Nine Steps to Nine Figures
Build a Trusted, Fun, Profitable business on the six P's.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 80%
Sanchez shares an operating framework she co-created called Nine Steps to Nine Figures (the nine figures is aspirational, not literal). The goal is a business that is Trusted (it will keep making money), Fun to run, and Profitable. The load-bearing first steps are the six P's: Persona (name your target market), Problem (the pain or 'nail in the foot' you solve), Product (what fixes that pain that they want), Performance (where you track winning vs losing), an operating system or Scoreboard (run consistently without question marks), and People (who you hire, fire, and the culture). With Persona, Problem, Product, Performance, operating system, and People in place, you can run a sustainable business — and a solo business can even skip the people step.
Origin
Developed with a friend named Aan and previewed as the basis of Sanchez's next book on how good companies scale from six to nine figures.
Core principles
- 01A great business is Trusted, Fun to run, and Profitable
- 02Know exactly who you sell to before anything else
- 03Solve a specific painful problem with a specific product
- 04Track performance and run on an operating system, then build the right team
How to run it
- 1
Persona
Name and label exactly who you're selling to so your target market is unambiguous.
- 2
Problem
Identify the specific pain — the 'nail in the foot' — that you solve for that person.
- 3
Product
Define the product you sell that fixes that person's pain and that they genuinely want.
- 4
Performance
Decide where in the business you track whether you're winning or losing and what winning looks like.
- 5
Operating system (Scoreboard)
Build a scoreboard and operating system so the business runs consistently without a bunch of question marks and guesswork.
- 6
People
Determine who you hire and fire inside the business and what the culture looks like — often the most important step.
Pro tip A true solo business can skip this step and still be sustainable.
In the wild
Sanchez defines the target of the framework as a business so big it makes profitable money, is fun to run, and is trusted to keep making more money.
→ Owners get a clear three-part definition of a great business to build toward.
Common mistakes
Scaling without the foundations
Trying to grow before nailing Persona, Problem, and Product means you scale a business with no clear customer or offer.
Is it for you?
Best for
Operators trying to scale a business from six to seven, eight, or nine figures sustainably.
Not ideal for
Pre-idea founders who haven't validated any customer yet.
From the transcript
“nine steps to nine figures and don't take the nine figures literally ... a business so big that it makes profitable money for you is…”
“first if you want to have a profitable fun to run business you got to know who you're selling to this is what we call…”
From the episode
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