The American Dream is real. The idea that someone can go from nothing to something is shared by most American. That idea gets validated every day. One of these impressive stories of the American Dream comes from Russ Ruffino.
Today, Mr. Ruffino is the CEO of Clients on Demand, an Inc. 500 company. But that’s not where he came from. The truth is that Russell is a classic rag to riches story. Before starting Clients on Demand, he was just a bartender.
But making $500 every week wasn’t cutting it. So he set out to achieve the American Dream. In fact, in just 5 months, he made nearly $250,000 selling his success courses online.
So, how did he do it?
It Started With Solving A Relatively Popular Problem
In an effort to turn his dream into reality, Mr. Ruffino came up with a solution to a very popular problem among businesses and entrepreneurs. That problem was that marketing concepts just weren’t working.
Moreover, searching for solutions online is like finding a needle in a haystack. With billions of articles about getting rich online, and very few of them actually having a real answer, it’s difficult not to just throw your hands up in frustration.
So, Mr. Ruffino came up with a solution. While his approach was rather unorthodox, it has been proven time and time again that it works. The solution is simple. Instead of focusing on blanket advertising models, make it a point to dial down who you are advertising to.
The truth is that I’m not a big fan of cheese. So, if you were to pay even $0.05 to make sure that I saw your cheese advertisement, well, you’d be wasting your time! However, if you dial down your ad placements to make sure that every time your advertisement was seen, it was seen by someone who would have interest in your product, that’s when the advertising campaign becomes successful.
Based on this idea, Mr. Ruffino built a business model that worked. He created a product teaching businesses about how they could achieve success. From there, he put his money where his mouth was and proved the success of his system.
Using the methods that he built courses around, Mr. Ruffino took Clients on Demand from a concept to a company that generated $9.3 million in sales in 2017 and is on track to generate $20 million in revenue in 2018.
This Success Was Not The Product Of Luck
Today, every one of Mr. Ruffino’s sales pitches includes a disclaimer that there is no quick way to get rich. Digging deeper into his story, we learn about a man that spent countless hours developing a marketing strategy that worked. In order to motivate himself, he would imagine himself as his successful future self, asking himself questions like, what would my future self do in this situation. Often times, that may not have been the easy way out, but the work turned into a fruitful business.
What To Take From The Russell Ruffino Story
This success story comes with a couple of key factors, that when added to your own story, could help you become one of those successes:
- Success Is Achievable – First and foremost, no matter where you came from, you can become something. With confidence, a great concept, and a strong marketing system, you could become the next Russell Ruffino story.
- Go Deeper, Not Wider – The marketing approach of today is a wide one. It is the blanket approach that says that as more people see your ad, more will buy your products. That’s not always the case. The key is knowing who your target audience is and taking the time to market your products to that audience.
- Take A Differentiated Approach – In the world of online marketing, newcomers seem to follow the herd. The idea is that if everyone is doing it this way, this must be the right way to go. Sure, it’s important to do your research and learn from the mistakes of others, but it’s also important to take a unique approach that sets you apart from the pack.
- It’s Not Going To Be Easy – While we all have the right and ability to make it big, no matter where we start, it’s not going to be handed to us. There is no green button that we can push and expect hundred dollar bills to start flying out of our computer. The truth is that becoming successful requires hard work. But that hard work can pay off as we can see from the man that went from $500 per week to become an Inc. 500 CEO.
