430: The First Step in Scaling To 7-Figures

Not knowing and understanding the numbers in your business makes it difficult to pinpoint what needs to change or improve. Growing the business seems impossible if you’re not aware of what’s working and what isn’t.

In this episode, I’ll discuss the first step to scaling to 7-figures. Some people think that business numbers are limited to sales and profit but there are different areas that can show your real numbers and data. Having a clear understanding of these help optimise and refine processes and reach the results you want to achieve. 

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• How Samantha’s business flourished despite the recession (01:35)
• The value of knowing business numbers and data (02:47)
• How to leverage content creation (04:25)
• Evaluating whether your webinars work or not (05:35)
• How do we quantify our impact? (06:30)
• Optimising lead generation (07:50)

QUOTES:

• “You can’t grow what you don’t measure. And you can’t refine a process if you don’t have one.” -Samantha Riley
• “If you’re unable to look at the data in your business, it’s really hard to know where the leaks in your business are.” -Samantha Riley
• “The small tweaks you make to optimise your processes will give you the biggest outcomes.” -Samantha Riley

BOOK YOUR FREE BUSINESS ACCELERATOR CALL

If you’re an expert doing over $10k per month, and want to be known as the Unapologetic Leader in your industry, you may be just a few small tweaks away from doubling your income and visibility.

On this quick 15 minute call, we’ll:

• Conduct a quick audit of your marketing to see what is and isn’t working.
• Review your niche, positioning and pricing of your current offers.
• Uncover the top 3 bottlenecks from  holding you and your business back from scaling
• Develop a 3-step implementation plan to get the growth results you are looking for.

​​SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW THE INFLUENCE BY DESIGN PODCAST 

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If the information in any of our conversations and interviews has helped you in your business journey, please head over to Apple Podcasts, click the 3 dots in the top right corner of your smartphone screen, follow the show, and leave us an honest review. Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver valuable content but will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you!

CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY

• Facebook: Samantha Riley
• Instagram: @thesamriley
• LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
• Twitter: @thesamriley

TRANSCRIPTION

Samantha Riley Snippet (00:00):

What is it that seven-figure coaches do that six-figure coaches don’t? If you’re ready to scale your six-figure coaching business, today, we’re going to talk about the very first step you need to take to start growing and scaling your business to seven figures and beyond. Let’s get straight into it.

Samantha (00:17):

My name is Samantha Riley, and this is the podcast for experts who want to be the unapologetic leader in their industry. We’re going to share the latest business growth, marketing, and leadership strategies, as well as discussing how you can use your human design to create success in business and life. Inside and out. It’s time to take your influence, income, and impact to the level you know you’re capable of. Are you ready to make a bigger difference and scale up? This is the Influence By Design podcast. 

Samantha (00:50):

Welcome to Episode 430, of influence by design in our 30 and 30, where we’re releasing an episode every day for the month of September. Now, as you would already know, we’re focusing on the theme of stepping into your power being the unapologetic leader in your industry, so you can build your elegant empire. Now, every week, I chat with coaches who come to me saying they want to grow and scale their business. 

Now, a lot of coaches will go straight to sales and marketing. What new sales strategy do you need? What new marketing strategy do you need? And they’re right, we do need to increase our sales and marketing. But it’s not the whole story. It’s only a part of the story. Now, when I first went into business back in the early 90s, Australia was in a recession. 

So for anyone that was in Australia in the early 90s, I’m sure you all remember Paul Keating and the recession that we had to have, you know, inflation was out of control, interest rates were through the roof. And I decided to open a dancewear business, not the prime time to open a business that wasn’t selling essentials. 

However, in hindsight, it was one of the best things I could have done, as I learned some of the most valuable lessons right from the beginning of my journey in that business, because times were so tough. And because I was not flush with cash, when I opened that business, like we hustled to get that business up and running. And we were very young, we didn’t have cash reserves, we had to be real, we had to run that business mean and lean. And the way that we did that was by absolutely understanding every tiny piece of data in our business. 

So like I mentioned, coaches come to me because they want to grow and scale their business. So one of the first things I start asking for are the different numbers and the data in their business. And usually, most often, they say, I have no idea. Now, if you’re unable to look at the data in your business, it’s really hard to know where the leaks in your business are. 

Now, if this is you, and you’re sitting here already thinking, I don’t know, I don’t track my data, or I don’t know what number she’s talking about. Don’t worry, I’m not here to shame you or make you feel bad. But I do want to show you why it’s important to know your numbers so that you can optimize and refine your business to get the results that you really want. 

Samantha (03:28):

You can’t grow what you don’t measure. And you can’t refine a process if you don’t have one. So you need to know what is working. And you need to know what isn’t working so that you have the insights to know what needs to be refined, what needs to be tweaked what needs to be changed, what needs to be deleted, and what needs to have more energy and time and resources poured into it. 

There’s just so many so much information that the data gives you. So let’s break this down with a couple of different examples. Because I think when I talk about this, most people think I’m talking about knowing your numbers. And when people say knowing your numbers, they’re usually referring to the numbers about your accounting, like your profit margin, or how much I’m spending on subscriptions. 

But that’s only one tiny piece of the data that you really need to measure. So let’s talk about a couple of different examples. So most of us spend a lot of time creating content, or maybe you’re not creating as much content as you know you should because you don’t feel like you’re getting the results for the amount of time that you’re putting into it. 

Now I know I’ve been told many times I creating content doesn’t work for me. Well, Gary Vee has created a huge empire around content creation. So is it really true that content creation doesn’t work? Or has it just not worked for you because you haven’t looked at the data to see what needs to be tweaked. 

So rather than saying it doesn’t work, assess the numbers and alter your plan and refine your process. And if you don’t have a plan now is the time to create one start to pay attention to what topics get the most engagement? What emails get opened? Where are your highest open rates? What podcasts have the highest downloads? What social media posts give you the most engagement? How many conversations do you open from a single post all of these numbers and more, when you follow them, you will start to see a pattern, you’ll start to see a story, which means that you can tweak small parts of this story to change the outcome. 

Samantha (05:33):

Let’s take another look at another example. Maybe webinars haven’t worked for you before you say webinars don’t work. Do you know how many people register for each of your webinars? Which days and times have the best registration times? Or the best show-up rate? What is your show-up rate? How many sales calls are booked or purchases made from the people who have attended your webinars? At what point do people drop off in your presentation? How many sales calls do you get booked by people that didn’t even attend your webinar? 

All right, all of this information is really important to know because, without this data, you can’t fix it, and you can’t make it better. And you most certainly can’t say webinars don’t work. Think about how you can collect the data in your business to quantify the results with your prospects. So this is a little bit different. This is talking about your marketing and having some sort of trust factor with your audience. 

A lot of people talk about or a lot of coaches talk about how they help their clients create a bigger impact. This is something that a lot of us talk about. This is something that I talk about. But how do you really quantify that you’re creating a bigger impact. 

When I say I’m creating, I’m going to help you create a bigger impact, I’m going to share the system where we measure buckets of impact, and I can tell you that I have a system that will help make it work for you. Because when we recorded our buckets of impact for the month of August, we know that we’ve created 13,192 buckets of impact within our company. 

Now, not only do we know that that’s the number, but we know the numbers for each category within that system. So we know how to add numbers to each bucket. Not only that, we can focus on the buckets or the categories that are going to return the greatest impact. The small tweaks you make to optimize your processes will give you the biggest outcomes. 

Samantha (07:35):

So you’ve already got a lot of processes in place in your business, you’ve already got processes for sales, for marketing, for creating content for, you know doing your accounts, all of these types of things. But let’s talk about lead generation for a moment. If you want to increase the amount of leads, rather than taking on a big new project every month that uses a lot of time and resources, what would happen if you optimize what you already have? 

So instead of you saying, oh, you know need more leads, maybe this month, we’ll start a YouTube channel and you spent a heap of time, ton of resources, money, getting that off and running. But you’ve actually not noticed that if you just optimized your Facebook group, for example, that you might be able to bring in more leads with what you’ve already got. And you’d be able to save that amount of time and resources. 

So I really want you to understand that you do need to collect data in every area of your business, because if you don’t, you’re leaving things to chance. Not only that, but if you don’t know what your baseline is, you can’t make an assessment with what needs to happen next. Please remember, it’s the small tweaks that are going to help you achieve the biggest outcomes. 

Samantha (08:50):

Thanks so much for listening. And if you found this content valuable, which I hope that you did, here’s how we can help you to grow your expert business even faster. Join my free Facebook group coaches thought leaders and changemakers on Facebook, where inside you’ll get access to weekly free training as we dive into every aspect of your business so you can be the unapologetic leader in your industry and build your elegant empire. 

Samantha Outro (9:13):

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com