Creating a business plan is one of the best fundamental things you can do to promote success in your business. A business plan will help you stick to, well, your plan for your business. It also helps you think about things you haven’t thought about before and things you should know for your business.

I’ve started several businesses and they’ve all failed because I didn’t have a business plan in place. Once I decided to take this latest business seriously, I filled out a free business plan sheet and it’s been one of the best fundamental things I could do for myself and my business.

It’ll help you hone in on your ideal client and get you thinking about the products, verbiage and places to market. Which, in turn, means more revenue in your pocket. It also helps you think about places you’ve never thought to market to before.

Ready, set, wait! Yep, July as much as it was prepping our signature course content and launching an affiliate program, it was really about working really hard to wait for results later. Not that over $18k is anything to cough at, it was just residual income off our previous launch and evergreen course sales. The BIG surprise doesn’t come until September, in the meantime check out all the details that made July the success that it was.

You’ve heard it a million times. “I want to work less and make more.” But do you actually know what it takes to make this happen? The entrepreneurs who are making bank are NOT lazy. They are strategic, methodical, and extremely patient.

• Do you think Pat Flynn went from being laid off to earning over $100k per month revenue overnight?! Are you kidding?

• Do you think Oprah went right from waitress to world-recognized thought leader?! Heck no.

• Do you think Marie Forleo rolled out B-School her first year in business?! Absolutely not.

Their careers didn’t fall out of thin air. They spent years perfecting their craft, tweaking their processes and making shifts towards their big dreams.

We’re no different. We absolutely want world domination (for all female creative business owners). But we know the tide won’t shift overnight.

We are firm believers in waiting to invest until the time is right. That said, we never imagined how much we could benefit from using a free product. In fact, how much more money we would make — we’re talking over $125k in 9 months.

Holy moly guacamole. Are you ready for this? Now, some of you might have already heard the breakdown of our Strategy Academy launch, but this gives you a good picture of what else happened in the month of June. Also, it’s nice to see what we actually made, even though we had a $97k launch. #Perspective

When it comes to starting a business, there are usually a lot of overhead costs. Let’s be honest, those overhead costs can get overwhelming rather quickly, can’t they? You have people coming from every angle recommending that you use this cool new tool that they use because it got them one billion followers. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean!

Want to know the hardest part about opening your business? Simply getting started. That’s the only thing you need to focus on. You need the bare minimum to get the ball rolling on this cool new idea that you’re ready to show the world, but you’re overwhelmed by starting and worrying about how to afford to launch without putting it all on your credit card or taking out a loan.

Raise your hand if selling to your favorite store tops your business bucket list? But as exciting as it is to see your products on the shelf of a store, there’s a whole new set of challenges that come with developing wholesale and retail partnerships. One of the not-so-sexy sides of developing a wholesale/retailer business? You have to get comfortable with having some awkward and, at times, unpleasant conversations.

All good things take time. And time we took. May was not only profitable, but it was a time for us to prepare for our largest launch to date in June. We spent weeks behind the scenes working with our current students, preparing bonuses and other awesome new materials and even working on some alternative ways to bring in more cash. See how May shaped up today.

Ever feel like you need to hide that your business is small?

Early on in my handbag business when I had no one working for me, I would use phrases like, "Thank you for calling us. A customer service representative will contact you within one business day."

I used my first and middle names as my business name to give the company a big "designer" image. And I'd do everything I could to hide that I was 18 years old for fear that I wouldn't be taken seriously.

A couple of years in, I had a big realization.