the bossbabe podcast - 307. 5 Things That Helped Me Hit My First $1M in Revenue

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Looking to hit your first $1M milestone in business? Today we are pulling back the curtain to share the exact five things that helped Natalie make it happen at bossbabe + her biggest lessons from that journey. Get a BTS look into what actually moved the needle, the shifts that were required along the way + how to create really consistent success that continues to build overtime. From mindset to sales strategies, this episode will give you the tactical pieces you need to implement in order to reach + exceed that first $1M revenue milestone!  HIGHLIGHTS The secret + key to building consistent momentum in your business  How to skyrocket your sales with just one strategy Why you need to stay laser focused on YOUR path + block out the noise The mindset pieces that will change the game for you + the trajectory of your business How to get hyper-focused with your time + attention and create boundaries to support you LINKS Learn exactly how to dial in your offer so you can make more sales - https://go.bossbabe.com/sold-out-offer  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

A Boss Babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I'm Natalie Ellis and today I am sharing with you five things that helped me hit my first $1 million in revenue. So I had been in business for quite a few years before starting Boss Babe and I hadn't reached that million dollar mark. And I remember thinking it was just this elusive number that was going to be so impossible to hit. And I couldn't fathom it. I really couldn't. And when I started Boss Babe, we hit that number within the first year. We

actually hit 1.2 million in the first year, which is incredible. And what I definitely realized was having that other business beforehand taught me so much. And then before launching Boss Babe, I just immersed myself in everything I knew I would need to master in order to make this business successful. So I'd done the pre-work. I wasn't kind of learning as I went. Of course, there's always that in business. There's still an element of learning as I go every time I up level, but I wasn't starting out of the gate completely unaware of what it was going to take to really make this business a success. And I'm really grateful that I had that experience. I think that experience taught me so much. And at the time, you know, right now it's, we have memberships and podcasts and so many things that are teaching us business.

But when I first started my first ever business straight out of business school, there wasn't really those kinds of things, or at least I didn't know where to find them. The online world was very different. The coaching world was very different. It really hadn't taken off. Or I guess it was just in a very small subset. It was a circle that I was totally not part of. And I found it did take a lot longer to find success in that business. Yes, I was new, but also I just didn't have that information around me.

I was building as much as I could off of Google, but Google isn't the best business coach, I've got to be honest. So today, what I want to do is talk about hitting that million dollar mark. And what I'm going to do is really trace back the five steps that got me there. Because like I said, we have all of this information available to us now that we didn't have. Advice that I can give, any experience that I've had that can help you make shortcuts

in getting to where you want to go. I love sharing that. So that's what I'm going to do today. And I'm going to dive straight in. So the very first thing that I did was I found momentum. And what I mean by this is when you are trying to grow your business without any momentum, it can be exhausting and feel very, very difficult. So if your sales are really sporadic and very, very hard to predict, if you have no idea what kind of lever to pull to make more sales, if you really are flying by the seat of your pants and trying to figure it out as you go, it's very challenging. And what you really want to be doing is having

laser focus to find momentum. So what I was doing when I found momentum was I was selling one offer, one thing to a very ideal client and I found a way to consistently get that offer in front of my ideal clients and I kept doing it over and over and over again. Now this early momentum wasn't necessarily huge but every day new people were discovering my offer and most importantly, buying it. So for any of you who are in the early stages or the struggling stages of business, to have people buying your product every single day is a game changer. I know for some listening, they're like, I can't even imagine that because I'm so far away from that. For some of you, you're like, yeah, of course. But getting that is really challenging in the beginning. So like I said, it wasn't this huge amount of momentum, but it was enough momentum to tell myself, you know what, I've got a really good offer here and I've got

a really good way of connecting it with the people that need to see it and I'm actually going to buy it. And I just focused really diligently on optimizing and maintaining and growing this momentum. So I was constantly thinking, okay, if X amount of people a day are seeing it, how can I double that number? What would I do? Or if my conversion rates were dropping, how did I need to communicate differently? What did I need to do to make sure that my offer was really, really dialed in, that this momentum was going to grow and not slow? Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love.

Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know. Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time

to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe the second thing that I did is I picked one sales strategy. Listen, there are so many ways you can sell online. Influencers, ads, webinars, challenges, events. There's no right or wrong way. Every single business is different. For me, I picked one strategy and I worked on really mastering that because again, a lot of people I see that are struggling are doing so many things and doing, you know, very few things very well.

They're doing a lot of things decently, not many things very well. I decided that I didn't want to learn all the different ways I could sell online. I wanted to pick one way of selling and I wanted to master it. So for me with Boss Babe, when I made my first 1.2 in that first year, I learned how to perfect a webinar funnel and I went all in on making it better and better and better. And over time, every single time I would do it, the conversion rate just kept going up. The results kept getting better. That for me was a game changer. It can be really tempting to constantly change your strategy, change your focus, start something new, burn something down because you think it isn't working. But please do not get lured in by the mentality that the grass is greener over there because you

can trust me when I say this, the grass is always going to be greener where you water it, where you focus on it. I've been in business long enough that I have seen many people's grass and thought their grass is so much greener than mine and I hop the fence and I take a real look and I realize that's not the case and my grass was so much greener because that's where I'd focused on watering it. The more value, energy, attention, resources and discipline you pour into something, the greater results you're going to see. Like I said, do not be fooled by what you see online. It looks like people are doing a thousand different things really well to get results but I can probably guarantee you that most of these people have just dialed in one or two things really, really well to get their results consistently on repeat. So pick one sales

strategy, pick one way of selling and just figure it out. You know, I coach people on this all the time. I do a lot of VIP days. I love to be in person with people. And I had a client come to me. She wanted support in selling her membership. And so on the VIP day, we built out her entire webinar funnel end to end. And looking at this funnel, I knew this was a million dollar funnel. Like, man, I should have asked for some rev shares for this, but okay, we've got it. It's a million dollar funnel at least. And she went and did it and it didn't convert. And by didn't convert, what she meant was it didn't bring in the amount of customers she wanted. So I dug into it.

I was like, it didn't convert. Really, I'm so surprised because it was a really good funnel. And I can normally tell if a funnel is gonna work or not. It's not converting, let me dig into it. And I started asking some questions and she told me, well, I signed up this many people and only this many people bought.

And I wanted double that amount of people. And I looked at the math and I told me, well, you know, I signed up this many people and only this many people bought, and I want to double that amount of people. And I looked at the math and I was like, wait, that conversion rate is so far beyond industry average. That is an amazing conversion rate. What do you mean it didn't work? If you put more people into that funnel, it's going to sell more people because it's a really solid funnel with really amazing conversion rates. This was probably six months after we'd met. So she'd already tried this thing, said that it didn't work and stopped trying with it. So she put all of that stuff that she'd worked on to waste, put it aside and said, I'm going to focus on something else. So I was like, dig that funnel back up and let's try and get some more traffic in it. Just go and put more traffic on it and let me know what happens. She comes back to me again. It didn't work. I was like asking her about the

funnel. It didn't work. Like, what do you mean it didn't work? Well, I put more people in and I wasn't making sales. So again, I started digging in and I seen that she'd been doing paid ads to push people into the funnel and she was optimizing to get really cheap leads on ads. So I dug into it and I was looking at the people that were signing up. And I said to her, these are not your ideal clients. These people were never going to buy. Why were you targeting them? Oh, because they were cheap. Like those leads were really cheap. And I was like, that's the problem. If you fill this funnel with the right people, you are going to be selling all day long. And so I did another day with her and I

mapped out, here's exactly what I want you to focus on for the long. And so I did another day with her and I mapped out, here's exactly what I want you to focus on for the next six months. I want you to get laser focused on all these things. That funnel went and did way more than a million. That funnel absolutely crushed it and she didn't make any changes to the funnel. She just really focused on making sure that funnel was as dialed in as it could be. And then she focused on getting traffic into it that were really qualified. So she just picked one strategy and she went all in and she committed to keep doing and keep trying.

I cannot tell you enough how that is a winning strategy. Often people give up just before they see the results that they wanna see. They give up way too early because they try something once or twice, they deem it a failure and move on to something else and start from scratch again. And you never really give yourself the chance to actually build momentum, to actually get this thing off the ground. You're kind of getting something going and finally seeing some kind of result and then

stopping and starting from scratch again. And that's just not a recipe for success. So before you abandon everything that you've got and tell yourself it's outdated, it doesn't work, no one wants it. I want you to make sure that you've really given it everything you've got, and it's not just something that you're not seeing. Okay, so diving into the third thing. The third thing that I did was block out the noise. And I really mean that. I stopped consuming so much content and looking at what everyone else was doing. And I got really laser focused. If another strategy was working even better for someone else, great. I'm still sticking to my own strategy. If someone else just found this brand new thing that was changing everything for them, great. I'm still

sticking to my own strategy. I removed anything that felt like a distraction or anything that was pulling my attention away from my path and my goals. If it wasn't supportive, it wasn't getting my attention. We've heard so much that diluted focus will give you diluted results, but it's really hard in practice to actually implement it. I was just on a call with some of our influencer school students before recording this. And one of my clients on there was telling me all the different things that she's doing. And she was asking for support on a couple of different things. And she kept listing off all the different things she was doing. And when she finished, I said, okay, just tell me again, what are your goals?

What are you working towards? And she had two very, very clear goals, but she told me five things that she was doing. And I said to her, why are you doing all of those things? And I started diving in and she was saying, well, you know, I feel like I should do those things. No, that's what everyone says. And I said to her, but if it's not actually a goal of yours, if it's not contributing to where you want to go, why would you do it? And it was almost like she'd put herself on this hamster wheel and not really questioned why she was doing certain things and why she was diluting her focus because she felt like she just should do it. want to encourage you, you know, if you've got that one offer and you're finding momentum, pick the one sales strategy and block out the noise. Really go all in, put those blinders on and go all in on making this a success. If you focus on this hard enough and you are willing to go all in and not get distracted, you are going to make it a success. If you put all of your energy towards making it work,

it's going to work out. We often think that doing multiple different things or listening to all the different strategies and seeing all the different things everyone's doing is going to support us and hitting our goals. Ah, but what if I just implement that thing? It's working really well for them. That could be my thing. Well, it could be, but if you're implementing those things every month, every quarter, and you're constantly steering away from the thing that was working, it won't get you results. If you want to implement new things, you often want to do it on top of things that are already working. So for me, when I'd already had this funnel really growing and it was growing without me in a sense of it was bringing in sales

every single day. And I was able to turn up that dial. I was able to put more people in the funnel and make more sales. I really had control over that. That's when I started layering new things on, adding new things into the funnel, thinking about new offers. That's when I started to let myself get distracted because I knew that if I let myself get distracted too soon and I took my eye off this too soon, all of the hard work that I would have put in would have just fell to the side because it wouldn't have continued being successful without me when I moved on to something else. So if you want to move on to something else, you want to try something else, make sure that the thing you've got that's actually working can run without you and can

continue running successfully. All right. The fourth thing that I did was I fed my mind daily. I had what I called my daily million dollar walks where I would put on a podcast listening to someone who'd achieved what I desire to achieve and I would get in their energy. How do they talk? How do they think? What questions are they asking? What practices are they committed to? Where are they really focused? I really wanted to get in the zone mentally

and feel really clear on what I was creating, how to actually create it and get in the energy of people that had done it. And I realized that when I was listening to the people who'd been there and achieved what I wanted to achieve, they were speaking differently. They had a different energy around them. And it was really teaching me how to step into that seven-figure CEO mindset, that seven-figure CEO routine, the different things that they were working on, where they were spending their time. Podcasts are free to listen to and the amount of value

that we can get from them, it's incredible. And I still do this now. I still have set podcasts that I love to listen to. And I go on walks, I put my headphones in and I am just soaking up that person's energy. I'm soaking up all of the things that they're saying and telling me. And hopefully this podcast can serve as that for you too, where I'm really able to take in what it looks like to get to my next level. And I always have that in mind whenever I'm creating these episodes, because I want you to really be able to see, okay, what would I be doing? What would I be saying? What would I be focused on if I was wanting to scale a product to a million dollars? Because I know that's what helped me

so much in the beginning. So that's a real big focus of mine. And the last thing I did was I kept laser focused on fixed goals. So what I mean by that is day in, day out, my goals did not change. I did not move the goalpost when I thought I wasn't gonna hit the goal. I did not move the goalpost when I thought I wasn't going to hit

the goal. I did not move the goalpost when I had a brand new idea. I did not change my goals at all. I was really committed to the goals I set, the goals I put on my vision board being the goals that I actually achieved. And, you know, this might go against a lot of things that you hear, but I did not allow myself to get swept up in email, in social, my to-do list, or basically anything that wasn't contributing to my goal. And I know that might sound crazy. I know that might sound like really boring and not posting on Instagram when it's fun and all those things.

No, I just got laser focused. And if posting was going to help me hit my goal, sure, I would do it. But if it wasn No, I just got laser focused. And if posting was going to help me hit my goal, sure, I would do it. But if it wasn't, I wasn't doing it. You know, your email inbox is normally an entire list of someone else's priorities. I heard someone say that once and it just changed everything for me. I realized looking at my inbox, yeah, this is everyone else's priorities. This is people wanting me to help them with their stuff and move their stuff forward. And how is that supporting me in moving through my goals? I mean, you'll see now, if you email me, I have an out of office on, I'm still super laser focused.

I'm in a place where I need to be focused on my business and where I'm going. And I'm focused like that. So I can live the life that I want to live. I want to spend as much time as I possibly can with my family, with my daughter especially. I'm really in that season and I love it and I don't want it to change. And I know that if I allow myself to get pulled into everyone else's priorities and to-dos, I will never get to my own. And my team will know it. It's probably really annoying, but I'm constantly pushing back when they assign things to me. Do you need this to be done by me? Can someone else do this?

Is this the day it actually needs to be done by? Why am I doing this? I don't just do things because people tell me that I should. I question so many different things because I know that my success is gonna come from being laser focused towards my goal. I knew back then with 100%

clarity what I was working towards and I constantly checked in with myself on a daily basis I think to make sure that anything I was doing including any meetings I was taking, any tasks I was assigned, any people I was connecting with, any content I was consuming was aligned with my goals. Focus is something that takes a lot of discipline and commitment. It's a learning curve because it's not always easy, but it's always, always the thing that pays off the most when it comes to hitting your big goals. It can be really unsexy to be completely laser focused

and say no to the things that might sound fun. But when a lot of people say, you know, well, you just need to hustle, you need to hustle. Yes. And I'm telling you, all of this is a lot easier when you are working on just a couple of things versus working on the things that matter to you and the things that matter to everyone else. A lot of the time we get so overwhelmed because of the everyone else thing, because we're doing it because we think we should, because we don't want to let people down, because we don't want to come across a certain way versus actually acknowledging, you know what? I really don't

care about making this happen. And I don't care about doing this right now. I'm going to put it off for an entire year. It can be hard to do that. So let's do a quick recap. First, I found my momentum. Then I picked a strategy to scale. I blocked out the noise. I fed my mind daily and I kept myself laser focused. Those are the biggest things that contributed to me being able to hit my goal and reach the million dollar mark. These aren't complicated. They aren't complex. anyone can do these things most people won't so if you're listening to this and you're in a place where you're like you know what I actually do need to make a change and I'm committed to if you commit to doing these things you are going to be so far ahead most people because most people won't do them and another thing that I want to

share is when I was talking about the first two things, momentum and a sales strategy, it dawned on me. We actually have a workshop at Boss Babe called the sold out offer workshop. So me and Danielle delivered this live. It was a two hour workshop and we have created a replay. You can hop in. I think it's just over a hundred dollars and it's worth so much. Basically what I'm teaching you to do is create a sold out offer. And what I mean by a sold out offer is an offer that really, really connects with your ideal clients. It ticks all of the boxes that it needs to tick. And in that workshop, we work on a sales strategy. So getting that offer in front of the right clients, it's a game changer. It's something that I refer

a lot of my clients back to. In fact, whenever anyone wants to do a VIP day with me, which is $15,000 for the day, if they don't have an offer that is selling, I point them to this first. I'm like, come back to me and let's do a day when you've got the momentum and you're making good money in your business. So do this first. It's just over a hundred dollars. I'm going to put a link for it in the show notes. Cause I really would suggest it if you want help. It's kind of like, it feels like you're on there live with me and I walk you through it. I give you a really good workbook to go alongside it as well. It's so good. I think some other courses are like $500 that cover this kind of stuff, but it's really going to help you to create and refine the offer

and then make more sales this year, which I know is probably your goal. So I wanted to share that and I'll put the link in the show notes for you as well so you can do that. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I just want to ask if you did, if you would be kind enough to leave us a review because these reviews make a massive difference when it comes to getting our podcast discovered. So I would really, really appreciate that. Thank you.