring system that helps him rank his business ideas. The overarching theme for the numerical rankings is high growth potential with low capital requirements. In keeping with his focus on systems it is a 20 row excel sheet as opposed to a rough collection of scribbled napkins and marked up bar coasters.

Here is Michael’s idea scoring sheet.

Feel free to make your own, or use Michael’s (we discuss it in detail during the workshop).

What’s important here is that you have some method to keep you honest and grade your ideas.

Here are some simple criteria you can use to score your ideas:

• Can you easily hire team to scale?

• Does it require any niche expertise?

• Can you buy it on Fiverr? <- great!

• Recurring revenue with AT LEAST a $500/month service?

• Have you done this professionally?

• Is there a clear ideal client profile?

Now ask yourself this final question: Am I the right person to take this business idea forward and if so, can I outcompete what is already out there? Once you run through this process, make the call. If you are stuck with a dead heat between two ideas, choose the one that is less difficult to execute.

You are now optimized for success with the potential for big returns.

Step 3: 10 x 10 Outreach

Now is the time for outreach. Manually send out 10 cold emails or DMs a day. Do not use a template - write each email purposefully for the individual you’re emailing. This should take you a few hours to complete.

Remember, you do not want to be investing too much time into an idea that has not been validated yet. Which is why we’re starting simple - no website, no paid marketing, just simple cold outreach email explaining your idea.

Your goal is to get someone on the phone and sell them a highly discounted beta version of the product (20%-50% off).

For example, when Michael was starting Call For Content he charged $500 for what would become a $2,800 package. The key is going from 0 to 1 so you can validate the model.

Once that is done, crush it on fulfillment and write it up as a case study. Use that case study to help you get more clients. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Step 4: Productize Your Fulfillment

Here is where you want to focus on building out the different pieces of the engagement before moving onto a recurring service model. Don’t be afraid of one-off projects as you work out the kinks. Keep building until you have a fine-tuned machine with very specific inputs and outputs.

A good practice is to map out your process on a word doc or in a project management tool (Michael uses ClickUp).

Your goal here is to build a standard operating procedure (SOP) - Once you have built the levers that move the business and have a standard operating procedure for each then you can think about outsourcing your fulfillment.

Warning: You do not want to outsource areas of the business where you do not have the fulfillment down to a science. Do not place the future of the business in the hands of 3rd party contractors.

Once you have the machine built it is very easy to judge the performance of everyone on the team. Have 2 or 3 contractors for each position. Buy blocks of time weekly and pay a flat fee for specific projects or tasks. Stay nimble. Stay lean.

Step 5: Plug Into Growth Levers

A productized-service, by definition, is built to scale. You’re packaging the skills and know-how of a service provider into a standardized solution for a narrowly defined target customer.

Because you’ve systematized the work - you can often provide the service for a better value than someone who is trying to do 10 different services under 1 roof. You’re a specialist now - you’re faster, cheaper, and higher quality.

Your goal is to create leverage in your sales process. Instead of selling one-to-one, you want to sell one-to-many.

Here are two great examples:

• Find Channel Partners: White-labeling your solution is a form of channel partnership. You focus exclusively on providing an amazing service and let others do the selling for you. In Michael's case, he partnered with agencies that didn’t have a podcast editing service or didn’t want to build their own.

• Partner With Influencers: This could be a different form of partnership in which you provide referral fees to partners that bring you customers. The key to remember here is that in this scenario, you would be engaging with the clients and managing the relationship.

Step 6: Replace Yourself - Work on the business, not in it.

With the process built and revenue coming through the door, it’s time to remove yourself from the equation.

Michael prefers not to hire recent grads but instead he looks for employees who are underappreciated by their current employers (including college dropouts who are in hustle mode). If there is a specific need he will bring in a specialist, sales for example. The long-term play, however, is to bring in a generalist. Someone who can be trained up and run the playbook you’ve developed.

The highly systematized nature of the business creates perfect conditions to generate loyalty to the brand. Michael can grow a candidate into being a General Manager. It is a win-win. An underappreciated former employee somewhere else is now a trusted asset for the business.

Be sure to incentivize your employees: It is at this point Michael can start to step away from the business if he wants to. The key is to front-load this position with a salary which then transitions into a profit-sharing arrangement.

The philosophy is “we all eat together but hunters eat first.” This incentivizes everyone to be growth oriented. As the business grows everyone wins.

Step 6: Scale, Scale, Scale

Once the people and system are in place, the business is primed to scale. At this point, you should take any available surplus capital and drive a repeatable sales, advertising, and marketing machine.

Keep the company as a cash flow mechanism, or sell it and exit - your choice!

Now you have a repeatable system. Do it again.

Build This: Accountability Coaching Service

Context: While simple, the “this, but for that” technique for coming up with business ideas often creates some pretty great business ideas.

In this case, Michael was reviewing MyBodyTutor - A weight loss company that partners people looking to lose weight with a weight loss coach.

After a quick review, he relized that this was yet another productized-service business. My Body Tutor had created a system to find people hoping to lose weight with weight loss coaches that will hold them accountable and provide guide & support.

At a high level, its quite simple:

For $299 or $599 / month, you get a workout plan and a series of check-ins, and simplified action plans.

That got Michael thinking, what else do people need to be held accountable to?

Here’s The Idea: An accountability coach can be a huge asset when trying to make a change or build something big. Entrepreneurs, coaches, or consultants could be the perfect candidate as they often have too much work for too few resources, and because they’re business minded, they are willing to spend if a coach can help them stay focussed on their goals.

How to build it: Here’s a quick strategy you could follow.

1) Isolate The Problem: I recommend reaching out to 10 entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants and having a few conversations to learn how they stay accountable today. Once you have a few conversations under your belt, you’ll be able to better understand the problems and challenges they’re facing.

2) Map Out Your Solution: Create a high-level plan outlining what service you would provide to help. Luckily, MyBodyTutor has given you a roadmap - you need some sort of plan to commit to - in their case it was a diet and workout regime, but in this case you’d likely have your client outline their top 3-5 objectives each quarter and help them work backwards to achieving it. Then you’ll need a system of check-ins to help keep them accountable.

3) 10x10 Outreach: Systematically outreach to 100 potential customers (10 per day for 10 days). Your goal is to get 1-2 to become customers with a discounted rate (20-50% off).

4) Productize Fulfillment: Once you’ve learned the best method of providing this service by doing it yourself for a few customers. You can document a repeatable operating system you can share with others to outsource the work. Hire 1 coach, and see how many clients they can support - my guess is ~20-30. From there, keep reaching out to potential customers and hiring more coaches to fulfill the demand.

5) Plug Into Growth Levers: Once you have a repeatable and scalable process in place, it's time to hunt for leverage. Look for partnerships you can create that will drive one-to-many outcomes. Influencers could be a good place to start.

6) Replace Yourself: Lastly, when the business is humming along with a repeatable system to find clients and fulfill the service, it’s time to hire a general manager - making sure that compensation is aligned with the growth of the business.

Build Wealth With Real Estate & Productized Services

Strategy: Michael has a family history that deeply influences his wealth-building strategy. They have a history of being involved in real estate investments since the time he was little. Growing up around it enabled him to not only see how real estate works but not be afraid to jump right in. He likes the durability of the asset class and how it hedges against volatility of all types. In his view, real estate stores money is highly leverageable and has all the benefits of a ‘hard’ asset.

Michael plans to generate cash-flow from high-margin services - either by building them himself, or partnering and taking a regular (monthly) distribution from the business. He will take that cash flow and immediately invest it into real estate.

His primary wealth-building vehicles are:

• Productized Service Businesses:

  • Quick Cash Flow - Currently Michael is building out his current business to cover his expenses so he doesn’t have to burn capital once his exit deal passive income stops. The key here is to focus on businesses with low capital investment that can go revenue positive quickly.

  • Passive income through equity partnerships - The productized services playbook allows Michael to come up with ideas and then bring on partners to run them from day 0. He negotiates a percentage of profits off the top and directs his partners on the exact path forward. When this is done successfully the time investment is low for a big return.

  • Acquisitions - The industry standard on acquisition for a productized services business is 3X. Michael looks to hit this mark with business that run at 50%-70% profit margin. Once he sells he uses the new capital to invest in real estate.

Investments:

• Real Estate - 80% - The focus here is on multi-family and commercial assets. Michael lives in one unit of a duplex and rents out the other. He sees himself moving more toward commercial real estate in the future, but the emphasis will always be on real estate as a relatively safe asset.

• Public Equities - 10% - Michael does not view public equities as a primary source of wealth generation.

• Crypto and Digital Assets - 10% - This is largely speculative and not an area of focus for Michael right now.

I hope this got you thinking!