Turn a Penny Into Millions
Yes, you can turn a penny into millions.
Don’t ask me why I remember this… But it must have happened when I was 6 or 7 years old. My mom and dad had dragged me to a wedding reception, where one of my dad’s older business friends taught me a valuable lesson about money (although I can’t imagine how on earth the two of us ever got into this conversation). My dad’s friend, Howard (the same name as my dad), said to me…
“If you were given a choice to receive one million dollars in one month or a penny doubled every day for 30 days, which one would you choose?”
I’m pretty sure I picked the million.
And then Howard proceeded to explain to me how if you got paid a penny today, but then doubled that payment every day for 30 days, you’d end up with over $5 million dollars by day 30.
Check this out…I found this chart online.
Day 1: $.01
Day 2: $.02
Day 3: $.04
Day 4: $.08
Day 5: $.16
Day 6: $.32
Day 7: $.64
Day 8: $1.28
Day 9: $2.56
Day 10: $5.12
Day 11: $10.24
Day 12: $20.48
Day 13: $40.96
Day 14: $81.92
Day 15: $163.84
Day 16: $327.68
Day 17: $655.36
Day 18: $1,310.72
Day 19: $2,621.44
Day 20: $5,242.88
Day 21: $10,485.76
Day 22: $20,971.52
Day 23: $41,943.04
Day 24: $83,886.08
Day 25: $167,772.16
Day 26: $335,544.32
Day 27: $671,088.64
Day 28: $1,342,177.28
Day 29: $2,684,354.56
Day 30: $5,368,709.12
Of course, you must be thinking, “What does this have to do with my website business?”
Well, aside from being a good lesson to teach to random kids, it also helps me illustrate 3 important points about growing your website business, and that is…
- Things will start slow.
- You have to be patient.
- You WILL succeed if you stick with it.
Despite what the “silver bullet”, “instant push button millions” internet marketing gurus are telling you, building a 6-figure a month doesn’t happen overnight. Heck, neither does building a 6-figure a year business – but you can – and will – be able to do it.
I thought a lot about this on Monday morning when I was having a conference call with some business partners.
We have a nice little 7-figure business going, but of course, we are – like everyone else – impatient and we want to turn it up and scale it to 10x’s that amount. The sooner the better. During the call, one partner mentioned how he knew of a guy who had a print newsletter that costs $50 per year and that has grown to almost 30,000 subscribers in about 20 years.
That got me thinking…who wouldn’t love 30,000 subscribers? But you won’t get that overnight…you have to be in it for the long haul.
Fortunately, these days, you could probably charge a little more than $50 per year – let’s say $10 a month. Now imagine if you got 1 subscriber this month and then you doubled the number of subscribers you had every month.
Before 12 months were up, you’d have over 2000 subscribers, and you’d be making $20,000 per month – on pace for well over $100K per year.
Of course, I’m not promising your subscriber numbers are going to double every month, BUT the big message here is to take the long view of your business. Now I know that’s tough in this day and age of instant gratification, but if you’ve set your website up properly, and you’ve chosen a market that you are passionate about, then you’re in this for the long haul anyways.
So don’t be discouraged by a slow start.
There will be struggles, but you will reach a point when your business starts to take off. When you start making multiple sales every day. When you start having affiliates contact you and ask to promote your product.
And then your business will hit that point when it takes off like a rocketship into space.
Stay the course,
Craig Ballantyne
The world doesn’t owe me anything. I have to earn everything I get. The sooner I understood this, the happier I became knowing that my life is in my hands.