One of the most dangerous things that can happen to an entrepreneur is becoming successful.
Because the more money you have...
The easier it becomes to make a big, bold bet.
I've had people come to me and say:
“We spent $70,000 on Meta ads, YouTube ads, and direct mail—and it didn’t work.”
That makes me cringe.
Claude Hopkins taught me that advertising disasters are caused by rashness.
The safest way to develop advertising is to start small, find out what works, and only then expand it.
That's why every new campaign we create begins with what I call a hundred-dollar test.
We recently created a book called Air Fried Carnivore for a local meat shop here in Winter Haven.
We designed a great cover with an air fryer full of meat, put together an ad, and spent $20 a day for five days.
That was it.
Our entire initial exposure was $100.
The result?
We generated 68 leads at $1.68 each.
Now we knew we had something.
That earned the campaign the right to move to the next stage: generating the first 100 leads and watching what they did during their first 100 hours.
Did they open the emails? Did they click? Did they reply? Did they watch the video?
Only after seeing real engagement would we move into the first 100 days…spending maybe $25 a day while watching whether the lead cost remained stable and whether those leads converted.
That's the progression:
$100. 100 leads. 100 hours. 100 days.
At each stage, the campaign has to earn the right to continue.
You don't need to risk $70,000 to discover whether you have a winner.
You don't need to risk $70,000 to discover whether you have a winner.
In most cases, you can know within a week.
That might seem too conservative for a successful entrepreneur looking to make a bold move.
But the goal isn't to make a bold move.
The goal is to build a predictable, fail-proof system where your downside is limited…and your winners can run for years.
Spending more money won't turn a losing idea into a winner.
But a hundred-dollar test can help you find the winner before you spend more.