Ep 065: The Cash Cow

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:08

Ever wonder what success actually means? How do you get it? And how do you keep it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:14

We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:18

Hi, Teresa and Blair here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors, who have had success, felt success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us to start to wonder if they'll lose the things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:45

Can you put it in a box?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:47

How can you get it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:48

Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:52

Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:56

From PGA golf pros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors, we get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning.

Theresa Lambert: 00:01:21

Hello, hello and welcome back to another juicy episode of dissecting success. My name is Teresa Lambert. I am here with the fabulous Blair Kaplan Venables, you might have missed us in the last couple of weeks, but we're back and stronger than ever. And we are having juicy conversations happening in our world, with our clients and our momentum container with our private clients. And also just generally on our social media with our audience. And the thing that has VT being something that has like a I'm lit up is one so cute for an offer and a training coming in hot on this one soon. But there's this thing that keeps happening. And I see it everywhere around me. And it is frustrating for everyone who has an ad. And it's this business model where you're required, and always needing to sign new clients in order to make money to say new clients make new sales in order to pay your bills. And that honestly, is going to be so taxing for your nervous system. This is going to build a business model that is so hard to maintain, because you're relying on new sales all the time. That honestly it's it's a long time just not going to be sustainable. And I want to talk about this and say, stop, stop creating business models, where you're literally chasing painful clients, one off offers one of clients like, it's just, it's just not going to be what you ultimately probably want entrepreneurship to be like, because most of us got into this space. Because we wanted to freedom lifestyle, right? Like we want to be able to take vacations whenever we want to work from anywhere, right? Like have like all this space and time. But here's the thing, when you're stressed. And when you are like where the heck am I gonna get money from so I can pay my bills, you're not going to be booking vacations, like you're going to be like at home miserable and stressed and there's a different way of doing it. And it's really a business model that ends up building recurring cash sales coming in every single month, even when you're not working. So that when there's times when you're on vacation, or times when you just want to take time off or times when shit goes wrong. We just spoke about that you're actually able to breathe throughout those times and throughout those slower months without being panic. And that's really what we want to talk about today. How do you do that? Where do you even start give you some tips and tricks. I feel like it could be a cool thing to do. Blair

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:04:25

so I think one of the best things you can do for your business is work with a business coach or like a business mentor, or specifically a social media marketing expert, mentor publicity mentor because I did a lot of like throwing shit at the wall hoping it's it's stuck it sticks is stuck. And so I'll tell you, I don't know how I got this idea. No one told me about it. But when I first started building out my business almost 14 years ago now. I decided okay, I'm going to work with clients for a minimum of three months because that's at least three months guaranteed income I'm gonna charge X amount, which was not enough, it was not a lot. And I tried it out, and it worked. But then I realized I'm not charging enough. So I increase my rates. And then I got on I got more clients. And then I realized, you know what, for me in the social media space, there's about a month of onboarding, like onboarding, creating a plan and starting to implement, and it takes at least three months to start seeing results I was like, so that's only two months of actual implementation two full months. So I need to work with clients for at least six months, which is half the year, and that's six months of guaranteed income. And I used to do the work and then Bill, and then what happened was clients started not paying, because not everyone has integrity. And you know, obviously, I've even been in the boat where I've had to ask for an extension of brake payments out, and that's completely fine. But when you get ghosted or not paid, that's not fine. So then I switched, and I would bill and then work, Bill and then work. And I actually never even thought of the pay in full model. I've never really started doing that until the past couple years, because I liked having that reoccurring income. And eventually, I was, well, you know, I started at $500, a month, minimum three months. And I'm, you know, I've been charged charging up until recently, up to $3,500 a month for what I offer. And for a minimum of six months. And I have clients who do pay in full, they prefer to pay in full, they get a bit of a discount, but I make sure that the majority of my clients are reoccurring income. And it's interesting because I never looked at it as painful or reoccurring, like I never, I just was like this makes sense to me. And this is how much money I need to make every month. And I built a business where I can make five figures a month. And five figures a month again, and again. And then here and there, I can take on the one of projects that's a one time fee, one time payment, or, you know, a one time project that is broken into two or three payments. But as an entrepreneur, we get really excited for those pay in full. It's like, well, I just had a $20,000 day. But then what's going to happen the next day, the next week, the next month. And I think this conversation is really important because it's actually going around a lot in the coaching industry. I see it from some coaches I follow on Instagram and social media and Facebook. And you know, there's some coaches who only do one to one, there's some coaches who only do group, there's some coaches who have a mastermind, there's some who do only pre recorded, there's some clients, some coaches who have a course once a year and they do some masterminds, like figure out what you like to do. Don't do things for money, do things that you like to do and build what you offer around that. And I think that's really important. Because if you're really good at doing something, but you don't enjoy it, like there's things in my business that I am really good at that I've done for many, many years, like over a decade, and I turn tons of business away because I don't love it. I don't love it. And it's his reoccurring income and it's a lot of income, but I don't love it, I only want to do what I love. That might mean taking a peek at pay cut. But like, I don't think you should do things in your business for money. If one isn't reoccurring income, and two, if you don't love it.

Theresa Lambert: 00:08:14

100% and I love that you from the beginning, actually unintentionally build a business that's more sustainable for you. Because it's feels bloody good to know that you have, you know, five or $10,000 coming in every single month. Maybe that's why I'm still like three or four months like it puts you in a different it puts you in a different headspace. Yeah, and in a different space to show up to sell your offers and talk about your offers. Right?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:08:39

I think that's why I'm still in business, Teresa, because I set it up unintentionally like that. And really like, like, I don't know, the statistics, but usually businesses fooled after the first like, I don't know about It's dad's I'm gonna, I'm

Theresa Lambert: 00:08:55

gonna Google it. Sadly, the majority of businesses fail in the first two years of business.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:09:00

Yeah, I'm going to Google the stat because I'm interested in that. But um, you know, this conversation is about like, yes, it's really exciting to land those, that huge ass pay in full client. But you need to have a base of base of reoccurring income. And maybe we can talk about it because you know, there's things that are just $49 a month or $11 a month or whatever it might be, and there's different ways and you just made a really cool post breaking out the math.

Theresa Lambert: 00:09:26

Yeah, I think that one thing that I want to start with something because you brought the coaching industry up and obviously I'm in the coaching industry, the majority of my clients are coaches. So this is like a big, big thing for me. But in coaching in coaching schools, most coaching schools will teach you to basically work like the goal is for your client to not work with you anymore. Okay, so the goal is for you to coach your client out of needing needing coaching. Now, this is wonderful. Amazing, congratulations, I'll give you a gold medal. But it's not going to actually help you follow your passion of coaching and helping people. Because you're, you're literally building a nightmare business, I hope that like you're starting to see this because you're not setting yourself up for that client to resign with you. You're not setting yourself up for recurring sales from repeat buyers, would you by the way, is your hottest audience are the people that you're already working with? Okay, these are people you're already working with, or have worked with, are most likely to hire you again, and refer you. Okay, so these people are VT VT, VT valuable. This is an audience that if you follow this model that is taught in coaching schools, which is actually

Theresa Lambert: 00:10:54

not great, right? But understand that like coaching schools teach you to coach coaching schools don't teach you how to run business. Okay, so I want you to start to open yourself up to it to the fact that there's a couple of different ways you can change that one up payment plans, right. So instead of like getting a painful client at free $1,000 You and it's free months of coaching, you have $1,000 a month for free months, that's a payment plan, and they're committed to free months. And like Blair said, I recommend that you charge them at the beginning of the month, and then deliver your service. And if they don't pay, you stopped delivering your service, okay, like you can like turn the tap off. Easy, okay, so this is how I like putting ourselves in a safe position. But the other thing he is to that this mix of offers and services that you can have as a coach, but also as a social media expert, px but like there's so many different ways, like even if you're in graphic design, if you're a copywriter, like there's a multitude of different ways that you can set up what's called your product suite. Right, like have a product suite. So what ends up happening is you have different offers at different price points. And we spoke about that like a few weeks ago. So go back on the episodes, because we spoke about creating a product suite, I'm pretty sure on the podcast unless I'm going crazy. And if we haven't done Q here, there will be an episode coming on this. But But what happens is if you have multiple different offers, at different price points that cover different paint things, some might be smaller pieces. So those might be like 50 and $100 offers, some might be bigger pieces that are group programs that run for a few weeks or maybe a few months. And then you have your high end stuff. But what ends up happening is one offer leads to the next offer, which leads to the next offer. So what you're actually doing is your offer stacking, and every time you sell something, it promotes the next thing that you're selling, naturally, organically. So So here's give you an example. I ran an irresistible offer masterclass at the beginning of the year, January, okay, that was all about like creating a product suite and pricing your office, and I ran it life had a bunch of people in it. And from there, once you have offers, you got to be able to launch your offers. So what made sense was that the next step, or the next offer that would come would be something that helps you to launch. And once you launch, you're going to have to learn how to get consistently showing up and selling, which is why the 10k Challenge is coming up next. So my office go from a monster class that was around 100 bucks to $1,000 program the challenge $500. So I'm playing with this mid tier, like level. And then from there, well, we might actually start another cohort in like June who knows when people actually we said fall for momentum. So you know, there is the momentum accelerated at six months where you can work with plan I or people can join me one to one, I have a mastermind coming up that will be all on strategy, like everything builds. But what ends up happening is people drop into my world, and then they stay. People drop in and then they stay and then I've all different, like I have like a lot of offers and you by no means do you need that many offers. Okay, I'm just gonna say this. But what ends up happening is every single thing I do positions, the next thing that I'm selling for you to buy because it solves the next problem you're going to be facing in your business. And you can do it you can do this, whether you're working with people in health, whether you're a social media expert, whether you're a graphic designer, copywriter, like whatever service based business you have, you're able to create this so now everything is selling everything else. Okay, which creates recurring buyers with your hottest audience, people that are already working with you, and then you lay out your payment plans on top of that. And what we're getting is recurring cash recurring cash recording, a subscription

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:56

to the Teresa show or a subscription to the player. Show, right like you pay not how many subscriptions you have, like I have, oh God, so many Netflix crave Disney plus. Yeah. And I don't ask company Oh, I think that one up front QuickBooks, Spotify, like I have subscriptions. So why wouldn't someone subscribe to your channel to subscribe to you for your information? Like, you know? Ooh, should we start a business Netflix? Just kidding.

Theresa Lambert: 00:15:34

I feel like I have that already with my confident CEO club. But you know, I like that idea.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:40

But like, what, what Teresa's saying also with all the various like, entries, like she does some free stuff, she does some paid stuff, like, there's free all the way up to like 10k. And maybe beyond, there is something for everyone. And like, you might be listening to this and say, you know, I'm new in business, I don't know, if I have it what's in me to charge 10k or 5000, or whatever it might be, first of all, one, yes, you do, you're doing what you do, because you are an expert, but to like, it's okay to inch towards it, I start off at 500 a month, you know, all the way up to like 3500 a month. Now, you know, I'm I'm around the 5k mark, you'll get there. And the thing is, if someone finds you informative and valuable, they're gonna drop in. And if it means that they can only afford free, they're gonna hang out until the, you know, can afford the few 100 few 1000 and beyond. And I think what what Theresa saying is that she creates a offer, implements it, you know, and then there's a problem that she still needs to solve. And so there's another thing, and then there's a problem she needs to solve. So there's another thing. And she teaches you actually how to do this, you know, and she teaches you how to do but so there's like subscriptions, so someone could like hire you for like six months at a certain amount, or they can drop into a program and then bring you know, buy another program, you can set up even things where you have ads running, and you maybe have a cheaper program that people could just buy and it's already pre recorded. There's so many ways you can do it. Like you can make money while you sleep. Yeah,

Theresa Lambert: 00:17:10

monetization is like endless. And like,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:17:14

we don't have all the answers like I, you know, I run workshops. And Theresa gave me recently a brilliant idea that I'm gonna start implementing after my next workshops, I mean, I have a few coming up on, you know, after, after this airdates and beyond, but I'm always trying out what works. And if something works, I share it with you. And if something doesn't work, I share it with you. And what you know, depending on your industry and your audience, different things are going to not work. Different things will work. But what every business needs in order to sustain themselves is income. And so I googled, and I found these stats online. I don't like I mean, there's a lot of different stats, but these this was updated January 2022. So listen to this, okay, about 79% of small businesses survive their first year, which means only 21% of small businesses fail in their first year, more than 50% of new businesses fail within five years. 70% of small businesses fail in their 10th year, I've made it I'm an anomaly. And then 82% of businesses that failed cited cashflow problems as a factor in their failure 82% of businesses that failed is because there was an issue with cash flow and that's a stat from Entrepreneur Magazine. Okay. So cash flow is going to be one of the most important things that are going to sustain you

Theresa Lambert: 00:18:39

which is why recurring cash sales and building a business model that supports that and everything should lead to recurring cash. This is the I just wanted a painful client I used to have one offer one to 114 $100 painful only. So I always was like I need a new client. I need a new client I need a new client. And thank goodness I had my massive salary still so you know, that wasn't a problem. But very quickly when I jumped into it full time I realized I can't rely on this I need to change this and it was trial and error. Which is why I'm teaching it to you now because I've learned from you know what doesn't work right? But that's 81% cash flow, cash flow and honestly cash is king. It's less important to have like your numbers in the plaque at the end like once you you know the doctor you expenses, pay yourself all that stuff like it matters, the less that your business has a profit on your statement and much more that you actually have cash flow like cash flow is king. So 81% fail because of cashflow issues. I mean then I'm not surprised.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:19:53

And so what I like to do is like my my main base of my business is reoccurring income In the fall in the fall, in the spring, I'm launching empowerment group coaching program, there's a painful option and payment plans. And I think most people will go with payment plans. I have my one to one coaching, and that is painful or monthly. But I also have multiple streams of revenue. I have books, I have a book. And then another books coming out. I have speaking engagements, I have workshops, I have one of things I get hired to do, you know, and so I like to have that base of, you know, reoccurring income, and then I layer everything else on top. So layering is also a really important part of cash flow.

Theresa Lambert: 00:20:45

Well, yeah, because then everything else on top is gravy, right? Like you have a diverse product suite, which means you have multiple streams of revenue coming in for multiple different things that you do that also lead again to something right, like somebody who's hiring you to speak, chances are you'll speak might get paid for speaking. And consequently, from paying speak, you're hiring two or three clients. Right? So your journey is nailed down your product suites nailed down, you have a system it works. Does everything work? No. But that's why we became entrepreneurs. I feel like because, like, yeah, entrepreneurs like we were, we were here to be the trial and error people of the world. Like we're here to try new things right and reinvent, like, you're gonna get the heart of entrepreneurship.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:21:34

No, definitely. And you know, it's interesting, because I do do things that I don't get paid directly, like, I sometimes will do. I mean, I prefer to be spayed, spayed, pay spayed and neutered. I prefer to be paid to speak. But if I don't get paid, and it's an in person event, I asked if I can sell my books. Can I sell my books at the back? Or can I have access to it? Can I have everyone's email address that is there. There is an organization I do a lot of speaking at to their students and their new digital marketing. And I don't get paid, but I get tons of visibility. To me, visibility is almost as important as dollars. It builds my credibility helps me with my thought leadership, my authority in the space of social media marketing. And every single time I speak, my list grows, people learn about me. And in fact, some of the people that have, you know, work with me and Teresa that have worked with me in exchanging time for money, or because of this one organization. And so I think it's okay to do things that don't involve getting paid, if you figure out alternative ways to exchange your time, that will eventually lead to money.

Theresa Lambert: 00:22:46

Yeah, and I mean, that's another way, right? Where everything like you really want to think about what are all those revenue generating activities that you do in your business? speakings, one of them for you speakings, one of them for me. Like, and it's it's a big, right, but we really got to think about to where do you want to lead them to next? Right? So if you're getting like, if you're speaking somewhere, and you're leading them somewhere, where you leading them to? Why are you leading them there? What's the intention behind that? And from there? Where is that leading to? Right? Like, you gotta, you got to be clear on these paths. And the thing is, it's not actually complicated. It's actually quite simple to put these processes in place in these systems in place, obviously, doing it on your own, without any knowledge might take a little bit of trial and error. Right? If you're hiring somebody, if you're hiring, you know, for example, blind eye and you're like in for the next cohort, or you want to, like you're like, I damn, I want to work with you now, like, reach out to us, we take one to one clients as well in a combo. But, you know, at the end of the day, whatever you do, start thinking about how can you diversify what you're selling right now? How you can diversify your offers? How can you put payment plans in place, so you don't have payment plans for your stuff right now stop now, and prioritize make payment plans does juicy offer, you're widening the amount of people who are able to buy because now a $5,000 item becomes 10 $500 payments or 12 $500 payments, which is way more accessible, okay. But ultimately, like you're starting to put these pieces in place, and while you might be trading short term gratification, you will actually trade it for long term gain and long term cash flow in your business, which makes you part of the 19% who make it past 10 years. So that's pretty cool.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:24:40

Yes. Oh, so good. And yeah, like Theresa saying, like, you know, or you might say, Hey, I love what Theresa has to say I want to work with Theresa. I like what Blair has to say I want to work with Blair. And we do offer the two to one coaching if momentum isn't the right fit or you don't want to wait till the fall, which you probably don't, you know, let us know. Reach out On Instagram Blair from Blair land you can email me Blair Blair kaplan.ca Theresa Theresa lamber coaching on Instagram and your email is at Teresa Teresa lumber coaching, calm. He said Teresa Lammott coaching, like get in touch with us because we can customize a package for you. And then you get both of our brains. And our experience is so different that it's so beautifully complimentary of each other. People love working with us, and will teach you how to make multiple five figures a month, we will show you had firsthand what we've done. Like I didn't even know I was doing it when I was 23. And I was doing it. So imagine like the knowledge that I've accumulated after 14 years and Theresa took a hotel from seven figures to eight figures like holy shit, like I'm excited for my business to hit seven figures. That's a net, you know, within the next couple years, and I don't pretend I'm someone I'm not like, I'm first going to hit multiple six figures, then I'm going to be seven figures. And I'll get there and I you know, watch Teresa build, build this hotel up. I can't wait till she builds her business up. And so we're building our businesses alongside each other, and we want to build your business with you. So reach out to us, connect with us. Let's be successful together. It's been absolutely phenomenal dissecting success with all of you. I love jamming with you Theresa and I have such a friend crush on you. Oh. Theresa, and like honestly, like, I don't put out the type of content she puts out her shit like I love reading it because it's like yeah, that's right now you like like it and share it. She shares so much information on her socials. Imagine what she's going to share if you work with her. Thanks for tuning in to another episode.

Theresa Lambert: 00:26:48

That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to black Hebron Venables and Theresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the App Store.