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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hi and welcome to the show. Today I am talking about a personal one the five things I’ve learned in five years of running my online business. Because wow, like, in some ways, it feels like yesterday that I launched as a personal brand, and at the same time, it also feels like that I was a different person back then, but what I remember really clearly was looking at people like me, multi six figure business owners, business owners who weren’t nervous about whether they were making money in the next month or money in the next quarter. 

Business owners who weren’t flirting with LinkedIn and figuring out what’s their backup plan. Business owners who just seem to have this groundedness and steadiness in their ability to make money, business owners that would even forecast what their revenue was going to look like quarter to quarter. Well, I was just hoping I would get through the next week. And I wanted it so badly. I wanted to be like them. I remember I was, you know, so I’m 39 now. So five years ago, I was 34 but I had already been in the online space another two years prior to that, you know, were contracting and still helping small businesses. So I was in my early 30s when this was all beginning, and I remember just thinking, do I just need to be 4040? Plus? Because all these business owners would be, generally speaking, be in their early 40s. Honestly, that the questions that went through my head, do I just need a streak of narcissism, all the questions and deep down, a desire, a desire to feel the freedom that I saw muddled in them so beautifully. I just deeply desired that for myself, I deeply desired the financial freedom, you know, like prior to 2020 when I launched as a personal brand, I was being, you know, I was on Universal Credit. I wasn’t earning enough to support myself and my two small children. I was, you know, mainly funded by the government. That’s a weird way to put it. You know, I was being propped up by the government without them. You know, I don’t even want to imagine what would, what it would have been like without help, and it was a very run, vulnerable, very raw space to be, because I just walked away from a marriage where, you know, I know he didn’t have he didn’t think I would cope by myself. My family did. Thank goodness, they really believed in me. But my children, they were so tiny, you know, back in 2018 when I left him, there were one and a half and three and a half, you know, and there was, yeah, there was a real fear, you know, like a fear, but at the same time a necessity, because I couldn’t get, you know, there was too small for me to just go into a full time job like you can’t do that when you have children, one of whom still was, you know, in nursery for a good chunk of time. Like anyone who’s had a child in nursery knows that they probably spend 50 to 75% of their time, not in nursery, the nursery that you’re giving out, like having to sell your kidney to pay for, they’re not actually in there, because they’re coming down with all the illnesses that all the other children have all the time. And it’s not that dissimilar when they start out at infant school as well. It’s just endless sickness, bugs, chicken pox, all the things, and then throw a pandemic on top of that. It was a really intense period. And so when I talk about my business being five years old, the reason why I say that is because in July of 2020, bearing in mind, I launched as a personal brand in February 2020, and when I say launched as a personal brand, I’m making it sound rather glamorous. What that actually means is I created an Instagram account, I bought a domain, I had a very simple Squarespace website, and I put some offers on there. 

And, you know, I basically just promoted my. Myself on Instagram, and then I did my first ever launch in May. And May was when I had my first 10k month. And in July was when I’d been generating enough money for two or three months that I felt the confidence to call up Universal Credit and say because it’s so disheartening going into that gray building, them asking you questions about your business, like they don’t make you feel like you’re going to do well, it’s almost like they’re seeing you as a statistic, a statistic that’s going to fail. And they’re like, Have you considered this course at the community college that’s totally unrelated to what you’re doing? I mean, it’s, it’s just drab. Expect to get emotional say that, but yeah, it was really unpleasant breathe. And so, you know, when I called them and said, I don’t want to be on Universal Credit anymore, they said, they said, Are you sure? They said, you know you don’t need to do this. It takes a lot of effort. You know, it’s going to be really hard for you to get back on our books if you remove yourself. And God knows what, what was in me, but I just said, No, I’m done. Please take me off. And you know, it was that balance, right? That balance of like excitement, but also terror, because it was all on me. So by July 2020, I had a boyfriend. He’d moved in during covid Because I got so I mean, honestly, I look back and think, How did I have a 10k month while also being bed bound with covid? I mean, the online space is crazy. Right on the on the front side, there was me sitting on a balance ball at my windowsill, telling people about how to successfully market online, then crawling back into bed, barely being able to speak by the evening, hacking up my guts at nighttime, barely sleeping. And yet, somehow, somehow I managed to make in two months what my then boyfriend made in a year as a forest school teacher. And we couldn’t ignore it. He was like, it makes no sense for me, because obviously back then, all the nurseries are shut. It makes no sense for me to go back in full time and for you to remain part time around looking after your very small children. It makes a lot more sense that, you know. So he went down to like, one half day a week, and so that he could cook and clean and help around in our new big house, so that I could go all in on the business. That’s where it all began, like, and again, it wasn’t out of like, oh, this is exciting. It was kind of a necessity. Again, like, I wasn’t going to compromise. My children both have additional needs. They, particularly at that age, needed a lot of attention and a lot of support. But they still do now to a certain extent. You know, they’re now 11 and nine, but there’s still a lot of time and energy that’s drilled in. Well, we want to, you know, it’s a priority for me. You know, again, it was something I wasn’t willing to compromise on when I walked away from my husband, the first one, that is when I did that there was a knowing that my children would not suffer for this decision. They would not have less of a family unit. They would not miss out on family holidays. They would not miss out on nutritious, balanced meals. They would not miss out on, you know, board games in the evening, after school and being picked up and dropped off by me like and I don’t know, I mean, honestly, I look back and think, God, I was holding myself to a high, probably unnecessary standard. But those were also my values too. I wasn’t going to compromise on any of it, and I’m not stupid. I wanted my expertise to help people. And what drove me more than anything, wow, this is turning into like a really long introduction, but what drove me more than anything was knowing that if I could be a woman with years of digital marketing experience and the ability to help people, you know, which you know, I went on to help people have multi, six figure launches at the time with advertising and seven figure, Evergreen funnels, you know, Evergreen funnel, I supported its launch and scaling with ads in it launched, I Think, in February of 2020. Yeah, it was February, because the ad account got shut down in January, and so only launched in February by I think it was the end of July or August, she’d made a million pounds in passive online sales. So I knew I was an asset, an asset to

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other businesses. Can’t get so emotional this episode, my goodness, but my circumstances meant that it was, it was hard, and thank goodness for the online business space. Because, like I said, even when I was poorly with covid, with the energy I did have, I could find one or two. To three hours, and I could do enough to have a successful business. Honestly, sometimes people come to me, they’re like, I only have this much time. I only have this much energy. I’m juggling this much and I’m probably the last person to say it to because I made impossible things happen in impossible circumstances. And it’s it happened, and I’m not saying it didn’t come without a cost. You know, like, I definitely could have supported my health better during that time, there was probably adrenaline running the show for quite a lot of that, and there was definitely a period of recalibrating on the other side of it. I’m not going to pretend it was easy. It wasn’t, but the thing that drives me to do the work I do is I don’t want anyone ever being underpaid or working in a crappy role that is well below them, because they don’t know how to package up and sell their expertise. Because I’ve gone from being treated like somebody who had no hope, somebody who would probably always need benefits, somebody living in a tiny flat, which I was almost embarrassed to invite my kids friends to, because there really wasn’t much space to move around. We didn’t have a garden. Covid really drove that home. I was, you know, on Facebook with people sharing pictures of themselves going, Oh, in the garden again, Troy’s doing another barbecue. Just thinking, you have no idea. You have no idea. I am stuck inside with two tiny children who, also my daughter, being neurodivergent, did not you know she was so they were so they were so young that I didn’t really want to fully explain to them about how they should be around strangers and stuff in the park, because I didn’t want to scare them or make them paranoid about social relationships, you know. But at the same time, it was exhausting taking them out anywhere, because you could just see the elderly flinching just at the sight of them running around and that, you know, and I understood their fear, and I understood it was just horrible, horrible. I mean, they had thought, you can go out once a day. It was, it was just the worst. It was horrible. 

So to finally be able to move into a house, you know, it’s not a house we own because I was on benefits. So this is a house we’re still renting, but it meant the world like the money I make isn’t just a woohoo. I had a 10k month. It’s woo hoo. We now live in a house with a garden and a cat, because I always wanted a pet, and I finally got to have my pet, who I absolutely adore and my children have a house now. They can invite their friends around to things that people really just take for granted mean everything to me, everything, and I know we’re just getting started. So anyway, there, let’s get into the five things that I’ve actually learned. Because, yeah, let’s get into it. So the first thing I want to say is having heard my story. I guess if you are new to me, the one thing you might not know is within the first year of launching in 2020 I had to become a limited business. 

I think by the October, within a year, certainly within a year of running my business, I had to, because we started in April, I had to become a limited business. We made just shy of 100k obviously enough. So it was over the VAT threshold, which at the time, I think was about 86 so we weren’t 100k but we’re over 86 the following year, I think it was something like 186 the third year, it was over 300k and it’s kind of been around that since. So I’m not pretending I’m like all the way at seven figures now, but I have successfully earned multi six figures now for, I guess, four at the five years. That’s a good feeling. I remember the second year being gutted that I was just shy of 200k I was, yeah, not happy about that, and I’ve done it through the means of having an ADS Well, first I was an ads manager, then I had a boutique ads agency, and I was consulting. Now for the last two years of my business, I am consulting solely. I, you know, I mentor in group coaching programs, and I mentor one to one, and I also host mastermind days in Brighton. And essentially, I’ve molded my business into a business that matches my values, matches my cushy ideals. But yeah, let’s get into the five things, because this introduction has been so Mother effing long I’m going to make sure I fly through the things you need to know, and they’re slightly cliche, but let’s get into it. So number one is ready, doesn’t exist. I’ve shared on previous episodes. I don’t really do sales calls very often anymore. I just don’t deem them to be necessary in the majority of circumstances. Back. The day when I did the one thing I would hear in one guise or another was, yeah, I’m going to get into this one. I feel ready. I just need to have a bit more time. I just need to, like, square this project away. I just need and ready doesn’t exist. You’ll never feel ready to run ads. It will always feel overwhelming. You’ll never feel ready to raise your prices. You’ll always question if people will actually pay them. You’ll never feel ready to do any of these things. So you’re going to get need to get used to flexing your not ready, but doing it anyway, muscle you need to in whatever capacity that looks like for you, it’s not that you need to do all of these things at once. In fact, need is a really bad word to use in business, full stop or should? We’re going to get rid of the needs, get rid of the shoulds and don’t feel, oh, I need to been in business for another year before I launch a podcast, I shouldn’t stand on a stage until I’ve until I’m a multi six figure business owner, no one’s going to be interested in me because I’ve only done X, Y, Z. Particularly women can be really guilty of this mindset, of assuming that everyone else is better than them. 

We are always several steps ahead of somebody else, and I can equally feel this way too. By the way, I’m sure you’ve heard me being slightly apologetic about the fact that I’m not a seven figure business owner. Yet, I’ve supported so many seven figure business owners that, you know, sometimes it gives me a sense of like Oof. But at the same time, I know that there are a lot of six figure or approaching six figure business owners who love the fact that I’m not so far removed from their journey that I understand what it’s like to be where they’re at and what they need to do to get to the next level, right. And also, similarly, for my seven figure clients, they’ve seen enough of my case studies and the work I’ve done with clients who do have teams or who do have 100k followers on Instagram to see what I’ve done with them, to help them move forward. Whatever you know, whatever the context is. So, yeah, just ready. Ready is like, perfect. They’re just words in a dictionary. They don’t actually exist. Okay, just, just do the damn thing and figure it out as you go. Because, honestly, everything I’ve ever missed out in business is because I’ve been sat on the sidelines waiting to feel ready. And everything that has come to me, very often unexpectedly, has been because I just put myself in the room even when I didn’t feel ready. And the funny thing is, I’ll often reflect, oh my goodness, I was absolutely bricking it. And people will often respond, you wouldn’t have known. And I believe them, by the way, because I know I’ve similarly said that to my clients. Well, no, sorry. Other way around. I’ve had my clients say that to me, and similarly, I’ve looked at them being like, well, you may have been crapping yourself while you delivered that webinar, but I wouldn’t have known that. Okay, we’re always like the worst critics of ourselves. The other one is, and this one’s so important. Number two, it’s never as bad as you think. Okay, so I think because I’m very positive, and I’m very like, you know, my grandmother was from Yorkshire. She’s very like, just get on with it, Polly. Just get your head down and get it done. Don’t make a fuss. And so that’s very much how I am as well in how I approach things. So sometimes people just assume bad things don’t happen to me. Bad things happen to me all the mother effing time. The difference is, I’m a bit like a duck. It just like goes off my back, you know, I deal with it, I learn from it, and I move on. I do not sit with it and dwell on it or become a victim around it, because that is just not helpful, and I have to say that is a trait I’ve seen in all of my most successful clients. So if you do find yourself falling into victim mode really regularly around your business, assuming that the end is nigh, do take a moment to think about how much energy you’re channeling into that and where, where you use that energy positively to learn and to move forward, what that makes possible for you instead. Because I will say, that’s where my head goes. Sometimes I’ll be like, oh my goodness, you know, like, when we’re on honeymoon, I think I had, like, about 30% of payments bounce. It was hilarious. The moment I left the country didn’t happen the rest of the year, but suddenly in August last year, and there was a little part of me that was like, oh, feeling a bit dead inside, a bit offended, a bit like, oh, great, I’m on honeymoon, and this is, this is how you thank me.

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But I let Kim, I was like, I trust my assistant will deal with it. And she did, and everything was fine, like, there were various things that just happened to have all gone wrong all at once, and it was resolved really quickly, while the older version of me would already be preparing, like, where do I need to get a loan? What if this person doesn’t want to carry on working with me? I would have made up so many unhelpful stories that ultimately we’re a waste of time. I would say actually, a lot of the work I did in the last year with my coach was all around, wow, the mental noise I create around things that haven’t actually happened yet. And it was good to be in her energy, because she really had an energy of like, and what if it doesn’t? And that’s very much what I’ve trained my brain to do. So don’t believe for a second. I mean, I just said really confidently, it’s like water for ducks back. That’s who I am now. That is not who I was up until very recently. Okay, so it’s funny, actually, that I affirm that so confidently just then, because that definitely wasn’t me not that long ago. Okay, a lot of the work I did with that coach was about learning to be uncomfortable and learning how to be with that and then let it go. And it’s amazing, amazing how much we can change and how quickly. So what I also want to say is in those moments where, let’s say I’ve panicked about being able to pay myself or pay the team somehow, it has always, always worked out and oftentimes better than I could have ever imagined. So I really, really encourage you to not always be looking for the fire escape. I really encourage you to know one foot in LinkedIn job opportunities and one foot in making sales. I encourage you to commit like a marriage to your business, to believe, yes, you can have it. So you know, what if today gets to be the best day in your business? What is that going to look like to go for those bigger, stretchier things? So it’s very similar to kind of point number one, about ready doesn’t exist. Similarly, it’s never as bad as you think. And so when you trust in it being amazing, when you trust in today being one of the best days in your business, what are you focusing on? Okay, so really, your mind is, your mind is going to play tricks on you, my friend. 

So you know, well, actually, I’m going to come to that in point number five, point number five. Point number three, look after your clients. Look after them. I know the people in my world are already exceptional at this. If anything, they are over delivering for their clients. So I’m not going to go too heavy on this point, because I just know I attract like minded human beings. And so care for our clients is always paramount. It’s the thing that drives us. It’s our purpose. You know, sometimes I feel like I don’t have a purpose. I’m like I do, but my purpose is pretty simple. I just love seeing women succeed. I really do. I do that in my friendships. I do that in work. This is the kind of work that if I wasn’t paid to do it, I would still do it, because I’m I love solving problems. I’m a big picture thinker. I see patterns. I understand how things work, and I’m very curious and experimentive. But most importantly, I love to see women feeling full autonomy and control over their life so they can leave that icky marriage. They can, you know, like out, earn their ex husband, and do all those other big, bitchy things, no anything you want to do and give your children those experiences that perhaps you never got to have as a child, or have that menagerie of animals that you’ve always wanted to have, whatever it is I want you to have it, but yeah, so look after your clients. Because, as I’ve shared so many times, 70% of seven figure coaching businesses is nearly always based on client retention, based on repeat revenue, people coming back again and again. Okay, so revenue gets easier when relationships come first. Simple, I’m not going to say any more on that. Number four, this one is so, so important, and one I speak to all the time. So again, I’m not going to go too deep into it, because the moment I say it, you’ll be like, Aha, this is what you always think, Bolly. But focus beats frenzy. You don’t need to chase every shining marketing tactic. You don’t need to have the book to stood on the stages to be doing whatever your friends doing whatever your peers doing. You know, you don’t need to have all the offers. In fact, you know like, find a strategy, find a funnel, find an offer suite, and just focus on optimizing it. Don’t create new offers all the time. 

Don’t create new funnels all the time unless it’s in response to the ones you have already. Yes, that’s boring as hell. Yes, you might disagree with me. Yes, you’re free to do things your own way. And yes, there are people succeeding doing things another way. I think, because I have a marriage of autism and ADHD in my brain, the autistic part of my brain loves order, love simplicity, and can’t kind of handle what I’ve seen in perhaps some other and I don’t want to be judgmental here, but some other ADHD business owners who prefer the kind of more like, Oh, I love spinning like 10 different offers at a time that suits some kind of brain types. And if that is what suits you, then knock yourself out, because there are people out there who succeed with that. Because they’ve got the energy to sustain it. They can. They can plow themselves in 10 different directions and still deliver in all areas. They often tend to be incredibly charismatic, and that carries a lot of the experience for their clients. For me, personally, I would burn out if I had that many different plates spinning in my head, and I know I would drop the ball. I know people would get, you know, things would break, things wouldn’t deliver the way they need to. I suspect that would impact my client retention rate. And to be honest with you, the seven figure businesses I see that succeed don’t have the 10 different offer approach. Again, there are a few, a few that kind of, what’s the word? Kind of defy that. But on the whole, certainly the funnel businesses I’ve supported have a client journey that an offer suite is mapped to an ADS funnel and just simple rinse and repeat, organic marketing strategies. It really is so simple. You get to make so much money in so little time, and give clients an amazing experience when you do less and you do it best. Less is best, so focus over frenzy and then number five, and you’ll probably have guessed this one based on everything else I’ve just shared, but your business will only grow as much as you do. God again. Oh, I don’t know why I’m in this episode so vulnerable to record, but I’m just reflecting on it, just thinking, oh my goodness, the growth, the like as I shared at the very beginning of this episode. I want to give a hug to Polly from 2020 she has still got so much to learn. She’s going to get screwed over by clients who do not respect her, do not recognize her boundaries. She’s not clearly advocating for those boundaries. Oh, my goodness, I sound really weird talking about myself in third person, but it’s been a journey. I’ve had to learn so many things the hard way. I’ve had to learn poly boundaries are not words. They’re not something you put in a contract. They are something that you are, that you do and people then meet you with that energy. I’ve had to learn that no means no. I’ve had to learn that it’s so much easier to turn away a bad fit client, not easier, better for your business than to let that one client drain all your energy, all your joy, and for that to impact any other clients you have like there’s so many things that have helped me grow as a person to receive, I mean, even receiving my goodness earlier on, I realized when I as I started making money very quickly, what was the biggest mistake I made. I was plowing it back out again. And to be honest with you, to a certain extent, I still funnel a lot of my money back out to team members and tech and stuff. Because for me, balance is everything. Like, as long as I can pay myself successfully every month and I can work the hours I desire, that is way more important to me than having an immensely high profit margin. And you know what? People who are banging on about having 90% profit margins are the businesses that collapsed back into it. I just shouldn’t laugh, but like, because it’s sad, it’s really sad. And the ones who instead were like, No, pay myself a salary that’s genuinely going to cover me and my family with a bit of cushion to spare, and then the rest can be on Team and things that make this business sustainable and spacious and joyous with enough flexibility for experimentation and fun.

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That’s how I’m still here. That’s how I’m racking up amazing case studies for my clients, and that’s how I’m going to have the strongest foundations when I do decide to scale to seven figures, which being entirely transparent, I believe I’m on the beginning of the journey to now, because it’s been a journey reconnecting with my well, not reconnecting, but perimenopause is like throw through a real spanner in the works the beginning of this year. But I’m committed now to my funnels, my ads, and really walking my funnel ad off a sweet talk. So you’ll be seeing a lot more of that. So yeah, five years, five fucking years, still here. If you’re still here in five years, and you’ve been doing this five years, couldn’t fucking gratulations to you, because you know what? Statistically, we are an anomaly. A lot of self employed business owners or, you know, limited companies go bust within five years. I don’t know what statistics are, but I know it’s over 50% so we are phenomenal. We did it, and now it’s time to grow and scale even further. Let’s do it. Yeah, promise. We’re in it together. All right, cool. That’s it. That’s my episode for today. If you found it helpful, if you found it inspiring, if you know anyone else who’s on this journey and perhaps wobble. And they need something to remind them, yes, this is so frickin worth it, then please do share this episode. Please review it. Subscribe all the things that you do with podcasts. And you know, if you’ve been thinking about, how can you get your funnels working better so that you can have a deliciously spacious business that feels great, check out my new freebie in the show notes. It’s about the three mistakes people make with mini offers, so that you can make sure you have got the beginning part of your funnel bringing in quality clients who will be falling over themselves to buy your one to one or premium offers. All right, that’s it. I’ll be in your ears next week with a guest episode. Cannot remember for the life of me who it is. Let me just double check it’s going to be, oh my goodness, it is a Corker, an episode with ebony Allard. Oh my goodness, that is the first guest episode I’ve ever had where I actually cried. I’ll be in your ears next week.