#109: Next Level L.E.A.P: Small Progress, Big Results
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
Without labor, nothing prospers.
Hard work betrays none.
Much effort, much prosperity.
These are cliches we've probably heard for many, many years, if not all of our lives.
And we may have even slipped and said it to our own children.
It's actually something that we need to take a little bit of a closer look at.
If we want to break through revenue plateaus in our business and ask ourselves, what the heck does this even mean? Is there some kind of underlying belief here that we need to let go of in order to be able to work smarter, not harder?
So, if you've been struggling in your business to break through plateaus that you know that you are capable of, but you've been struggling to figure out exactly how, this podcast is really going to help you.
I'll be sharing why, at a certain point in our business, working harder is actually probably the thing that's holding us back.
Listen to the Show:
Laura
00:00
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Without labor, nothing prospers. Hard work betrays none, much effort, much prosperity, self-belief and hard work will always earn your success. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Well, these are cliches we've probably heard for many, many years, if not all of our lives. And we may have even slipped and said it to our own children. It's actually something that we need to take a little bit of a closer look at. If we want to break through revenue plateaus in our business and ask ourselves, what the heck does this even mean? Is there some kind of underlying belief here that we need to let go of in order to be able to work smarter, not harder? So, if you've been struggling your business to break through plateaus that you know that you are capable, from a business perspective of creating bigger leaps, but you've been struggling to figure out exactly how this podcast is really going to help you. Because I'll be sharing why, at a certain point in our business, working harder, is actually probably the thing that's holding us back.
01:23
Welcome to next level leap, a podcast where we dive into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company and creating a legacy brand. As a top growth strategist, multi passionate entrepreneur, membership site owner, trainer, speaker, author and mom to three, I love exploring the journey of how we, as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's get started!
01:57
As our business grows, it can really stretch us not only with our time and our skills and our resources, but our core identity. For so many of us, the building stage of the business is very rewarding, because we get to work really, really hard and then get to this destination of let's just say seven figures and say, See, I earn that I worked really hard, and I got to the place that I deserve, because I created something by going all in on white knuckling my way there. And what happens is, is that this kind of challenge of okay, now what can kind of mess with our minds, especially if you were missing a plan in the first place. And not only that, but maybe you had a plan or even an idea, or a concept that you were looking to develop. And it felt really clear during its inception. But then you experience obstacles and start questioning the plan and becoming overwhelmed or disappointed or confused. And then the cycle starts all over again, you're doing things well enough to get to where you are today. But they're not the types of activities that are actually going to get you to where you want to be in the future. Hyper focusing on exactly what pieces are and are not working about the plan, looking at what worked, what didn't and making changes on data, is the way to keep your sanity and also grow your business. And while you probably hear that all the time, right, like, make decisions based on data don't allow most emotion emotions get in the way, it's so easy as business owners, for us to come up with all sorts of stories about us losing market share, and about what's missing
in our business, or the amount of competitors that are taking business away from us, when we don't have decisions based on data, right? Like when we just kind of rely on our feelings. And for many of us, we are completely wrong about what needs to actually be changed unless we're looking at it in terms of process and progress.
04:10
But I said, you know, can you just give me a summary of the data? How did people convert on the front end, like what was the registration page like, and I already pretty much knew that our front-end messaging was working really, really well. Our registration page was converting at 77%, which anything over 50% is like, really good. And then we also had 50% of the people show up, which is awesome for a live webinar that's not on demand, that's actually pretty rare. Around now we're seeing like 30 to 40%. And then about 78% of the people stayed for the pitch stayed for me to start selling, which is, again, super rare. Most people kind of tune out once you start selling, which means that they were interested in what I had to say, but very few people bought. And at that point, I knew I had to change the packaging of the offer. I knew it was the offer that wasn't landing. Now me 10 years ago, being very reactionary, as an entrepreneur, I would have been like, oh my gosh, it didn't work, scrap the whole thing and start over. And I think a lot of people are tempted to do that when it doesn't give you the result that you want.
04:10
Like we know that we want a specific outcome as a result of the assets that we're creating. And we create a hypothesis, okay, well, this is what's working well in the marketplace, or this is the types of benchmarks that we're looking to hit, and then analyzing each individual lever and determining which ones need to just be left alone because they're working pretty good. And which ones need to be adjusted because that's where the bottleneck is in the sales process is again, the key to being able to not necessarily have to follow all of those cliches of muscling your way to the final destination but even being able to enjoy the process of getting there. Recently I was running a webinar sequence in my own membership offer. And it was really interesting because immediately after the live webinar, my team came to me and they were like, Okay, do you want to schedule again? Like, are we doing another live one? What's happening? And normally, I would say, I don't know, I didn't feel good or that didn't feel great. Or I'm not sure you know whether or not people liked it, right? We can, we can get really easily trapped in that thinking.
06:35
But creating a whole new front end message, a whole new webinar, and engaging people to the degree to which they most hang out to hear what it is that you have to sell. That's kind of the hard part, right, like coming up with an offer at a price point, even a new bonus stack that they would be interested in is a whole heck of a lot easier. And here's another example from
one of my clients. So earlier this year, I had a new client come to me and she was genuinely concerned that her business was a fluke, as a result of COVID, which she was selling was very much a lifestyle type of offer an opportunity for people to get creative in their homes and spend more time doing something that lights them up and that they enjoy, because many people were at home pretty stressed out and needed an escape from reality.
07:24
And her offer provided that, but as the world opened back up, she saw sales declining in her evergreen webinar, and the messaging wasn't landing quite as well. And she was genuinely concerned that her business which had already reached seven figures in the last 12 months was a fluke, and that maybe she just needed to scrap the whole thing and start over. But I knew from looking at the engagement and the front-end metrics, that there was a genuine interest in what she had to say. And if the sales process wasn't working like it was before, what is it that people want now? Well, with this particular offer, which happened to be in the calligraphy space, I had proposed that many people are looking for an adjustment to their career trajectory. Many people did not go back to their full-time jobs, they're looking for something that they can make a little bit of extra income with. But they're still not ready to get back and climbing the corporate ladder.
08:19
There is a recent statistic that I saw on my apple newsfeed that said that 70% of women in the workforce that remained after the great resignation, are actually thinking about leaving. So, with that data, and with looking at the initial trends in her traffic, we bundled together what became a business opportunity type of program. She happened to be sitting on some business training courses. So, I said, Why don't you just bundle them together with your creative offering, and then reposition it as a start your side hustle and calligraphy type of offer. She was skeptical. But I knew from my experience that just kind of changing the approach or the just tweaking the front-end message instead of scrapping the whole program and starting over was very much worth a try. She was blown away by the result, because by packaging both a side hustle business opportunity type of program. With her existing training, she was able to raise her prices and had a record launch with just about the same amount of effort that she had with previous launches, just by tweaking her assets a little bit just by adding a few elements to the sales page and repositioning the registration page. And that's why looking at progress reviews are like levers in your business. It can really keep you from redoing good work or throwing away an entire business concept and only spending time in what isn't working.
09:58
So, if you're wondering whether or not you are looking at a process review correctly? The first place to determine is through ask yourself, Am I having legitimate concerns about the wrong thing? For many of us as the business grows, our responsibility multiplies. We feel so much of
a responsibility for our team for payroll for their well-being, we have people who are supporting their families as a result of the decisions we make. And for a lot of us that can mess with your head. I know it has for me very much in the past and still does from time to time. And all business owners worry in that way. All business owners secretly wonder deep down is my success a fluke. And is it all going to go away tomorrow? Will people copy me, undercharge? Will I lose market share? Am I losing my audience are things converting worse than they were before? And it can really easily, it can be very easy to kind of go down that rabbit hole on the thought process.
11:05
But by looking at what is it that we said we were going to do with our plan, and then reviewing progress along the way, by just tracking the data, we can make sure that we're not having concerns about the wrong thing, which can lead to a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in terms of all the thoughts and feelings that come up that can impact the results that we're looking for. The second is to use data to only fix what isn't working. Like if something is working, no matter how you feel about it. If it's working, don't touch it. And again, I've had so many business owners come to me and say I think my sales page is junk. And you look at it, and it's converting pretty good. Now, not to say that we shouldn't always try to improve a sales page or sales, messaging or any asset. But it's probably not the core problem. Probably solving a core problem where you could make a few tweaks and see huge amounts of difference in terms of lead generation or conversion or follow up is the place to start because that's where you're going to see the biggest difference the fastest.
12:10
And the third is to only move on once your goals are met. By having a plan and reviewing progress, we can then readjust and say okay, do we have a month left of this work? Do we have three weeks left of this work but tossing aside the work when it's not yet complete. While tempting, tends to be less tempting when we're reviewing progress and getting that positive feedback. And then as a result, reinvesting our time and resources into getting that asset, right. So that is the fourth step in my leap process. The first step being how to limit your focus by getting back to your why and knowing what it is that you want to accomplish. The second is establishing that plan, finding that one thing, and applying all sorts of tools and frameworks that are proven in the market in order to create assets or improve the assets that you have, in order to generate more revenue with the effort that's already in your business. The third is creating those assets, what I talked about in the last podcast, where you can customize solutions for your business utilizing a lot of tools that are proven in order to get those results. And when you build out those repeatable assets. It's much like an investment.
13:28
It's much like investing in stocks in your company that will pay you dividends for years to come. And then finally, reviewing the progress, what worked what didn't and only making changes based on data. You want to continue to optimize what is working and make adjustments to what isn't working and start again with a new focus only once the goal is met. If you've been listening long, and you've been wondering to yourself, gosh, this is something I really need in my business, you're welcome to check out my website, which is joy brand creative.com. and schedule a consult for those of you who are over a million in revenue. But if you've also been listening along and you're thinking to yourself, gosh, I'd love to use this system. In my business when consulting to clients. I have a new program called Fractional Freedom. And you can go to get fractionalfreedom.com and learn more about how to get on the waitlist. For when I run this training cohort which typically only do a few times a year. It's really fun, but this is where I trained consultants in my methodology. Either way, I just want to thank you so much for listening along and I'll see you next time on The Next Level Leap podcast.
14:39
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.