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Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Hello, and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And today, I’m going to be Auntie Polly. All my one to one clients know about Auntie Polly, she raises her head occasionally, it’s the kind of more forceful, slightly demanding side of me. Now, you will have heard if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you will have heard me reference the cushy CEO roadmap, which I have to say, goes against the rules. In terms of what I always advise my clients to do when it comes to developing a lead magnet, which is I always recommend to them that they create something that clearly solves a problem. And the cushy CEO roadmap only clearly solves a problem if you are aware as to why you would desire to be a cushy CEO. So let me just get that one on the table and be like Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I’m breaking my own rules. However, one of the priorities for me this year has been about expanding people’s awareness around what I stand for in business. And yes, I’ve branded it as pushy. So yes, that roadmap. It’s not about growing my list fast, or with people with small intent, like small intention. But you know what I mean, without awareness, like I’m very happy that I know when someone signs up to that roadmap, it’s because I like tell me more about cushy business, that excites me, that really excites me. So yes, today, I’m being anti poly. And I am forced feeding you, the cushy CEO roadmap so that you can understand how this thing can help you. And of course, if you find this episode helpful, you can simply go to the show notes and download the damn thing. But let me give you good reason to first. Now, before I start kind of walking you through this roadmap and helping you understand how and why it can be valuable to you. I first wanted to let you know the why. Why does this matter? Why am I recording this episode aside from wanting to grow my list? But why do I want you to have this information? You know, what’s the roadmap for why do you even need a roadmap? Like can we not just make it up as we go? Okay, so let me explain that part.

I have created the cushy CEO roadmap because as far as I am concerned, we very often in the online business space over complicate things. When I started out as a service provider who wanted to create leverageable income, which I prefer to the word passive, I created trip buyers, I created many offers, I got distracted all over the shop, if I saw an advert saying build your low ticket offer with me, I would sign up in a heartbeat. Even though I was an experienced marketer, I just was easily distracted, because I kept on seeing all these beautiful, shiny things that promise me overnight results. And I knew I had amazing skills to share, I just needed to package them up the right way. So I was doing all of these things until I had to step back. Unfortunately, with my experience with being an ads manager and being very data driven, it took me seconds to understand why the variety of avenues I’d already explored weren’t gonna work for me anytime soon. And what I came to recognize, you know, every time so I don’t do less of these nowadays, but I still offer them if you want one, but I’m afraid I’m not giving them in August, if you’re listening to this in August, but I give free consults to those who are interested in working with me. And I saw a really common theme. And that common theme was people don’t know what to focus on when they don’t know when they should be focusing on developing their offers, when they should be growing the list. What order I mean, they don’t even know what order to do all of these things in so everything was done in a hodgepodge kind of way.

They were working way more hours than they needed to there were I mean, there was so like it was so easy to very quickly look at their business and really quickly identify, this is where you’re overcomplicating things things, this is where it gets to be a million times more simple. And here’s a really obvious opportunity for you to be making more money, like tomorrow. And beyond that, here’s how you guarantee that consistent stream of income moving forward, as someone has, I’ve had one to answer reflect to me in the past, like you are the most amazing person at identifying gaps, and seeing leaks in business models, to help tighten them up so that they can just sell out to see sale out to that because you see, so without further ado, this is why I created the cushy CEO roadmap because I could see that there are three very distinct phases of online business, which require entirely different focuses to help you move through that roadmap, move through those phases, until you are that seven figure business owner. And I will also tell you very, very truthfully, before we get started, that I have both spoken to seven figure business owners, who are like wanting to almost sell their business because they’re so burnt out and worse, they’ve created a business they couldn’t sell anyway, because it’s too reliant on them. So they’ve got this money, but a huge lack of joy. And often their profit margins are tiny, because they’ve approached everything upside down. I’ve reached the kind of, you know, I’ve talked with people who are kind of in that middle ground, who again, are reliant on things like live launching, and it’s exhausting them, or they’re reliant on being fully booked one to one or they’re relying on referrals. And a few tiny, they’re just a few tiny tweaks away from totally turning their experience of work around, and a few tweaks away from turning their financial circumstances around. And equally, there are those right at the beginning of their journey, who can be where they want to be so much sooner when they trust in what they’re focusing on.

So my goal for you, my friend, is that you listen to this and learn what you need to be focusing on now. So that you have a beautifully spacious, beautifully profitable business. And I am somebody you should be listening to, because that’s all I’ve been doing, particularly for the past two years, but for four years now, I’ve been supporting people to scale I’ve supported I’d like to make the joke that I’m always a bridesmaid never the bride. I’ve supported various seven figure funnels at this stage, but not quite managed that for myself yet. I’ve had multi six figure success, which if you listened to my previous episode, where I talked about my energetic leaks, that definitely was playing a role in that lack of seven figure success yet which is coming. Yes, I said, Yeah, that yet rolled out so frickin naturally. Yeah, baby. But yes, let’s just get into this. I’m getting I’m romanticizing my lead magnet, which is never a good idea. Is it? Right. Okay, so could you see a roadmap? Let’s get into it. So first is a little introduction to me and why you should trust me. So yes, as I mentioned earlier, seven figures made it for so many of my clients when I want to say made it I’ve supported various clients to create seven figure funnels to have multi six figure launches, I’ve created multi six figures for my business myself.

And I don’t even know if I’m at seven figures yet collectively, but let’s not go into that because I prefer to look at it year by year. But basically, I’m good at helping people make more money. And in a way that actually feels epic, and it is my biggest, biggest joy in life, helping people achieve it. And I know some people see money as a dirty word, I do attract a lot of highly ethical high integrity business owners, and I love that. But I also know that one of the sticky pieces for them is owning a desire to have more money. And so one of the things I referenced at the beginning of this roadmap is that I want you to give a well manicured middle finger to people pleasing overworking good girl conditioning, and recognize that you do get to have it all when you design your life in a way that allows for it. You know not not everyone in the world is that fortunate. And that’s not the reason why we shouldn’t do it. It’s all the more reason why we should be doing it. Because we are then in a better resource place to support those causes that need us most. Okay, I’m a huge I mean, it’s not something I talk about all the time, but I am acutely aware of it in my personal life. It’s something that I do a lot of one thing most people don’t know about me is I plant a tree not personally, a charity doesn’t my behalf for every new client I take on board. Anyway, I’m not gonna get into all of that. That’s a whole other thing. But you know, I care about the impact. Let’s just put it that way. Anyway. So I have identified the three phases of business growth.

Now some people will say build, grow and scale bla bla bla, I talked about it through the analogies of baking, because why not? And because it’s so for me it’s visual, and it’s easy to remember, and it just makes sense. So the first stage of business growth is what I call the cupcake. The second phase is called the cherry on top. And the third phase is sprinkle and scale. Now, I love this baking analogy, because when I think about a naked cupcake, yes, one without any icing. You’ve got, you know, like the cupcake, really, I don’t know about you, maybe it’s maybe my late 30s. But I don’t really like the icing, the icing makes it stand out, it makes me go oh, look at that, you know, I cannot walk past Lola’s cupcakes without taking a moment to take it all in. But ultimately, when I’m eating the cupcake, most of the time, I just want the actual sponge. The real magic really isn’t a sponge, or a good cupcake can be destroyed by a dry sponge, right?

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What I mean by this is, if you’re starting out, and you still don’t have expertise, if you don’t have the skills, if you don’t have the essential ingredients, then I would never encourage you to be thinking about leverageable income you are at the kind of you’re so early on that if you were to try and to go straight into a group program, you wouldn’t have the confidence, you didn’t have the knowledge, you wouldn’t know what makes you different. You wouldn’t know what your strength your strengths are. Okay. So that’s really important to understand, I see a lot of people trying to jump straight into group programs, you’ve not got much one to one experience. And that makes it really, really hard for them. Now, really important to say, for every role that is ever made. You’ve heard me say this before, it’s there to be broken. Of course, there are particularly very niche programs where there is evidence of people, particularly let’s see, if they’ve come from a group facilitating background, who can jump straight into it, or if they’re just very natural born marketers, or just very naturally confident. And one of those Yeah, this is go get it done. So of course, there are incidences where this doesn’t apply. But the majority of times, if you know I like to not, I don’t like to gamble, armor, like a plate safeguard, to be honest with you, in certain regards, not all regards certain regards. And when you are bringing the right ingredients to the table, which is a real lived expertise, and ability to deliver great results for your clients. It’s then about taking those ingredients and whipping them up into something that actually is the foundation of something that can be scalable, because if you can make one cupcake, you can make 20 of them, right?

So at this stage where someone is ready to make a change, you’re probably doing everything and wish you had more consistent cash to invest in support, like you’re at the stage where like this is getting a bit much now. Okay, yeah, I’m getting clients in, and wow, this feels harder than I thought it would be. You feel a borderline burnt out. And you may fear that’s the trajectory you’re heading on, you know, maybe you’re wearing all the hats and thinking I didn’t come here to be an accountant, to be a marketer, to be a salesperson, I just want to be working in my zone of genius, which is where you know, where I deliver results for my clients, or support my clients to get their own results. You’re confused why you’re not making more money. And you know, when you know, you’re amazing at what you do, like you wouldn’t be confused why you’re not making money if you didn’t trust in the fact that you’re awesome at what you do. And you dream every damn day about what your business will look like if it wasn’t wholly reliant on one to one clients, or roller coaster lump sums, you know, if you’re reliant on project work and all the other stuff. And don’t worry, I’m going to come back to a moment to what to do if you’re in that predicament. But the very first part of this roadmap is helping you identify what stage you’re at on this journey. So phase two, as I referenced earlier, is what I refer to as the cherry on top. And I’ll talk to you what it looks like on the flip side, the like positive side, but in terms of what it can look like when it’s not well oiled.

You know, it’s essentially the booked out service provider consistently making 5k plus months, who was ready to solidify a simple industry leading offer suite that brings in delicious recurring revenue on repeat. So at this phase, you feel like you’re still flying by the seat of your rookie pants, and you want to own a pair of CEO pants, because they look way better. Like you may have a VA but you don’t really trust you’re getting the best out of them. You don’t really trust that you hired them the best way you don’t really trust you necessarily have the best processes. You’re slightly worried if your VA leaves they leave with all their expertise and knowledge and you’d have to start the whole process again. Ouch. You know, you’re certain that your skills are shit hot that your offer positioning is lukewarm. And it means you’re not calling in dream clients or setting your business up for sustainable growth. You want to understand the levers to pull in your business to create more ease and more spaciousness without sacrificing income. You want to stop being so dependent on live launching and position yourself as an industry leader. And you’re done. With the push. I’m ready to make way for some cash. Like these are the people generally speaking when I speak to them who are most ready to jump. I wish the cupcake person would jump sooner because it’s not fun getting to the cherry on top stage. If like I say you haven’t got a well oiled machine because your success just won’t taste good. Oh, still still with the baking analogies.

So phase three of sprinkling scale is for the business owner who’s already hit, let’s say 100k 200k, but is plateauing and is ready to ditch being so reliant on live launching, and what’s the scale and a good and dangerously simple way? And there’s a fear, there’s a fear of like, Is that even possible? Can I make launch sighs Samsung monthly without needing to live launch. Now, I really want to quickly address at this stage, it doesn’t need to be all or nothing, you can do a combination of the two. And I’ve equally got examples of so many clients who make launch size revenue every single month, but therefore don’t even feel the need to touch a live launch because it’s already so freaking cushy for them. So at this phase, to know which phase you’re at, you’re figuring out how to utilize your lean team to take as much as possible off your plate without sacrificing profit. So there’s that whole balance between I want support, but I also want profit, how do I make sure I have both? You’re ready to scale your ad spend with a predictable ROI. But equally that same question. I want to spend more money on ads, but I don’t want it to be at the sacrifice of profit. How do I make sure I get that balance? Right? You want slick systems and processes to ensure your team don’t need micromanaging. And your clients have a premium experience that makes them want to buy from you time and time again. And you want a better tech stack to ensure everything is optimized from SEO to email deliverability.

Those are the kinds of things you overlook earlier on in business, and quite rightly so to be honest with you in the majority of cases. But later on, of course, you know, if you want to have a well oiled machine, you want to make sure everything is lickety Lik, and you’re refining your office suite to enable relatively passive 100k months that have you in delivery mode for just four to eight hours per week. So that is what your business growth trajectory can look like when you’re not starting with the correct foundations, the correct scalable foundations and the correct boundaries to support you as you do those things. Okay. And in the next episode, I’m going to break down what you need to do whether you’re at phase one, phase two, phase three, I was going to try and squeeze it all into this one episode. But that would be a humdinger of an episode. If you are impatient. And like I want to get ahead, I want to know what to do at each phase. All you need to do my friend is simply go to the link in the show notes. It will take you through not only to the guide, but it also will take you to an on demand masterclass where I literally walk you through this, similar to this podcast essentially. So yeah, go check it out. Link is in the show notes, www.pollylavarello.lpages. You know what actually, I’m not even going to do the URL because that is very hard to remember. But you can also simply go to any of my social media accounts and it is the immediate Link in bio. So there we have it friends. I hope you found this episode helpful. I hope you are recognizing more clearly where you are at in your journey right now. And while I know that isn’t immediately incredibly helpful in and of itself, it will be as we get to part two next week. I should see you then