Episode 82
Ep 082: Let’s Make Money Honey
Without Sales, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby! Making money is a very important part of doing business. We have got to talk about money, work on our relationship with money, set goals around money. When we get clear on our money goals, and do the inner and outer work to achieve those goals, we change the game. This is a conversation about building a long-term sustainable business and how we can support you to make more money.
Work with Blair + Theresa to help you achieve your Business and Income Goals.
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About the Hosts:
Blair Kaplan Venables is an expert in social media marketing and the president of Blair Kaplan Communications, a British Columbia-based PR agency. She brings fifteen years of experience to her clients which include global wellness, entertainment and lifestyle brands. She is the creator of the Social Media Empowerment Pillars, has helped her customers grow their followers into the tens of thousands in just one month, win integrative marketing awards and more.
Blair is listed in USA Today as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch in 2022 and Yahoo! listed Blair as a top ten social media expert to watch in 2021. She has spoken on national stages and her expertise has been featured in media outlets including Forbes, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur and Thrive Global. Blair is an international bestselling author and has recently published her second book, ‘The Global Resilience Project.’ She is the co-host of the Dissecting Success podcast and in her free time, you can find Blair growing The Global Resilience Project’s community where users share their stories of overcoming life’s most difficult moments.
Transcript
You ever wonder what success actually means? How do you get it? And how do you keep it?
Theresa Lambert:We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Hi, Teresa and Blair here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors who have had success, built 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 a start to wonder if the loser things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?
Theresa Lambert:Can you put it in a box?
Blair Kaplan Venables:How can you get it?
Theresa Lambert:Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?
Blair Kaplan Venables:Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?
Theresa Lambert: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:Hello, hello and welcome back to another fabulous episode of dissecting success. My name is Theresa Lambert and I'm here with Blair Kaplan Venables. And we are having all sorts of recording issues this morning. But this is not stopping us from bringing you a very important conversation, which is about money and making money in your business and achieving your money goals, your income goals, your sales goals. And one thing that comes to mind for me is this saying, and it used to just piss me off and trigger me so much. So I'm gonna start with that because it's juicy. But if you don't make sales in your business, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. And it used to just cut me and you know why? Because there wasn't making any money. And so it was triggering the heck out of me. And it is so true. We've got to be able to have cash come in, we've got to be able to put sales and revenue on the books again and again and again. And this is how you ultimately be able to do the work that you do. As a coach, as an entrepreneur, as a service based business owner, whatever it is that you do that you're out there, whatever it is that you do, and that inspires you to listen to his podcast, making money, being able to achieve your goals in terms of revenue, and then an income you can pay yourself is mission critical when it comes to your business and revenue driving activities should be your number one priority every single day. And this is something I talk about so much with my clients and help my clients understand because everything else ain't mattering so much. Because if you can't have that come in. It's just not going to work. So this is what we're going to talk about bla
Blair Kaplan Venables:Yeah, I love it. I love that. So I'm someone who has had money trauma. I, you know, my business is 14 I figured out how to make multiple, you know, five figures a month. But I figured okay, well this is what I need to make per month. So that was my money goals. I didn't really see beyond because I didn't prioritize making money. Until a few years ago when a through a mentor of mine, Selena Sue introduced me to remote safety and he talks about your rich life. And I was just very intrigued about the way he talked about money. And I dove into his social media and his book. And I started to reframe how I see money, and I start to not be scared of money scared of talking about money, setting money goals, writing those goals down. And ever since I shifted the way I saw money and shifted my understanding and relationship with it, I started making more of it and I started setting goals. How much money do I want to make every month, every quarter every year. And not only was I hitting those goals, I was surpassing them, I was able to restructure how I ran my business. Before I was an agency where I capped out I could only do so much on my own. I didn't want to bring on a team. And so I shifted and I shifted into this space of coaching and mentoring and taking on projects and writing and speaking and multiple streams of revenue. Because I have big money goals because for me, I don't actually live this extremely expensive life. Like I love a good thrift store. I love like traveling on a budget, but I also like the finer things in life. But like I have a 2010 Honda CRV with like a smashed window so you know what I mean? Like I I like experiences and I figured out how much money do I want to make, so I am not house poor, so I can live my life, but also so I can be philanthropic. I've actually just wrote a social media post and I poured a lot of my energy and my time and my money into the global Resilience Project, which is a movement. The more money I make, the more I can help people, the more I can help people, and not just that, the more things I do that work, the more I have to teach my clients. So when you work with me, I don't just teach you how to be a thought leader on social media. I teach you how to make money while being a thought leader. Right? Because if you're not making money, what are you doing? You're right, Teresa, it is just a hobby. So why don't we talk about in this episode, how we can make our clients money. I love it, I love it.
Theresa Lambert:And I'm going to dive into how we can help our clients make money but something that you you mentioned, and I remember us having this conversation when we were talking about money and worth before is that money is not just about setting money goals and having the outer strategies like the strategies in your business to make the money but it's also really dealing with all your money stuff, looking at money, like I just sat down and my business again, like I do this again and again and again. And I keep digging and digging and digging of what's working and what's not working. And I'm getting really clear. And June, I had a cash flow issue. I had a cash flow issue, because I made like, over like five figures in sales. But out of that only a few $1,000 Actually were cash and the rest is future revenue. Now, that's amazing. Because that means more money is coming in. Like it's amazing to note that 30 or $40,000 are literally on their way and on the books and payment plans. Like this is what it's all about. Right? Like we're building wealth, we're building cushions, but reality is I have a lot of bills going out. I have a team now of people that I pay, like, do rich things coming in and rich things coming out. And so I've always known this in business. And this was a huge thing when I was managing, you know, a multi million dollar budget a year where we would have at times over a million dollars go out in the month was cashflow. You've got to have cashflow. Like it looks awesome. If you have a get you can literally have a profit in your business. This is the thing like you could have a big sales month, you can have a profitable month on paper. Yet you can run into cashflow issues, Isn't that wild? Like I think this these are some of the things that people don't realize, so we have to look at our money, we have to also look at what are some of the behaviors that we'll be practicing around money that aren't so great. I know I was overspending on some things earlier this year on programs and courses and 75% of it. You know what? I didn't even use it. Had I not bought these programs, I would have an extra $10,000 in the bank right now. Like that's substantial, right? So we have to get clear on these things. We have to get clear on the behaviors that don't work for us. And then we have to understand why are we doing that? Right? Like why are we doing that related to money. So I feel like that is also one way that you know, when you work with me, these are some things I will dive in with you. If you are not making money if you are having troubles with your money we not we don't just look at what is the strategy to help you get to have more money come in. But also what do you do with the money that's coming in? How do you assign the money that's coming in? How do you budget? And so these are just some things too, that I definitely have been reflecting on from a CEO perspective, right from a big picture vision. And, you know, there's multiple ways you can make money. But I feel like the biggest thing that I help people do to make money is launching the office properly. But I feel like Blair like I can see she's like dying to say something. And so I was
Blair Kaplan Venables:just gonna say stop hitting your mic.
Theresa Lambert:Oh, stop. Oh, my God. I'm like having all the issues today. No, you're
Blair Kaplan Venables:not having issues. Some sound is no, but I think I do want to dive in. Because I think what a lot of people do like when I first started, I just said yes to everything. And when people asked how much I charged, I did a bit of research and I guessed. So I think let's talk about like, first of all, there is like one time payments pays in full and then there's monthly reoccurring you know, in my agency life and actually even in my coaching life. I try to make sure there's reoccurring revenue, I come up with packages, the package is going to be this much. And it's going to be this much per month for a minimum of x months. Or if it's a project I actually break the payments out. I break the payments out it's money psychology. So if something's going to cost five grand, maybe it's two payments, maybe it's three payment That's maybe something is 10 grand, maybe it's five payments, whatever it might be, it's really nice to get a huge payment of $20,000 at once. But guess what, you're gonna spend it just as fast as you made it. I mean, maybe you won't, but it's very common, it's a very common thing. And if you look in the coaching space, you know, you see all these coaches bragging about their $100,000 months and their $8 million years. And that's fantastic. That's fantastic. And I don't, I mean, obviously, I'd love to have multiple, $100,000 months and $8 million years. But my job is to actually teach you how to be a thought leader on social media. I work with coaches and entrepreneurs who want to be thought leaders, and I teach you how to be a thought leader. And thought leaders are those people who stand out who are the leaders in the sources of their industry and of their spaces. And that is how you make money because the media comes to you. The clients come to you, other people in your industry come to you and you teach them what you know, you teach them. I also have social media experts that come to me saying, Blair, I want to build an agency, what do I do? And I look at their prices. And I'm like, You are not charging enough? How long have you been in business? How many years? How many hours? How many minutes? Have you spent cultivating your skills? Why are you different than everyone else? Are you even charging enough? Nothing grinds my gears more than when I meet other social media experts who have tons of experience and are so good at their job. And they charge maybe a fraction of what they should be charging. And they're worried like, what if people don't hire me, you know how many people are out there who need your services, the right person is out for you. When I started off, I was charging maybe between 250 $500 750 For something that I charged over $3,000 Now for and I probably could increase it. But I don't really offer those services as much anymore. If someone wants to work with me, they'll figure out how to spend that money. So I think Teresa, and I both look at what you're doing. We look at your services, your offerings, your pricing, we help you restructure it, then we help you actually figure out what like, what what is it that you want to do? What is it that you're really good at, think about it, if you do something, and you're doing it all the time, you're gonna get faster and faster at it. As you get faster at it, you're going to be spending less time on it, and you can charge more money. Right? And we help you figure those things out. I can do a gazillion things. My website has changed so many times. And over the last, I think five years, I took all my services off my website, I have two things on Blair kaplan.ca, to say work with me. One of them is group coaching. One of them is private coaching, I do offer many other services plus speaking and writing, I create strategies, people hire me and I you know, it's cost between 5010 $1,000 For me to create an empowerment plan for you. Like, that's how you can work with me, and I teach you this plan, I create this plan, I teach you how to execute it, and then you start making more money. But I don't put everything on my website, I want people to know exactly what I do. And because I've created this mystery of well, what else can blurb do to help me I get people on a call. And I listen to them. And I tell them what they need. And they choose if they want to work with me. But this is what me and Teresa do me and Teresa, look at your business, see what you're good at and help you figure out how to change the public's perception of you how to talk about what you do, how to charge more how to charge what you're worth. And so stop chasing the small dollars and start chasing the big reoccurring dollars.
Theresa Lambert:Yes, so good. And I feel like a really, really, really big thing that you just brought up that I just want to highlight is that so I see so many same things. So many coaches, so many entrepreneurs, basically play the game at the bottom of the barrel. And what I mean by that is that literally you're like fighting over the $100 client. Like you're trying to compete at a quantity level, rather than position yourself as at a quality level. And when you compete at the quantity level, especially if you're new to business or if you're new, you know or not even if you're new if he's been in this doesn't matter for how long but if you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna make it cheaper, because then people will buy you have a mindset problem. Your money mindset needs an overhaul like you're gonna have to work on that, like you're gonna have to work on your worth, on owning the value of your work. And you've really got to understand, if you sell $100 A month packages, how many do you need to sell in order to be able to have the income that you want. And quite frankly, I don't really feel now Oh, with where we're at, and in Canada and some other places may be different, but like $10,000 a month, as revenue, and your business is just about cutting it. Like, because you, you know, you have expenses, there's things to pay in business like, and you're gonna have to like live like and living. Now, like you've invented all of it, like it's not inexpensive, right? Like you actually got to be able to make a bit of money. So think about how many clients, you need to welcome how many things you need to sell at that $100 To be able to make it sustainable. Now, can the $100 be a lead in offer for you that leads to your high end packages? Yes, I teach you that when I teach you on products within client journey, like I look at your business, and I'm like, Okay, well, how are you funneling people through your business? Like, how are they moving from off your social media, off your website into your business? And then how do you create repeat buyers, this is some of the things that I help you do when I look at your business. But bottom line is you're competing with some very, very established businesses that yeah, if you have a massive community, and you can easily sell 100 seats and your master class at $100. Sure, like go for it. But imagine to how much time and capacity it takes to manage 100 people in a master class you need a team for that is going to cost you money. Now, if you don't sell things for $100. And if you're like, I'm not going to play the quantity game, I'm going to play the quality game, I'm going to stand out from the ground, I want to be a thought leader, I'm going to be sought after I am going to be taking really amazing care of my clients, I'm going to be setting myself apart and charging the worth of my work and standing in the value of work and deliver the results that I say that I can help you deliver. Well, now if you have a package that's $5,000, or $10,000, or maybe even 15 or $25,000, guess what you're going to achieve your goals so much faster. And now you're you're actually playing at the quality level, not at the quantity level, like just this week when I was thinking about it. My goal right now is to fill full one to one slots, I have 4121 spots open right now. And I'm actually just adding some really cool cool things to my one to one offering, including a guarantee that you will earn your investment back in sales. And the thing as I was thinking about that, and the things that I'm adding some more consulting pieces were similar to what Blair does, I will actually have a meeting with you at the beginning and I will dive into your business, and I will start to unpack your office, I will start to create strategies for you. Like I'm actually adding some different pieces to my one to one to take some of this off your plate. And I brainstorm and then I bring it back to you. And that is like what we're going to do because I love doing that. And it's so essential, because your offers need to be right, your pricing needs to be right, your launch strategy needs to be solid, like your marketing needs to be solid. There are so many moving pieces. But ultimately, what happens is if I welcome one client a week, in my $15,000, one to one package, guess what, that's a $60,000 month.
Theresa Lambert:And yes, I have payment plans for that. And yes, I like that's the thing, like I'm like, Okay, let's get the payment plans in place, let's make sure you know, door is not just in cash that's coming in this month. But I'm starting to know that for the next three months, six months, there's a set amount of cash coming in every month, so that I can manage my business and I can manage my cash flow, right. And so this is what we help you do is playing at a quality level playing actually, by you make the real money, like and figuring that out. And yeah, like, is it going to take some time and dedication for you to get there? Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're brand new in business, we may have to have a conversation about expectation, and what needs to happen for you to get there. Because it's going to require you to put in the work and not everybody is willing to do the work. So you know, that's the only thing that I'm going to say is that, you know, it also depends on where you're at and what you've been doing up until now. But Blair can help you highlight your background for example, right? So many of our clients have a background in corporate and have done some really cool things we can use that we can tap into your existing knowledge that you have, we can tap into your expertise, knowledge that you have built over, possibly a decade or more and then position you in a way where you can actually charge the Quality and market in a way where people say yes, I want to pay for that.
Blair Kaplan Venables:So, you know, this is a short and sweet episode. Just to recap the way I one of the ways, some of the ways, one of the ways, there's many ways I can help you make money is I will work with you on creating a social media and thought leadership empowerment plan. Okay, that is extremely important. It's important to have a strategy, it's important to know what what the world perceives you as and manage the perception of that. And Teresa will help you make money by doing consulting by helping you with your offers by helping you restructure everything that you do. And coaching it. We were both coaches, I coach on Social Media and Publicity and obviously entrepreneurship. I've had my business for 14 years. Teresa, she was in corporate and she took seven a seven figure business to eight figures in under two years, she made over six figures, she knows what she's doing. I know what I'm doing. And if you want in on this, we're actually both offering. Well, I'll tell you what I'm offering in the shownotes you can actually book a complimentary session with me a half an hour session, I'm going to ask you what you want to talk about when you apply and let's just talk about your business. I want to know if I can help you like what can I do in that half an hour you get to utilize me and my experience. And I have a little like test on what it's like to work with me. But I've been helping businesses I've been helping business owners uplevel their social media skills up level their visibility and thought leadership, but basically make over five figures a month. And Theresa just want to like maybe give her give the listeners out there a little recap on how you help them make money at high level.
Theresa Lambert:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think my genius, really is my ability to look at your business, see where your gaps are at and start creating strategies and tools for you and systems for you that you then can implement. And like I really and this has really hit home to me in the last couple of weeks like I am not only going to coach you to integrate and implement all of the things I'm actually going to look at your business with you draw out all that is there, understand your business at a deep level. And then I basically put my CEO hat on because I'm an exceptional CEO. And I'm very good at making other businesses money I've like established that. And I'm going to strategize for you, I'm going to look at the things for you creating you a product, we creating your offers, outlining what your offers are going to include. Of course, we've had conversations where I know what you want to do. But I literally take what you give me and I create for you a business model and a business strategy that then you can show up for so you can achieve your goals, whether that is related to how you're pricing your services, creating irresistible offers, launching the offers marketing about the offers the content and the positioning of that like I literally will take what you give me. And I will create a plan and a strategy for you. And this piece is new. Because I've been doing a coaching on it and doing it alongside you. Now I'm actually going to take this and I will do it for you. And then we implement it together. Because I'm realizing that this will what will this do? Why am I doing this? Now? Why have I realized this? Because a I'm a geek, and I love it. I love it. Like if you let me lose on your business. I'm like the happiest person ever. Like, he's like we have a meeting you tell me all the things about your business, I get a really good idea what you're doing, what works, what doesn't. And then I take it. And I go into my genius zone. And I map things out for you. And then we go through the plan and then we we run with the fucking plan. And it will reduce the time it takes for you to be able to hit the goal that you need to hit and like literally I just like two weeks ago had a conversation with one of my strategic clients. And we worked on her pricing. And we adjusted her pricing and we made some slight changes and we were going through how we can amend the pricing like this is just something simple how we can change the pricing, how we can add payment plans, introduce all that and change up how she's charging for painful and boom. Next week, she signed a new client at a new prices.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Yes, so good. Okay, so you can work with Theresa, you can work with me. We both help you make money. In fact we even offer coaching together but I think this is a good place for you to you know really start. Think about your business what you're charging what you're offering. Are you even charging enough money How are you marketing those services? Are you in the media? Do you have a plan, a business plan a strategy? Do you have launch plans? Are you even being strategic? Do you have an empowerment plan for thought leadership? If you don't, that's okay, because we can help you. So check out the show notes, check out the links book in a call with us. You know, Teresa also has her booking link in the show notes too. And, you know, if you want book a call with both of us, you know, utilize our genius. I hate the term picking my brain. So I'm not going to let you pick my brain. But I want to have an intelligent conversation about where you are and where you want to be, and how we can help you and Teresa wants to do the same. So this was a potent, pungent is a pungent, potent, punchy and potent episode about money. Teresa and I make money we teach our clients how to make money, we make money with you, we don't just tell you what to do. We show you what to do, and we help you. So if you want to make more money, book, a discovery call with both of us individually. And if you book a call with both of us, you're like, Guys, girls, I want to work with both of you. That's okay, too, because we actually do two to one coaching. So, without further ado, thank you for tuning in to another episode of dissecting success. Money is success. They can be I mean, you need to make money. You can't just live off dreams and goals and sparkles and rainbows. So you know what, let's make money together. Thank you for tuning in. This was awesome. Until next time, peace.
Theresa Lambert:That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Blair Kaplan, Venables and Teresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the