How to Start a Business With $0 (Failproof Formula That Actually Works)

I've been an entrepreneur for 35 years. I went from a kiddie pool attendant to having a business that went on to do over $5 billion in sales in a six-year window. During my journey, I've had five exits.

One to Warren Buffett's NetJets and one to Coca-Cola. And in each of the businesses that I've been in, I've used the same 15 simple strategies to help me get customers, retain customers, and grow my business. These strategies cost little to no money.

Anyone can do them and I'm going to walk you through them right now. All right. Number one, I'm a huge believer in handwritten letters.

Handwritten letters break through the clutter. Sometimes it's hard to get through an assistant or get somewhere on the phone. Maybe everybody doesn't read their emails, but everybody reads a handwritten letter.

When I was in my 20s and just starting out in business and I had no money, my entire marketing campaign was to write handwritten letters. I made it a point to write 10 a day. So over the course of the year, I wrote over 3,000 handwritten letters and they were all like little seeds that were getting planted.

And I didn't expect everybody to become a customer, but I only needed one. If you did something nice to me, you got a letter. If you were a mentor or said something that inspired me, I read your book, you got a letter.

Doesn't cost any money and anybody can do it. Number two, have a hot 25 list. So, when I was just starting out in business, I made a list of people that I wanted to just stay on their radar.

And every quarter, I would send those people a DM, a note, an email, a handwritten letter just to be top of mind. What that did was it gave me permission if I ever bumped into any of those people to approach them. I was now playing offense, not defense.

I sent you a letter. I don't know if you got it, but I just wanted to say hello. It was a conversation starter.

And those letters were always one way. I was never asking for anything. If I knew that a manager in the music business loved to surf, I would send a clip of the best places to go surfing or the best hotels to stay at on surf trips or whatever.

It was always one-way communication once a quarter. Number three, DM people directly. Most people.

They might not read their emails. They might not get all their calls, but most people handle their own social and read their DMs. I'll tell you a crazy story.

I got a random DM for somebody. I didn't even know this person who presented me with an opportunity. He said, "Send me your logo for your business and I'm going to send you back some items.

T-shirts with your logo, hat with your logo, pencil with your logo, and see if you like them. It won't cost you anything. All you have to do is send me your logo.

" Now, I have a lot of friends that are in the ad specialty business, but this random person that came into my DM sent me this with a no- lose offer. Send him the logo and he's going to send me all this gear to see if I like it. done.

Shot him the logo. Next week, he sent me all this stuff. He got my entire business.

He got my entire business by sending me a DM. Valuriven DMs pay off big time. So, number four, have a hometown restaurant.

I think it's really important that wherever you live, there's a restaurant that you can go to, preferably a hot restaurant. Anytime you have clients in town on a busy season, you can call up the matrae or the manager and get a reservation. Hey, it's Jesse.

I have four people coming in. you know, do you mind if we get a table for 4 at 8:00? You want to be able to host events.

You want to walk into your hometown restaurant with clients or prospects and they'll, hey, Jesse. Oh, hey. You're high-fiving everybody.

Like, you want to come in high energy in a place that knows you. So, this is a lot easier than you think just by walking into the restaurant, saying hello to everybody, saying their name, saying hello, saying goodbye, leaving a tip, even writing a note, you know, like, "We had a great meal. Thanks so much for all the attention that you gave.

Like little things like that. People want to feel heard. They want to know that you know you care about them.

You know, you do it in business. Do it in your restaurant. Number five, the three C's.

Compliment, congratulate, and console. Business can be transactional, but relationships can. And when you build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships with everybody in your inner circle, your prospects, your clients, your employees, your kids if you're a parent, the floodgates open.

You get referrals. People stay with you when your business has a down tick. They roof for you.

And the way that I've been able to build deep, authentic, meaningful relationships is by complimenting, congratulating, and consoling the people within that inner circle. So, here's an example. Jimmy, it's Jesse Edler.

I heard your son got into Duke University. If my kids get into Duke University, I'd be on cloud. My family and I are on cloud9 for you and your entire your son and your whole family.

If you have an opportunity, if someone in your inner circle does something that warrants a congratulations, you congratulate them. You compliment. You call people and you authentically compliment them on something that really matters to you at a time where nobody else is doing it.

And three is you console. If you have somebody in your life that's grieving and you don't reach out to them, they'll never forget it. Period.

They will never forget it. Number six, hot spots. When I was in my earliest 20s, I was living in California and I was sleeping on my friend John Cornick's couch trying to figure out how I was going to make it in the music business.

One day he took me to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And I'm looking around and I'm like, CEO of the biggest movie theater on my left, mogul on my right, biggest actor in the world right there. Like the craziest people in Hollywood were all at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

And I'm like, "You don't need a hotel room to come to this restaurant where all of the moguls come. " He's like, "No, anyone can make a a reservation here. " I'm like, that became my office.

I literally went to the Beios Hotel every single day and I would study how they greet how this guy greeted that guy and the mannerisms and how people were interacting. I was in the loop. Every city has a hot spot.

If you know that all the real estate mogul go to lunch at that at this restaurant, that's where you go. If you know that a happy hour is this time to this time and all the Wall Street guys go, you go because it's free, open to the public, they don't care how much money you make. You just get a reservation.

Step seven, buy the cheap seats. Everybody in New York City, when I in the '9s, when I was living in New York, would go to the Nick games. I would buy the cheapest seat, but I was in the building.

When you're in the building, amazing things can happen. When you're not in the building, nothing can happen. So, for me, when I was just starting out, it was really important to me to be where the action was.

And whether that was going to a restaurant or a sporting event, you know, just get me in the building. Don't even go to your seats. Go right to the bar and meet somebody.

Number eight, stand up before meetings. If you go to a meeting and you're sitting in the lobby waiting for someone to come in and then you know they walk in and now you got to get up and fix your outfit and greet them. It's low energy.

I always, this is a big rule that we had at Marquee Jet. You walk into a meeting, you're standing. They come in, you're greeting them.

High energy. It's low energy to sit down. Like you didn't come here to be low energy.

You have a meeting. A meeting can change your life. It's not a throw.

like you have to go in there, stand up, high energy, greeting the person. So I I never ever sit down before meetings. It might sound basic.

It might sound ridiculous, but sitting down is low energy. Low energy doesn't work. Number nine, follow up on everything.

After a meeting, you have an amazing opportunity to have another touch point. You have the ability to summarize a meeting. You have the ability to ask for an order.

You have the ability to thank somebody. But you have the time to take a step back and think through and gather your thoughts. In a meeting, it's real time.

Things are happening fast. You have to be quick on your feet. But the followup allows you to regroup.

It allows you to summarize. It allows you to come to go back to next steps. So even if you had a meeting that didn't go great, you can flip things around and how you follow up.

Follow up on everything. Number 10, do the unexpected. While everybody in your industry is playing a nine-ining game, it's important that you play a 10-in game and do things that people would never expect you to do.

When I had Marquee Jet, they expected me at the airport to carry their bags from the FBO to the airplane. They expected me return every email, every text. But while everybody else was doing that, I was doing the unexpected, too.

When I had customers that were going to Mexico, they didn't expect that I would make a list of 10 pediatricians. John, I know you're going with your kids on this trip. Here's a list of 10 pediatricians.

I vetted them all. If anything happens to any of your kids, call any one of these 10 doctors and they'll help you. I made reservations at every hot restaurant at 8:00 for two.

John, it's spring break, man. This place is packed. But anywhere you want to go at 8:00, I got you.

By doing the unexpected, you separate yourself from everybody else in your industry. Everybody's going to do the blocking and tackling. Everyone's going to do what's expected.

But the way that you really separate yourself and get space from everybody else is when you add on the unexpected, too. Ask yourself, what could I do differently that no one else is doing to have an impact on my customer, my product, or the service that I'm offering? And if you ask yourself that question and you execute on it by doing the unexpected on top of everything else that is expected, you're going to see massive impact.

Number 11, be where your feet are. I got invited to this wedding with my wife. I did not want to be at the wedding.

I walked in all mopey, low energy, and I got seated at this table. And it turns out that the guy sitting next to me is someone that I'd always wanted to be connected to. All of a sudden, you know, my whole demeanor changed.

And I was like, I said to myself, if I'm going to be here, let me make the most of it. Like, why do I want to be all mopey? if I can come in high energy, conversational, maybe something good's going to come out of it.

And I turned the frown upside down. I changed my whole demeanor at the event. Ended up having a great conversation with this guy.

Ended up doing business with this guy. And it's really just it just reminded me that like if I'm going to be somewhere, be there. If you're going to be somewhere, be there.

Make the most out of it. Be where your feet are. Be present.

And you never know who you're going to run into. Number 12, stay late. The best connections, sales opportunities usually happen when everybody else leave.

I can't even tell you how many sales I got just by being the last person at the bar. Part of being an entrepreneur is creating luck. And luck doesn't happen watching TV on your couch.

Luck happens when you put yourself in a situation where the universe can reward you. And when you stay out and you stay late, come early, stay late, you're creating the best chances for luck to fall in your lap. stay late.

I used to come back into my office um after staying late at a party or going to a bar or whatever and I would have a sale and people like, "Oh my god, you're so lucky. How did you get that sale? " And I'll be like, "I was the only one there.

I stayed late. " Number 13, write a proper email. There's an art to writing emails.

One of the most important things that you could ever do in writing an email, the most important thing is the subject line. You want to make that sure that the subject line lures someone or attracts someone into the email enough to click and open the email. So, a lot of times I just use a slash.

I'll just write like my name/ Coca-Cola or, you know, something very simple or maybe I'll use humor. But, you want to make sure that your subject line captures that person's attention. You want to make sure that your email is short and to the point and you're asking for whatever it is that you want.

When I write an email, I'll read it several times like I'm the recipient. So, I'm thinking if I was the recipient, would this make me respond? If I was the recipient, is this someone that I would want to meet with?

I could spend hours writing an email to make sure that is it short. Can I how can I make it shorter? How can I make it punchier?

Am I asking, you know, exactly what I want? Is there a call to action in the email? Emails are important and they matter.

So, if you're going to take the time to write an email, make sure that it is set up in a format that you're going to get what you want out of it. Number 14, be a connector. It doesn't cost any money to connect two people.

And you know, it doesn't require any skill to connect two people, but when you connect person A to person B, you're shining a light on both people. You're now responsible for a connection that could be very valuable. I'm always thinking like in my journey I've always been thinking or keeping a mental note of you know the people that I come in contact with and what they like to do and if I know that someone likes running I might connect them to a race director.

I'm just it's always top of mind for me because it's free to be able to connect people that have common threads together and that's paid off for me big time because people remember you when you make the connection. It's super valuable. Be a connector.

And number 15, be known for something. I had a friend of mine that every Halloween sent this huge Halloween. He was the Halloween guy.

Every Halloween my family knows that we're getting this big bucket of like the most insane bucket of Halloween candy from our friend. He's known as the Halloween guy. I have another friend that wears a bow tie.

He's the bow tie guy. I like to wear a ski hat. Maybe I'm the ski hat guy.

But there's 8 billion people in the world and as entrepreneurs in a in in a very crowded space of entrepreneurship and business, it's important that you stand out in an authentic way. Be known for something. If you're quirky, be known for being quirky.

If you're an endurance athlete, be known for run for being a crazy runner. But it's important that you have something you can hang your hat on and be like some kind of signature trademark that you're associated with. So, these are the 15 steps that I've used throughout my entire career to grow my business and help me retain my customers and get sales.

I still use a lot of these strategies today because they work. They require no money and they separate me from the competition. So, I hope they work for you the same way that they work for me.

Try them.