380. How to Build Your Money Machine + The Routines Of An 8-Figure Entrepreneur With James Wedmore
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That is the biggest kiss of death. That is complete and utter nonsense. Stop giving yourself so much self-importance because you're right. They are not buying because of you. They're buying because there's a problem that they have and either you've shown them and demonstrated that you can solve it or someone else will. And when you make it more about a framework or a methodology that you are, I'm going to deliver this, then it doesn't matter if it's you.

Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I'm so happy you're here today because we've gotten so many messages from you guys saying how much you loved part one of this episode, and it makes me even more excited to share part two with you today. In today's episode, we talked about all things routines, performance, and purpose. And honestly, these are some of my favorite things to talk about because they're literally the driving force

behind your success as a business owner and in designing a life that really lights you up. We go into a typical week in the life of an eight-figure CEO, the organization of our teams, control issues as an entrepreneur and the biggest kiss of death in business. So grab your notebook, get cozy and let's dive into the episode with James. Okay, so I gave you a bathroom break. How are you feeling? Thank you so much for that. You're welcome. We like to take care of people around here. Yeah.

Okay, so we're going to dive into a lot of places. Specifically, I want to talk about your role in your team to begin with. And we're going to, I want to show people what's possible and your roadmap of getting there. So can we first talk though, before we get into what it looks like for you, because we kind of touched on this in part one of being a personal brand or a kind of personality based business. It can seem very, very challenging to pull yourself out of a lot of things because you are the face, right?

Is it possible? Yeah, it's not just hard because you're the face, but entrepreneurs tend to have a lot of control issues. Oh yeah, I do.

Even when I'm working with with people at seven figures like the biggest thing that's holding them back is the need to control and it's really interesting because that's why so many people go into business is like I don't want someone to control me. I want to control my financial destiny. I want to control have more control over my life and then you end up controlling everything in the business and to the degree in which you let go of controls the degree in which you can unbottleneck yourself and let other people in and so

The metaphor I'll use here is an example of a landscaping business. So let's say you and I decide to start a landscaping business and we're going to go landscape all the homes. Right now it's just you and I. So, you know, you go knock on the doors and get the clients and you tell me when and where, and I've got the lawnmower and we got this. And all of a sudden you're like, James, we've got 10 houses in the neighborhood. We're rocking and rolling. And we sit down and we say, well, now we need 20.

But I say, I can't do any more homes. It takes me all day to do 10. What would we do? Well, you could say, I'll jump in and do 10 and maybe you'll do that, but we want to go beyond that. Well, we hire someone to do, to do more of the lawn care. Right. And so in a, in a simple business example like that, it's easy to find more technicians, train them to do that. So how the heck do we do that when we,

We are the ones going live, doing the podcasts, writing the emails, and it's about us. And that was the first thing I said is this is different. This is a different business. A lot of similar principles and strategies universally applied here, but it's different. And the reason it's different is because in order for this business to be successful, you have to understand that you're already in more than one role.

Yeah. You're the business owner. You're the boss. You're the entrepreneur, but you're also this other role that is like the head of the content. And that made me even more motivated to get everything else off of my plate as, as, as soon as possible. And that became the obsession is how do we, how do we unbottleneck ourselves? So, you know, we, we can go as far and deep as you want into that, but the more structure and more systems you put in place is, is,

at the 30,000 foot view, the only way you're gonna do that. Because there's decisions that you have to make. There's things you get to approve and feedback that needs to be given. And if it's the wild, wild west in your business and no one knows where to create from or build off of, then you end up going in there anyways and redoing it all yourself. And that was around that time

- When the CPA told me that I was spending more money I was making, I had one of those freelancers come to me and she had not done an assignment I'd given her. It was a landing page. And I just asked, like, "Well, what happened? "Why didn't you do it?" And like, what she said next like hit me so hard. She said, "What's the point? "You're gonna redo it anyways."

And I realized that's where all my control was and needing to do it right and needing to do it perfect. And then our ego kicks in because we don't want to look bad or make a mistake. What will our audience think if there's a typo? And obviously I don't want anybody to have typos, but if everything has to pass by you, through you, be done by you, that's holding us back.

Well, let's get into that really granularly because I think it would be great to hear what you do do and what you have taken off your plate. Like what is, let's say, what does a typical week look like for James? Okay. The typical week gets created by a typical quarter. Okay.

And so I want to start there for just a second. We operate and when I say we operate it is because I'm saying it because I want everyone here listening to do that. We operate from 90 day cycles. So after we create an annual goal or plan, we break that down into 90 day segments. So we have 90 day goals and every 90 day goal comes with it. Two things, the revenue, the income and impact goals, like how much are we making? How many people are we helping?

and the plan in which we are going to make that happen. And that's all we focus on. And that goes back to what Tom on the previous episode about that one track, one bridge mind. So it's one bridge, one output, one goal, one plan every single quarter. Can I interrupt you? Yes. What if, asking for a friend who's named Natalie, what if you have revenue goal, but you also have an audience goal? So what if I have a revenue goal to hit a target for my course, but I also want to grow my podcast?

Yes. So that is totally fine and wonderful, especially as you've been doing this. The audience goal, we have to remember, is a metric goal.

means that affects that ultimate goal. - Right. - Right? So it's a hell yes, and we do that every quarter. We have goals. And I will actually break that down even more. At the end of the day, if we don't get paid, you know, we're not gonna stay in business. So that's the top line number. It's, hey, we wanna do a million dollars this year. Great, let's just even, for starters, divide by four

and say we need to do $250,000 in quarter one to stay on track. Now that's not always how it has to go. There's some people have big quarters versus smaller quarters, like a big time of year versus a slower time of year. That's actually more normal. But once you have that and a plan,

There's kind of two things that if we want to go down that far is we have members on our team that are responsible for what we call the KPIs, but we call them the metrics that matter. And they're the metrics that will get you there. So I'm not growing my audience for audience sake. I'm growing my audience because I know when I get more list followers, whatever it grows, the, the, the business, it grows the sales. So it's, it's a means to that end. And someone on the team actually ends up owning that metric. And today, um,

You want to know why or how we can have eight people run an eight-figure business is because each and every one of them owns one of these metrics. I actually am the only one on the team that doesn't own a metric. And it's these metrics that they own that end up managing them. So the metric manages the team member.

They create goals every 90 days for themselves. So we just jumped into quarter two. So everyone on my growth team had to create goals for how many Instagram followers, what's our list growth, what's our sales for quarter two, and they own it, not me. And they have to work, create a work back plan of how they're going to get there. What are they going to do? What are they going to start to do if they don't hit that? And even we do a standup meeting every Monday.

So this starts to come into what does James's week look like? So my week at the level where we are right now is I start Monday and I'm looking at the

No more than two to three things that if I just got these things accomplished this week would be the biggest drivers and impact to whatever that 90 day goal is. What are the one to two, three things at most that if, if I only did these things and if there's more on your list than that, you really got to look at how much more am I taking on? Cause there's another concept that I love, which is MVP.

It's traditionally like Silicon Valley, like software engineers, minimum viable product. But in our industry, I changed the PN product to promotion. So what's the, because a lot of what we do is promotions, it's project-based, it's, you know, launches, promotions, funnels, and sales. Selling itself is a proactive step. You're not just passively waiting for someone to stumble upon your website, click an add to cart button next to a thumbnail and hand you money.

You're not selling iPhone cases on Amazon. Like there's, it's a, it's an action that we do, you know? So that becomes our, our, uh, our work. So minimum viable promotion means what's the least amount of moving pieces I need to have to simplify this promotion to get me the outcome I want. And if you in whatever role that you're in have to do more than two to three things a week to get it to your goal, either you didn't plan,

Which is a big thing a lot of people aren't doing. I mean, planning's so boring, but it's such a huge emphasis of my philosophy. But I don't care that it's boring because what's worse than boring is being broke.

And that's what happens when you don't plan. So I'd rather be bored than broke any day of the week. But the more we plan, the more amazing and profitable we can be with the work that we do. So you either didn't plan and you're like, I'm gonna do a launch next week, why not? And that's great, because obviously like inspired intuition, let's take inspired action. But you didn't plan accordingly if it's like more than what you can handle in terms of your bandwidth. And then you get in that reactive mindset

Hamster wheel where you were so reactive and so lacked planning that you put something out there and it didn't do well. And so now you're going, crap, it didn't do well. We need money. So you do something again, reactive. And that of course didn't do well. Cause when you do reactive, urgent, desperate things that doesn't. And now you're in the loop.

So plant powerfully planning puts you powerfully in profitability for your launch or promotion. I got a lot of peas in there for you guys. And so that's what we're doing. So either you made the project too big or you didn't plan. So for me personally, there's like two to three things. And this is what I trained my team on is like, there should really be only like two to three things that you're doing. You know, like I've got to build this page this week or I've got to create this piece of content and that's it. And then,

I do those things and I try to get those off of my plate. The only things I'm doing at my level is content creation. Okay. So I got a podcast to do. I'm doing that. Um, or I got to make a film, a video or two. I'm going to do that, but everything else is off my plate. And, um, we have a team meeting on Mondays.

Is that the whole team? The whole team. Okay. It's a 23 minute meeting. And like we literally within 22 to 23 minutes past the top of the hour, we were done every week. And then there's one to two meetings a week that week, usually one more that I attend. There are meetings that happens without me, which is, which is wonderful. And I usually have about every other week, a coaching call that I fulfill on. And I do a podcast every week.

And the rest of my time I spend checking in with my team. So when I have new hires, I spend a lot more time with a new hire. I'm checking in with them. I'm kind of like good cop.

How's everything going? Are you confused by anything? Did someone say something that upset you and you're not talking about it? And I've had to have those conversations, but that's it. Anything else is like for fun. Like if I want to do content for social media or whatever, those are like, if I feel like it, not you need, no, you need to do a real a day, James. We need you. Come on, come on. More content.

And that's it. So I'm not working very much throughout the day. I'm trying to get all of that off my plate. So your commitments, the things that you need to show up for are on the lower side. So you have that free time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like the way I designed my business was I want to be doing podcasts.

and coaching and teaching. Okay. So when, when I'm working, it's like, yeah, I just got off a three hour coaching call with, with my seven figure mastermind clients. And that was awesome. And it was amazing. And that was my day. And that's, that was actually yesterday. And that's other than like

checking your video notes, preparing for today. That's all I did yesterday. And that was it. Oh, and I did have to have an uncomfortable conversation with an employee. And that was, that was my day. And I want to get those off of my plate as much as possible, where we're going to find other bottleneck. As soon as we get people on the team is there's going to be certain approvals of, of your content and stuff, feedback and decisions that need to be made. And there's specific ways in which I try to get most of those off of my plate and

I train my team on how to make decisions right for the company. And there's a lot of ways to do that, but I train them on how to ask the right questions that will lead to the right decisions. One great example is when we're doing a lot of stuff, my fulfillment manager, he's head of the fulfillment department, he makes 95% of his decisions based on what's best for the customer. Okay.

So, hey James, we're stuck between two venues and I can't really decide and you'll give me all these. And then it's like, and this is what's best for the customer. This is a better experience. There's more restaurant options. You know, he thinks through that lens and he's like, it's like $5,000 more than this place, but it's what's best for the customer. It's like, then you know what to do. You don't need to ask. And so they're trained. A lot of times when you just put your voice on loudspeaker, your brain on loudspeaker, excuse me, you're telling them a little bit of how you think

Versus expecting them to mind read how you think and get to decisions but there's an interesting thing that happens where When you start working with team and they have a problem because problems are inevitable They'll give you the problem and they want you to solve it

And when you notice that they go, oh, look at, look at, this is adorable. They're trying to give me the problem and I won't do it. I won't, I won't take your problem. I'll hold onto it for a second while you take a breather, you know, reset yourself. And then I'm going to put it back and I'm going to hand it back to you. And I'm going to hand it back to you through coaching. And I say, so, and what I, I made a little rule for the team. I said, anytime you bring me a problem, you better have three options already. And if you don't, it tells me that you didn't, you didn't bother trying.

And you're just giving up and trying to delegate it to me. And I don't, I don't like that. So I'll say, what are the three options you've already come up with? What, you know, tell me, what do you think? And what's best for the customer? Or what do you think would be best for this in this scenario? And a lot of times I just say, cool. I like how you're approaching this. I trust you. You decide, let me know what you decide though. You know, and inevitably over time they see, oh,

I trust myself too. And they don't need to come to me with as many stuff. And it's more just like, Hey, I just want you to know I, we made this decision because of that. It's like wonderful. Right? So I'm always trying to like empower them to say, here's how we should be thinking about things. But I want you to think about it that way. And I don't want to trust you to make that decision when I'm giving feedback on stuff.

like a landing page or a piece of content, I'm always gonna tell them here's why I'm giving that feedback. I think a lot of people are really bad at that. They just say, I hate it. They can't tell you why they hate it. Whereas I'll sit there and say...

I don't love that you're putting a shadow behind the font because it looks kind of cheesy and like dated. Get rid of that and straighten the font. I want a sans serif. I took a lot of design classes in college. It's really weird. So maybe I'm just really good at that. But I was like, modernize a little bit, straight lines and sans serif font, something more bold block letter and simple, modern, like this. Yes, just like that, right? But I will take that time. And I had to have a conversation with someone recently. I said, okay,

We just spent 30 minutes going over a piece of social media content so that we don't have to in the future. And I'm willing to do that. And I think a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs just want to go fast and you got to slow down if you want to speed up. And I'm always willing to go as slow as I need to with somebody to get them to a place where they can go a hundred miles an hour on their own.

And that's, that's how I looked at like unbottling myself is, is I said, people think a sign of mastery is to be like, just amazingly good at something that it's level of Maslow's levels of learnings, like unconscious competence. And you're just so good at it's automatic. And I said, I think there's a level higher, which is the ability to train someone to be as good or better is a true sign of mastery. And, you know,

It was 2017, I asked my seven figure mastermind, I like to ask these questions. I always like to ask kind of confronting questions and I said something to the effect of, if you were committed to two to three X in your business this year, what would be the most scariest decision or action that you'd have to do differently in order to get you there? And I said, I'll go first. And this was 2017 and I said, the scariest thing for me right now would be to bring on coaches and other facilitators

And that scares the shit out of me because up until this point, it's been all me. And talk about a level of control when you build a personal brand based on your message, your content, your style, your personality, your vibe. And all of a sudden now you're going to have other people interacting with your clients and customers. They're paying you to have others. Holy cow, that's a level of control. And then are they going to go rip off your content and start their own business and steal your clients from underneath you?

And I said, well, I learned long ago that if it scares you, you should probably do it, feel the fear and do it anyways. And I did. And out of that decision, I created, it was five of us originally. We locked ourself in a room in Newport Beach, California. We rented an office space for two days in December of 2017.

And I trained them on the first iteration of a coaching methodology. And I realized that one of the things that was really helping me and get my students results is I wasn't just teaching them about business and here's what to do, but I was coaching them on themselves to unlock and unleash higher levels of performance. And there were certain things that I was saying and certain things I was doing. And that next level of mastery is what if I could teach other people how to do that?

And I trained these, this small group of like huge hearted people that were just like, I just want to help people. I don't necessarily want to start a business, but I just want to help people. And I trained them on this and I started process sizing that something that we take for granted that we do so automatically. And fast forward two years from now, I had trained 45 coaches to be a part of our

organization that do their own, like even in BBD, they're, they coach in the Facebook groups. They do their own calls, hot seats, laser coaching, one-on-ones group stuff. And in all my programs today, even at our seven figure, we have coaches in there. And it was all based on like, first of all, that question, what's that thing that would scare you. But based on like another level of

I don't know if it's control, if it's ego, it's that pride, it's that significance. But like I was confronted with at a certain level of like, do I really want to help people or do I just want to get validated and be significant for having helped someone? And I said, if I truly want to help someone, then I shouldn't care if I get the credit. Yeah.

And if I can help someone to help another person, then that's still me fulfilling on my Dharma and my mission. So it was scary, it was confronting, it was a huge growth thing. But now we have a group of people that could do what I could never do on my own. And the big joke is like a lot of our clients like them way more than they like me anyway. So, um,

You know, that was all. Yeah. I hope that makes sense. It's big, big kind of door that opened, but yeah. It does. And it's great as well for those entrepreneurs who maybe do have coaching or consultant companies and think, well, people won't buy from me if it's not me delivering. Yeah. And people aren't really buying the thing to sit on a conversation with you. They're buying the thing to get the result. Right. But, but, but here's the thing. There's a truth to that. If what you've been doing is just selling you. Yeah. If all you're doing is saying, I'm so awesome.

and I'm amazing and you'll love me, then you just sold you. And a lot of people are doing that. Like if I get you to like me, which is by the way, that's how I went from, I was stuck at about 300,000 and then in one year we went from 280,000 to 1.2 million and that was in 2013.

And people ask me, how do I make that jump? And I said, easy. I let go of the need to be liked. And I think a lot of people are building a business off of popularity. If enough people like me, enough people will buy from me. That is the biggest kiss of death. That is complete and utter nonsense. Stop giving yourself so much self-importance because you're right. They are not buying because of you. They're buying because...

there's a problem that they have and either you've shown them and demonstrated that you can solve it or someone else well and when you make it more about a framework or a methodology that you are I'm going to deliver this then it doesn't matter if it's you so what did that look like to let go of being liked

Oh my goodness. I was confronted with, I realized I was really good at it. I got damn good at it. I became charming. I became funny. I had all the right things to say. And then I started noticing something. And I bet you everyone here listening does this too. I noticed the invisible, subtle filter or hesitation filter.

between what I was writing and pressing the publish button that I'd stop a moment. And when I stopped before pressing submit, the lens or filter through which I would reread it was, and I heard myself say it consciously for the first time, are they going to like me if I say it? And I hadn't even noticed I was asking myself that. And I was like, what? That's what I care about? And I

the moment when I did, when I was doing that, I was, I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't, I wanted to say things that people agreed with. I wanted to tell you what you already knew, Natalie. Like, I just wanted to say what's already in your brain that it doesn't help somebody. And so, but that wasn't really what, what I wanted to do. That was what I felt like I needed to do. And that was really plain safe. And so I didn't want to rock the boat. The moment I saw that

And this like kind of philosophy or concept that we all have invisible targets. They're, they're invisible to us a lot of times, but they're definitely invisible to the public. And I think you could close this thing. It's like, what's your intent? What is your intent? And I do believe intent matters. And so for a lot of us, the, in the invisible targets, our intent is I want to make money. I want to be popular. I want to be significant. I want to be liked. I want attention. I want fame. I want that stuff. And, and,

And the interesting thing is those are all byproducts. They're all byproducts. So you focused your target on the byproduct of something else. And so you're always missing the main events. You're missing the cause. And when the cause just becomes helping people, solving a problem, making a difference, giving the answer, giving the solution, who cares if they like you or not? And, uh, who cares about anything else? And then ironically, you get the byproduct. Right.

You get the clients, you get the sales, you get the money and you get those other things that I don't think are, are important. I think they are all products and fabrications of the ego. And I think it's, what's gotten me really far is like, I really, and I have to remind myself this every day because we can all develop in a bigger head and a bigger ego when someone sits there and says, Hey,

you are amazing. You are incredible. Like, OMG. And it's like, how do you not be like, oh, thank you. I am. And then the next day is like, you're a piece of shit. You're like, I am, aren't I? I knew it. And to like find a level of neutrality in your life where you don't give weight to either or.

That's work for each of us. It's really hard to just take in the good, but not the bad. It's like we tend to put an equal weight to both of them, right? And to sit there and say, I'm doing this because it can help. And if it can help, then I'm doing what I'm here to do. And that's all that matters is one of the most dangerous ways that you can be so powerful.

Cause I remember like, I've had people say nasty things, you know, you're always going to get haters and spammers and you know, like, uh, people that call you a spammer and all that type of stuff. When you do a Facebook ad to a complete stranger, we get all of those and yeah, but that you're always going to get that. And obviously I always love the positive sentiments is like, well, that's when you know you've made it and it's, it's, it's true. But if, if you feed it, if you let it affect you, it's going to take you down. So you won't have made it for very long. Um,

And to me, all that matters is like, I know where my heart is, I know where my invisible target is, and of course someone's gonna say that. And the more you're doing that, the more you're in your power. Because if you're in your power, you're not giving it away. And unfortunately, the bad news I have for everyone is the more you're in your power, the more triggering you become to other people.

There's gonna be kind of two reactions from that. Like either people see that and they go like, wow, I got some work to do because every time I see Natalie, man, she pushes me to be even better. Just when I feel like I am like toe to toe with her, I'm like, she is stretching me to grow.

And then there's the other one that's like, that fucking bitch, right? And like, how dare she? And that's just how people decide to interpret what is happening internally when you show up in your power, when you shine brighter and you're bigger than you've ever been. And people have to face the smallness that they've been choosing. You're not small, you're just choosing. It's just choice, life is choice. And I always try to just like,

not give any attention to that. I just say like, I want to help someone today. What's helped me? Will this help them? Let's go do that. And that's all that matters. And the other stuff will come. It makes things so simple. Yeah, I know, right? The byproduct of it is ultimately, you know, you do end up doing better. Your content does better. It gets more engagement. You make more sales. You attract more clients.

Because also, you know, we're in a space where there's a lot of people on social media creating content. And when people are too scared to say what they really mean or feel, they end up saying the same thing that everyone else is saying. And so is that a brand you have or is it just like, you know? Yeah, like a voice recorder that just echoes back. It's a copy machine. And I think people are getting bored of that. And just going...

I love that so much. And what you said about when you are in your power, that's when you will either have people really relate to you and really be excited about what you're talking about or they'll really repel and that will be triggering for them. And learning to be okay with that is...

such a growth edge for a lot of people, but so freaking important. And I'm so glad that I've been on that journey too, because that, and it's one of those things you have to consistently remind yourself of it. I'm really out of my power right now. I need to step back into it. But when you do, you really change the way you allow people to treat you and the way you allow people to show up. Like you don't put up with those DMs or those,

Like people often ask me like, are you not scared of being canceled? I'm like, not really. Cause I'm not going to let them cancel me. Like I'm not interested. I know my heart. I go to bed sleeping well at night. So I'm not going to feed into, let me make a statement. No, I'm not interested. And that's all that matters. All that matters is what you feel and what you see when you look in the mirror. And that's all that matters. And if there's something you don't like about that, you change that for you.

And that is the hard thing. It's a really challenging, like business is so simple. Business is so simple. Here it is. Build your audience.

and sell them what they already want. That is business. The only thing that makes this hard is the fact that we're humans with emotions and it's going to bring up so much stuff. And it just, that's just there to show you like we've got some growth and some healing to do. Yeah. And I've been on that growth and healing journey since pretty much day one. And we all need to go on that. And that's, and that's beautiful. But,

I mean, people get into this, like, it's like, I need everybody to love me because I didn't get love. I need everyone to hear me because I've never felt heard. I need to. And it's like, no, we're just here to help somebody. And it can really be as simple as that. And I want us to keep it simple because you're going to go so much further. It's just so much more powerful. Yeah. Now I know I go off on these tangents, but I know you wanted a little bit more of the nitty and gritty. It's okay. Cause I'm going to pull us back to that. Okay. We're coming back to that. But I also like that we talked about this. Cause I,

I know a lot of women can hold back from creating personal brands. And I know a lot of women that want to create personal brands, but they hold back from doing it because they are worried about that perception and knowing what comes with it. So I love that we address that. But going back to the team stuff, what I did want to ask you was specifically, what does people on your team do? What do people on your team do? Yes. So we have an org chart, which means there is a title, a role, and a responsibility for every team member.

Below me is Jilly. She's what you would call the number two. I think people refer to that role as a COO and our business is integrator. Love visionary integrator. Yeah, those are the distinctions. We learned those from Gino Wickman's work with Traction.

I think people get a lot of it wrong because I'm hearing a lot of people like misusing it. So because it's challenging and tricky, but here's how we distinguish the two. The visionary me is where and why, right? Where are we going and why are we going there? And her role becomes who and how. How are we doing it and who's doing it?

And that's the way we always did. So the other way I say it is here's what I want to have happen. And her job is here's how we're going to make it happen. And those are the two at the top. We have a leadership team of five. So it's her and I. And then we have a growth department, growth team manager. We have a fulfillment manager. So someone who's an entire mini team of the growth of the business. That's leads and sales. And then the fulfillment side is everything that happens now.

After the sale is made from our coaching to our events to customer support, everything, all of that's there. Right. And then we have operations. So my executive assistant is also our operations director. That's all the things that people don't want to talk about that actually do exist in business like HR and taxes and payroll and all that fun stuff, legal and whatnot.

And she's ahead of that. I love that, that, that she has that dual role. Yes. Because it really isn't a full-time thing because you know, there's attorneys, there's, there's bookkeepers or CPAs and stuff. And she interacts with them as a first point of contact, but, but she's not doing all of that. She's managing overseeing that as my liaison. And then me, I'm a very low maintenance boss. So she doesn't, there's not too much she needs to do for me. Although she did just book me a massage for tomorrow, which I'm really excited about. It was very nice for her to do. But

But I don't try to have her be too much of a diva. Like, where's my jar of blue M&Ms? I need my blue M&Ms. So we have our growth team and our fulfillment team. And those are like the two most important ones. Can I ask one question? Oh, please. Yeah. I love the details. So on your growth team, and I'm asking for me, on your growth team, when you're focusing on leads, are they also managing your content and audience growth? Yes, all of it. All of it. Absolutely. So on the growth team,

So if you look at it like an org chart, it's, it's visionary integrator, growth team operations and fulfillment. So clean. Oh, that's it. And that's it. So yeah,

What matters is sales. So I always work backwards. Stephen Covey said, seven habits of highly effective people begin with the end in mind. The end in mind is a certain amount of revenue. Income and impact is what we say. So we need, well, I use the formula TLC because our business needs TLC, not tender loving care, although that's nice. Traffic leads conversions. So conversions are customers, sales to leads and leads to traffic. So the growth team backtracks from customers to leads to traffic.

And so they are responsible for those three metrics in the growth team. Okay. So yes, our head of growth department, her two primary metrics are leads sales. Okay. Okay. And then our traffic sources are ads, podcast and social media.

All right. We have, you know, from existing email, but we're using that to get leads and then we use our email list and whatnot. And so we have someone who is the official role that she has is creative content director. So I didn't want to put her in a role that's like Instagram manager or social media manager. Her job is to take my content and use it in a creative marketing sense.

So we have processes for how to find that content, how to spot that content and how to repurpose that content. So we have this concept called tapping the well, which is I'm going to be doing what I'm doing. Podcasts and coaching content, right? Those are, that's a role that exists in the growth team. That's your rhythm. That's me. Yeah. Do a podcast every week. Her job is to take that or any other content I've ever created and reuse it and repurpose it for me.

anything we're doing either on social or anything in our world, right? Creative content director. And that's, and that's her job. I can go deeper, but I'll do the 30,000 foot view. Also someone who manages the podcast because the podcast is a big, big thing for us. We just hit 600 episodes. That's incredible. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We've been doing that since 2016. And so there's a whole management of that, but that's managing the growth. We have an agency that,

that is not part of the core team that manages the episode edits it show notes and publishes it so our podcast manager is managing the growth the content strategic content side of it and the marketing of it okay and then there's me as providing content we work with outside copywriters to bring us copy angles and that's that's my girl team can i ask a question oh please yeah so

TLC, love this, traffic leads conversion. So my belief- And that is a sequence. They're not just ingredients. It's a sequence. Traffic to leads, leads to customers, yeah. So my belief is that if we do a really good job actually

creating a great funnel that takes a lead to convert and become a customer. If we really do that well, then focusing on the traffic number, focusing on that one number, feels like the revenue takes care of itself. Yes. That's where I really love to focus my team. Is that a belief you have too? Yes. Yeah. It's so great to be able to work backwards and distill it like that because the way I see it is we can get so caught up on the little details of the funnel, but if you know the funnel is converting, you just need to fill that

thing and you can really put your blinders on and have your team drive towards that and it explains to them why we need to be getting fresh eyes on the podcast fresh eyes on social because we're constantly filling it and if your funnel is working and your product is great if your revenue slows down it doesn't mean something's

broken doesn't mean let me go create a brand new offer let me go no exactly and i think that's what a lot of people think it's like time to move on whereas often your traffic just drive dried up because you've been focused too much on converting that you haven't brought any new eyeballs you haven't nurtured this is huge i'm glad you bring this up because i'm going to talk about this at a

rapid pace, but it's an important thing. What we're talking about the way we call it is having a sales machine. I know everyone's going around saying, what's the best way to sell? What's the best? And of course I always say, well, what do you mean by best? Unfortunately, a lot of people say quickest and easiest. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant best, most profitable and highest converting, which is rarely the quickest and easiest, but there are several different ways and

we could always get into that. But the most important thing is that anytime you have any type of digital product, whether it's a membership, a course, even just like coaching with you, it doesn't sell itself. We ain't selling iPhone cases on Amazon where I just need to see a picture, two reviews and add to cart and I'm done.

and that's what a lot of people do is they just put their product on their website, add to cart. And they're like, why is no one buying? Or they don't even bloody put it on there. Well, yeah, yeah. That's another story once. And they say, Natalie, I'm not making sales. What are you saying? And that's where I said before, it's, it's an act. It's an action to offer something and your product isn't the same as, as an offer. So we need a sales machine. You mentioned a funnel that is a sales machine. And the function of a sales machine is to take a, uh, a,

a prospect or lead and turn them into a customer. So you asked a great question. So once I have that, that funnel or sales machine in place, is it just a matter of getting more people in? And I say yes, but it's a yes. And because once we have the machine, there's two ways to grow it, right? I mean, there's more, but I'm going to give the simplest way. And one way that people do is I just need more people.

And that's where a lot of people then go, I just need more people. How do I get in front of more people? How do I reach more people? And that is one way. But the other way, of course, is to increase the performance. If I have a funnel that 10 out of 100 people say yes, if I get 1,000 people, I got 100 people. But if I'm also doubling the performance on it and get the same amount or go to 1,000 people, now I went not 100 customers, I get 200 customers. Mm-hmm.

And so people tend to only look at one or the other and we need to look at both. It's multidimensional. So the performance of your sales machine matters. The metric that we use for this is called EPL. EPL is what we see is the Holy grail metric of your entire marketing department. It's all I care about really. I mean, it's not all I care about cause I got to care about profit and stuff like this. But when I'm in like sales and marketing mode, it's like all I care about. EPL stands for earnings per lead.

And earnings per lead is, in my strong opinion, over 15 years of doing this, the best metric that measures that performance of the funnel. It's how much the... You can just look at that language. Earnings per lead. What is each lead earning you? Or what is the value or dollar amount or pound amount or euro amount of each lead that comes in? So the higher the EPL, the better it performs, right?

But it also gives you a couple of other data points. Once we know, and I'll tell everyone how to calculate it. It's actually really easy. It also tells you how much you can spend to acquire newly. So I don't have my calculator in front of me. So I don't want to give an example and do the bad math. But the way you get to it is if you just look at the language earnings per lead,

It's total sales divided by total of people that opted in. Let's, let's calculate it right now so you can give an example. So, so it's a total. So give me a total sales amount. Any, any simple thousand, $10,000. So you just made $10,000 in your funnel and let's say a 30 day period. Okay. Or, or it doesn't matter what the day period, as long as you know what that is divided by the amount of people that went into it. And you want to give me a hundred, a hundred, that's going to be a great number. So what did you get?

A hundred. A hundred. Easy. We didn't need a calculator for that, did we? Well, it wouldn't. But on the spot, I'm going to mess it up. Imagine if we were like a thousand. Yeah. So now we have an EPL of $100. Okay. Now...

people are gonna go to two places. What does that mean and is that good or bad, right? So is it good or bad? I try to stay away from good or bad as much as possible, but I will say this, working with a lot of people and every single member of BBD, I force them lovingly to do a debrief and at the top of the debrief is your EPL from that launch, promotion or funnel. - Okay, got it. - And so, and I just had a client today and she just, she's one of my high ticket clients and she just texted me her debrief on the way down here actually and her EPL is $17. - Okay. - And I said, we got some work to do.

It's too low. And especially because it's a higher ticket product. Especially if you want to put ads out there too. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Cause that goes to the next piece. So now if your, your, your EPL is $17, that means every lead that opts into the funnel to the launch, to the promotion, to the webinar, to the challenge is worth $17 to you. So if you get two people in that's $34. Did I do the math right on that? That's $34 to you, right? That's how you can kind of think about it in that way.

But if it costs you $20 to get that lead, you are now losing money.

So our game, the game we play is higher EPL, lower CPL or cost per lead. And those are one, this is one of the most powerful metrics and distinctions for scalability. Because if you come to me and you say, James, my EPL right now, we do this, this promotion every quarter. That's EPL is a hundred dollars. And I'm getting leads with Facebook ads for five bucks. I would say like crank that up, let's go. And you're doing great.

If you were at $20 EPL and you've got like a kind of higher ticket price point, I say, we got to work on your funnel. Something we need to get, we need to get it up more. And so when I see someone who's doing really good, they tend to be in a 30 to $60 range. Okay. And then obviously ad costs. Like when we get into the world of ads, you don't need to get started with ads, but it's like, it's there waiting for you when you're ready.

But when you know your numbers, ads aren't scary. Because if I said to you, do you want to spend $10,000 this month in ads? Most people would say no. And I said, do you want to spend $5 to make 20? I would hope everyone listening would say all day long. Totally. Right? If you had a slot machine in Vegas that every time you put in a dollar, you got 10 back, how many dollars would you put in? The only answer I will accept is as many as possible until they take me away. Right? So that's the game. Yeah.

I'm a stickler and a contrarian and a jerk, jerky face. When I say, I don't care that you have a story from your childhood that you're not good with numbers or that you don't like numbers. Yes. Or that it's too masculine to talk numbers. I don't want to hear it. Then business is too masculine for you. You shouldn't be in business because you, you know, here's where I'll bring the feminine and you can't grow what you can't focus on.

And what you can't measure. So what you put your energy on is what will grow. But if you don't know what you're putting your energy on, you're just putting your energy on your, your opinions. You're just putting your energy on beliefs because people say, no, my emotions are, are valid and real. Of course they are, but they're based on lies because if you sit there and do your first funnel and you won't look at your numbers, you won't look at your data and you just, I feel like it was awful.

I feel like it was awful is a complete distortion that you are now feeding to have a real emotion of despair, frustration, and disappointment. But it's based on a lie that you're thinking little logical mind told you is, yeah, you're doing bad. This sucks. The amount of people that have come to me that spent the last month in a cave of shame where they just stopped coming on social media, they stopped doing anything and they finally come out of their cave

And with their head down and their tail between their legs and saying, and I said, why haven't you been showing up? Why haven't you been doing anything? He said, because my last launch tanked and they're in tears and they're crying. And I say, I'm sorry to hear that. Can I see your debrief? Of course, some of them say I didn't do it. And I'm like, shame on you. But then they show me their debrief. And I say, wow, it's actually pretty good. They are. I said, you have a $25 EPO. It's like 30, 35 is where I want to see it.

And this is your first launch? Yeah, first launch. So your first launch, you did a $25 EPL. Yeah, but I only made like $3,000. I said, yeah, because you only had like 10 people. You only had 10 people go through it. And that's the problem is people are focused on the wrong numbers if they're focused on numbers at all. They're focused on, I made $3,000. I made $5,000. And it was all this work and it's not worth it. I give up. And I say, you need to focus on the fact that you just built a machine that makes you money.

And you can run it again and again and again. If you take into context that when the first time I launched Business by Design after I was called Super Sexy Amazing Beta Program and I launched it, I made $200,000 and I was completely disappointed. At the time, I had an email list of like 170,000 people. I had a big audience and I only made 200,000. So for me in my world, it was like a massive disappointment. But I at least got it up and I had it running.

And that stubbornness kicked in that we talked about in the first one. I said, well, it's just a matter of unlocking this and figuring it out. And I kept at it and I did it again and it went to 250,000. I did it again and went to 500,000. I did it again and I had another 500, 550,000. I did it again and it hit a million and I did it again and it went 2 million and then it went 4 million and then it went 5.7 million. And that was three years. And I know it's cliche. Okay.

When you see those dumb Instagram quotes of the guy who digs for gold and he stops right before it, but it's dumb and cliche because it's true. And it's failure only exists because you consciously or unconsciously chose to stop. And I didn't.

And I don't look at, wow, that was a lot of work getting that first launch for a little. I go, wow, I built something and I can run it again. James, I had to write like 70, I felt like 75 emails I had to write in order to do that. And I said, and now you'll never have to write them again. How about that? So do it again next quarter. And that's what your next 90 days is about. Do it again. And then all of a sudden, three quarters in, all you've been doing is dusting off the emails, maybe in a new subject line, making ad change tweak.

And all of a sudden you're doing one tenth of what you were doing and you've quadrupled sales because two things are happening. You're increasing the performance of it and you're getting more people in. And it's that threshold that you went past. Like people talk about that runner's high where you break that wall. Now you're on the other side of it and you feel this euphoric, amazing, I could do this forever. And you stopped before that wall and we got to break through it. And one of the reasons too that we're not

is because everything that it takes for us to be successful as an entrepreneur and a marketer

I can guarantee you 99% of people didn't learn those skills. So you're learning them on the job. Give yourself a break. You're getting better at it. And it is a lot. I'm not here to promise anything is simple. I'm just here to say that we can make it more simple than we've made it and that it is possible. You have to ask, are you willing to give what it takes? People are asking, do I have what it takes? And that's nonsense. Of course you have what it takes. Are you willing to give what it takes? And all it takes is time. It takes time to get better, to improve.

to figure out what it is I have and how to sell it. And if you're willing to put that time, you know, over time, it goes up. It's very rare that someone is just like, I decided to start a business. I know we had a lot of that in COVID. And then six months later, I had millions of dollars. That is the rare exception and it happens. But for the rest of us, like me, it was four and a half years before I got to a hundred thousand a year.

And then it was another three years before, three or four years before I took that to a million. So I'm the tortoise and I want everyone else to be the tortoise. You'll win the race. It's just not overnight success, which is again, the slowest path to success is looking for the overnight path. Yeah. Oh, this conversation reminds me so much of, I was at a mastermind a couple months ago and Dean Graziosi, he's been on the podcast, is incredible at sales and marketing and we were all asking him questions and he...

he almost leapt off the table when he said this one thing and he got so, you could see the frustration in his face and he almost leapt off the table and he said, most people are not willing to go the distance with the thing that they have because that isn't the easy path. It's so much easier to keep creating new and keep creating excuses than to double down on what you've got and go the distance with it. And this just reminds me of that, of hearing how many times you launched it

Such a reminder for so many people listening who probably, oh, Natalie, I only got 20 sales on my webinar. Well, how many people came? 30. I would love that conversion. Give that to me any day of the week. And then you tell them it's amazing. And they're like, wait, I'm like, what happens if you put 50? 100, that's all in your control.

And you have the webinar now. So let's do it again. It's done. And I also, if you're listening and you're hearing this and you're starting to feel like, oh, some things are going over my head. You know, I'm not used to talking about leads and things like that. It's okay. But I want you to hear it because I want you to hear there is a formula for all of this. This is not like you said in part one, some guru opening up

a box of magic tricks and saying pick one it's going to make you a millionaire no there's literally a formula that ask any marketer and they will tell you but most people will not go the distance to figure it out because we let shame and everything else get in the way so I love this

I want to pivot on because a lot of people are listening. They're like, okay, I got it. Okay, I got it. I don't need to do, but how am I going to do it? You're doing a three-day workshop. Yeah. I'm going to be there. Yeah. It's going to be amazing. We're actually collaborating on something really fun at Boss Babe as well. We're putting together some amazing bonuses, which I can't wait to tell everyone about, but let's go into the workshop. Okay. For anyone that's listening who is starting, this is starting to click in, whether they have a business. And by the way, I'm assuming this is if you want to have a business or if you already have an established business.

Anyone who is a business owner will get value to this, um, from, from this cause there's so many universal business and marketing principles, but who I love to work with are the change makers that are, that are here today. The, the experts and the coaches that are looking to create, um, a brand, like what I say is like, it's their own world. Okay. You know, you're creating your own world, uh, where people step in and they're buying your, your products and programs and

And that's who I, that's why I facilitate this, this training for. Okay. So when we were talking before you were getting real excited about coming, it's basically like you're lifting the lid on your business. We're getting into the machine. What is, what does that mean? You're going to show us the machine. What does it mean? Like, what am I going to be learning? Yeah. So a couple of things, like if, if people listen to the previous episode, we talk a little bit about what business by design itself is, is, um,

The processes in the Lego instruction manual. It's not another course. But you do need information and learning. And so you're going to get that in this free training. Okay. It's like this is the... I'm going to give you the plan. And what inspired the training was seeing how much people are just...

selling you that one piece. If you just have a standout Instagram account, you're going to get flooded with clients and make all this money. Or if you just start a podcast, your business is going to blow up. And that's what we're sold and we're told. And I get it. I understand that that person niched down and they got a great offer and that's wonderful. But what I wanted to do when I started Business by Design was give a holistic plan.

And that's what this training is. We pop up the hood of the eight figure car and you get to see how it runs. And the metaphor that I use for business is that we are building a business machine. And so a business is made up of these gears. And these five gears are the gears that cause the leverage that interact with each other to, to work cohesively together, to create something that once it's running, doesn't need as much from you. That's the goal that we're

They work together to create more leverage and scalability. Okay. Okay. So there are five years to your business machine. I'm going to show you how they all work together because that's, that's the big thing is like people are like, well, I have an audience, but how the heck are people making money? Or I've got this program that I've created, but how the heck do I get people to it? Or I've got both, but how do I sell it?

And it's because you, it's like you tried to put a five gear business machine together with three gears. You're missing something. And every, every single time, every single person was like, that's the one I'm missing. Right. And so it's from how to create the irresistible offer. Cause like I said before, your product is not your offer, how to create the sales machine, how to create the processes and the machines that fill the sales machine and how to make them all run. There's also, I'll leave this for the training to open a little loop and get people excited.

There's one gear that we put into the machine that added 2 million. And this was a huge piece that helped with that scale, but it added $2 million instantly just in doing it. And most people aren't even thinking about this. And it's so simple. I know what it is. And it's really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. It is so. And it's like, it's just like, we're not even thinking of it. And it's like all of these coming together and working together and

I don't want to help people do that. So we're going to help you. I have a really cool exercise we do there called Creating Money on Demand. I'm really passionate about healing our money stories as well. And as entrepreneurs, we need to be doing that. And so it's a whole process I'll walk you through in the second training called Creating Money on Demand, because that's what we get to do as entrepreneurs is choose the amount of money we want to make. But we work back as a plan and how that is the thing that creates your offer. That's the thing that creates the way to sell it. And we have people

live in that training, going out and making offers and making money in that three day training. Cause that's how simple it is when you think that way. And, um, it's, it's a really, it's really fun. I'm such a stinker because there's people that say like, I've bought the $2,000 courses and this is, this was more valuable than that. And I said, well, that's the goal. So mission accomplished. And that's, and that's how we love to do things. It's just like, we, we bring it and it's, uh, it's mind blowing, but it's, it's showing you

The whole behind the curtain thing of how we built this business and how I've done multiple now at this point. So it's going to be fun. That's June 1st. Amazing. I also love the distinction between your product is not your offer. Yeah. I don't feel like enough people talk about this and people try and sell the product and wonder why it's not selling. I love that. Okay. So if anyone wants to sign up, you can go to bosswave.com forward slash rise.com.

What's great about this is you can attend and you're going to get so much. You can then decide, or you can go implement this on your own. There's so much you can go implement. You can also, at the end of it, decide if you want to join business by design, all the options, but at least you

come along and take something away, whether that's getting your offer really dialed in. So it sells or implementing this thing. So you can turn up the dial on your sales or figure out what a machine would look like. So you're not constantly starting every single month, just wondering where's my next sale going to come from? Like, let's get off that. I can guarantee because of the way we, we teach and offer the distinctions, there's going to be a huge self diagnosis, um,

that I assist you with and a level of awareness to what we call business blind spots. So there is no way if you're present and you're fully attentive and showing up live or the replays, we'll have replays, that you won't walk away knowing exactly what has either been the thing that you've been missing, not doing or doing wrong. And that is what I always aim to give people. I don't want to tell people what to do as much as I want them to know

how to identify what's getting in the way or preventing them from getting what they want. And that will happen on this training.

I love it. You're going to kick yourself if you don't come. So please just sign up and then you won't come to me saying, Natalie, I missed it. It's a replay. No, there's not. Okay. Bossbabe.com forward slash rise. I say it because it happens all the time. Natalie, I missed it. So I'm putting this podcast out early enough so you can all hop in. I'm going to be there. I'm super excited. My whole team's coming. As you know, we've been working with you. It's been absolutely incredible. And I'm just so, I've been talking about it so much. I'm so excited to get this out to the Boss Babe audience because I want to

people to see there's a different way I want them to get off the hustle hamster wheel the worry wheel that we're on of like where's my sales coming from why am I this exhausted and burned out because there is a different way and I'm so freaking glad I found it now it's a game changer James thank you thanks for sitting with me for hours this has been absolutely incredible where can everyone find you yeah um

Since people are, you know, you guys listeners are all just already listening to a podcast. If you want to listen to a few more of my, my episodes on my show, mind your business is the name of my, my podcast. And like I said, we've done 600 episodes now. I talk about like anything and everything that has helped me. I mean, we've, we've had relationship experts on the, on the show to a lot around spirituality and mindset and, and anything that can help you become a

a better human and a better business owner so you can see more results. So that's found wherever there are podcast episodes, wherever they have podcasts. I think we're on all of them, Spotify, Stitcher and iTunes and all that stuff. So you just search mind your business. There's a lot of other ones out there, but mine will say with my name. Um, so hopefully you'll can find mine. So yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift.

All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom-based daily, weekly, and monthly schedule looks like as an eight-figure CEO, mama, and high performer. And I'll walk you through step-by-step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me,

and a plug and play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get

instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported you.