Simply Smarter Numbers: Recent Episodes
Jen Waterson Business Profit Coach
Simply Smarter Numbers is about one thing and one thing only. Results. Specifically, getting results for you in your business. Each week discover what you need to stop doing, start doing and keep doing to fast-track your business revenue, sales, cash and profit goals.
Simply Smarter Numbers is here to unapologetically force you to rethink and reset your daily business practices, habits and activities. Why? Because bigger, better business results start with making great business decisions and implementing them daily.
Join business profit coach, results focused business consultant and qualified accountant, Jen Waterson each week as she helps you scale and grow your business from the inside out. With Jen and her hand-picked business experts and guests you’ll get step by steps, actionable advice, pragmatic solutions and tactical plans that will drive your business forward. Get the profitable results you’ve been looking for and working for minus the overwhelm, minus the what-ifs, minus the crazy hours.
If you’re an ambitious business owner, ready to think big, re-write your own rules and take action to skyrocket your business know-how, your profit, your cashflow, your sales and your free-time, then this is the podcast for you.
For more on reaching your business profit, business growth, business sales, revenue and cashflow goals check Jen out at link text
It’s time to switch off from your busy schedule and listen in to this conversation with Julia Ewert.
Julia Ewert is a sales strategist. The thing that I love about Julia is her blunt approach to sales – let’s face it, if we aren’t in it to make sales, well we aren’t in it at all!
Julia talks about real and purposeful selling, selling to better prospective clients, converting them and importantly, selling with margin.
Cosmetic chemist Terri Vinson is joining me on the podcast to share how she took her skincare business global. We are talking about team building, delegating and how important these two things are when it comes to creating the business you want, that will support the lifestyle you want to live.
Terri Vinson is also telling us all about her stay at Necker Island with some amazing Business Chicks business women and of course we talk about her meeting with Sir Richard Branson.
Leah Crisell is stepping us through what we need to do to elevate our personal brands. Leah is an amazing brand strategist who can find your inner gold, brand your brilliance and build you a standout personal brand. Today Leah Crisell is giving us all a headstart and stepping us through her 5 stage framework to elevate your personal brand.
We all know someone who has gone through a divorce, maybe we’ve done it ourselves or been there for our friends. The one constant, no matter how amicable or otherwise is that it is tough.
Homes, investments, assets, debt, kids, pets it all comes under the spotlight. But throwing a successful business into the mix can make a tough time even tougher.
Whether it’s on the cards for you or a friend that you care about there are things we can do to make a tough time less tough, so I’m talking with Pepe Kish from Balance Family Law.
The reason I wanted to talk to Pepe about this? Her overwhelming drive and goal is to normalise a kind and collaborative approach to dispute resolution, who doesn’t want to see more of that in the world!
If you are an overthinker, a procrastinator, a perfectionist you’ll love hearing from today's podcast guest Jo Bendle. Jo Bendle is telling us why all the productivity tools in the world won’t help if you haven’t got a few other things worked out first. So if you are the world’s best planner but not so great at taking action or you are great at scheduling, but not so great at sticking to it then you definitely need to hear what Jo Bendle has to say.
Jo has founded the Meant For More Movement, she is going places and she’s going to help you go places too.
If you are sick of turning up for a to-do list Jo has some great advice on how to flip it around so you are turning up with intention - not the to-do list.
Stacey Cranitch is helping us organise our social media in just one hour a week. But before we get into the how, we talk about the why. Why do we service based businesses need to strategically embrace social media? Well, it helps to reduce the sales cycle. We talk about how a consistent social media presence has changed our sales processes and in fact all but eliminated the need to ’sell’ in a sales call.
Stacey shares with us exactly what she does every month, week and day to ensure she has a consistent presence on social media and I’m excited to organise my own social media in exactly the same way that Stacey does.
Get your pen and paper out for this one you’ll be wanting to take a few notes!
If you’ve ever considered pulling back on the 1:1 client facing work and transitioning to the online space then you’re going to want to stick around for this conversation with the gorgeous Emily Osmond. Emily Osmond made the switch that a lot of us often dream about. She made that switch a couple of years ago from 1:1 client facing work to a membership model and while it wasn’t immediately successful she stuck with it and made it a success.
I’m asking Emily Osmond all of your burning questions. Why did ‘she’ want to change her business? What steps did she take? How do you know when you’re ‘ready’ to go make the switch? What if I just love my 1:1 work? Should we all be experiencing 1:1 before switching over? Is it really as good as it looks from the outside? How hard is it really?
Emily is very open with her journey, the highs and the lows. It was a great chat so stick around.
Imagine setting an annual revenue goal of several hundreds of thousands of dollars at the start of the year - then blowing that goal out of the water in just ONE month. Well it happened and it happened to Steph Taylor. Want to know the one thing that she couldn’t have done without? The one thing that Steph admits that without, she would NOT be where she is today? Well, I’m for one, excited to say that it was numbers!
Tune into the show as we pull apart the exact numbers that Steph obsesses over each and every week. Find out the numbers that gave her the gut (yes, gut) to drop up to $10k per day in facebook ads. There was no gamble. The risk was slight. Why? Because Steph knew her numbers and what they were telling her gave her the gut to make some huge (but smart) business decisions. And those business decisions? Well, as you now know - they blew her revenue goals out of the water!
Steph Taylor is an ex corporate square peg, launch strategist and host of the Socialette podcast, which has had over 500,000 downloads to date.
Through her free masterclasses, paid programs and consulting, she has helped over 65,000 entrepreneurs launch digital products and podcasts to reach more people, grow their audience and become the go-to in their industry. Steph does what she does so that fellow entrepreneurs can achieve more impact, create more profit and have more freedom.
Morgan Spencer is walking us through exactly how to master our own PR impact, gain credibility and become the go-to expert in your industry.
PR mentor, Morgan Spencer, has 10 steps that she takes her clients through and today she is generously sharing those 10 steps with us. Morgan is showing us how to shake things up in your industry through disruptive impactful and powerful media coverage.
Today we are talking about how to charge your worth. In particular, we are honing in on how to adjust the pricing conversation you’re having with your clients. Running with the theory that price follows value, then surely we can’t be pricing anything until we truly understand the value that we are providing to our clients.
I’m giving you some examples of conversations that you may need to have with your potential clients before you set your pricing. We talk through three different examples and each example is there to help you think a little deeper about what it is that you are really helping your clients with. It’s pretty tough to sell the value of your services if you aren’t crystal clear on that value yourself!
If you’re questioning whether you’ve outgrown your offer or maybe business is feeling hard, heavy and not lighting you up anymore, maybe you need a little Ruby Lee in your life!
Ruby Lee and I are talking money flow. We are talking about our desire for consistency. Consistent income, energy and finding the courage to make the changes that you need to make.
Listen in for a little shot of Ruby Lee energy.
Whether we like it or not we have to meet with our accountant each and every year, so, why not make the most of the money you’re paying them and proactively ask them some questions that will really help you make some smart business decisions.
I have five things that you can ask your accountant now. It’s worth your while to take out a notepad and pen and write these things down so you’re prepared for the next time you meet with your accountant.
Accountants aren’t always the best at communicating and it can be intimidating sitting across from your accountant, but with a few smart questions in hand you’ll be able to pick their brain and walk away knowing more about your business than you ever did before!
In a chance meeting, online, in a large and busy facebook group about 18 months ago I met today’s guest Simran Singh.
Simran is an ex-lawyer turned marketing expert. She’s intelligent, articulate and she knows her marketing stuff. Simran & I are walking through her 7 steps to growing a big business when you’ve only got a small following.
So, no, size isn’t everything and today Simran spells out exactly what we should be doing and she’s spelling it out for us in detail.
Let’s talk about the gap between what you pay yourself now and what you want to pay yourself.
How much are you paying yourself? How much do you want to pay yourself? How much should you be paying yourself? If there’s a gap between what you are paying yourself and what you want to pay yourself then listen in because I’m talking about why that gap might exist in the first place then I’m talking through what you might do to close that gap.
Is it ever ok to DIY your branding and design? And how to do it yourself without butchering it? Today I’m talking to branding & design expert Zoe Scott from The Design Order. We’re talking about why branding is more than just a nice-to-have. We are talking about why it’s essential but we’re keeping it real and practical.
If you’re not ready to outsource your branding and design yet and DIY’ing is your only real option right now Zoe Scott has some affordable stepping stones for you.
And be sure to hang around to grab a hold of Zoe's very generous gift to you all. A discount code for everything in her beautiful new online store!
I want to talk to you about experts. Not all experts are created equally. I want to premise this by saying not all experts are bad! But not all experts are great and not all experts are even experts!
Who are these experts? They are the people we give our time and our money too to solve specific issues that we are not equipped to solve on our own. These are the people we take advice from to grow, scale and change-up our businesses.
The website expert, the branding expert, the copywriting expert, the mindset expert, the legal, accounting, coach, consultant, marketing, social media or technology and so many more different types of experts that we can place our trust in.
But first, why am I talking about this today? Because it’s incredibly important that we surround ourselves and take advice from the right people. The reason being that the wrong people can kinda lead us up the garden path. Slow us down, cost us money and waste our time. Now, you already know this. But I’m going to be brutally honest here and say that I’ve seen so many people become overnight experts in so many things that it’s starting to make my head spin and I think its a cause for - not concern but it gives us cause for caution.
If you think you’re not a numbers person, think again! Today I was lucky enough to chat with fellow numbers expert Julie Alig from Manchester in the United States about the real business numbers, the simple business numbers that you need to know in your business.
Now before you cringe and jump ship at the thought of two numbers experts talking numbers, I can assure you we are keeping it real and keeping it practical.
We are talking about real business numbers such as client retention, conversion rates and the illusive lifetime customer value.
Today's podcast is going to be short and sharp but sweet. Short and sharp because I want to keep the point super clear and sweet because when you nail this sweet spot in your business life begins to get a whole lot easier.
I want to talk to you about your perfect profitable client. Who they are, what they look like and how you’ll know.
But before we get into the details, why do you need to know what your perfect profitable client looks like?
Because they are the one who will help you build the most elegant version of your business. And if you need a reminder as to what I refer to when I talk about the most elegant version of your business - it’s a business that’s lifestyle friendly. It’s profitable enough to financially support your lifestyle goals but it’s also structured in a way to support your freedom goals.
Knowing and finding your perfect client is one step to building yourself this elegant business.
Right now we are nearly 3 full months into 2021 and I have a question for you. Are you running your business on your terms?
I want to talk to you about the business hangover.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re knee deep in mud but you’ve gotta try and stride it out cos your clients are depending on you, cos your team is depending on you, cos your family is depending on you and all you really want to do is take a big long nap, preferably on a warm sandy beach somewhere? If so, you’ll have some idea of what I'm referring to when I talk about the business hangover.
Sometimes it can be hard to find the energy to do the things we know we should to change and shift our businesses for the better.
The year of 2020 caused us all a level of uncertainty and showed us all what it feels like to have a distinct lack of control.
A lot of us are putting off making the big (or small) decisions that we need to make to move our businesses forward. And when we are indecisive, we get stuck. Maybe you can call it a rut. I call it a business hangover.
As for why you need to get out of the mud, over the rut and cure the hangover?
There's this thing called a cost. Sure, there's a cost to do a lot of stuff but there’s also a cost of not doing something.
We are talking about what that cost might be and how to go about moving yourself out of the mud, the rut, the hangover.
Which area of your business should you be putting your energy towards first?
Which comes first when building a profitable, elegant, lifestyle friendly business? Which should come first? Efficiency or Effectiveness?
There’s a lot of talk in business about being efficient. I talk about it a lot with my clients. And it won’t be news to you that efficiencies in business are key to reclaiming your time and making more money with less effort.
But if you're adding efficiencies to areas of your business that are not effective - aren’t you wasting your time, your money and your headspace?
So the question is - which part of your business should you prioritise your efforts for efficiency?
Today I’m talking with fellow business coach Clare Wood. Clare has recently developed a love for, and a deeper understanding of all things money mindset transformation. She has spent a lot of time learning about the topic of money mindset recently so we are chatting about what it means to have a great money mindset and what it can do for you and your business.
We talk about having healthy money conversations with your spouse as well as your accountant and how your mindset can impact your pricing with discounting and undercharging.
I recently read a quote from money mentor and expert Marla Diann - ‘How you do money is how you do everything!’ I love those words, they are so true in business and in life. So let’s get Clare’s perspective on the money transformation that can happen when you elevate your money mindset.
Why do you need to know the numbers in your business?
Is it so you can make smarter business decisions?
Is it so you can reach your financial goals faster?
Is it so you can find out exactly what’s making you money?
Once you pinpoint this, everything changes. It gives us clarity, direction and an unquestionable path to follow.
When you know what is making you money in your business, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when you absolutely, categorically and undeniably know what will make you the money you want and you know precisely what you need to do to make it happen, you open up a very enticing door.
If you feel as though you need to control your business, you aren’t alone! I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to control the seemingly uncontrollable in business now that we have just entered our third lockdown.
It can be tough to control your business when it seems like everything is working against you but I’m giving you my top four tips on controlling the uncontrollable in your business. We discuss big picture plans, building yourself a strong financial position, guilt-free rescheduling and avoiding over-committing your calendar.
So if you could do with a little more control is something you need, then tune in!
Today we are talking to Jules Brooke, founder of Handle Your Own PR and She’s the Boss and we’re talking about getting published, be it in magazines, newspapers or even getting yourself and your business on TV. This type of marketing is invaluable, it can give you instant credibility and instant notoriety.
Jules Brooke runs a business that shows you how to handle your own PR. Gone are the days where you needed a big and expensive PR agency to handle your PR. PR marketing or public relations marketing is something that you can make happen and the best thing is it doesn’t cost you a fortune, it doesn’t have to cost you anything at all - PR is free!
We talk about the benefits of getting published and who it works best for.
Jules also debunks some of the myths that surround PR. Hint, journalists are approachable and they actually want to hear from you.
Jules also gives you some great tips to get started on your own PR for your business.
It’s time to talk planning, your business plan or as I like to call it your Big Picture Plan. Your business plan needs to be looked at alongside your big picture life plans. Right now, at the start of 2021 my head is firmly planted in my big picture.
I know what my big picture looks like, I know my current net worth and the net worth we need to be, by when, to reach that big picture. The wheels are in motion for my big picture plans today but the outside world won’t really see the fruits of that big picture plan for about 3 years then 5 years from now our big picture will be in full swing.
So where are you with your big picture? What does it look like? How does your business plan fit into your overall big picture planning?
Today I’m joined by Jules Dan. He’s a group fitness instructor turned email copywriter and has a passion for stories. Today we are digging in email marketing and in particular email marketing mistakes.
Whether you’re currently using email marketing, thinking about using it or you know that you should be, this is the podcast for you. We are chatting about the email marketing mistakes that we make in our email marketing and importantly, how to avoid them.
In this podcast I’m talking about the 3 key moves that grew my business in 2020. These are all things that you can use to grow your business in 2021. I’m talking about 3 inexpensive but sustainable ways to fast track growth in your business.
The key moves you can make to grow your business are;
Building genuine relationships;
Allowing people to experience your and what you do; and
Developing referral systems with trusted sources.
Today I’m talking to Lucrezia from Blogging for New Bloggers. Lucrezia is an ex-lawyer turned blogger turned businesswoman. If you are interested in blogging or want to make money from blogging then you need to tune in to today's podcast. Having made thousands from blogging herself and with a facebook group of over 30k members Lucrezia is here to help you get started on your blogging journey.
We tackle questions such as;
Why do we need a blog?
What types of businesses should have a blog?
How can we make money from blogging?
What are we really committing to when we start blogging; and
We also touch on the legal issues that surround you as a blogger.
Kate Toon and I are talking about the good, the bad and the unfun of 12 years in business.
Just recently I received a message from one of my listeners saying that I have the most amazing guests on my podcast! Little did she know that I was about to interview the formidable and highly successful Queen of SEO and Copywriting, Kate Toon.
There are many reasons why I was keen to interview Kate Toon but foremost it’s her general approach to business and life that resonated with me and my approach to business and life.
We discuss;
The driving force behind Kates change of business model from 1:1 client facing work to courses and memberships.
Her aversion to the popular tendency to throw around the terms such as ‘reaching 7 or 8 figures’
The challenge of maintaining our motivation for business over the years
How the unfun things in business help to build the really successful businesses
Whether or not we should be setting goals in business and what they may look like
The road ahead. What does that look like for Kate Toon and the businesses she has worked tirelessly at building.
Personal branding is not just for the rich & famous. It’s not just for the Kardashians, it’s for you and it’s for me. Today I’m chatting with Megan MacNeill from Relevant Megan, an expert in personal branding and we are diving deep into why you need to pay more attention to your personal brand and how to make your personal brand more relevant.
In particular we are talking about;
How important is your personal brand & how you can lean into your personal brand
What if you want to change your personal brand?
What is your digital footprint?
How to make the most of LinkedIn in developing your personal brand.
Kateena Mills from Club Sandwich HR is helping us all to build a profitable team. Building a team of people around you to help grow your business is one way to make more money but it’s also one way to lose money and lose sleep!
So Kateena Mills is running us through her 5 essential elements to growing a team that is profitable, loyal, engaged and fun to be around.
We talk through;
- Setting your Vision + Goals and how this should guide all of your big team decisions.
- Knowing your Mission + Values and how you can use this to guide behaviour and inspire your team.
- Defining your Organisational Structure including roles and responsibilities.
- Formulating Position Descriptions & Key Performance Indicators for all of your team and not just the productive ‘money-making’ members of your team.
- Regular 1:1 Chats and how you can use casual but regular time slots for open communication to have those ‘hard to have’ conversations.
If you’ve ever considered pulling back on the 1:1 client-facing work and transitioning to the online space then you’re going to want to stick around for this conversation with the gorgeous Emily Osmond. Emily Osmond made the switch that a lot of us often dream about. She made that switch a couple of years ago from 1:1 client-facing work to a membership model and while it wasn’t immediately successful she stuck with it and made it a success.
I’m asking Emily Osmond all of your burning questions. Why did ‘she’ want to change her business? What steps did she take? How do you know when you’re ‘ready’ to go make the switch? What if I just love my 1:1 work? Should we all be experiencing 1:1 before switching over? Is it really as good as it looks from the outside? How hard is it really?
Emily is very open with her journey, the highs, and the lows. It was a great chat so stick around.
When it comes to protecting yourself, your business and your business bank account business contracts and IP are an unsexy but crucial part of running a business. So we are talking to Riz McDonald from Found Legal about all things contracts and all things IP.
Riz McDonald is giving us her thoughts on what we need to be doing, asking and thinking when it comes to protecting ourselves with contracts and IP. Riz shares some of the real life horror stories that can happen when we don't take care of the legal side of our business.
While contracts and IP are things that we can always ‘put off until tomorrow’ Riz McDonald explains to us that it doesn’t need to be hard, it doesn’t need to be overly expensive but it does give us the protection we deserve.
Ever thought about outsourcing your social media? Want to up the anti on your social media, have an actual strategy, get some real engagement from real clients but you really just don’t have the time? Then you might want to tune into today's podcast.
I’m talking to Chelsea Berman from Blossom Media about outsourcing your social media marketing. Chelsea lets us when we should be thinking about outsourcing our social media. How do we know when we are ready to outsource? What does it cost? What questions should you be asking any potential experts before you enlist them?
I’ve asked all the questions and Chelsea gives us lots of answers to consider regardless of whether you love (or in my case, dread of) doing all things social media.
What do you know about your money mindset? Today I’m talking to money mindset expert Christine Corcoran about just that. It’s not something I’ve ever spent much time looking into but I can assure you there are plenty of money mindset issues out there in the world of business.
We talk about elevating your money mindset so you can earn what you want;
How to identify money blocks and how they show up in your business;
Scarcity vs abundance mindset issues and how they play out in real life;
Why people struggle to charge what they are worth;
It plays out everywhere from taking on clients you know you shouldn’t to burning out and still not having the profit to show for it.
Listen in and have a think about how your money mindset might be holding you back.
Today we’re talking business growth - Wordfetti style. Wordfetti is a company that I’ve watched grow and a company that I’ve worked with. So I’ve seen first hand how Anita Siek has built this company and I can assure you it’s taken more than just a knack with words. Anita Siek has grown her business from nothing to something and today she shares the 3 most important things that she has done to make business growth look easy - at least from the outside.
Today we are talking about mentors - notice I’m saying mentors, plural. Why Anita believes in having more than just one mentor at any one time.
We are also talking about treating ourselves as our own client. It wasn’t until Anita began thinking of Wordfetti as a client, her own client that business growth became a reality.
And finally, the third thing, clearly something that Anita feels passionately about and something that has elevated the business growth of Wordfetti - her North Star.
It’s a great chat, with a great human.
It’s been drummed into me for years that there are two must do’s before you consider growing your business. I’m talking about business growth that is intentional, profitable, sustainable and elegant business.
These two elements are;
Getting better with what you’ve got; and
Creating capacity.
Then, you are ready for business growth.
Today I wanted to explain to you exactly what that means and then give you a couple of simple ways to begin the process in your business.
I’m going to tell you what I mean by ‘Getting better with what you’ve got’ and ‘creating capacity’ before you grow your business. Why you need to know this and how you can start working on it in your business.
Today I’m excited to be talking with Rural Business Coach, Tori Kopke from Big Ideas Rural.
We are talking about growing an online community. Where to start? How to build engagement? We talk through the importance of knowing and researching your target market and my favourite - pursuing goals with serious determination.
Tori is a Texan turned Aussie who has taken her years of business experience and is using it to help grow big businesses in little towns around Australia.
Tori is a rural business coach focussed on sales, strategy and systems. Her big driver is without a doubt her passion for growing rural businesses and communities and helping them grow, connect & network, despite their location.
She does this in a number of ways but it’s her community called Big Ideas Rural that attracted me to her. Whether you are a rural business or not - Tori has plenty to say and it’s definitely worth tuning in to.
Is your business driving you or are you driving your business? To be sure that you are in that drivers seat the number one place to start is with goal setting. If you haven’t set goals you don’t really know which direction you're driving, right? I’ll show you how to make goal setting purposeful, intentional and even interesting. Goal setting done my way will give you the overarching framework you’ll use to drive every other decision in your business and will give you a chance to take control of your business.
The 3 step process for goal setting that I use is different. It’s almost the reverse of what everyone else seems to want you to do. My unique approach to goal setting is designed to set you on the path to building the most elegant version of your business. The most elegant version of your business is lifestyle friendly and profitable. If you want a profitable but lifestyle friendly business then the most obvious place to start is by setting lifestyle goals. I’ll go into detail on how you can do this and give you some step by steps you can do today.
Your lifestyle goals need to be supported by the profit you make in your business. The profit you make is in part driven by the revenue you take. You’ll set lifestyle, then profit followed by revenue goals. The key is to then review them in their entirety to be sure that you're not sacrificing any of your lifestyle for the sake of profit.
Today I’m talking to one half of the Studsor sister act. If you’ve never heard of Tegan and Erin Studsor, chances are it’s because they operate in a rather unsexy industry. They are the founders of Traffic Force, which is as it sounds, is a business in a heavily male dominated industry.
But these sisters clearly have what it takes to match it as they’ve grown their startup into a $10million dollar business with a workforce of over 160 in the past 10 years.
Today I’m talking to Tegan Studsor. A businesswoman and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience across construction, education, hospitality and agriculture industries. She started her first business at the tender age of 22 with her older sister Erin. Fast forward a decade on and both the sisters now own and run multiple businesses together all while living in regional Western Australia and working remotely in a heavily dominated male industry.
We talk about;
- The numbers they critique. What they look at and when.
- The power of a finance team and what theirs looks like.
- Managing the family relationship while managing the businesses.
- Managing meetings, communications & uncomfortable conversations and
- Planning for tomorrow, even if you don’t know what tomorrow might bring.
- And much more.
The one thing that great business owners, successful business owners clearly understand, is that growing profitable businesses requires them to pay attention to the exciting stuff and to the mind-numbing stuff aka your business bookwork.
Business isn’t all fancy websites, exciting branding, engaging sales training, fun networking events or growing social media followings. Some stuff we love doing and some stuff we don't love doing.
Today I’m talking about your business bookwork. I know, you don’t want to hear about bookkeeping, none of us do - myself included! I despise bookwork. I outsource most of my own bookwork because I know it's the one thing that won’t get done if it’s left to me.
Here's what I’m going to cover;
4 Reasons why you need to get your bookwork working for you.
5 things to look for including questions to ask when you’re considering outsourcing your bookwork and
1 thing you need to do with your bookwork after the end of the month.
Imagine increasing your sales by 400% in a 5 month period. As amazing as that sounds, imagine then how it feels when you do it in the middle of a pandemic. Then imagine doing it all while living smack bang in the centre of Australia's harshest of lockdowns - in the city of Melbourne.
That’s exactly what Sarah Willmott from Feel Better Box did. After 4 years of chipping away and growing her business slowly (but surely), Feel Better Box finally grew up - almost overnight.
The sole trader business, the mum working from home, home-schooling her young children, with her family becoming an instant team of packers and wrappers. Sarah's ‘little’ business became a shoulder for so many Australians to lean on in their time of need.
We talk about what worked, what didn’t work. What she needs to do to keep the momentum going into 2021.
This week I’m talking about how to reduce your reliance on time for money by building some leverage into your business. Time for money is commonplace among service businesses. The problem with selling time for money is of course that the heavy reliance on the business owner to make money creates unnecessary stress and pressure. Time for money also puts a cap on our growth, whether we like it or not.
I’m talking about introducing leverage into your business and the part that it plays in building the most elegant version of your business. An ‘elegant version’ as opposed to a ‘busy version’.
In particular, I’m talking you through my SOS Leverage Ladder. This 3 step process will to get you set to ditch the time for money business model. We talk through 1 - Streamlining your systems and why this is the absolute first and only place to start. 2 - Outsourcing and looking at whether outsourcing will help or hinder your leveraged growth and 3 - Structures. How you can best structure your services to create leverage in your business.
I then take a deep dive into my personal favourite way to structure services to build leverage - the Hybrid 1 to many program.
Stacey Cranitch is helping us organise our social media in just one hour a week. But before we get into the how, we talk about the why. Why do we service based businesses need to strategically embrace social media? Well, it helps to reduce the sales cycle. We talk about how a consistent social media presence has changed our sales processes and in fact all but eliminated the need to ’sell’ in a sales call.
Stacey shares with us exactly what she does every month, week and day to ensure she has a consistent presence on social media and I’m excited to organise my own social media in exactly the same way that Stacey does.
Get your pen and paper out for this one you’ll be wanting to take a few notes!
Today I'm talking about building a profitable, sustainable and elegant business. It’s one thing to build yourself a profitable business, but it’s a whole different ball game building a profitable, sustainable, elegant business. Elegance is the secret sauce. It’s the thing that we add to our businesses once we’ve established ourselves in the marketplace. It’s the key that gives us back our lifestyle.
In today's podcast I talk about how to know if you’re ready to build some elegance into your business and regain your lifestyle. I also talk about how to start the process of turning a profitable business into an elegant business.
In this episode I’m talking about financial freedom. In particular how we can use our business to accelerate our financial freedom.
But first we consider what financial freedom means to us. For me it’s about having the freedom of choice. To choose what we want to do in our lives and our lifestyle without financial constraints.
I’m talking about having the financial freedom to choose to do the things that matter to you and your family. Whatever financial freedom looks like for you there are 7 key elements that you really need to have sorted in your business if you’re ever going to get there.
Those 7 key elements include building an elegant business, having a profit-focused strategy, knowing your numbers, having the right systems and processes, having strong financial foundations, controlling your cashflow and finally, accelerating your financial freedom with external accountability.
Today on the Simply Smarter Numbers podcast I’m talking to Business Coach Rachel Lubchansky from REL Impact about the things she did to grow not one but two successful businesses. Rachel is a business coach from Denver Colorado and over a period of time she built a great community of business owners around her. We talk about the 3 key things Rachel has done to grow her community and her business.
We get practical and real about
i. creating a brand and a community;
ii. investing both dollars and time into your own growth; and
iii. The role that process and systems play
Today I’m talking cash. We all want it, you know you need it but so many of us are not really controlling it.
Businesses that succeed understand that without visibility into their cashflow they risk steering their business off track. I’ve worked with countless business owners over the years and I constantly see people ignoring their cashflow until it's almost too late.
Here’s a big heads up for you - You can be a highly profitable, multi million dollar business and still have cashflow issues that can take you down. In another podcast I’ll explain exactly how that can be but for now just trust on that - it’s a thing. Making a profit doesn’t always mean you have cash.
Today I want to give you a heads up to what might be quietly causing you cashflow issues in the background of your business.
There are six common mistakes that can silently cripple cashflow and can kill a business. Here’s all 6 of my top tips to avoid a cashflow crisis. The I’ll dive a little deeper into each one for you.
Measure your Gross Profit
Keep control of your finances
Chase the people who owe you money
Control your outgoings
Avoid the debt trap
Forecast your cashflow
She built an audience from zero to 10,000 in just 8 months. They were engaged, primed to buy and that’s exactly what they did - they bought. That was about 18 months ago so today the numbers and her business are even bigger.
She started from zero. We all start from zero. So, what is the key to building an audience of your own from ground zero? Well, that’s what we are talking with Stevie Dillon about today.
We’re going deep into the marketing strategy she used to build her business from the ground up. We break that marketing strategy down and consider how it works specifically to grow your service based business.
We’re talking about content marketing and we’re answering these questions. What is it? What does it look like? How can you apply it to your business without having it take up too much time? Is it time for you to consider content marketing in your business?
The key take-away? Content marketing is not just for new businesses. It can work for those of you that have been around for a while. If you’ve had enough of trading time for money, you need to consider this.
Why? You’ll be paving your own way, opening up the potential to something bigger in your business - even if you don’t know what that ‘something bigger’ is yet.
Stevie’s mission is to help more women leverage the Internet and the opportunities presented by online entrepreneurship to build profitable, sustainable online businesses.
Her special sauce? Providing the tools and resources to build stand out personal brands using social media and podcasting, and to monetise with a signature online course.
Stevie is also the host of the Stevie Says Social Podcast, which debuted at no. 2 on Apple Podcasts. It is a regular in the top 10 Business Charts and has been downloaded 300,000 times.
Stevie has been featured in the likes of Social Media Examiner, Business Chicks, League of Extraordinary Women, SmartCompany and on Channel 7, where she has written and spoken extensively on all things social media. She was recently named one of the top 150 most influential female founders in Australia by Scrunch.
Working harder, longer hours? Doing more, selling more, dealing with more? You expected to have to work more as you grow your business, but it can get a bit ridiculous and sometimes we’re not sure whether the end is anywhere in sight?
And then there’s the money - where is the money!? Cashflow is getting hard.
Today I’ll be talking about 4 things that could be going wrong in your business to cause problems with your cashflow and have you working too many hours.
We’ll be covering;
Your pricing. 2 problems with offering services below your pay grade and I’ll give you a few tips on what to consider when you’re thinking about adjusting your pricing.
Your spending. Or more specifically, a lack of control or visibility into your cashflow.
You. We talk about 3 really good reasons why it might be time to systemise, delegate or outsource.
Your team members. We talk about what can go wrong, but I’ll give you a couple of tips to make sure you make the money you need out of your team.
Have you ever flirted with the idea of running a workshop, an event, a mastermind or speaking to someone else’s crowd?
Or have you ever said no to an event that you really know you should be attending because you’re too busy? Or worse, because your inner introvert just doesn't want to go alone?
Well, you’ll want to listen to my next guest as we talk about how and why you should be thinking seriously about getting in front of a crowd - whether that’s live or online.
By getting in front of her audience - talking, teaching and importantly - listening, Jenn Donovan was able to tap into a gap in the market and founded a facebook group purely to help out some rural businesses owners. This FB group grew to over 250,000 members in less than 8 months. It’s opened up a world of opportunity for Jenn and it all started by shaking off the nerves and sucking up the courage to get on stage in front of an audience.
Jenn is a thought leader for marketing in Australia and genius marketing strategist for small business.
She is the founder of Buy From a Bush Business and the very popular podcast Small Business Made Simple, Jenn is all about community and humans interacting with humans! Jenn talks the talk but importantly, she walks the walk!
Think you can’t possibly take time off from your business? Think again.
Think you can’t make a profit while you’re away on holiday? Think again.
We’ve been taking 6 weeks a year off for 10 years now. We’ve averaged one international trip and a couple of domestic trips each year. I’ll tell you how we manage to do it while running not one but 2 successful businesses and yes, we still make a profit while we’re gone.
At the time of recording we are knee deep in the world of Coronavirus and holidays feel like they are out of reach.
But start planning around these 5 things in your business now and when we are allowed to travel - well maybe you will!
Ever sat at your desk for hours on end, got to the end of your working day and wondered where the day went? Wondered why you only managed to finish a tiny portion of all the things you had planned? Well, you need to know you’re not alone! We’ve all been there, the problem is that some of us stay there for way too long and it becomes a real brick wall in the way of us achieving our goals. It also becomes a point of constant frustration and source of overwhelm.
Today's guest shares with us what EXACTLY what she has done to bust down that brick wall and go from ‘getting nowhere’ to ‘getting stuff done’.
She also gets real with us on mapping out her services, not only what numbers are important but where each service fits in your funnel and the one thing that we often forget, ignore or put our blinders on for - what does your audience actually want.
Angela Henderson is a business coach for women, keynote speaker and podcaster who helps women business owners from around the world have consistent 5-figure months and multiple 6-figure years... without burning out in the process. Her skills were honed at the helm of Finlee and Me, where she learned everything from branding, PR, sales funnels, email marketing, website, copy, SEO and more.
She knows what it truly takes to have a strong brand, consistent sales, steady growth and over all dedication. Angela has been featured in the media including Talking Lifestyle with Ed Phillips and David Koch, Inside Small Business and on numerous Australia and International podcasts.
Have you ever seen someone or maybe experienced it yourself? When a business keeps growing and growing, more customers, more team, more work. But the cashflow gets tighter, stress is higher and they wonder if it's all really worth it?
It’s a symptom of unprofitable revenue growth, working a lot of hours but not getting the financial return. It happens when we focus heavily on revenue growth and unintentionally lose focus on profit.
We learn early on in business to have that steely attention on revenue growth and increasing sales. Selling more stuff, getting some money in the door, paying the expenses. It's a real point of focus in the first couple of years. But at some point a shift needs to occur. The shift from focusing on sales, selling more stuff to purposefully going after profitable top line growth.
Today we talk about;
- The key to profitable revenue growth - knowing exactly which of your services are profitable and which are not.
- The problem - that as service providers we don’t adequately take into account the hours spent marketing, selling, working on and delivering the services that we provide.
- The solution - finding the return on time for each service we offer.
We also dive into how to improve your return on time. We talk through the actual numbers you need to know, how to actually calculate your return on time and how to make sure you are getting paid enough for your precious time.
Imagine setting an annual revenue goal of several hundreds of thousands of dollars at the start of the year - then blowing that goal out of the water in just ONE month. Well it happened and it happened to Steph Taylor. Want to know the one thing that she couldn’t have done without? The one thing that Steph admits that without, she would NOT be where she is today? Well, I’m for one, excited to say that it was numbers!
Tune into the show as we pull apart the exact numbers that Steph obsesses over each and every week. Find out the numbers that gave her the gut (yes, gut) to drop up to $10k per day in facebook ads. There was no gamble. The risk was slight. Why? Because Steph knew her numbers and what they were telling her gave her the gut to make some huge (but smart) business decisions. And those business decisions? Well, as you now know - they blew her revenue goals out of the water!
Steph Taylor is an ex corporate square peg, launch strategist and host of the Socialette podcast, which has had over 500,000 downloads to date.
Through her free masterclasses, paid programs and consulting, she has helped over 65,000 entrepreneurs launch digital products and podcasts to reach more people, grow their audience and become the go-to in their industry. Steph does what she does so that fellow entrepreneurs can achieve more impact, create more profit and have more freedom.
Ever had a client that has just done your head in?
Have you ever taken on a client knowing that they really aren’t someone you want to work with or knowing that the work really isn’t your jam?
Well, you're not alone! We’ve all been there and many of us stay there for way too long. Continuing to take on less than ideal clients.
In this episode I’m going to give you a few reasons to start thinking about making the shift from loathing to loving all the clients that you bring into your business and I’ll give you a couple of monetary reasons why too!
- I’ll give you not one but four reasons why you need to think about sacking some clients.
- We will take a look at the characteristics of your ideal clients; then
- I’ll finish up with 4 things for you to think about to get more ideal and less unideal clients in your business.
Cringe. Overwhelm. Scary.
The three words (sadly) used to describe accountants, CPA’s and the overall sorting of your finances. But what if numbers left you feeling, dare I say… energised, informed and confident?
And better, be the catalyst to driving your business forward minus the “what-if’s?” Well. It can. Sure. Numbers and strategy aren’t always the sexiest part of business. But here’s the cold hard truth.
At the anchor, every business decision is underpinned by numbers. Now. While this podcast isn’t dedicated to pure numbers for the sake of numbers. It is dedicated to showing you where to put your energy, to make more profit, intelligently.
You ready to not only up your numbers “know-how” but your profit and reclaim your time and improve your lifestyle? Well, this is the podcast for you!
Hi, I'm Jen Waterson. Business Profit Coach, ex-accountant and while I'm actually NOT a numbers person, I do love what numbers can do for us in our businesses. I'm here to help business owners make more profit and take back their time!
In this episode I talk about what a business ‘profit’ coach is. I give you my perspective on how we should be looking at our businesses. And while yes - profit is one of the most important things, of equal value is the lifestyle that our businesses give us.