May 2020 Profit Report: Realign for Results and 2.87x Profits
Episode 444: Show Notes
Hey, friends! Today we are super excited to bring you another Boss Project profit report. As you may know, we love sharing all of the behind-the-scenes data about what worked, what didn’t work, and how everything got split up within May of this year. In this episode, you’ll get a little peek behind the curtain of our business, comparing last year to this year, and asking the hard questions for you to consider in your own business.
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Figuring Out the New Normal as We Reflect on the Year
Over here at the Boss Project, it truly feels like the months are just going by faster and faster. Plus, we can all agree that this whole year has been weird! There’s no real other way to describe it when running a business in these times. In a normal year, we would be launching and promoting a whole lot differently, but here we are, in the middle of a pandemic, and really not quite in the groove of summer just yet. For Emylee, even as a mom, things have been completely off-kilter with zoos, museums, and water parks being closed. But let’s not lose hope! As things slowly start opening up and we figure out the new normal, hopefully, we will find our rhythm and routine again in our business too!
Discovering Our Crutch: Searching for Outside Validation
In terms of what actually happened in our business during May, nothing went as planned. We just didn’t know what to expect and we were taking every promotion, every mention, and every social media post day-by-day, hour-by-hour. As much as we spent the majority of our business, in the beginning, running on instinct and making decisions based on what we knew, somewhere we hit a point where we convinced ourselves we didn’t have the knowledge to grow or scale our company past this point. So as a result, we started leaning on other people — coaches, education, courses — looking for outside validation. Without realizing it, we were using other people’s advice as a crutch and waiting for their permission to make a decision in our business instead of relying on our own instincts to move forward. Because of that, we started to build a business modeled on the way other people had scaled past half a million, looking solely at outside examples. The more we did that, the further away we got from where we really wanted to go. This affected not only our goals but also how we were feeling in our business. Things were out of alignment and started to feel uncomfortable, and not in the good way! We knew that if we wanted to continue to see the business grow, we would have to work on ourselves and our personal confidence.
Pivoting Away from the “Launch Model” Business
The last couple of months have been a test of how confident we are in the way we’ve been building our business and making decisions. For a long time, we lived in a “launch model” where we would see surges of income and then our income would drop dramatically the following couple of months only to go back up again at our next big launch. We would go from bringing in over $100,000 in one month to as little as $15,000 the next. We soon realized things were feeling out of alignment and this was really not how we wanted to build our business. So often we tell ourselves the only way to deliver what you have to offer as a business owner is the 1.0 version of how you think it has to be done. However, for the first time, we’ve finally come full circle in realizing that what you should focus on is what comes most naturally to you! For us, our shop has become the fastest growing aspect of our business that we’ve ever done.
Translating What You Love into Business Sales
So how does doing what we love translate into actual business dollars? Well, our signature program and the shop now take up equal amounts of our business. In other words, the thing we launched five months ago now makes as much money as our signature program that we’ve been working on and growing for three years now! The amount of members we have currently, in five months, is nearly double the number of members we had in two years. In terms of percentage, Strategy Academy is a third of our business at 33%. The shop, including our one-off templates, also takes up a third of our business. We anticipate that in June the shop will be the new majority and by the end of next quarter it will make up over 50% of our income. Trello for business still brings in 19% of our business, despite the fact that we are growing.
Our Main Expenses for May 2020
As much as we are in growth mode, we are definitely still stabilizing from last year. Our cost of goods sold is sitting at 33%, and our goal is 30%. Advertising is 29%, which has really stabilized. Contractors are 24% and payroll is sitting at 10%. Reflecting on this, we know that running a business in alignment is important. Running a business focused on your values, what feels good, and what is feeling easy for you is so important, and here’s why: this time last year we had spent more than twice what we have this year. Our team and contractors cost us 60% more last year. We also had been investing in a lot of different places, trying to look for answers and validation in order to know what to do next, which caused us to spend 80% more last year on courses and education. We would love to tell you that meant we got better results… but it didn’t. We made every mistake in the book by trying to look outward for the answers, and this resulted in us making 87% less profit this time last year! Yes, you heard correctly — that’s almost three times less!
Focus Your Energy on Selling What Comes Naturally
So when we tell you we have burned the system down to the ground, started over, and made some hard decisions, we mean it! We simply could not afford to have such a large team, even though these were people we really enjoyed working with! Going forward, we will remain slim, we will focus on profit and worry far less about revenue. Mind you, our revenue is sexy and it will always be sexy. But do you know what’s sexier? Having money left over! Because do you know what you can do with that money? Pay yourself more, buy a new computer, treat your team, hire that new person, redo your office, and the list goes on! Now, we don’t claim to know any of the answers, but what we can tell you is that if you focus your energy on the things that just come naturally to you and you sell them (and not just give them away for free), your business will not only feel more in alignment, but you will make more money!
Taking an Inventory of What You Are Currently Offering
This month, with everything going on, we hit 17% profit, and that 17% feels great! And is it our goal? No. But if you look at the average over the first five months of the year, we’re averaging 27% profit every single month. We’ve had months as low as 5% this year and others that were over 50%; it’s not a total linear evolution! However, what is happening is that our base is getting bigger. Especially as we’ve started to scale the shop, our monthly recurring revenue has continued to scale as well. The Strategy Academy is definitely still scaling, but it has never hit the pace the shop has hit, and we are okay with that! There are so many things we could do to tweak it, but instead of spending the time and energy on that, we can build the shop to help create tiny wins — to help people to make things happen! So if you haven’t taken inventory of your business lately, take a look at what you’re currently offering, then ask yourself, “Does this come easily to me?” And then ask yourself, “Is this something that lights me up?” If you don’t say yes to both those questions, then it’s time that you reevaluate what you actually want to be putting out there and what feels good for you.
Quote This
AWhen nothing is holding you back, then your potential is limitless.
Highlights
Figuring out the new normal as we reflect on the year. [0:04:22.1]
Discovering Our Crutch: Searching for Outside Validation. [0:06:40.1]
Pivoting Away from the “Launch Model” Business. [0:09:48.1]
Translating What You Love into Business Sales. [0:15:56.1]
Our Main Expenses for May 2020. [0:24:15.1]
Focus Your Energy on Selling What Comes Naturally. [0:29:15.1]
Taking an Inventory of What You Are Currently Offering. [0:31:50.1]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
May profit report, Business instincts, Launch model business, Pivoting, Selling, Focus on what comes naturally, Realigning your business offers
