Want to add $10,000 to your revenue? $100,000? Or, maybe even a MILLION?

Good! You should!

Often in business, we’re wary of talking about our big revenue goals.

We. Shouldn’t. Be.

Money is the oxygen of any business, and your revenue is a reflection of your progress.

In today’s podcast episode, I’m sharing how I intend to scale my business to a million dollars.. 

And how you can too.

That’s why in this podcast episode, we are covering *Exactly* How I Plan to Do It.

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Here’s what we cover:

• The importance of systems, processes and hiring (even when you’re scared to or you think it’s going to take too much time!)
• How investing $40,000 to be around the right people makes you think bigger. 
• The importance of a scalable business model.
• How niching is the secret weapon for those looking to supercharge their success. 
• Why focusing on one thing will change the trajectory of your business.

Transcript

Want to scale your business to a million dollars? Sure, right? Well, this is exactly how I plan to do it.

Hello, Hi, welcome to Stevie Says Social podcast. I’m so happy you’re here hopefully you’re liking having me in your ears week in and week out. It’s so nice to be back after the break that I had from podcasting a little while ago.

What we’re talking about today is something that can be triggering for some people. Whenever you talk about money, people have really strong feelings about it. It’s like dropping Donald Trump into a conversation.

Sometimes it’s a little bit like dropping a bomb. But I think that when we talk about business and we talk about marketing, and we talk about social media and podcasting, and all of that sort of thing, ultimately they are means to an end they are means to market our business. We’re marketing our business because we want to make money in our business. 

Sometimes, I think that it’s a little bit silly that we don’t have conversations around things like revenue and profit and all of that good stuff. What I want to talk about in today’s episode is how I plan to scale my business.

I have really changed my mindset in the last little while around what I used to call my little business and I think a lot of people that start out especially females, we really have a funny mindset around business.

We really kind of go into it thinking, I’m just gonna start my little business, you might even say that to people I have just got this little business and we never really kind of set big lofty goals for ourselves. 

I definitely used to be in that boat. But I’ve really changed my thinking just in the last little while in particular, and I’ll go through some of the reasons why that is. But I really feel that there’s something on my heart at the moment that is really calling me to go bigger in my business and so obviously that is tied to revenue goals

The growth of your business is really tied to the growth of your revenue and your profit which PS is the most important thing, but they go hand in hand. 

Even though the title of this podcast episode is do you want to scale to a million dollars, this is exactly how I’m going to do it. What I really want to stress before I go into exactly how I’m going to do it you will learn some gold here –  is that this is really just a reflection of my greater mission at the moment.

I really started out my business as a social media person. I wanted to help people manage social media, and selfishly, I also wanted the freedom to do what I want when I want, which is really why I’ve gone down the digital product route.

Really what has happened over the evolution of the last two years or so, is that I’ve become a lot clearer on having a higher purpose over and above just me. So over and above just creating courses and just helping people out with digital marketing, and just wanting what I want, which is the freedom to live my life on my own terms.

I’ve become crystal clear on the fact that I really have a higher purpose to help people really pull more time, money and happiness from their own lives and businesses through the same model that has worked for me, which is building a standout killer personal brand using Instagram and podcasting, and monetizing with a signature online course.

Now that I’m Crystal clear on that, I’m really in a position where I can start to go all in and that is exactly what I am doing. Let me go through a few different things that I am doing to really kind of push forward with my niche mission in the next little while, and as an associated thing, grow my revenue because the more revenue I have, the more people that I can impact.

And at the end of the day, if you’re just chasing money, I can tell you flat out that you are not going to stay in business for too long, unless you’re just a money-hungry person because you need to have a higher purpose. You need to be doing things for a reason.

I always think that if a million dollars fell into your lap tomorrow, would you want to quit what you were doing every day? If you do, and if you are in that position, maybe you’re not doing the right thing. I could hand on heart say that I could win the lottery tomorrow, I could have $10,000,000 fall into my lap and I would probably still do exactly what I’m doing now. That comes back to having a mission.

I’m going a little bit off on a tangent, but I think it’s important to start with that. With that in mind, what I’ve really decided to do is I’ve really set myself some lofty goals around the growth of the business which really is tied to revenue. And here’s what I’m doing to hit those goals. 

This is going to be relevant for you whether you want to add $10,000 in revenue to your business $100,000, maybe like me, and it’s a million or multiple millions in terms of what you feel a call to do, these are going to be relevant to everybody.

The very first thing that I’m focusing on is getting out of the freelancer employee mentality that I have had the entire way through my business to date. I’ve really had this mentality around, I’m just gonna do it myself. It’s easier if I do it myself. It’s going to take too long to train somebody, even if I did bring somebody on to help me that would probably just leave anyway. It’s too expensive to have people help me.

I know for a fact that that has really, really held me back until now. So one thing that I did is about six months ago, I really identified this and I thought – you know what I need to document everything that I do in my business.

Everything from how I write a Facebook post to how I set up a funnel for one of my courses, to how I deal with my customer service inbox, to how I email people, everything in my business, I need to document this. 

I decided to hire somebody to do this for me. I have had a full-time VA for the last six months or so, whose primary role has been to basically view the videos that I make of me doing things so I have a video demonstration of absolutely me doing everything in my business, and she cleans up behind me so she will listen to that video, she will step out every single step in that process.

What that has meant is I have gotten to a point now in my business that so many things are documented. Now this is an ever-growing ever-ongoing thing and I’m never probably going to feel like it’s finished but what that has done for me is it has gotten me to a point in my business where I can now hire because I have the systems and processes to pass on to people so that they can do the work that I was previously doing. 

What I did about two weeks ago is I created a roles chart for myself and I went through and identified every single task that I do within my business and who really should be filling that role. From there, I identified that there are a few people that really should be on the team we’ve made so that I’m not doing that sort of thing myself anymore.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram or social media, put out job applications just recently for a full-time marketing person to join me – a marketing and project manager, style person, a graphic designer to help me out with all of my design requirements on a recurring retainer basis, and a podcast and video editor. 

They have three roles that I really just really clearly could see that I was dropping the ball on and that I could have somebody come into the business and do that for me. And even better, I have the systems and processes for them to do that.

In order to do that, I really needed to know my numbers. That is something that I highly recommend if you want to scale past pretty much any figure in your business, you really do need to have a handle on what your revenue is, what your profit is, how you can forecast out 6, 12 months into the future.

I use a tool called float for this, which isn’t cheap, but in the long run, what it allows me to do is really kind of forecast. If I bring somebody on, how is that going to change the forecast in terms of my revenue for my business in six months or 12 months so that I don’t run out of money with these decisions that I’m making?

That’s really required me to put my big girl pants on and it’s something that is absolutely necessary if I’m going to get to the next stage in my business, which I’m really passionate about doing at the moment. So the time is right for me.

The second thing that I think is really going to help me to scale to where I want to be in my business and impact all of the people that I want to is the investments that I have recently made in myself.

I’m just going to throw a figure out at you because a couple of years ago, this figure would have scared the living daylights out of me in terms of spending money to invest in yourself.

Over the last three months alone, I have spent $40,000 in my business, investing in things like certain programs and masterminds and basically, programs that allow me to think bigger to implement the things that I want to, and that allow me to be around the right people.

My big goal at the moment is to be around people who are doing much bigger things than me. I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. I don’t want to be the person that is giving people advice. I want to seem or really feel that the people around me are pushing me that they’re doing much, much, much bigger things than me. And really that investment that I’ve made in my business in terms of my mindset, and where I am at the moment has already paid back dividends.

I really think it’s important along these lines to also know what your weaknesses are and to invest in learning around those specific things. There were really two things that I identified in terms of a program that I’m shortly going to be launching and also around really thinking like a CEO in your business. Those two programs are the two that I invested in.

The difference that has made in terms of really kick-starting me into action is can I just say

hand on heart completely changed everything for me. I thought I was doing pretty well in my business. And I joined, for example, the mastermind that I joined. 

There was a conversation, for example, last week around how everybody is doing. One of the people in that mastermind kind of mentioned that they were doing multiple millions in just one quarter. I was floored and inspired and really driven to do bigger things. And I think that being around people that are passionate and driven and have expertise and know-how that you don’t have, make all of the difference.

When it comes down to it, you never too good for things like an online course. They’re not just for beginners. I invest in those things all the time. I practice what I preach. I absolutely. Make sure that my learning and development is the number one priority because if I’m not learning and developing, what I have found is that my business stagnates.

My business grows at the rate that I am learning and developing. So if you’re not obsessive about learning everything you can and actually spending the money to learn from the people who have done it before, then I really think that you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

For example, if you want to start a podcast buy a podcast course. If you want to create a digital program, invest in somebody that has done it before, it will shorten the process for you.

Hey, I hope you’re enjoying the episode now I’m interrupting my origin podcast episode to let you know that my Launch Your Wildly Successful Podcast masterclass is here. This is a free training where I share the exact step by step method that has helped hundreds of my students launch their podcast, many hitting the charts on day one, even with zero experience.

This is the exact same process that I use to launch at the top of the charts to get to 300,000 downloads on my podcast and growing every day and hundreds of five-star reviews. The best bit is that I’m giving it all away for free.

So if you’ve ever wondered, should I start a podcast? Where do I start and how can I launch it into a wildly successful podcast? You are the perfect person to come and join me in this masterclass, head to thecoursecartel.com/podcastmasterclass to get instant access. Alright, let’s get back to it.

Now the third thing that I’m doing and have done to really scale to where I want to be is having a scalable business model. I knew right at the beginning of my business that I never wanted to be an agency I had worked in advertising agencies before, if that is you, or if you know somebody in an agency or you know somebody that owns an agency, or that is you all power to you, but it was never right for me. I knew that at the outset.

When you’re a single person in your business and you get to capacity, you generally either go down the agency route, or you have the option to take the route that I have, which I always knew that I wanted to do something along those lines, which was digital courses and products. 

I’m so passionate about this business model because it allows you to impact people at scale. It allows you to stop swapping your time for money. And it allows you to really scale with profit margins. And with the ability to leverage the power of the internet in a way that never before in the history of time ever have humans been able to do.

I am obviously passionate about it because I know what it has done for my life in my business. But I knew that at the outset, I think it’s really important. The takeaway here is to make sure that what you’re doing is scalable. If you are a freelancer like I previously was you cap out you’re at capacity really, really quickly.

I’m not saying that the next step for you is to go and create an online course because trust me, it is not right for everybody and there is a huge learning curve despite what all of the people on the internet say, that you’re going to be a rich person tomorrow. It doesn’t happen like that the blood sweat and tears that I’ve put into my business so far, and I am just starting out – is next level. 

I don’t think that a lot of people are willing to put that time, effort, work, blood, sweat and tears into. If that’s you, if you know that that’s not you, and you don’t have those lofty aspirations, that is totally fine as well.

I do think that it’s important to put some thought into what, whether what you’re doing is scalable. Are you going to cap out? Are you swapping time for money? And is there a way that you can leverage that.

The other thing that I’m really doing in terms of scaling to get where I want to be is niching. I really talked about this a lot in all of my programs, so my social media program and my podcasting program, and my upcoming program around creating and launching your signature course, but really, I can’t stress enough it really makes the difference between somebody especially where we’re at in the world at the moment with things like the saturation of Instagram, 700,000 podcasts in Apple podcasts, the fact that everyone’s creating an online course.

If you go in broad, you are not going to get the results that you want. I see this play out a lot with the new students that come into my podcasting course. A lot of them will say, I want to start a lifestyle podcast, or I really want to help people live their best life.  That always rings huge alarm bells for me, because when you say that sort of thing, I don’t know exactly what you mean. And so neither will the person that you want to attract.

I think people are sometimes scared of niching down because they feel like it’s going to be it’s a little bit of a scarcity mindset. They kind of think oh, if I go down too small, then I’m not going to attract enough people but the opposite is true.

What happens is it really establishes you as a go-to person in your space. 

I made the mistake that everybody makes when it comes to this right. I started out as a generalist social media marketing person, at least I did have the foresight to kind of go straight into social media and people do know me for social media. And I think that that is, that is a good thing.

I’m really kind of getting very very niched into the people that I’m talking to now. So really, if you haven’t already seen, I’m really kind of talking to service providers, to coaches to freelancers, and anyone that wants to share or that is sharing their expertise online.

They are the people that I know that I can help the best with what it is that I’m doing. Can I help people like e-commerce businesses? Yes, 100%. And so many e-commerce businesses, for example, have been through my Hashtags Aren’t The Answer course and seen really amazing results.

But I really need to take my own medicine here and I really need to go. No, that is not niche enough. If I want to scale past the audience that I have at the moment and I want to do that in a profitable, sustainable way I really need to niche down further.

That is why I’m really going all-in on that particular target market and helping them do what I have done and built out standout possible standout personal brands using Instagram and podcasting and to monetize with a signature online course that is going to speak to the right person that is my jam, I know that I can get really, really killer results for people with that. And so I’m going all-in on that.

That brings me to my final point and I’m actually going to do a separate podcast episode around this because I’m so so so passionate about it. What I find and definitely I have been guilty of these guys and I see everybody just about every business owner that isn’t quite at the level of success that they want to be at. I have seen them do this is trying to do a little bit of everything.

This played out for me when I created my signature social media course. Then I decided off the back of that, that I would start creating new courses. I was going to create blueprints every six weeks, and I was going to launch them and create them in a six week period of time, and it was going to be amazing.

I didn’t realize how much work was involved in that. And also, what I realized is that I was spending so much time grinding it out that I didn’t have the time to optimize and get anything set up properly and working the right way.

The other way that this has really played out for me is trying to be everywhere when it comes to marketing. I think that this is a curse of listening to podcasts. And yes, I do understand the irony of being a podcaster here, but people come on to podcasts, and they’ll talk about how amazing this new platform is.

I used to do this I used to get excited by, you know, LinkedIn and YouTube and all of the things and if you do that, and you don’t just put your tunnel vision laser focus into one thing and get that right first, you are going to struggle.

I’m going to do a completely separate podcast episode around this and really deep dive into it, but it’s really my focus moving forward, you need to focus on one thing, one product, one core offer.

You then need to have one funnel running to that one core offer, you need to have one long term traffic source, one short term traffic source. If you’re kind of like Stevie, what are you talking about? Keep an eye out or an ear out over the next couple of weeks because I’ll cover this in more detail.

Really focusing on one thing and getting that right can build you to your next hundred thousand to your next 2 million to multiple millions simply by following that one thing. Don’t think that you’ve had success with one service, let’s create eight others or you’ve created one course let’s create another seven courses.

Focus on one thing, focus on one platform, focus on one content marketing source, and go all in. I will deep dive into exactly how that has absolutely transformed my business. As I said in another podcast episode.

That is what I am doing to scale to a million dollars. And I think that there’s a lot of takeaways here regardless of what your goals in business are. Whether you’re looking to add 10,000 in revenue, 100,000 in revenue, whatever it is for you.

If this episode speaks to you, I want you to speak to me send me a DM on Instagram I mean it I actually do it. I want to have a conversation with you around this. Let me know what your biggest takeaway was.

Also, you will be on the list when I do announce my program around this, which is very, very exciting. I hope you like this episode. This is the sort of thing that I wish that I had known in the early days of business. And if you actually implement the things in this episode, it will be the hugest game changer for you.

Have a nice day. Have a nice night, whatever you’re doing, and I’ll see you next week.

Keep Listening!

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify