You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 184. The Pareto principle more commonly known as the 8020 rule states that 80% of our outcomes result from only 20% of our efforts. With this in mind, it's vitally important for entrepreneurs to know what to amplify in their business, and what to ruthlessly eliminate Business Growth strategist Frenchie florenzi conducted an experiment in pursuit of this truth implementing a decision filter she dubbed staying close to the money to measure everything she spent time on in relation to how likely it was to produce a sale. Doing this helped Frenchie 4X her revenue in one year, and her case study today reveals the five key decisions she made to stay close to the money that resulted in rapid revenue growth. Keep listening to discover how you can borrow Frenchie's approach to stay close to the money in your own business.
Welcome to cubicle to CEO the podcast. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. I quit my job without a backup plan and bootstrapped my first $300 freelance project into $2 million in revenue by age 28. On the show, you'll hear weekly case study interviews with leading entrepreneurs and CEOs who share one specific strategy that successfully grew their business revenue. Skip the expensive and time consuming learning curve of testing everything yourself by borrowing what actually works from the best and brightest mentors. You'll also get a front row seat to my founders journey through transparent income reports and behind the business solo episodes, subscribe now so we can grow together every Monday.
Hey, Frenchie, I'm so happy to have you here. As we were discussing in the green room. Frenchie is a real testament to how long term relationships matter in this business. She told me right before we hit record that two years ago, actually, she had pitched our podcast. And at the time, the content wasn't we didn't have a content opening that was the right fit. But we did keep her pitch in our database and circled back two years later. And here we are. So Frenchie, welcome to the show.
I love it. I love it. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Of course, we're thrilled to have you. And I love the way you laid out your case study and your pitch, it was so detailed, so step by step and easy to digest. So I can't wait for our listeners to hear how you were able to 4x your revenue in one year, by following this concept that you call staying close to the money, which will we'll have you define in just a moment. But first, we got to start with your cubicle, the CEO story. You have a really expensive 10 years plus background in working in startups and some of the startups you all listening may recognize like being or Newman house. So tell us what made you decide to leave the startup world as an employee and create your own startup instead, I had
always kind of had this idea that I was gonna start my own business. And I kind of saw what other people were doing. And I was really waiting for my million dollar idea. So I thought that I was going to be a founder in the VC backed Founder World. And with that, you need a really good idea, right? Or a really unique idea disruptive idea. Everybody wants their ideas to be disrupted. And I kind of just kept waiting for that idea to materialize. And then in 2020, I was still working at the way I had been there for a year and a half at that point. And 2020 was a just challenging year for the world. We all know that it was also a challenging year for the wing. And as the year went on, things got more challenging. I ended up getting laid off in the end of June of 2020. So there were two rounds of layoffs as part of second round of layoffs. So I had some time I had a long window before I actually left, right. So I got laid off. But then it was like my last day was in September. So I had some time to think about it right to think about what I really wanted to do. And I had a baby at home, I knew I wanted to have other children. I had been working from home. And so I couldn't imagine going back into an office, there were so many factors that kind of came together. But the missing piece was my million dollar idea, which still had not materialized. And after I as I was thinking about and as I was brainstorming, I was thinking about the way and what happens when you have so much invested capital, and all of that. And I realized that I really didn't want that I didn't want that kind of pressure. And that really helped me find my million dollar idea which was essentially a million dollar bet on myself right that my 10 years of experience in startups could help other business owners grow and scale their businesses and I could take all the mistakes that I learned from the businesses I worked for as well as the fact that I was working for co working spaces. So there were so many more entrepreneurs that I was serving and working With along the way, I kind of learned from all of them. And I came into this space really ready to help people grow their businesses make more money and keep it for themselves rather than giving it back to investors.
Frenchy I love your story, there's so many thoughts, I want to kind of just like take from even that piece of your journey. The first is, it's so interesting, because your episode is going to air a couple episodes after the most recent one as of this recording, which is Cody Sanchez's episode on buying boring small businesses. So you guys can go back and listen to 181 if you're interested. But it's so interesting, the dichotomy between when you were, you know, looking to start your own business, you're here thinking, I need proprietary, I need disruptive I need the million dollar idea, right. And it's funny, because the picture she painted for us in that episode was I run away from anything that's VC, that proprietary, etc. And so I wanted to pull that piece out, particularly because we have listeners in all stages of business who listen to this podcast. And I think for those of you who are listening, and maybe haven't fully started your business yet, you may find yourself in the same camp that Frenchy did where you feel you cannot create or monetize anything until you have this wild. Never heard of before idea that's going to shock the world. But I think I think Frenchies case study and her story today is really going to encourage you that you can start where you are with what you have, and take the skills that you already developed in your previous career to monetize immediately. So anyways, that was just one thing I wanted to pull out.
Can you just take that one step further, please, is that I actually sometimes think it doesn't even need to be in your career, right. And I think people especially women tend to do a lot of like, unpaid labor and that sort of thing. Right? Maybe you're excellent at meal planning, maybe you're excellent at, you know, look at busy toddler. I mean, she has I don't know if you know, busy toddler, but like she has over a million followers on Instagram, she teaches parents different kinds of activities that they can do like to play with their kids and actually educate and good games for children, right. And that's just something that people take for granted within themselves, when you start to realize that you just have innate skills that other people don't have, there is this opportunity for you. And so anyway, I just want to take it one step further, because part of it can be corporate experience. And that can be helpful. But the other piece is like, what do you have as a need skills that you could share with the world?
That's such a good point life experience, often your right is is discounted, because we do so much in the form of unpaid labor. I really liked the way you worded that that's a concept I've talked before about on the show, but not necessarily through that lens of looking at, okay, just because you haven't made money from something before doesn't mean that skill isn't valuable. And so that is an encouragement, yeah, for you to look at your life experience. And the thing I often ask people who are struggling maybe to come up with an idea for what they could share that's a value in the marketplace is what are people already going to you for like who are you the go to person for in your existing network in your circle of friends or your family? Because there's often clues that have like pointed us along the way to say like, you're really good at this, but you may just not realize how good you are at this right?
Oh, totally, totally. Because it's come so naturally to you. Like why would you think you were so good at it? You're just like is
exactly. Let's get into your case study. So you for x your revenue in one year, by following this concept of staying close to the money. Can you first define what that is for our listeners? Yes,
absolutely. It felt like something that was in terms of innate skills. It wasn't something that I came in knowing. But as I started to work with more clients, and as I started to be in more programs and seeing more questions that were coming in Facebook groups, all those places that we gather information, right, I saw that people were spending so much time on work, that didn't really generate any revenue. And they were like, so overwhelmed and so frustrated, because they feel like they're working all the time, and not seeing results. And as I would start working people on breaking down where that time was going. So often we started to notice that it was just really far from the money. And so I was like, Okay, we gotta get you closer to the money. And just to give a concrete example of what that looks like, right? I think people shy away a lot, especially you know, when you're first starting or even in like your first one to two years. I want to say people shy away a lot from network marketing, right, or networking and relationships, not network marketing.
Not the industry, the industry.
Relationship marketing. As I kind of started talking clients with this, I'd be like okay, so no hate on results, right. I like I love reels, I make my own rolls, but you can spend a couple of hours making some really great reel with a transition in it that might go viral. That might get you more followers that might convert or that might end up on a call with you. Or that might might, might might might, or you can try and shove in a roomful of people and actually just like, directly connect with them and see what happens. And while one seems like that's what all the successful people are doing, right, it seems like all the successful people, quote, unquote, are doing the reels. The people that you see doing that are often like further along, and I've helped doing that. But when you're kind of at the outset, and really starting to figure things out, you have to keep yourself close to the money. And that is the priority. That's the only priority. So I always like to ask myself, if I'm looking through a to do list or something like that, how close is this to the money, and especially when you're short on time, which one of these is closest to the money. And so that's kind of where it came from, and what it means. I also just want to add, because as a solopreneur, it's really helpful at the beginning, as you grow as you grow a team, it's really helpful from a team prioritization perspective. And one thing that I noticed working in startups is just how often different people were not working towards the same shared goal. But if you make it really clear that your shared goal is revenue growth, or sometimes your shared goal might be audience growth, right, you need to stay close to the goal, right. And for most of us, that's the money, but you need to stay close to the goal as a team, as a business leader, and you need to let your team know that that's the overall priorities so that they can have that information and be empowered to make those choices and decisions. What a
great filter for prioritization. I love this question. I hope all of you write this down. If you're wanting to take notes, how close is this to the money? That's such a great, just quick little, you know, in the moment question that anybody could ask themselves to kind of, it's almost like a guardrail, right. Like, just to double check. Should I really be spending my time on this today, especially to your point, I really appreciate that you added in that additional context of look of your solopreneur. What is close to the money for you is going to look different than someone with team support, right? Because, yeah, so that that was really, really helpful. One thing that I really like about the case study that we're uncovering today is how you implemented that with just one first change, which we'll talk about next. But then how that one decision kind of led to a basically a cascade of decisions that allowed you to, like we mentioned at the beginning for extra revenue in a year. So let's start with that first decision. Frenchy. You took a look, you audited your time, and what did you discover about your Instagram?
So I realized that my Instagram wasn't bringing me clients, really, it just was not driving what I thought it was. And so I need this choice. And I actually think that I have a post about it or a real about I'm not even sure I have to go back. And look, I think my baby was like three months old when I made this decision. So some people might have thought I was like a crazy postpartum, like I kind of was too. But like, I also was being strategic about it. And I was like, I spent so much time making content, and I love making content, but it felt like it didn't make sense anymore, if it wasn't helping me make more sales. And so I decided to shift away from really having more educational content, for lack of a better term on Instagram. And I was like, well, then where am I going to put that, but my new role is that if you want that educational content, you can totally have it. But I'm just gonna ask you for your email address, right? Like it'll be free. Because my emails are really where I come to life and where I build relationships. And, you know, and I know that with email, it's getting into your inbox, you choose whether or not to read it, but Instagram is in deciding whether or not you see it and all those sorts of things. So that was like a really kind of important moment for
that. Yeah, and I always like to add some extra context in here because I know some people are like, Oh, Frenchie, you know, left Instagram, so I should leave Instagram or I should stop doing whatever this that or the other. And I think the key here is to realize that every platform can work. Every strategy can work for different types of businesses, but to Frenchies point, and it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier, there are long term and short term levers that you pull in business to grow. And I think where most people go wrong, exactly like you smartly pinpointed is that they focus 100% of their time on long term strategies, like audience building through Instagram, when that may not be the most efficient short term path to cash flow. And I think you have to be able to do both simultaneously if you are wanting to survive essentially as as so yeah, really awesome that you were able to look at the data and actually determine Okay, educational content on Instagram isn't where my clients are coming from. I'm curious, when you made that announcement post, did you choose to fully stop creating content for Instagram or just stop creating educational content for Instagram.
So it was just the educational content, I'm still on Instagram, I'm pretty active on Instagram. I like being there. But a shifted also, I guess I want to say I shifted my perception of it, right. Like, I shifted the role it played in my business. In that I saw it as more of a place to nurture people a place for people who I say like I started taking like an outside and approach to Instagram. So I would do things like guest on podcasts and things like that. And then people inevitably would follow me on Instagram. And so then they got to know me a little bit better. But it's more personal. It's more behind the scenes. It's, you know, it runs the gamut from sometimes random thoughts that I'm having to sometimes weird reels because I get all sorts of weird ads. And I'm like, so I see it as more of a nurturing tool at this point. And my main goal of my Instagram is I'm converting people onto my email list, either through strategy, snacks or other freebies that I have.
So smart. So this podcast that you created when you left behind educational content on Instagram, that is the podcast strategy, snacks that you put behind an email opt in, right, so people have to subscribe to receive. Yep. So how does that How do you execute that? Like, what I mean by that is like, what, what software are you using to deliver so that you ensure only subscribers are receiving the podcast access?
Yes. So I use Hello audio. And that's basically how people get access. I think people sign up through ConvertKit. And then I have a zap or something happens. But those people can then listen to it on Apple podcasts and Google and all of those places. But it doesn't use some sort of custom link, just to make sure that it just goes to you now, can people share things and all that? Yeah, same is true with any like lead magnet or anything like that. But just tactically that's how it works. And it's interesting, because I mean, you have this podcast, and that's one strategy. But I was also like, I'm not really going to know who's listening. And I wanted more information on the people who are curious and listening, and all of those sorts of things. So that was kind of how I started going about that. Well, I
think your decision to I hate using the word gatekeeper, but to filter right to add in that extra layer of commitment, essentially, from the listener, by having them give you their email is so smart for the type of business you have. Which is, again, why I think I really resonate with how you teach, is you bring context into everything. And that's a quality that I can really appreciate. Because for your business model, right, like primarily as a coach or educator, it would make sense to maybe have less discoverability, because people are opting having to opt in to receive access to the show, right? But your conversions on the back end, are much higher for your actual paid offer. Whereas for us, we keep our podcast free and public because our goals as a media business are very different. And it's all about reach versus yes, no back in conversion. So anyways, just wanted to add that extra layer of context for anyone listening.
But it's important, right? Because what you're also saying there is like, quote unquote, close to the money, because it's like, how is this in support of that end goal? Has like what role is this playing in that process? And in that journey, and I think clarifying that is really important.
So I feel like this would be a good time to insert your first hot take of the episode, which is this. Podcast guesting right is a massively powerful visibility, you're getting in front of other people's audiences that you do not own. However, I think something a lot of people don't realize about podcast hosting, is when you have your own show, whether you put it as a private podcast feed like yours or public like ours, it is actually one of the lowest discoverability content channels, just the nature of how podcasting works in the current, you know, structure. So I'm kind of curious about your hot take on this. When you decided to move your educational content away from Instagram, why move it to one of the lowest discoverability content channels?
Yeah, so a lot of reasons. So one was that, like, I don't want to make another PDF, right. I mean, I know that sounds lazy. I don't know what that sounds like. But I like I mean, I don't want to download another PDF. I don't want to make another PDF, all of those things. I also felt like it was really about the landing page at that point, which is slightly different than looking for discoverability like In the podcast app or something like that, and so those were some of the things, but then I also know and you know this better than I do, like, podcasting is a lot of time, and a lot of work and a lot of everything. And so I also, as I mentioned, had a really small baby at the time. And I was like, you know, what strategy snacks is going to be five to 10 minute episodes, because that's all I have time for. But also, so many people don't have time to listen to whole episodes of podcasts. And, you know, when it's a conversation, and it's engaging like that, you know, like in that way, it's fun to listen to, but in terms of what I was trying to deliver, which was fun, but also just like getting to the good stuff, in terms of the educational piece, I was like, it doesn't need to be longer. And so that was the other piece that was a really important part of that decision was because I know it takes time to grow, it takes time to build your list through lead magnets anyway, I didn't want to spend hours and hours a week recording content and trying to edit it and all of that the great thing about five to 10 minutes is that editing takes less time if you need to edit because I didn't really need to edit much less, less can go wrong in five minutes than in 45 minutes.
That is a very fair point. So when you launch strategy, snacks, then these five determine episodes, like you mentioned, is this once a week, and how did you promote strategy snacks to get those first opt ins?
Yeah, so I decided to do it as almost a pre launch events. So I had validated my offer the summer before, which was called business genius boot camp. And I had kind of I think I had just done an email launch and that sort of thing. And I had gotten a group and and it was great. And so I was like, Okay, I need to double down on this. And I decided to do season one. So seasonally at that point of strategy stance, and I did two episodes a week. And I it was for I want to say it was 20 episodes. So 10 weeks, from pre launch about six weeks pre launch through the launch, and then a couple of weeks after the launch. And they were all solo episodes. So that was kind of the first piece. In terms of converting people. I shared it a lot on Instagram, because that's where my audience had been and all of that. I also asked business friends who had made at the time just to share with their audiences too. And if they would be up for that. And I am a big proponent of just asking friends, like I love to share people's stuff. I ask people to share my stuff. Sometimes you get a yes, sometimes you get no, it's never personal. And it that really helped us start building up some of that momentum. I think that it also reenergized some of my existing Instagram audience because it was like a different way to get some of the stuff that they had been getting. And those who are already actively following it. They were like, well, I still want more of that. So I should go download it.
Absolutely. And it's so convenient. I think that's the thing that I love most about being a podcast listener is unlike content on social that can get just so lost in the feed. Even if you save it like how many of us really go back to our save posts and actually went through those right, having something in a sequential order in a podcast feed and knowing exactly what episodes you've played in which ones you haven't listened to, and being able to take that with you on the go distraction free when your eyes can't be like sitting and watching something, I think is massively, you know, understated in terms of the value of the experience. So you did this, you launch strategy, snacks, and then that quickly grew your list by you know, 80% and from that increase in audience momentum, you then did your next thing in your decision tracking process to stay close to the money. So what was that?
Well, so the 80% growth then led me so then I led into my launch her business genius bootcamp where I had double enrollment from the first time around. So that was already massive mazing. And as I saw that, that kind of, you know, dynamic was working right strategy, snacks into business units bootcamp. I was like, well, now strategy snacks needs to get in front of more people, like how do I get in front of more people. And so, as I was planning out, the following launch, I decided to bring in guests to strategy snacks. And I decided that by bringing me in my hypothesis, which was kind of an educated guess, right was, if I bring in more guests, I'll ask them to share with their audiences. And then that will help to bring more people into this program and then more people into the boot camp and so on and so forth. So that's exactly what I did.
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It's a brilliant strategy. It's it's a thing that I sound like a broken record if you've been a longtime listener of our show, but leveraging other people's audiences, using borrowed traffic to your advantage is the fastest way to sell your offer by far, way faster than slowly and painstakingly growing your own audience in a vacuum. And I love that you're using you know guests on your show to help you expand your reach, like you said outside of your own community. Before we get into that strategy, I just want to quickly back up for a second to the parts where you did your second business genius boot camp and how you doubled your enrollment. Did you do anything different in that launch from the prior one? Or was it just purely based on the list growth that you saw through launching strategy snacks as a podcast?
That's a good question. The biggest difference was that I also hired someone who was a one on one client of mine at the time, Lisa was amazing. She did a sales page audit kind of on my sales page. So I hired her to just optimize my sales page. That was I think just played such a big role in it because it was a not only did I double it, but I doubled it without sales calls.
Huge and what is the price of your bootcamp?
It's now it's 2600 or 2599? I think I'm supposed to say 2599. It was 1800 at the time.
Oh, okay. So that's actually I'm really glad I asked that question. I almost didn't because I wasn't sure how relevant it was to the case study. But I actually think it's highly relevant because to your point that is like a higher priced done with you or DIY type of experience. And when most people think of boot camps, I think they tend to think of high volume low ticket offers, like under 100. So that's really interesting to know. And this is a little piece that again, I'm going to dig a little deeper before we continue on with the guesting strategy. So you hired Liezel to optimize your sales page was that a decision that you made through the lens of staying close to the money because I'm sure that was a that was a bigger investment that you had to make. Right?
It was, but at that point, I had kind of thought of it this way. So in the first launch, it had gone well. And not only had it gone well, but then the people who were in it loved it. 70% of them then continued on with me one on one for another four or five months. And so I was like this, there's something here. And knowing that there was something there, I was like, I need to make sure that I'm not getting in my own way of how I communicate this so that other people get it and I'm a little bit too close to it. I am a good writer, but I'm not a strategic writer, right. And there's a difference between being a good writer and knowing how to write good sales copy. And so I really wanted to make sure that the sales page was a proper representation of what I knew about the program after it's like first round where I learned so much about the impact that it had the benefits that it had and all of those things. So that's really it was very much through on to like I want more enrollments. And I think this is going to be a key piece to it.
Yeah, no, that's completely makes sense. And something that I think is great to take away from your decision to invest there is, you know, along the theme of staying close to the money I think sometimes as people are starting out in their business journey or honestly even at any point in the business journey, it's so easy to get destroyed. did buy offers that sound like a cool possibility in theory, but it's not something that's directly applicable to what you're doing right in the moment, right. And so I love that. I am assuming you're smiling because this is something you've experienced as well. But I love that you chose to wisely invest your dollars in something that was immediately actionable. It was like I'm having this launch right now. This is the one thing that I could pay for that will actually measurably increase my sales from this thing that I'm already doing, right? Yeah.
Well, and I'm also laughing because one of the things that I specifically teach in the bootcamp is investing wisely. Because it's such a challenge. And there's so many attractive offers out there. There's so many shiny objects, and they're shiny for a reason, and they can be helpful. And so I, one of the things I talk about a lot, it's like, it's not about making a good or bad investment, it's just about making the right investment at the right time. And that's a nuance that is difficult sometimes, because what I find sometimes is like people will invest to them, and they'll build their strategy around the investments that they've made, rather than building their strategy and investing accordingly.
Oh, my God, yes.
Okay. Again, I have never phrased it in that way. But you have captured exactly that principle that I want everybody to soak in, do not purchase something and then go okay, let me see how you can fit my business model around like whatever it is. You are the CEO of your business, and you have to lead with that clarity and look at the available opportunities or investments available to you and say, Okay, which one best supports my bigger goal? My biggest priority? So yes, yes, yes, Frenchie. I could not applaud that. No. All right. So we've gone over two decisions that you made to stay closer to the money already. Number one was leaving your educational content off of Instagram, moving it to a podcast strategy snacks that people have to subscribe to receive access to. And then number two, is now hiring Liezel to help you with your sales copy for this launch of business genius boot camp. Now number three, you mentioned Okay, now you're trying to get more people top of funnel into strategy, snacks. So you brought on guests. My question to you is, did you require every guest who came on your show to share as a part of their agreement to be on your show? Or did you kind of leave that more open ended?
Oh, good question. When I first started, I asked, I said my only requirement is that you share on social, so I didn't ask her space in their emails. And I said stories are fine, right? I didn't say has to be a grid. So as I said, it can be as simple as re sharing my post with a link. So I tried to make it as low demand as possible. Because I was trying to bring in people with significantly larger audiences than I have, or and had. And I wanted it to be a reasonable demand. And everybody agreed to it. Because I mean, resharing into your stories is is typically a pretty easy thing to do. Not for everyone, but for the people that I was working with. Yes. You know, I think it's different when you have like, influencers who are getting paid by brands and that sort of thing. But for the people who I was reaching out to return to stories was due.
Right. No low lift. That's that's a great way to think about it. What kind of momentum Did you see for your list growth and opt ins for strategy snacks from these guests? Like how many guests did you bring on in that new season? How did you? Okay, this is like many questions layered, but what what was the growth you saw from that? But I guess the second main question is, how did you select or pitch the guests for them to see the value in coming on your show and sharing? Yeah.
So this is there's I mean, there's a lot of layers that So first, I would say, again, to kind of your point, all about the power of relationships and the power of collaborations. And so I started by leading with some kind of, with with I think it was two or three people who I knew in one way or another, not necessarily super well. Some I knew them better than others. Some I knew, like 10 years ago, like here we are again. And so those three people were Laura Bell Gray, Sunny and Dara Brustein and they were the first three people I asked. And my strategy there was really wanting to use essentially their names as anchors to then attract more guests. And, you know, I knew that more people who didn't know me quite as well would be more likely to say yes, if they could kind of see that other people who they whose names they recognized. Were saying, yes. So I started there. And then from there, I started to put together a kind of a dream list of people and part of that was making sure that it was a representative audience. Part of that was very similarly looking at followership, knowing that most people were going to share on Instagram I was actually looking at more Instagram followers then I never asked anyone how big is your email list or anything like that because It was relevant in that particular case. And I had nine spots for guests. And the side benefit that was not planned of having a 10 minute show is that it was also a very low time commitment for guests to participate. And they were actually just sending me voice notes of their answer. And so they could do it on their own time, we were not recording to get her it was like, I tried to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. And so that's kind of how it panned out over the course of it. And then in terms of the growth that I saw, I think it was like another 50% growth. I mean, each time a guest episode went out, I just saw these, like, you know, ConvertKit, like those pops, I love the infographics that they do, it's it was very rewarding. And it really helped to bring in not only more people to my list, but more of you know, quote unquote, the right people, aka my ideal audience. And I think that's just something that I want to get more specific about here. Because I think that we tend to equate, like audience growth, list growth with like, money growth, but if like, at the beginning, when my list was comprised mostly of my family, nobody was buying me or my family. And they were really my target clients. So I think that was the other big piece was that I was seeing people come into my world who were actually also potential clients, or at least were really getting a lot of value with what I was putting out there.
In this episode, Frenchy talks all about how staying close to the money was essential to her achieving big results. You might be wondering how you can start staying close to the money. Well, you're in luck. Frenchy created something exclusively for cubicle to co listeners, that guide to staying close to the money gives you 37 Super easy ways to get closer to the money without scaring your dream clients away. If you feel like you're working nonstop, and still not hitting those revenue goals, let's change that head to stay close to the money.com. And get your hands on Frenchies exclusive guide. So you can stop wasting time and start making more money. Again, the link is stay close to the money.com will also drop a clickable link for you below in the show notes. 100% I think that audience alignment is so key if again, the end priority is the conversion. And we love Laura Bell gray here at cubicle, the CEO. So I'm so glad that we have that mutual friend in common and that she was one of your first guests. Your comment about using more well known names to anchor the invitation to future guests. Because you know, it's always easier to get the fourth or fifth yes than the first yes reminds me of a conversation that we had with another prior guest on our show Kim Lewis, who was talking about when she was launching chromax, a product that had gone on Shark Tank. And you know, she was having problems with getting any media people to commit to helping to promote their crowdfunding launch until she got one big name in the door refinery 29. And then everybody else was like, Oh, well, we don't want to miss out on the scoop. If this big media was covering, it just reminded me of that wisdom. So thank you for sharing and walking us behind the scenes on that. So now we've gone through three, right? Three different decisions of staying close to the money. The fourth one you kind of already sneaked in. I feel like a little bit but I want to expand. You mentioned that about 70% of the people from your boot camp actually ended up continuing with you after the boot camp in a one on one capacity, which by the way, is like an insane conversion rate like 70%. Wow. So we got to talk about this like, offer, if I remember correctly from what you had pitched us was not something you had the first time you launched business genius bootcamp, it was a decision you made based on staying close to the money. So tell us about that.
After seeing you know that 70% conversion to one on one, which I had also kind of just invented on the fly because it feels like they want more. Let me give them more you know, and I think sometimes we can get really precious about our offers and what's in my suite and what's not in my suite. I was like, well, let's give it a shot. Great. Let's see what happens. So for the second time around, I thought, Okay, well let me test this again. But I'm going to offer this as a group program this time, mostly from a bandwidth perspective for myself, but also because well thinking that's one of those where I was thinking about short term and long term, but also think about the long term strategy as like, over time, that will be more scalable. And if I can sustain it as a group, then I can really build this into more of a kind of ongoing ecosystem. And so I pitched it to the people in the program had another 70% conversion rate. I was like, oh, okay, we're onto something here. And, you know, I'm always hesitant to talk about this. I want to say publicly, but because I don't ever want to be the person that's like, you know, the boot camp will kind of give you something and then You're gonna leave feeling like you need more. And that's how I upsell you because it's like kind of halfway? No, I actually think that what I started to realize is that the bootcamp is such a trust builder for people. And it's kind of that first step that they need to start seeing the benefits of investing in their business at the right time in the right thing. And then they want that ongoing support to, they're like, wait, there's more here. I want that more. So I think that the first time I did the group program, which I now call business genius, masters, it was four months. And I just because we were wrapping up in May, or June ish, and I wasn't launching it again until September, October. So it's like, alright, well, let's just go through the summer. And I want to say, of the 70%. Most of them ended up deciding to resign through the end of the year, like through December. So in December, I was like, Do you want to keep going? And they were like, Yeah, let's keep going. And I think that a big part of that is that I started to think about how the programs supported each other. Right. And so, the bootcamp now I think about it, the boot camp is about like planning it being your business, it's giving you the tools to really get strategic about your business growth and get the clarity you need to break through plateaus, make those transitions that you want to make. And then the master's program is about building it, it's about actually doing what's on the plan, which is we all know the hardest part. Yeah. And that's where the group also becomes really powerful is that one on one, accountability is one thing, when you have the group there, and you have other people celebrating your wins with you. It really comes to life. And so I think about business genius masters as really an implementation program. So if you are like, just amazing at implementing things yourself, then Masters is fun from a community standpoint, but might not be necessary as much as for people who have a harder time, self motivating around it. So anyway, that was kind of the journey into that. And now Masters is a core part of my offers and what I do, because there's a demand for it.
Yeah. i It's so wise that you listened and you looked for clues of okay, what would be the next natural ascension plan? Right? For someone who's already had this amazing experience and transformation with me? What could I do to further support them? And I think that's a question that a lot of entrepreneurs don't ask themselves is when they're creating new offers, they're usually siloing things, right? It's like, oh, I have this, this great idea over here and this great idea over here. But the two ideas don't always connect, and you're kind of having to market and acquire two different customers into your ecosystem that way. Whereas for you, I think the genius piece of what you share that I want to pull out for our listeners is, you're not having to re find new people for this master's program, right? It's like your existing customers are always going to be easier to upsell than to convert a stranger into a first time customer. So you're just extending their lifetime value or spend with you by upselling them into masters. Exactly. Exactly. And how much is masters, by the way?
So Masters is $7,200. Okay, that's awesome. So that's for six months.
Okay, perfect. So it's, like a little more than two times their initial investment in bootcamp. Right. Okay.
And the interesting thing is that I asked a couple people who did convert, I was like, would you have just bought right into masters? And they were like, I would never have let myself spend that much. Right. Yeah. And they're like, but then I started to see the benefits. And I started to see how my business was already changing quickly. And how I felt about my business was changing quickly, which I think is a really important piece of it. Then I felt like, Okay, this makes sense. And they felt safer doing it.
Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. It's like, once they've already seen what's possible, and they know they like your teaching style, your coaching style, it's so much easier for them to give a bigger, full bodied. Yes, right. Exactly. So the last, I guess piece of this case study is around one more decision that you made with increasing the price to again, stay closer to the money. So the first time you launched masters in conjunction with business genius boot camp that did well and then you launched it again and increase the prices. Did you did you double the price? Is that
No. So you think the price of the bootcamp I'm trying to remember exactly I think it was like 1300 the first time 1800 The second time, and I'll say this, I am obsessed with. I always do revenue roadmapping right. I'm not a financial person, but I always kind of just look at how many of each offer do I need to sell at which price to get there so right I already had in my head that I wanted to get to 25 At $2,600, just so that I was hitting my goals, and so as like, let's take the slow road. So I, like I said 1300 1800, then 2200. And then now it's at 2599. And now it's gonna stay there for a little bit. Because it makes it makes sense. I think that more than that for a four week program is hard for people to really wrap their heads around, and all of those things, but yes, you know, and then as demand goes up, I was like, alright, more, like, more people want this. So it made sense. But that was my target price for this year. And so I wanted to make sure that I was kind of like, gearing up to that and seeing if people were still converting, right.
Yeah, thank you, by the way, for showing that incremental ladder breakdown of how you like, jumped the price each time. I know, our listeners are probably wondering the same thing I am, which is, what do you look for outside of just more demand, which will naturally come as your audience grows through the other strategies that we talked about today? Other than that, what else are you looking for when you know, it's the right time to bump up the price? Again,
I think this is where sometimes I can have blinders on, which is a blessing and a curse. And I was like, well, that's my goal is to get there, you know. So I think that was a piece of it. I think the other piece is that I have as a holistic business model and as a general belief, just like a higher ticket business model, right. And I knew from early on that I mean, at least for now, I didn't want to go down a high volume model for a bunch of reasons. But also, because I have kids and all those things, just felt like overwhelming for me to navigate all of that. So those were some of the components, the other components, were really starting to hear people's results and the financial results that they were getting, and not just hearing from them within the four weeks, because I basically feel like not that I take credit for anyone's successes, because it's never me, it's always them. But there's less impact on the results they get in our month together than in the results they get six months later. And as I had more space from, you know, cohorts, I started to see just the ongoing benefits that they were getting. And so I realized that the business impact really was significant, just from this four week program, that the value of it could really be justified over time in such a different way. And what I teach in the boot camp is it's funny, because I came up with the boot camp idea when I was kind of looking at the online space. And I was like, there are so many people in this space who teach people what to do. But no one is really teaching people how to think about their business, right? Like, I mean, this conversation is really how you think about your business, how you make your business decisions, and all of that. And it's like, I want to be the person that teaches people that you know, and so the program, unlike other things that not to say there's anything wrong with a tic toc strategy or anything like that, I think it's great, but it might go out of style, right? Like it might not be around in five years, we're knowing how to think strategically about your business, how to make decisions, how to goal set, all of that that's not going anywhere. And so I think that was kind of the other piece is that just seeing the lifetime value of it really helped me make that choice.
Also, to your point, a strategy is only as ever good as the person executing it. Right. So I mean, exactly what you said, being able to think as a leader is way, way, way more valuable of a skill set than just knowing tactically how to do one, one off skill that may or may not even apply to your ecosystem or your business, depending on what your end goal is. So that's cool. It's like I feel like you're the thinking coach, I mean, I know that's not what,
that's not your I'll take it.
Like what's top of mind for me. Okay, so in summation with today's case study, you, like I said you for x your revenue through making these five strategic decisions to stay close to the money in 2022. You ended with 150,000 as a solopreneur. In 2023, you're already on track and projected to end the year around 375,000. Is that right? Yes, that's right. Amazing year over year growth, especially as a solopreneur. For that extra layer of context, though, did your expenses or your energy and time output increase accordingly with these big jumps in revenue? Or because you've been so I guess strategic instinct closer money? Do you feel like more or less, those inputs have stayed the same? But you've just seen the growth in output?
Yeah, that's such a good question. I'm so glad you asked that. Because that's like one of the things that when I'm looking at people in the online business world, everyone's like, Oh, my gosh, a million dollars, Mike, but like, how much are you spending? Right? So for last year 2022 I think I made a tiny bit of profit, I spent a lot on coaching. And actually, in hindsight, I might have spent too much on different kinds of like coaching and learning. But I felt like I got a lot out of it from an energy and output perspective, I would say I'm better at managing energy and output than money. To be totally honest, like, because I wanted to, like do these programs and do that sort of thing. And so I worked with some amazing coaches. Then at the end of the year, I was like, Alright, I've learned all these things. And let me practice what I preach. And now focus on implementation. So this year, I'm really scaling back on a lot of those expenses. So I believe that my kind of profit and all that is going to be much higher this year, my biggest investment for this year is hiring and OBM. So that I can really focus more on kind of like, strategic thinking, audience building visibility. And now that I kind of an this is another strategic decision, right, is that now that I know the revenue engine, right, which is bootcamp and masters, I can optimize that and automate that as much as possible, which is what my OBM can help me with. So I can keep focusing on bringing more people into my world. No, it just timing wise made sense.
That is so great that you're so clear on exactly what you need to do next, to grow at the current stage of business that you're in. And again, it's all about a all goes back to that, you know, being able to think at every stage in your business, not just learn this one skill that may only apply for a short season. So great, great wisdom, I want to end our conversation today. With one final hot take, I actually pulled this from your website, and it just it jumped out at me because you know, the name of our show is cubicle to CEO and we often address our our community is like, hey, CEOs. So I just wanted to hear your take on this. You said, quote, anyone can call themselves a CEO. It takes discipline to succeed as one. We've obviously addressed this quite a bit in our conversation today. But is there anything you want to add here to to why you said this?
i Oh, yes. I mean, so many thoughts and like this is I'll keep it short. Discipline sounds boring. And I think that's the tricky thing. But growing your business is really boring. It requires so much doing the same thing over and over again. And I think that a lot of times, the idea of shiny object syndrome is really just the pursuit of novelty. And there's nothing wrong with wanting some of that excitement. But a lot of times what starts to happen is like we put off what we actually want for these like short term dopamine hits. And it's like one of the things right, where it's like, I get why you do it in the moment. I do it in the moment too sometimes. But what you really have to do is ask yourself, Is this close to money? Or is this really in support of my long term goals?
Okay, Mike drop. Thank you. That is excellent wisdom to end on. And Frenchy where can our listeners go to further? Well, obviously, strategy snacks, the podcast isn't a strategy. But give them give us a link for where they can go opt in and anywhere else. You want them to connect with you. Yeah, absolutely.
So definitely connect on Instagram. I know that I just said that was my pursuit of I'm on Instagram. I love to connect there. And I am always happy to have DM conversations and all that sort of thing. But listen to strategy, snacks, get on my email list. I ask all sorts of weird questions in my emails. People love to respond. So those are really the two best places. But otherwise, always feel free to email me. Drop me a line anything. I think I made this clear along the way, but my favorite thing to do is to connect with people.
Amazing, and yes, you absolutely did. So if you're curious, we will drop all of Frenchie's links below in the show notes, you can click over Frenchie thank you so much again for joining us today. Thank you
so much for having me.
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