00:00

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’s episode is about the sticky middle about what do you do once you’ve hit the kind of mythical six figures and realised Oh, not quite as rich as I thought I’d feel at this stage. We’ve all been there. Well, those of you who’ve been there have been there, maybe we’ve not all been there, I would love for you to move in there. And that’s why I have my programs out there to support you to get to that stage. But that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about. Not my programs. But the fact that the majority of group programs in the business space, their main goal is to help you generally speaking, and whatever capacity it is, whether it’s around visibility, whether it’s around offer creation, whether it’s around marketing, the majority of them are geared at either entire newbies in online business, or people who’ve, like been at it for a few years and just need to tidy up their shit. And get it working better to get to the stage where they’re making consistent recurring revenue. But that genuinely looks like about six figures.

You know, like some people, you know, when I say six figures as well, I kind of consider anyone who can create recurring revenue over 5k doing pretty well with their lives. And that’s obviously well before six figures, but anyone who can create 5k recurring revenue, I mean, once you flex the muscle to get to that stage, it’s it’s a hop, skip and a jump away from six figures, that is for sure. Under the right guidance, it gets to look a lot better. But if you’ve already hit six figures, you know that right, you know that you were like that bit. Yeah, there was a bit of a push before the cush. But now, what systems? Do I need to keep this consistent? How much do I really need to hire to have a team that will support me so I can actually have some time off? What does my office suite need to look like to make it scalable?

Now, these questions often bring about people looking for individual solutions, like I’ve heard this referred to before, which is, you know, lobby will say, once you are a successful CEO, what CEOs do is rather than like buy some all in one comprehensive solution inside of a group program, what you tend to do instead is recognise, oh, I don’t feel very confident doing sales calls, I’m gonna hire sales mentor, which is exactly what I did last year, thank you very much, you know, or you might be, I feel like, what I need to do is up level on my website, or up level, my brand photography, or whatever it is. But what your business can start to resemble is almost like a patchwork kind of doll, or you call these patches in various places. And what’s really unpleasant about that is at some stage, it can actually start to feel like that too. It can start to feel like one unhealthy wisp of air will knock you over. And because you’ve kind of got such a kind of almost fractured sense of what your business is, it’s really hard to understand as a whole, what you are doing with your time with your energy, with your revenue, with your goals. And people can end up in what I refer to as like aI such as that earlier, little sticky middle, because there’s that sense of not really knowing where to go next. They’re looking at the seven figure masterminds that occasionally some bolshie person will show up and the Instagram DMS going, Hey, successful entrepreneur, wants to come and work with my mentor. And it’s like, and sometimes I’m really alluring invitations like, you know, come on mastermind with us in Hawaii, come mastermind with us in Miami.

And it all sounds really good. But you’re like, but I’ll be sat there on a boat with a whole bunch of people who are acing it making seven figures. And I’m still I’m still just circling around that six figure maybe 200k Mark and not really certain about to how to get to the next stage. And a lot of those things that those people are doing at seven figures scares the living daylights out of me. Do I want to be spending that amount of money on ads? Do I want a team that size? The what is it that I actually want you know a lot of people try and a lot of other people’s strategies for size needs to get to where they want to be. And sometimes we can kind of lose ourselves a bit in that process, we start, we start to forget what you got into all of this for, you know, is it to have more time freedom to be there with your family? Is it to pursue another side of your career that’s equally if not more meaningful to you, like everyone gets into it for different reasons, right. But we can get very distracted by all these kind of financial claims and numbers. And believe that is, what success is if we’re not careful, okay, a lot of people around the sticky middle can find themselves either wanting to burn their business bridge down and start afresh, because it’s almost too boring or too overwhelming, and they just rather start again, or getting burnt out. feeling like they need to do all the things at the same time. Feeling overwhelmed, makes me feel sad, even just to think about it. You know, it’s not fun, not fun. And, and like I say, to me, it’s so obvious why that happens. Because the issue is, those people hosting those seven figure masterminds, they themselves tend to be the successful, multi six, seven figure mentors or coaches who have recognised let’s do volume, let’s have a scalable offer, let’s make sure we’re making, you know, that’s how they’re making seven figures is having various other multi six figure people paint, you know, bind to work with them all the time, which is great for them. And I’m not knocking it like great work, if you can get it right.

And at the same time, there’s a piece around, okay, but then who does that leave to mentor these people, these people who aren’t quite ready to be investing, you know, like, my usual one to one, for example, is two and a half K a month, up to 3k. Sometimes, and that’s really reasonable for the client, who I’m helping make seven figures a year, like that is a negligible expense. In their case, and one of the best investments they’re making, because I’m helping them with hiring, I’m helping them with advertising, I’m helping them with positioning, PR, all those gross niggles that come along, as you’re growing, usually requiring, you know, additional no knowing who to go to when you need legal assistance, and what to do to kind of diffuse things, all that stuff, all the icky gross stuff. paying me when people invest in me to work one to one at that stage is really, really worth it. And that person who’s still around six figures, what are they meant to be doing, because if they’re only making 10k per month, and so they’re paying themselves and all right salary, and they’ve got to put money aside for taxes, and they want to have the VA and they want to have the tech and the systems, they can’t afford a mentor that’s costing them two and a half K a month, I wouldn’t even advise it. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

07:35

And so you know, like I say, that leaves people in this predicament that if you want to learn from people who are walking the walk that you want to be walking in your business, it can be very hard to access them. And what a lot of those mentors and coaches do to ensure that they can, you know, work with people at scale, is to make themselves increasingly elusive. And to then have coaches and mentors who’ve never got even probably not even as close to where you’re at in your business, to come and work for them and advise on their behalf. And you can see how that can just become such a mess, to be honest with you. I myself was in a container that had that approach. And I didn’t like it, you know, I could tell from the conversations I was having with those coaches that I’d achieved more of my business and they had and that made it really hard to trust that they would really be able to suitably advise me on the things I wanted to do. Okay, so that’s a whole thing, right? That is our whole thing. I feel like I’m like spilling my heart and my guts on this. So one of the things I’ve done myself over the last two years, is I have worked with probably two and a half years now actually, maybe even three, is there any really in my first 18 months of business that I was inside group containers. And then following on from that I’ve always worked with a one to one. And that is also where there was a slight sense of kind of misalignment in my own business in that I have great programs which I’m so incredibly proud of they are so high touch. I’m so invested in the growth and well being and experience of the clients I work with. I’m so delighted for how they grow in their time that they worked with me. And there was a large number of clients who were completing their time working with me, who had nowhere else to go afterwards, because they weren’t at the stage that they could be one of my seven figure one, two ones, or in my seven figure mastermind, and they also weren’t in a position that they needed to continue inside my group program. And so it feels very, like appropriate on my birthday, which it is Friday the 22nd of March to be announcing that I have created an incredible inner circle to meet just this.

Obviously, it’s a podcast so I’m not going to go into details. But essentially I’ve created a one to one that is less than half the price of the usual investment of my one to one to help people with that sticky middle. Now if you’re not in a predicament to work with me on that I’m still as this, I’m still going to drop for you, what I really recommend you do to support you with your business growth, okay? Because this isn’t just about plugging the fact that I have a brand new offer, which if you’re very if you’re interested in it, and you check your emails, I’m going to be sharing more about it this weekend. And if you’re not on my mailing list, I’ll be sharing more about it in my stories over the next few days. And if you’re listening to this later on, beyond the time that I’ve been actively promoting it just drop into my DMs. However, I will warn you that it’s one of the things that it is incredibly limited, as it’s already. Well, it’s for eight people in two places. Well, three places have already been taken so as any five places remaining. But here’s what I advise. And here’s why I created this particular offer. You need a bespoke roadmap specifically for you, that meets your business’s particular needs. Some people at this stage in business are working too many hours. And they need they’re making great sums of money, but they are too stuck in their own business. And what they need is a strategist who can help them I mean, this is the issue here, right is that without a strategist behind you, and without a clear strategy as to what it is that you’re looking to achieve. When you make those individual hires, you’re not necessarily hiring through the lens of what is the bigger picture vision here. Like in I’m not saying investing in a website or in brand photography, or in any of those things are a bad idea. But they should play a role, in terms of what it is that you’re looking to achieve as a whole across the year, there should be a, there should be a clear trajectory, from the beginning of the year to the end, where all of these pieces play a role.

And if you don’t see what role they’re playing, then it could be an investment that is putting the cart in front of the horse. Okay, so it really pays to if you’re not hiring a strategist to at least think like a strategist to think really clearly, like remind yourself, what are your brand values? What is your business barometer? How do you ensure that you are always on track always aligned with your own values and in how you create your offers, in how you invite people into them, in how you spend your time and your business every day, each week, the time you’re giving yourself off, the way you communicate and connect with your clients. Make sure it’s all in alignment with yourself and your values. Because that is how we create a feel good business, right. And that’s also how we create client trust. Because if there is incongruency, between who you are on the surface and who you are behind the scenes, believe me that will catch up with you. And I share that with love. Because I know my listeners are all high integrity business owners. But for those out there who aren’t, it does catch up with them eventually. Okay. So that’s phase number one is like, make sure you’ve got those business and brand values. They’re not just words to have on a piece of paper, there, they should be part of your DNA, they should be part of how you make every decision. And what you’re doing. The next piece is is to be really clear on your priorities. So for example, going back to the one about if you’re working too many hours, the immediate priority is to do a time audit and to understand what are the most profitable activities in your business? Which ones are you solely responsible for? And which ones can you be delegating having this intrinsic, almost data? Well, not almost definitely data lead way of decision making in your business? I see so many people resisting.

And what I have to remind them is yes, it may sound boring, yes, it may sound like it’s going against your intuition. And at the same time, if you want that freedom led business, where you have a lot of time available to yourself. Listen to the data, I did a separate episode on making data lead decisions in your business, one or two back. So just go back to that if you want and one on Instagram as well how to use that better. So just go back to my last few episodes, if you’re intrigued by this and would like to start implementing that more yourself. Okay, so you know, make data lead decisions in your business. Similarly, if your immediate issue is cashflow, but you also want to be working on bigger pieces like funnels and things that are going to make your life easier long term. Make sure when you look at your business day to day, when you look at your business month to month, you’ve got a really healthy balance of money now, money later activities. Again, I think I did a whole podcast episode, specifically around money now money later activities. If I haven’t, give me a post on Instagram, I’ll record it because it’s such a valuable conversation. But yes, as long as you’re focusing on both of those things, you know, at the same time as you grow your business, you will never be in a stage where you are worrying about cash flow. But if you’re not, you will quickly find yourself in a predicament where you’re worried about your cash flow. So you know obviously without cash flow your business that is the life force of your business. So that is something that needs to be an immediate priority, which you can then figure out every thing else from this is what I mean when I kind of share why it’s challenging to go into, let’s say, a group program, because that can just be a shiny object that can just be, oh, if I hang out with new, more business owners, or if I get close to that mentor, that’s the thing I need for my next level of growth and expansion. Know, what you need is to untap your inner wisdom, you need to slow down to speed up, you need to be incredibly intimate with your business and its inner workings, so that you know, which levers to pull what to lean into, to have that genuinely regulating business that feels amazing. To have business goals that feel good, don’t just aimlessly go, oh, I want seven figures, I want multi six figures, I want 30k months, I want 100k months, instead lean into what do I want each day to look like? How many clients would I like to be working with at a time? Who are the clients I like supporting the most and build your business based around that rather than what anyone else says? Okay, so really, it’s pretty simple. But it’s amazing how many people overcomplicate this, okay. So, you know, obviously, one of the things that will make all of this easier, is having a Polly in your pocket or a mentor in your pocket, who is helping you with prompts and helping you with a strategy and an outline and a roadmap to follow, which is specific to you and your needs. And like I say, I have got five more places. If you’re interested to learn more, I haven’t set up any bot or anything like that, you can simply just reach out to me in the DMS. And if you want use the word untapped, that’s a little word I’m having fun with, because that’s what I like to help people with their untapped potential. And what I’ve been really enjoying over the past week has been talking with various people who are interested in this offer. And on every single core, I have found something that we have been able to untap already, which makes me delighted, right? makes me so happy to know that people are leaving already clearer as to what they need to be focusing on whether or not they choose to pursue working with me or not.

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So, if you are looking for your own untapped opportunities, let’s have a chat. Let’s do it. It’s my birthday. I want to give back and I genuinely, anyone who’s ever chatted to me will reassure you that I am not a sleazy salesperson. It’s literally all about you, baby. When we get on that call, it’s all about you. And I always hold the outcome very loosely, my main goal is just to make sure you leave with what you need. So yeah, DME the word on tap if you want to have a chat. Otherwise, in our next episode we are going to be talking about I’m going to be talking about my launch debrief. So I did a launch back in February now. And there was one thing I did, but equally worked and didn’t work all at once and massively changed the results of my launch. So that felt like an absolute no brainer to share with you lovely lot. And I’m going to be kind of scattering in some personal episodes over the next few weeks. Because I’m noticing I’ve talked on a lot of the themes that I already desire to talk to you.

So if you enjoy this podcast, if it’s bringing value to you, if you love listening to it, if you love bingeing it if you love sharing it, if this is something that you enjoy is your weekly routine listening into as a birthday gift, I would love for you to either give it a review, or give it well give it a review or share it, share it and tag me if you fancy any of those things. And even better. If you felt the calling DM me with an idea of an episode, or even just a message around or sharing the podcast episode and tagging me and sharing what you like about it. Basically just a bit of generosity, my way of my podcast and feeding back on what you so enjoy about this podcast because I know there are a lot of regular listeners. And that would be the best birthday gift to me. I’m terrible at asking things myself. And I’m putting it out there and being vulnerable. Give us a like, give us a share. Give us a review. And all the bad if you give me a tag because I will then reshare it with my people and drop in why you love this podcast. Right? Well, I’ll be back in areas next week talking about the launch and things that went wrong and the things that went right. See you then