How I Got My 1st Clients While Working a Job (The 1–1–1 Rule)

Added: 2026-04-30

[00:00:00]after two full years of me thinking, man, I want to start my first online business and then doing absolutely nothing about it. Because when you're trying to build a business while working a busy 9 to5, everything feels overwhelming. What finally broke that cycle for me sounds wrong because it wasn't something that people usually credit their success to like productivity hacks or more motivation.

[00:00:24]The key for me was less freedom. I created a simple constraint called the one one rule. And in this video, I'm going to break down exactly how to use it.

[00:00:37]This is the framework that got me my first clients and eventually helped me replace my salary before I left my job.

[00:00:44]Funny enough, the idea didn't come from business at all. The idea came from proof in a completely different area of my life, aka realizing how out of shape I'd gotten. For months, I kept telling myself, "Tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up early and go to the gym." But tomorrow always had something a little more urgent. Emails, work, getting a little more sleep. Nothing changed until I hired a personal trainer and started laying out my gym clothes the night before. In other words, I eliminated decisions. All I had left from there was to just show up and follow the plan. The 111 rule works the same way. Instead of waking up and wondering what you should do for your business, you already know the three things to focus on every day.

[00:01:31]The first one is one creation. Think of it like running a fruit stand. If nobody knows your stand exists, it doesn't matter how good your strawberries taste.

[00:01:40]So, every day you do something that brings attention to the stand. Maybe you put up a sign on the road that says organic strawberries. Now, people know two things. your strawberries are healthy for their family and exactly where to go to get them. Or maybe you offer free samples. That helps people immediately experience how sweet and ripe the strawberries taste so that when they buy a full basket, they know it's worth it. Content works the same way.

[00:02:08]Your creation has one job. Help someone solve a specific problem. Back when I was starting my first online business, my one creation usually happened in a Facebook group. For example, a woman asked for help running paid ads. I replied with an answer that gave her clarity on what to do next. That woman eventually became my first paying client for $5,000. And I'll share how I did that in just a bit. But the base of that relationship was built on this first one. I just kept showing up in that group, posting, answering questions, and helping people solve specific problems.

[00:02:43]A great way to think about this is that every post, every comment is like a deposit in your trust bank. You can't withdraw money if you've never put anything in the account. Just as you can't get clients if you've never built trust. And I hope this way of thinking about it is a relief to hear because that means you don't need to be an editing genius or a great writer to create great content. I didn't go viral even once in my first five years of business, but I still grew to multiple seven figures during that time on the foundation of this first rule. Stay visible repeatedly. Some people do this by batching content, making a ton of stuff at once and then posting it over time. That's what I do now, but I've also got a systems and a team to help me with all of that. Most people won't tell you this, but when you're first starting, batching can actually make things harder. You try to create too much at once and then you get overwhelmed and burnt out. Plus, you don't even know yet what's going to resonate with your audience. So, you might end up batching a ton of content that doesn't do anything for your business. So, keep it constrained.

[00:03:48]That's what I did. Create one helpful thing on one platform every day. But visibility alone isn't enough to build a business. Plenty of people can read your content, like it, even save it, and still never become a client. The scariest example I've ever heard of this is influencers with millions of followers yet they can't even make a handful of sales. That's why the second one is so important. One conversation every day. Talk with at least one person about your business. And notice I say talk with not talk at. The point is turning passive attention into a relationship. That could be replying to someone who commented on your post, sending a DM, answering a question, leaving a voice note. As a hardcore introvert, this step terrified me at first. That's probably why a lot of people skip it. They tell themselves they're still getting ready, like building their brand or tweaking their website, maybe even putting out content, but not understanding why it's not landing, which is how I spent two years making no progress on my business. What your one conversation a day gives you is a clear path out of that vacuum because it teaches you the one thing you have to know if you want your business to succeed. What people actually want. When I was doing ads consulting, I assumed that people wanted to understand the complex strategy behind ads, the analysis and theory and the really cool sophisticated stuff I had learned in my job. But once I started talking to actual potential clients, one woman told me something that completely changed my perspective. She said, "Honestly, all I want is a simple step-by-step plan to get my ads running and running profitably." That was a huge light bulb moment. Never in my imagination would I have guessed that the thing people wanted most was simplicity. And the reason this kind of mismatch happens has actually been studied in psychology.

[00:05:44]It's called the Dunning Krueger effect.

[00:05:46]Researchers found that people are surprisingly bad at judging what they know and what they don't. People with very little knowledge often think that they understand way more than they do.

[00:05:56]And people with a lot of knowledge often forget what it feels like to be a beginner. So when you're the expert, simple steps feel like, well, duh. Why would I even mention that? But for others, your potential clients, the obvious steps are the exact problem they're trying to solve. The only way to discover that perfect balance is by having conversations. Then you can swoop in and solve the exact problem that someone is stuck on and trying to figure out. That's where the third one comes in. And it is so good for making sales while leading with value. One action that serves someone. Remember how I mentioned that my first client paid me $5,000 after I answered her question?

[00:06:38]Here's how that happened. At the time, I did not have a plan. I didn't even have an offer. I was just trying to figure out if it'd be even possible to turn my advertising skills into my own business.

[00:06:49]So, I started by doing my one creation a day inside a Facebook group and answering other people's questions about ads. And by the way, this does not mean you need to be in a Facebook group. Use the platform that works best for you now. These principles apply no matter.

[00:07:03]So, one question led to another and then another. Eventually, this woman and I moved the conversation to email. After the next two weeks of me answering all her questions for free, she sent me an email one day that completely caught me by surprise. Her email said, "You have given me so much value already, I know I'm going to get so much more if I actually pay you. So, how can I do that?" And that is how I got my first client. All I really did was help her.

[00:07:27]You might be thinking, and I wondered this too, is this really enough to grow a business on one single day? No. But over months and years, yes. Also, don't overlook the 111 rule is not a ceiling.

[00:07:42]It's a baseline. On high energy days, you'll probably do more. And there's research that explains exactly why this happens. Psychologists have found that small wins create momentum. When you experience a small win, your confidence in yourself grows. Then that sets off a chain of other benefits. You believe you're more competent, so you improve your skills, and thus you have better stamina. And all of those things give you this subjective feeling of you know what I am going to succeed. So you work harder and more success follows. But when that streak breaks that's when your motivation drops and your progress stalls. So the 111 rule is powerful not just because it gives you focused effective action every day. Just as important it protects your momentum.

[00:08:29]Every day you get three small wins. You created something. you talked to someone and you helped someone move forward over time. Those wins compound into more and more sales and a sustainable business.

[00:08:43]But if you're watching this and thinking, "Okay, but how do I find these people to talk to?" That's exactly what I'm going to help you with next. Because there's a very simple strategy you can use to find your first or next paying coaching client, even if you're starting from zero. I break it down step by step in this video right here. I'll show you how to use something that I call the free taster strategy to start connecting with potential clients very soon.