The Rule of One

When you try to do too much, you reach nobody. This strategy helps you focus and boost sales. Here's how it helped one entrepreneur go from $0 to $4,985 in a month.

- by JUSTIN WELSH

Your business will take off when you nail two parts of an important equation: You must have something valuable to offer, and you must present it in a way that attracts the right buyers.

Once you find that sweet spot, revenue should start to accelerate.

This may sound obvious. But let me emphasize the words that entrepreneurs often overlook: the right buyers. Many entrepreneurs chase any buyers, or hope that, by blasting their message out across every possible channel, the right buyers will simply reveal themselves.

It doesn’t work like that. Instead, you must strategically simplify who you’re talking to and how you’re talking to them. I call it the “Rule of One.”

I’ve seen this work for companies large and small. I was once the director of strategic sales at Zocdoc, then the chief revenue officer at PatientPop. Now I’m an advisor and an investor, and I spend most of my time helping entrepreneurs build strong online businesses.

One such entrepreneur approached me recently. His focus was helping companies improve their e-commerce systems, and he clearly knew what he was doing. But he had zero revenue for three consecutive months. He was frustrated and questioning whether he should continue with what he was doing.

By following the Rule of One, he made $4,985 in one month.

Here's how it works.

The zero-revenue reality

T he entrepreneur's name is Paul. When we first started talking, I asked how he was spending his time. Sure enough, he revealed a very common problem: Paul was trying to be everywhere, serve everyone, and sell everything.

Here's what his typical day looked like:

→ Scheduling Instagram posts at 7 a.m.

→ Writing LinkedIn content at noon

→ Recording TikTok videos in the afternoon

→ Commenting on hundreds of other posts in between