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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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Welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, Evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer. And today we’re talking about numbers and about data. But why why are we talking about this? Well, let me pose to you before you kind of scroll away and go ooh, numbers data not interested? How do you think it is that a coach or a therapist or online business owner gets to the stage that they have a seven figure business? How do you think it is that these business owners have the confidence to make financial forecasts? And let’s face it, they need those financial forecasts else? How are they going to confidently invest in their business? How are they going to confidently hire? Because ultimately, it’s borderline impossible to have a sustainable business, if all of it lies heavily on your own shoulders? Like that means if you are sick, if anything tragic happens in your life, which let’s face it, have you watched one day? A lot of stuff happens in our lives that is you know, unpredictable. And you know, if your business is providing an intrinsic revenue stream, which let’s face it, once you start doing well in business, it does, then how do we ensure that you’ve got Predictable Revenue, that you can hire with confidence that you can invest in systems and automations, which make everything you do lighter and more predictable and more for castable? And more scalable? Without worrying? Oh, but what if everything drops off a cliff in the next two or three months?

Now, I’m asking these questions, because whether you are at the stage that you are a six figure or multi six figure business owner who’s thinking about what’s required to get to seven figures. And yes, I’m not going to by any means indicate that it’s all numbers and strategy. And there’s no mindset piece involved are 100% it is stretchy, the more money you make, I sometimes feel it’s almost like the higher it feels you have to drop from if it all kind of falls diseases. And at the same time, the more money you make, the more evidence you have, of just how much amazing stuff you can manifest in your business in life. And that if the version of you got you to where you are now, of course you can get to the next place. Okay. So of course, yeah, mindset stuff is involved. But the real bread and butter of your business, the stuff that an external, I can look in on your business and be like, Yeah, this is worth investing in. This is worth collaborating with. This is worth sponsoring, is your numbers. And that really matters by the way, because collaboration, sponsorships, affiliations, all of those kinds of things, will play a really big role in creating a lot of ease. And dare I say passive revenue in your business as it scales. It’s also going to beautifully reinforce your brand authority. So it’s a win win win in so many ways. But you need to know, certain numbers, to not run the risk of literally just like running your business into the ground. And I see this so often because what’s amazing and exciting and exhilarating about the online business space is this ability to become somewhat of a success borderline overnight.

Unfortunately, the sad truth of the matter is, I know of business owners who have been at this game for eight to 10 years, who are still making I don’t know two to 3k months still not really running their business to where they desire to. And there are other people who less than a year ago just so Oh, I’ve got something I feel like sharing that’s Just create an Instagram account and see how it goes, who are now making multi six figures. Okay, and I know some people are gonna hear that, ah, I’m gonna like a dagger to the heart. And you know, a lot of the clients who come to me so often they are that person that has become an overnight success. And because they’ve had that overnight success, because they’re making phenomenal sums of money, they are equally in in a similar predicament to the person who’s not reached that yet in the sense of, okay, but what do I do with this? Now? How do I make sure that this isn’t a flash in the pan success? How do I keep this going for myself, and again, even when the numbers are on your side, it’s knowing your numbers, because what we don’t want is for you to be a trend and moment in time where people are into, and they’re going to go off you at some point, we want your success to be long term. I want you retiring off that success at some point and an early retirement at that. Okay, so let’s talk about numbers. Okay, I love numbers, because my background is in Facebook ads management. I mean, prior to that, yes, there was years of digital marketing. But one of the things that really got me salivating was recognising how we really get to expand our impact and scale revenue. Just off the back of spending some money on ads, you know, like taking the same knowledge you have about your ideal client, about your messaging, and your positioning and your offer, putting it out there to the broader world. And then simply needing to look at the numbers to be able to forecast what revenue is coming in. I mean, I was like, what, which really is this?

And why do so many people not know about it, which is why I’m such a huge fan. You know, when people are in my mastermind, I’m very quick to recommend advertising to them, when they are in a predicament that it is comfortable for them to put aside a certain proportion of their income, to put it towards advertising, so that they’re not like gambling on something and desperately wanting it to work immediately that they’ve got elements of their business working already. So they can afford to put some of that profit aside and put it into advertising with a long term view to creating scalable passive revenue.

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Okay. But before we can do that, we need to understand the numbers. So what I want to say to you is if you are listening, and you’re early on in business, these are the numbers you need to be thinking about, okay, you might want a pen and pencil, you might want to get your notes app out on your phone right now and make some notes. I’m not gonna get too in depth, because I appreciate it doesn’t make the best podcast, listening, hearing a whole bunch of numbers spouted at you. But I’m just going to speak about a few numbers and why they matter. And come back to that principle that I talked about so often, which is, I hate seeing business owners, online business owners throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they have a launch. That doesn’t work when they have an offer that doesn’t sell. And why do they do this? So often, they do it because they don’t understand the numbers. And if they did understand the numbers, they would be able to see, oh, actually, for every person that gets on my sales page, I’m actually getting a really healthy conversion of sales. The problem is, there aren’t enough people reaching my sales page. Or the problem is my opt in to my masterclass is converting at 10%, which means I’m getting half to a quarter of who I can be bringing in. And so the sales are crap on the other end, but that’s just because there’s not enough people coming through. Okay, so things like that help us understand, for example, that whole sales pages spent hours to be created, maybe you’ve invested 1000s In a copywriter, there’s nothing wrong with that the sales page is fine. The issue is, the volume of people who are getting to the sales page is too low, for there to be a large number of sales, particularly when we understand the average conversion rate of a sales page. Like if we understand that on a conservative level, about one out of 100 leads is going to buy from you when they land on your sales page that helps you understand how many people you need to be bringing into it. And it will also help you get clear on okay. And if it’s costing me two pound 50 to get somebody to my sales page, then realistically, it’s going to cost me about 250 pounds to make a sale. This is really important, right? Because some people, for example, will price that offer in a way that makes it that they can’t afford to spend 250 pounds to make that one in 100 sale, in which case we have a problem. But it’s a fixable problem. And similarly, we may be in a predicament that you know, somebody just massively underestimate. I mean, most of the time, it’s people under estimating, right? They just assume all 20 people have looked at my offer. It’s not sold, therefore it doesn’t work. They don’t understand that it may be the 25th person that comes to their offer that buys that shows them actually no it does work.

Okay. So this is why this is so so important. Okay, so in the early stages of business, if you’ve got that kind of traditional funnel of let’s say P Pull landing on an opt in to a master class or webinar, and then going to your webinar, watching a webinar, ideally, and then either converting to asking you questions in the DMS or booking a sales call, whatever it is that you’re inviting them to do, or in some cases, sending them directly to a sales page. What you need to understand if you have a funnel, as it’s referred to like that, I know sometimes so those early on in business, a word funnel can seem really foreign and overwhelming. So that is, you know, essentially anything that says people towards your offer is considered a funnel, okay, whatever that journey looks like. And in this case, if your journey is a masterclass funnel, it is essential that you understand what are the industry standard conversion rates, you can Google them, which is why I’m not gonna go too in depth on it. On this, like I say, I don’t even make the best listening, but you can Google it, look specifically for coaching, webinar conversion rates, but it’s usually between I like with advertising for it to be around 40%. organically, perhaps even 30% would be possible.

Okay. But ideally, you want it around 40%, you will see some people saying 20% is average. But that’s Tosh, okay. And most of my clients, opt ins and all opt ins convert around 40%. So you want 40% Ideally, okay, that also means that if you’re paying like, for example, in the business space, it can cost like three pound 54 pound per landing page. You know, like for someone who lands on your landing page, if you’re paying that, you want to make sure you’re converting a really healthy percentage of people. So it’s not costing you a fortune. So the better it converts, the cheaper your ads will be, if you decide to run ads at some point, which if you have an evergreen funnel, you 100% will want to do at some point, okay? Because you need perpetual traffic and leads growing in your business all the time to ensure there is a constant pipeline of people to sell to. This is again, the number one mistake people make an online business, they will keep on creating an offer another offer another offer to the very same pool of people repeatedly. Rather than recognise, they get to just continue selling the same offers, if they make the effort to continuously grow their following their mailing list all of that jazz. Okay.

That is one of the biggest reframes I help people early on in business recognise is stop creating brand new offers for the very same people for the very same pool of 20 people that keep on coming back to you. And instead, focus on bringing new people into your world. So you can keep on selling the same offer, it makes so much more sense on so many levels. Okay. And that is the beauty of evergreen, right? That is mainly the premise of evergreen that rather than create a whole bunch of new offers all the time, you have two or three core offers that you can invite people into at any time, and look at how that alone will transform your business. Okay, so once you’re clear on those things, that is going to help you get clear on essentially, what does it cost you to make a sale, I would also encourage you if you’ve got a really good tick tock following or Instagram following and you’ve got a lot of traffic coming from there. Or similarly if you’ve got amazing SEO, and you’ve got a lot of traffic coming to your website to look at those numbers and understand what the trends are. Because then when you understand what’s working, you can double down on that. Okay. So you know, just because somebody else in your space perhaps is making loads of money with Pinterest, if Pinterest doesn’t work for you, leave it alone. If you if you’re doing amazing or LinkedIn, double down on that this is a danger right in the online business space. Is there a lot of mentors speaking from their specific experience and encouraging you to do the very same thing you are not then you are not there? The most important bit of advice you can receive is to lean into your own data because we all have different strengths.

You know, if you’re listening to my podcasts right now, I’m regularly told that people like listening to me, people know I was taught for a long time. Why have you not got a podcast yet? Because people enjoy listening to what I have to share. Don’t ask me why they just do. I know that may sound a bit conceited. But I know that it really made sense to me to have a podcast because I love talking. I know other people who hate talking and are amazing, amazing wordsmiths, and they totally excel in places like substack. And this is why you have to be really cautious where you get your advice from. Because we’re all entirely unique. And we’ll all have our own strength, your strengths in different areas as to how we market ourselves. And if we can lean into the areas that make the most sense for ourselves, we’ll see the most success. And one of the biggest mistakes you can make is just trying to wedge yourself in a box that was never made for you. Okay, your marketing gets to work your way when you lean into those strengths. It will feel like constant resistance, constant pressure if you keep on trying to do things that don’t work for you. Like I once tried to do a fancy real and I quickly gave up on that because my ADHD combined with my autistic perfectionism meant that it drove me insane and why I have the wonderful Liam who helps me with editing my reels to avoid me going into that spiral because I know that’s a waste of my time as a CEO. Okay, so that’s phase one.

If Here’s what a business growth is like, just know your data. I mean, this is applies even if you’re in business later on. But that’s really important to know. Now, once you’re running ads, these are a few bits of data in because I think there’s a whole bunch of stuff you’ll already know about. But these are the bits of data that I feel a lot of people overlook. So firstly, it’s really understanding what your client acquisition cost is. So what is it costing you to acquire a client? And what does that look like on different platforms? Okay, and this is where I love tools, like hi Ross hire us is amazing, because it enables you really clearly, to understand, you know, wicked reports, I think is with that as well. Similar, does a similar thing in terms of helping you understand how well your organic marketing is converting how well your Facebook ads are converting how well your Google ads are converting. So I’m a huge fan of it, it does cost around $500 a month. So this is why I talk about it at the next phase of business growth, because for a lot of people earlier on that $500 or pounds should be going towards actually, you know, I’d rather be then put that on ads to begin with, rather than worrying about where the sales are coming from. And probably you don’t have the volume of sales for it to be worth understanding where they’re all coming from when you’re earlier on in business.

But when you’re at the stage where you’re like, Whoa, money’s coming in, I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from, then you know, hi Ross is a really great fix to ensure that you know, what’s working for you so that when you’re investing in agencies, and various people like that, to run your ads, run your Pinterest, do all those things for you that you know, if it’s a worthwhile expense, you know, because there’s so many different things, so many different pots, you can put your fingers in, when you’re scaling a business, it’s better to have a few and do them really, really well. And things like hi Ross will enable you to understand if actually, well, Google Ads may sound like a good idea, if they’re not actually generating a good cost per acquisition. And actually, your clients are costing you less via Facebook, that would be an invitation to scale down your Google ad spend, I think it’s always nice to have a bit there, scale it down and invest more in Facebook ads.

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The other thing that’s gonna really help you with things like advertising is understanding what is the average time it takes from somebody coming into your world to buying from you that again, will enable you to refine your sales funnels and sales journeys, so that, you know, if they, on average convert within seven days, which is usually what you see industry standard, you’ll know what you need to serve up for them in those seven days to make it really easy for them to say yes, knowing that the majority of those who drop off after those seven days, don’t then come back, you know, or maybe you’ll find that actually, most people need to be in your world three months. And that is an invitation for you to explore how you make that lifecycle shorter. The other thing to understand is your client lifetime value if you’ve got a suite of offers, and the average person who buys from you once buys from you five times figure out what that average number is because it will also help you understand what are you willing to spend to acquire a client.

I know this stuff should be really obvious, but it’s It blows my mind all the time how someone’s like, oh, well, it’s cost me, I don’t know, 250 pounds to make 1000 pounds, that’s only 750 pound profit. I don’t know how I feel about that. But then when we look at their data and use tools like Kairos, to get an understanding as to the average client journey, once they’re in their world, and they recognise actually 60% of people then go on to join their, you know, 10k a year mastermind, suddenly, they’re a lot happier to be scaling that spend with it, understanding what it means long term for their business, and what that means for their forecast of all revenue, which is super exciting. So similarly, that boils down to a client retention rate as well. And understanding you know, how many, like I said, What is that percentage of people who are going on to other offers, and your profit margins to ensure that you’ve got enough of them to be investing in all these things that you’re investing in? I mean, there’s so many more we could be going into.

But essentially, the main premise of today’s episode is just please, please, please watch your numbers, regardless as to what they are. In the earliest earliest stages. It’s as simple as looking at your Social Media Insights. And understanding what if your content gets a bit you know, is the most relevant gets the most engagement gets the most shares all and also understanding what role all of those different pieces play back. That will be my next episode. My next episode will boil down the different types of social media content you need to share, and why there’s three of them. So it won’t be too long. But it will help you understand how to measure the data behind your social media because this is relevant, whether you’re starting out in business or whether you’re deep into your business. But I hope on today’s episode, I’ve given you food for thought around recognising the role that understanding data plays in your business. I hope whether you’re starting out or whether you’re scaling from six to multi six to seven figures, I’ve given you some specific numbers to be reviewing to get clear on what you’re willing to either pay to acquire clients, or what it is that you’re doing organically, that is most effective, so you can double down on it. All of those things will give you so much more confidence as to what you should be focusing on in your business so that you can start to have predictable revenue. That’s what I really want for you. Because that’s what enables you to be that cushy CEO, which I desire for you so much. So if you found today’s episode helpful please DM me I’m really curious to notice first time I’ve really kind of delved into numbers, I could obviously go even deeper. But I’m really cautious as to like whether this is going to be picked up or listened to or valuable. If I could go a lot deeper, like I’d really get my geek on.

So if you want more geek, Polly, DM me, let me know. Let me know your other questions. Let me know if you’d like me to go more deep into it. If this is all jargon that’s gone right over your head, and you would like a more entry point level episode. Let me know. I’m here for all of it. Ultimately, I’m here to help you this, this podcast channel is my way of trying to help as many people as possible so that whether you’re in a position to work with me or not, that you can massively up level and upgrade how you do your business. So you get to be that cushy CEO, and nothing makes my heart happier than getting feedback from you lovely people letting me know how much you enjoy these episodes and how they’re helping you to reshape your relationship with your business to be that pushy. See, oh, well, there we go. That’s it. That’s it for me. I hope you enjoy today’s episode, rate it, share it all those gorgeous things. And I will be back next week talking to you about the social media metrics you should be measuring and how you should be basically scheduling your content to make it work best for you. It’s going to be a juicy one. See you then