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Growing your business doesn't have to be a choice between fast cash and long term growth. But many business owners see it that way – you either go from launch to launch or grow so slowly you're unsure about whether you'll ever be profitable.

There is another way – and in this episode, we'll talk about exactly how you can make it work with your existing business.

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Episode 24 – How Podcasts Generate Leads For Your Business with Brent Basham
Episode 27 – Your Year At a Glance Part 1 – How to assess the year you've had so you can learn from it
Episode 28 – Your Year At a Glance Part 2 – What do to (and when!) to have the best year ever

Poddit.net – to find more podcast interviews
Pitchpage.pro – to help you pitch anywhere you already are

Alyson Lex 0:01
Before we begin this episode, have you checked out the 128 customizable content topics available for your business, it's a completely free download an interactive generator, and you can get it at System to thrive.com. Slash content, it's also going to be in the show notes for this episode. So check that out at System to thrive.com. Also, you as we talk about this topic, you may think, Hey, I can use some help figuring this out. So all you have to do is check out the work with a section at System to THRIVE comm and see how Jenny and I can help you build a plan that will fit your goals. Is this you? Do you see yourself in what I'm about to describe? Person A might say, yes, this is me. I'm growing my business. But it's so slow, that I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to make money. And Person B is feeling super burned out with launch after launch. And they feel like the only time their audience buys from them is when they're offering a product. Today, Jenny and I are actually going to talk about whether you should be focusing on cash now or cash later, and how to handle it. In your business. I'm super excited about this. Because I'm so passionate about this topic.

Jennie Wright 1:21
Me too. This is something that we talk about and work together on all the time. It's something that we definitely have a little soapbox to get up on top of and talk about. And it's something that people need, because people typically do the foot on the gas, or the foot off the gas. So this has happened where you know, and again, do you see yourself in this? Do you constantly put your foot on the gas, get enough clients to, you know, get going and then take your foot off the gas while you serve those clients and then go, Oh, crap, I need to start putting my foot on the gas again to try and find more clients that stop and start is not a momentum builder. And that is a big problem. When you're first growing your business if you don't look at it the different way. So we want to get you away from the feast and famine. We want to create a lead generation machine. We want to feed the machine constantly. And we're going to show you how to do that today. Really excited.

Alyson Lex 2:16
Yeah, so what I've seen a lot in my clients is they'll do launch after launch. And they're focused on their short term goals. They'll say, in April, I want to clear X amount of money, how am I going to do that. But what happens then is you struggle to create anything that grows over time and to get that momentum that you just mentioned, Jenny. And that momentum is what grows your income more exponentially. I'm not going to sit here and promise super exponential growth, mainly because I can't promise that for anything. But you can get it growing bigger month over month, instead of just saying I want to make x every month. You can say I want to grow by x. Okay. And these people that do this launch over launch without growing anything. They're essentially one launch away from not having a business.

Jennie Wright 3:12
That's correct. They're one launch away from poverty. Really.

Unknown Speaker 3:15
There's a book

Jennie Wright 3:16
Yeah, I'm broke. There's a mindset that comes with this. That is essential. And the mindset is, but Alison, Jenny, I don't have time to stop and make the long term growth stuff, I have to focus on the short term because I've got bills coming in, I need to keep food in the fridge and the lights on. How do I make that happen? How am I going to handle all that when I'm already overwhelmed with the stuff that I'm doing. So that's a big concern, too. And we hear you, we understand. And we're going to tell you how to make it happen. There's a little bit of the the Jenny ism of suck it up, Buttercup, you just got to absolutely find the time and you can find the time, you can make the time. But there's also here's how we can massage it in. So let's talk about what people normally do. We talked about that a lot, a little bit the launch after launch, that Alison was saying, right? And the struggle and you're one launch away from being broke or the other side of it, which is that plodding along that slow and steady one day wondering when you're going to make the money and not maximizing on creating a process that creates that steady stream of leads that will actually feed that lead lead generation machine.

Alyson Lex 4:28
That is really where I see a lot of people struggling because they're stuck there. They think if I just post on social every day for the next 18 months, my business will happen. No One No

Unknown Speaker 4:49
One headshake

Alyson Lex 4:50
Yeah. Violent, very violent. They think that this work, you know if they can get clients to refer For that it'll happen and the slow and steady, I like slow and steady if you have the time to do that, but like Jenny mentioned, you know, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America or US Bank, they don't accept mortgage payments of slow and steady, nope. They, they're going to want their money now. So we need to, we need to make money now. And that's why the launch over launch plan tends to be very attractive to people. Because it's income now, and people are money motivated, and they think money equals results. And to be fair, he kind of does, but money with burnout is, that's the kind of sucky money we don't want.

Jennie Wright 5:45
It's not the long, it's not the long term sustainable growth. So if you look at your business, as a long term, thing, like you're not in business for a year, you're going to be in business, hopefully, if things go well for you for 510 15 or 20 years. And this is the thing that you really want to do. This is your passion project, right? This is the thing that makes you happy. So we have to look at creating that long term growth, and intermit, like intermittently putting in those fast cash injections that we're going to talk about. So our goal, our plan is to teach you how to do both, and not lose your ever loving mind doing it. Because that is the secret sauce is being able to do the fast cash injections with those launches. But also to create an those longer term, those longer building those long game sort of scenarios and strategies. So that works for you. So we're going to look at what that looks like. We're going to create and share plan that we've that we've used, and we know works. And we want you to take a look at how you can implement this into your business. So as we're talking about this, take a look at your business. I don't know if you're walking right now, if you're doing dishes right now, whatever it is that you're doing, and you're listening to this, I want you to take a look and think critically about your business for a second as to how you can fit these pieces in. And I guarantee you that you can.

Alyson Lex 7:04
Okay, so step one is to leverage the list you have. I don't care if it's 12 people and a face, you know, a little mini Facebook group, I don't care. leverage it. What can you offer them right now? To get cash in the door? Is it a course? Is it a program? Is it a service? Is it a product? What can you offer to the people you already have on your email list in your Facebook group on your social followings? clubhouse, people, whatever. And make the offer, get them on the phone and sell to them. Cash injection number one. What this does is a it lets your list know, hey, you can buy from me, too, it gets some money in the door. And three, it's gonna set you up with the right mindset moving forward. Okay, step two, develop an engagement strategy. How can you take the people that already follow you? Again, we're leveraging something that you already have? How can you take them and engage them further with you? Is it a webinar? Is it a challenge? Is it you know, actually just a webinar or challenge.

Jennie Wright 8:40
There's a couple of other things that can make that happen to you. There's also a standalone on demand, you know, training that you can do, there's a video series that might work as well. Different types of lists builds that sort of fit depending on your audience. But we're trying to get you to stay away from the checklists, ebooks, downloadable PDFs, that are a one way conversation that are not going to create sort of that lead interaction that we need to get people into your program, product or service.

Alyson Lex 9:09
Yes, thank you list build Queen, for helping me figure out all of the different types of engagement style list builds we can do. I also don't want you go going the other way right now into a summit style list build. That's too much. Okay, stay webinar workshop challenge video series on demand training.

Jennie Wright 9:32
stay flexible, stay mobile, it's the engaging staff being able to be a little bit plastic and move around and go okay, I only need three weeks to be able to plan really good workshop and be able to implement something like that versus a summit which is going to take three or four months of planning. And we're going to get to that because it should be part of your plan. And we'll talk about how that happens. But when this particular cash injection phase in this plan, and this highly like using lists builds that are highly interactive that get people to can With you, those are the things that you can do more rapidly and implement more quickly and get a quick turnaround slash result. And that's what we're talking about for those fast cash injection plans. At the same time, we really, really, really, really, really, really want you to work on actively growing your list and your following online for that long term growth that we're talking about. So this is where I want to reference some of our past episodes, I believe we did an entire planning episode Allison, sometime around New Year's of 2020. So I believe it was actually we did, we broke it into two parts on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve 2020. So to go take a look at those episodes, and see if those are a fit in terms of looking at some, you know, looking at your year, and figuring that out. Those are episodes 27 and 28, there might be something interesting to fall back on and listen to you as well. So actively growing your list and your following means planning a summit planning on doing some possible paid advertising, if at all needed. Looking at your podcast appearances. Allison has been writing my you know what to get on as many podcasts as possible. And for a long time, I didn't do it. I am actively in it now. And I tell you, it is a game changer. I've gotten so many opportunities to appear on different things and joint venture opportunities and even gotten clients from somebody said, Oh, I heard you on such and such a podcast. So podcasting is a really big deal. And it's also grown a lot during these pandemic times. And so it makes really, really good sense to get yourself involved in something like that. So here's how you do this, right? So you're planning. So in the next, in the next three to six weeks, you could be planning a challenge, or a webinar series. And then at the same time, you're planning out something three to four months away, which could be your summit. Or it could be a giveaway, it could be those podcast appearances. So the podcast that you're actually booking right now may not come out for a couple of months. So you're keeping that long term goal. Here's how to implement it in your life. And I know Allison's gonna have something to say on this as well.

Alyson Lex 12:14
I do so I already went through step one and step two, make an offer to your existing list. And step two is to engage your existing list with a challenge a webinar or workshop, etc. Step three is what Jennie mentioned to begin building your long term strategy. So podcast appearances, I want that to be a 365 day strategy for you. It is a huge strategy because podcasts have a ton of staying power. They tend to be evergreen, we recommend that you check out pot at that net to book those appearances. Right. We love pot it. And we actually did an interview with the co founder of pot it. And I've dropped that episode number into the show notes. I think it might, I don't remember, it might have been number 24. But don't quote me on that. So appearing on podcasts and being a virtual speaker is going to be a long term year long strategy for you a couple of times a year, I want you to do a larger scale list build event like a summit or giveaway and of course our list build Queen might have some information on that. And we have a ton of past episodes about summit. So check that out. And you work to engage those people that signed up for that big list build, engage them again with something similar to what you did in step two. So step four, is to engage your existing your new list with a challenge or webinar series or workshop. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Now you could also have a paid ad strategy. You maybe you have some checklists, you have some freebies, run some paid traffic to that, continue to grow your list, continue to engage them on a regular basis and continue to make some of those fast cash offers to them throughout your relationship with them.

Jennie Wright 14:25
Yes,

Unknown Speaker 14:26
that is

Jennie Wright 14:28
really, really good Allison for a lot of reasons. I also want to say that it is Episode 24 with Brent Bashan, who is the co founder of product. He also has a brand new product that just at the time we're recording, this is just coming out so go check it out. It's pitch page pro pitch page dot Pro. And that's a really good resource to make a really cool speaker page, basically your one sheet, which is awesome, it can help get you booked and things like that. So take a look at that as well. So engaging your list and you know rinsing and repeating these plans Over and over, basically, what I would recommend that you do is create something that looks like a three to four month strategy. And then rinse and repeat it so that you're not always having to think about this over and over and over again. Right. So I really want you to look at creating something that is doable for you in the life that you currently have, with whatever stuff is going on, kids, family, job, stuff, side, hustle, whatever it is, make it work for you. Just because Jenny and Alison are telling you to do challenges and webinars and podcasting and summit doesn't necessarily mean it all fits in your life. It also doesn't necessarily mean it fits in your skill set. So let's talk about that for a second. Before we move on, your skill set right now might be that showing up on a webinar live scares, the ever loving

Unknown Speaker 15:51
crap out of you.

Jennie Wright 15:53
Your skill set right now might be showing up on a podcast or having somebody listen to your voice makes you cringe. But in six months, that could change in three months that could change. If you start if you stay behind the scenes and don't allow people to hear you and or see you, then yes, things are going to continue that slow roll, you do need to get out in front of the business. This is something that everybody at some point has to learn and accept, it's just part of the job, there has to be a front man. By the way, you're the front man, congratulations. So get out in front of that business, by showing up consistently and being out there, that's going to make a difference. So when we're creating this three month rinse and repeat plan, that might include something like this, it might include the fact that you created a brand new lead magnet that goes on your website, that can be your downloadable checklist, those things that was one way conversational things that we just have there for people who land on our sites, right, then you could create a webinar, absolutely, in a three month plan, you could create a webinar. And if you like the webinar and how it kind of turned out, even if six people showed up, I don't care. 660 600 doesn't matter. If you take that recording, and make that into something that people can get as an on demand training. Congratulations, you have a second lead magnet. And that can be something that you drive traffic to from a podcast. And then your other thing is connecting with that list, which Allison was talking about, totally 1%, you know, 100%, getting those people in there and making those offers. So this is something that you can do, you just have to accept a little bit of discomfort to make it happen.

Alyson Lex 17:37
Really like how you said that like this is doable. And you will feel differently. If you start small now, you will feel differently in three to six months, I promise. And I know this because I've been there. The me today shows up a whole lot differently than the me of a year or two years ago. And

Jennie Wright 18:02
I need to break in with that. The me, the Alyson of today is 100% showing up differently than the Alyson of six months ago, of even nine months ago, we just talked about this recently about how having a podcast has changed our ability. So two years ago, Allison is completely different 100%, but even nine months ago, which just leads into my point, that you know what feels good right now, or what feels uncomfortable right now will not feel so uncomfortable later, because you will have done it gets a heck of a lot easier. So don't let that hold you back.

Alyson Lex 18:36
Which is why we have broken this out into multiple steps instead of saying Step one is to make an offer or build a list and go do all the things at once. Okay. So we've got, again, step one, I'm going to keep reminding you of this because yeah, step one is to make an offer to your existing list. Get them on the phone with you make the sale. Step two, is to engage your existing people and maybe do a slight little list build with the challenge or the webinars, or the video series or the workshop or whatever it is that you decide to do. That is a two way conversation. Step three is to begin building that long term strategy, including things like podcasts and virtual speaking, as well as a list build. Step four, as I mentioned, is to engage that new slash existing list again, using the rinse and repeat method that Jennie talked about. Step five, is going to be to start looking at where you can automate and build out your funnels. And I hesitate using this word because it is so overused, but that's what they are. How can you support what you're already doing with any evergreen offers that you Have, if you have low priced courses, can you sell them via email to people who opt into your PDFs. A lot of people focus on this early. And then they wait for the money to come in. That's not the way we like to do it, which is why we're putting it all the way down at Step five, I'd rather you begin planning a list build or begin running ads and start getting on podcasts and drive traffic. Before we optimize, get them on the phone first sell to them live. And then let's optimize to create evergreen, and what that's going to do. I hate this phrase, passive income. Because it's never fully passive, you're gonna have to work for it, okay. But it's going to create automated income. Let's change the phrase passive income to automated income. I'm on board with that. Okay, so Step five, is to begin implementing some more automation in your business. This is over and above, like the confirmation emails for your list builds and your webinars and stuff like that. This is how you download this thing. Now go do this. Three days later, go do that, you know, like, that's that kind of nurture sequence funnel. And then this is going to sound familiar, because Step six, is to host them on a list build. And step seven, is to engage them again. And if I was to keep going, it would go, list, build, engage, list, build, engage, lists, build, engage, all being supported by your automated funnels that we set up in Step five, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Jennie Wright 21:47
And as you get better at what you're doing, and as you increase your technical know how you're speaking know how you're on video, know how you're all your thing, know how the rinse and repeat gets elevated. So whereas the first challenge that you ever did, might just be a simple five day challenge. And that's it, as you elevate your skills and move through that might start including a VIP, extra panels, the things right, so your your skills are going to change, and they're going to elevate and as you do you get to add these other things. The other thing that is really great. And what Alison was saying in this really interesting seven step plan, is that there is the repetition, the repetition is what is going to create that long term growth. And do you need help with this? Quite possibly, yes. Stay in your zone of genius. If you're not good at Tech, hire that out, please, if copywriting is not your thing I know somebody you can talk to. And the other things like graphics and things like that don't become the bottleneck. And we talk about this a lot don't become the bottleneck in your business to get this happening. Because if you do you know what you're going to do, you're going to fall back on the same thing that you were doing before that you quote unquote thought was working, but is not creating that long term growth, or is not creating that fast cash injection. Because remember, you're one of two people, you're either slow roll, or fast and quick, and try and make it happen, right. And now we need you to bring the two together, we need to create a little bit of symbiosis of the two and have you working together, don't you love if you can see me on video, I'm doing this cool hand simple thing. So don't forget that we want you to be this really cool, sort of like joining of the two, so that you can do both. And we promise you that you can do this, we promise you that it sounds a little bit daunting to some people. But if it if you do it, it will work. You just have to keep going. Oh, and the last thing I wanted to mention on this was, even if your first webinar doesn't have a lot of people keep at it. This is not an Oh, it didn't work for me, only six people showed up. I'm never doing a webinar. Again. It's six people showed up and the next time 12 and the next time 24. And the next time, you know and you're getting to you start getting intense exponential growth, but you have to keep at it. Right. Don't let your mindset keep you back from what you need to be doing. That's an incredibly big deal. You need to actually plan that out and make that happen.

So I want to talk about a couple of takeaways that I have from today's episode that I think are really going to help you. We talked about a lot of stuff today. I think today's episode was really great. I think we talked about a great way to marry these two things a fast cash and long term growth together. My first takeaway is leveraging what you already have leveraging your following leveraging your email list right now. What can you offer them right now to get cash in hand? Is it a VIP call? A quick one on one coaching session, a bank of coaching coaching sessions, a group coaching program that you create in beta, all those different types of things. Think of all the ways that you can serve your clients. Even if it's a small little product, getting something happening is better than nothing at all. Number two, plan in three month chunks, chunk out your year, chunk out your business. For growth, don't look at a 12 month plan because that gets overwhelming really fast. Look at it more in these smaller chunks that are doable, and then repeatable. And every time you repeat, refine,

Unknown Speaker 25:24
improve,

Jennie Wright 25:25
add, enhance all those lovely things. Number three, that rinsing and repeating and allowing yourself to up level is key. So I've mentioned this like six times now and I mentioned it again, rinsing and repeating, right, taking the same plan is pushing it a little bit, taking it to another level and don't recreate the wheel every time you host something, if you host a really successful challenge, and success looks different for everybody. But if you host a successful challenge, and you feel like it went really, really well, then just do it again, and elevate it and continue and put it out there. And you'll grow. Right.

Alyson Lex 26:03
I actually also have a takeaway that I would like to share. And I know that the takeaways are relatively new to what Johnny is doing. I love them. And I want in on this action. So I can not stress enough how big of a deal podcasting will have on your business. I cannot say this enough times, if you are not currently looking to be a guest on other people's podcasts and leveraging the audience that they have already built, you are doing yourself a disservice. I'm going to tell you a very quick little story. And then I think we're probably going to wrap this episode. I was in my beginning stages of being a guest expert on podcasts. And I was the very first episode of a podcast that's now no longer around. Designed to go to an audience that wasn't really perfect. Don't do that part, by the way. And I was literally episode number one, which means there wasn't as much of a following. But the relationship that I built with that podcast host, he introduced me to someone who then referred me to a couple of someone's and those couple of someone's were worth 10s of 1000s of dollars in my business. And then they introduced me and they introduced me and I can say that that relationship with that one single brand new podcast host has generated well over $150,000 in my business from one interview a few years ago. That's why you have to check out things like pata dotnet pitch page Pro, the things that we're recommending to you because these are the tools that Jenny and I use. This is not a very fast takeaway, but I don't even care. These are the tools that Jenny and I use to grow our businesses and get real, measurable results. So I will now unhygenic Jenny's takeaway section, I just felt that that was really important. It is

Jennie Wright 28:16
really important. And it's a good thing to talk about podcasting has been transformative, not only as a podcast host now. But also as a guest, my goal is 25 podcasts this year, and it's gonna make a difference in my business. And I know it will, it already has. So get on that as well. This has been, I think, a really good look at how to create that fast cash and also that long term growth. If you need help with implementing those kinds of plans, you're not alone. And we want to make sure that you have the resources that you need. So head on over to System to THRIVE comm check out the work with us tab and see how we can help you. It's actually System to thrive.com forward slash thrive plan. Check that out. And don't forget to grab our 128 amazing generated content generators that is at System to thrive.com forward slash content. Those are two really great ways for you to start motivating yourself in your business. And the other episodes that we talked about in this particular episode will will help you as well so you can check those out on the show notes. If you're listening to this episode, and you like what we're doing, then please do subscribe. We love when people listen to this podcast and also let us know what they think. Please leave us a review and let us know how you feel about the podcast, what you'd like to hear and some really great feedback. We're totally open to getting that and we love it. So thank you so much for listening. We'll be back again soon answering another big question.