5 Reasons You Aren’t Hitting Your Revenue Goals

Courtney Elmer  0:00  

Welcome back, you're listening to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast. This is episode 155. And today we're talking about the five things you need to have in place. If you want to double your revenue this year. That's all coming up next. So stay tuned. 

Courtney Elmer

Globally ranked among the top shows in business and education, we're known for one thing, helping overworked entrepreneurs like you learn how to run your business like a true visionary leader, because when you get the right systems support, and structure in place, you can spend more time in your zone of genius. So if you're tired of listening to today's business influencers teach this same old worn out marketing strategies that aren't making you any money, it's time to take a look under the hood of your business and fix the engine itself. Because the truth is, you don't have to work as hard as you are right now, to scale beyond six figures, and create the greater influence income and impact that you deserve. The secret to scaling starts on the back end of your business. This is the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast.

Courtney Elmer

All right, my friend buckle up because we have a lot to dive into inside of today's episode, we're talking about the five reasons that you haven't been able to generate the revenue that you want in your digital business and the five boxes that you need to check if you want to increase your revenue this year. Now, before we get into these, what I want you to think about, I want you to imagine the first four of these reasons that I'm going to walk you through in just a moment, I want you to imagine these like the four sides of a square, and that without any one of them, you're gonna have a missing piece, your square is not going to be as stable, it won't be a square, you won't have the solid foundation, you need to scale your revenue. 

Courtney Elmer

Now, the fifth one of these doesn't necessarily fit inside of this square. But it is just as essential. And you'll see what I mean by that in just a moment. All right, so let's dive in. We're going to start by talking about reason number one, that you're struggling to generate consistent revenue right now, and the first thing that you need to put in place. So one of the reasons why most people especially in the online space struggle to grow their revenue and to do that consistently is because they don't have a consistent lead generation mechanism in place. I cannot even begin to tell you how many  digital business owners I talk with that this is their number one struggle, they struggle to know how to attract qualified leads, they might get some lookers, they might get the tire kickers, they get the freebie seekers, but they're really struggling to find those people who are qualified and ready for the program that they're offering. 

Courtney Elmer

I was just on a client call a couple of weeks ago. And this particular client was telling me what a struggle this has been for the duration of his digital business, not just for a little bit of time, not just in the beginning as he was getting started. But it has continued to remain a problem. Even years into his digital business. They've tried podcast interviews, they've tried lead magnets, they've created multiple lead magnets, they've tried to redo their website, they've hired a copywriter to write their sales page copy or their site copy. They've revised their offer, they've adjusted their prices. They've tried all the different social media platforms, they've built funnels, they've spoken at online events, you name it, they've tried it, and the leads still aren't coming in consistently. Sounds familiar. And look, I'm going to be totally transparent with you right now. 

Courtney Elmer

I have easily invested close to 100 grand, if not more than that, over the course of the first four or five years in my digital business, to quote unquote, fix the lead generation problem in my digital business. Now, please do not mistake that to mean that I had gobs of money to invest either. That was me not taking a paycheck. That was me taking all of the profits in my digital business and reinvesting it back into the digital business over the course of several years. But until I figured out how to fix the leads problem, and actually started taking home a paycheck that recently we were just able to put towards our future towards some investment property we're looking at, and to get profitable, and to stop spending all of my hard earned money on courses and more coaches to fix it for me. I struggled to generate consistent leads. And so I could honestly devote an entire episode maybe several episodes to all of the various types of lead generation mechanisms out there, and why most are completely ineffective, and which ones are worth your time and which ones are a total waste of your time.

Courtney Elmer

But today's episode is more about the big picture. It's about what you need to have in place at a minimum if you want to hit your revenue goals. And this was a huge problem in my digital business until I I figured out how to solve it. And so when you have this in place a consistent reliable mechanism for generating leads, this is essentially the first side of your square, you have to have not only a reliable lead generation mechanism, but also the right kind of lead generation mechanism for your digital business. Because every digital business is unique. No two digital businesses are alike. Even if you serve the same niche, with the same or similar service or product, your digital business is unique, your goals are unique, they're going to be different from someone else's goals in their digital business. And so the way that we have solved this problem is by putting two very reliable lead generation mechanisms in place for our digital business. They're the right kind of mechanisms for our digital business. 

Courtney Elmer

For us, it's this podcast that you're listening to right now. And JV partnerships, which I can go into in more detail in a future episode, if you would like. But the bottom line is that you've got to have a reliable and a consistent lead generation mechanism in place. Now, this is only one side of the square. The second side of the square is you need to also have a reliable sales mechanism in place. And one of the reasons that you're likely struggling to generate the revenue that you want, is because you don't have a reliable sales mechanism in place. This is reason number two. And so what happens when you don't have a reliable sales mechanism in place, this looks like wasting your time on a lot of sales calls, with no new clients to show for it. 

Courtney Elmer

spending tons of your energy bringing yourself to the brink of burnout, on launches that don't convert spending 1000s of dollars on setting up these fancy funnels that you can never seem to get working like they're supposed to. And which again, if you don't have a reliable leads mechanism in place, it's going to be really hard to get people through the funnel, even to your offer. True story I invested. This was about three or four years ago, I invested over $20,000 into a program designed to teach me how to turn my program on evergreen as a sales mechanism. If you've been in the online coaching space for any length of time, you've heard that phrase before, an evergreen funnel, right? That's what this program that I invested in was designed to help me set up. 

Courtney Elmer

The problem was, what the program did not tell me nor teach me was that number one, I did not have a reliable leads mechanism to continually flow people through that funnel. Nor did I have a proven offer. To convert people into my program I had an offer but not a proven offer, which I will talk more about when we get to point three here in a moment. So one of the biggest reasons that people sales mechanisms don't work is a not having enough leads, which is point one that we just talked about, and be not having a great offer, which is Reason three that we're going to talk about in a second. And here's the thing you might think your offer is great. I know it's great. But if your leads don't perceive it as great, it's not going to sell and you're going to remain frustrated.

Courtney Elmer

 Now in next week's episode, I'm going to go into great detail on this because this is something I see far too often and it is killing small digital businesses. But one of the problems here is that most people have too many sales mechanisms in place. Because one doesn't work. They put more of them in place thinking that maybe it's the mechanism that's not working. But here's what I really want you to understand. If your mechanism isn't working, it's not your mechanism that's broken. It's your offer. We're going to talk about that in a second. But here's what I want you to think about right now. You are the owner of your  digital business. You get to choose what works for you. So when it comes to sales when it comes to making the sale, pick the mechanism you like, because it's what you're going to have to spend your time on.

Courtney Elmer  9:15  

If you absolutely hate launches, and you never want to launch again, but right now you think you have to because that's what all the people out there doing who are making these millions of dollars, well, then maybe launches aren't the mechanism for you. Let's say you prefer to connect with people one on one. Well, forcing a launch mechanism to work is only going to bring you stress and frustration it will never feel aligned. So here you go. This is me writing and handing you your permission slip to ditch what you hate in your digital business to ditch what you don't like and to not do. What you don't truly enjoy doing just because you think you have to do it. Now will caveat this and say that to be successful in digital business you have to learn how How to sell. You have to. And if you struggle with this, then the bottom line here is that chances are, there's something within you, preventing you from feeling comfortable selling.

Courtney Elmer

And for any sales mechanism to work, I don't care what it is, I don't care if it's a live launch, or an evergreen funnel or a sales call, you're gonna have to examine that within first. And the good news is I've devoted several episodes to help you out with this. So check out the episodes on why your program isn't selling like you want it to, as well as the episodes back in the archives that I created on how to charge what you're worth, and how to raise your prices. because sales is as much of an art as it is a science. And I have tried a lot of sales mechanisms through the years, and I finally landed on the one that works best for me, which is simply sales calls. I love connecting with people one on one, I'll get up there and teach in front of a group, I'll teach from stage, I'll teach live workshops, I'll teach online summits, I do this podcast. 

Courtney Elmer

But what I love the most is connecting with people one on one. So if you hate sales calls, and you heard me say Oh, Courtney Elmer mechanism is sales calls, and you kind of rolled your eyes because you're like, great, I hate sales calls. Well, chances are, it's because sales calls aren't working for you. I used to hate them too. And let me tell you hate with a passion, which of course that was the energy that I would bring to the call and not convert. But now that I have worked on a lot of little limiting beliefs that were preventing me from showing up in an authentic way on those calls, I've discovered that these truly are the most aligned way for me to connect people to our programs. So I focused on doing the inner work, that kept me from feeling confident. And now they are the number one way that we enroll people into our programs even ahead of our live launches. But for you that might be different. And that's what I want you to hear right now.

Courtney Elmer

 Just because something works for me doesn't mean that it's going to be the most aligned thing for you. You might be great at selling to a roomful of people from stage, in person or virtually, you might thrive on the energy of live launches. You might prefer connecting one on one with people on calls like I do. Or maybe you prefer teaching small groups online. And my point here is that I want you to pick one mechanism, the one that's most aligned to you the one that you enjoy the most. And then simply commit yourself to work on it until it works. Don't get distracted by introducing mechanism after mechanism. And now we're going to do a live launch. And we're going to have an evergreen funnel, I'm gonna throw sales calls in the mix, I'm gonna hire someone to do sales called know, pick the one you like the most focus on making it work and keep it simple. 

Courtney Elmer

Now, your sales mechanism is like the meat in a sandwich. In order to have a sales mechanism that's effective first, it has to be aligned to you and you have to actually enjoy it, there's a lot to be said for that, like we just talked about. But secondly, you have to have the leads to get people to that sales mechanism, right, you have to have the lead generation mechanism to get people to the sales call, for example, or to get people to the workshop, for example. And you have to have a high converting offer in order to get people from your sales mechanism, whether that be sales call workshop, whatever it is, into your program. So it's like the bread on the sandwich, right, the meat on its own, you can't have a sandwich without the bread. So if you just have a sales mechanism, and we will have live launches or sales calls, like it's not gonna do any good if you don't have a high converting offer on the back end. 

Courtney Elmer

And if you don't have a reliable lead generation mechanism on the front end, see how that works. Right. So let's move into the third reason why you might be struggling to generate the revenue in your digital business right now is because you don't have a high converting offer. Most people's offers is where the real problem is that the real difference between a five figure digital business owner and a six figure one is their offer. And the real difference between a six figure digital business owner and a seven figure one is their offer. And so on. It goes. I have reviewed so many offers from our clients, many of which it was obvious to me why they weren't selling, but when it's your blood and your sweat and your tears and your heart and your soul and often your money invested into developing whatever program you have, it can be really hard to get enough distance to see how to tweak your offer to make it more desirable to People, and I've been in your shoes, I know what that feels like. Because you know the value of what you provide, the clients who have actually gone through your program have gotten great results. 

Courtney Elmer

But the problem is getting other people to see it getting more people to see it. And that can be so frustrating. So I'm gonna let you in on a secret that very few people online are talking about the solution that someone is buying is not your offer. That is so important. I'm going to say it again, this solution that someone is buying is not your offer. There are very subtle differences between the two. And it is imperative for you to understand these if you want to increase your revenue, so much so that I am devoting an entire episode next week to this because this is a problem that is rampant in the online coaching space. Most people are trying to sell their program and not a solution. We'll give you a couple examples in a moment, for you to marinate on to start thinking about what this really means and what this really means for your digital business. 

Courtney Elmer

But chances are the main reason your offer isn't selling is because you're trying to sell your program and not the solution to your ideal clients problems. Tap back and listen again. Because most people are trying to sell their programs without even understanding what problem it is they're solving or what solution their client is buying. I can guarantee you your ideal client is not buying your program. They're not buying your program, they're buying a solution to a very real problem that they have that your program is going to help them solve. So let me give you a simple example. Since I was a teenager, I have suffered with migraines. Now if you or someone who suffers with migraines, you know how debilitating they can be. And for many, many years, I didn't have a solution for them. It's like if a migraine would come on guaranteed, I would be in bed for three days, they would totally take me out. And when I had my son, I knew that that wasn't an option anymore. I had to do some more research. 

Courtney Elmer

And I had to figure out how to solve the problem of these migrants how to get permanent relief from them. Because I needed to be there for my son I needed to be present. I was his sole caregiver during the day. And I couldn't be in bed for three days with a migraine with him there as an infant or as a toddler, much less as he got older as a child, right. So the problem here was these migraines. This is a problem I've had for many years and I've tried many potential solutions to help me achieve the desired result which is permanent relief from the migraines. Now I've tried over the counter medicines, I've done massage, chiropractic strengthening programs, supplements, hormone replacement therapy, prescription migraines medicine, like you name it, I have tried it, I even got an MRI at one point because I'm like is something else going on here that I need to know about? 

Courtney Elmer

So many things I tried. And most recently, I ordered a trigger point massage or on Amazon. And so what I really want you to get here is that none of the things that I bought were the solution. They were all a means to the desired result, permanent relief from migraines. And so far, I haven't found any one thing that works perfectly, definitely some of these have helped tremendously. But I haven't found the one thing the one solution. And this is likely how your ideal clients feel when they come to you. They've probably tried a lot of different things to solve their problem, but they haven't found the solution yet. And so here's what you really need to understand here is that your program is not the solution.

Courtney Elmer  19:08  

It's simply the vehicle that delivers the solution to help your person achieve their desired result. The trigger point massage that I bought is not the solution. What I bought was permanent relief to my migraines. In this case, my problem is a migraine. The $35 trigger point massage I bought on Amazon was the vehicle to achieve relief from that migraine. This solution if you've been paying attention is trigger point release. So if you're following me, let's continue. Your offer must communicate how your program helps your person achieve the solution they're looking for to get the desired result. Here's a very practical example with one of our programs. As you might No, one of our programs is dedicated entirely to helping you install a podcast as a high converting lead generation mechanism for your  digital business. 

Courtney Elmer

Now the problem that people come to us with is inconsistent Legion, they don't have a reliable mechanism in place for generating high quality leads consistently, and or the mechanisms that they've tried haven't been effective for them. The solution that I teach is a podcast. It's not my program. It's a podcast. Our offer is the pod launch program, which teaches people how to create and launch a top ranked podcast to effectively solve the problem of inconsistent leads in their digital business. The solution I'm selling is not pod launch my program, but a podcast itself. And not just any podcast, but a top ranked high converting podcast. So when it comes to refining your offers, here's the best recommendation I can ever give you. And I'm going to save you so much money spent on consultants and coaches and courses, all you need to do is invest $20 into the book $100 million offers by Alex for mosey don't get the Kindle version, I know he sells it for like 99 cents. 

Courtney Elmer

But I definitely recommend getting the workbook. So you can take notes so you can actually work through it. This is the exact framework that we use to help our clients develop their proven offers. And what I want you to do is take your current offer through Alex's process. Now the first time I did this, I locked myself in a hotel room for a day and a half. And I knock this out. Now I can do it in a few hours. But I will tell you that that day and a half of time that I invested to revise our podcast offer has paid off in over $50,000 of additional revenue in just the last quarter alone in our digital business. You need to have a high converting offer in place. And if your offer isn't selling like you want it to the no amount of leads that you get to your sales mechanism, no amount of sales calls or launches or funnels that you build will help you generate more revenue, if the offer is the problem. So number one, you gotta have a reliable lead generation mechanism. 

Courtney Elmer

Number two, you have to have a reliable sales mechanism when it's aligned to you. And number three, you have to have a high converting offer in place. But this is only three sides of the square. There's one more, which is a high value delivery mechanism. And believe it or not, another reason that people struggle to generate consistent revenue in their digital business is because they don't have a high value delivery mechanism. Now, what do I mean by this? After someone purchases your offer, they have paid you for the solution that you're providing to them, they're paying you for access to that solution. You have to deliver that solution. And chances are, you can think of a time where you have had an incredible customer service experience. Chances are you can also think of a time where you've had not so great of a customer service experience. Or maybe a great experience inside of someone's program that you bought, and maybe not so great of an experience and how that experience affected your perception of that program and the value of what you received within that program. 

Courtney Elmer

This is why delivery is so important. And chances are you already know it costs less to keep a client than it does to acquire a new one. My dad has been in the world of finance for oh my goodness, 50 plus years now. It's like he is like an ancient figure in this field. Dad, I love you. He has seen so many changes through the years in this field. And what's amazing is that of all the work my dad has done over these years to build his practice. 20% of his clients produce over 80% of the revenue in his  digital business. And he's had many of those clients for 1020 30 years or more. So if you want to retain clients, and increase digital business simply by word of mouth, no additional marketing required than your delivery which is a fancy way of saying your clients experience within your program must match or exceed their expectations. This is so important. And there's a lot that you can do to enhance the delivery. and to enhance the perceived value that someone is receiving within the program. 

Courtney Elmer

And we could talk about a lot of different ways to do that. But one of the simplest ways is to provide exceptional support. We get an email recently from a client of ours, who had a couple questions for us about things in the program and a couple of suggestions even to help make things a little bit simpler for her and future students, which we love. We love getting those suggestions, because why it helps us continue enhancing the delivery. And in that email, she said, I just have to tell you, this is one of the best programs I've ever been in, I have felt so supported all the way through. And when I have questions, you and your team respond right away. And she went on to say, she said, I have a ton of programs on how to start a podcast, but none of them have the same clear step by step guidance, that pod launch gifts. So again, thank you for the great program, and the awesome support. And of course, I'm always delighted to get messages like these, but not to puff up my ego. 

Courtney Elmer

But instead to confirm that we're doing a great job delivering what we've promised. And so this is the fourth side of your square, you've got to have all of these things in place in order for someone to receive the value that you're providing. So maybe I'm mixing metaphors a bit here, I gave you the sandwich example earlier. But I want you to think back to that example for a moment. Because in order for the person to eat and enjoy the sandwich, you got to have all the components in place, and then it actually has to taste good. Right? So whether you like to think of this in terms of having four sides to a square, or whether you like the sandwich idea, maybe I'm just hungry right now, I don't know, it all has to be in place in order for the desired outcome to come about. Make sense, right? Okay. So now that we've discussed the first four reasons why you haven't been generating consistent revenue, and the first four boxes you need to check and the things you need to get in place in order to increase your revenue this year. Let's move to the fifth and final piece of this. 

Courtney Elmer

Because this is equally important, even though this is not necessarily part of your square, or your sandwich, if you will, doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, this is going to be the thing that helps you scale. And it's one of the reasons that most entrepreneurs struggle with revenue generation is because they don't have enough support for themselves. Whether that be through automation, through tech through tools through people, to help you protect your time. Because the reality is that while in the beginning, you'll be developing all these things yourself. Over the long term, you will not be able to scale all of these things yourself. Let's say you were making sandwiches for people, well, there comes a point in time where you can only make so many sandwiches. 

Courtney Elmer

And so the problem here is that most people, when they begin to recognize that they need support, they hire the wrong people. And I don't mean wrong people by people who aren't a fit or people who weren't aligned with their vision, what I mean is they hire for the wrong role. They start the hiring process by either getting a social media manager because they think gosh, social media is taking all my time let me offload that. Or they tried to get a VA in place. And sure, while this might save you a few hours of time that you can put elsewhere. Hiring for these roles first is not actually going to help make you more money. So instead, I kind of look at this a little differently than most people look at. And I always say hire someone who can directly impact your bottom line. Someone who you can train to do sales calls, or run your launches.

Courtney Elmer  29:06  

I devoted three episodes to this, no four episodes on how to get started team building, where I walk you through our entire process that we use to find and hire and train high quality members of your team because there's nothing more frustrating than knowing you need help. Hiring someone only to have it not work out three months or six months down the road. And then repeating that process again and again. continually bringing yourself back to square one with no help at all. So if you want to check that out, episodes 125 through 128. We'll walk you through that. Because again, even when you have and especially when you have a reliable lead generation mechanism in place, a reliable sales mechanism in place, a high converting offer in place and a high value delivery system in place. 

Courtney Elmer

Your digital business is going to increase you will not be able to manage it all yourself, like maybe you are right now. And so you're gonna need support to help you grow and scale. So those are the five things, the five reasons that you haven't been hitting your revenue goals and the five things that you need to put in place in order to double your revenue this year. Number one, a consistent, reliable lead generation mechanism and the right kind of mechanism for your digital business. Number two, a reliable sales mechanism, one that's aligned to you. Number three, a high converting offer something that actually sells the solution that your person wants the solution to the problem they're experiencing. And remember, the solution is not your program. 

Courtney Elmer

And number four, a high value delivery mechanism. Those are your sandwich, those are the four sides to your square. And fifth, last but not least, enough support for you. And I know this has a lot to digest. And hopefully by now you can see how all of these components work together. If you were to stand back and look at the bigger picture here. There's a lot of detail that we could certainly go into on each one of these. And we'll do that in future episodes. But for right now, what I want you to see here is the big picture. And this is an episode you might want to come back to maybe listen again. And if I've shared something today that really resonated with you, I would love to hear what it was. 

Courtney Elmer

You can find me on Instagram, I am @theCourtneyElmer, shoot me a DM. Let me know what spoke to you. In this episode today, maybe something that got you thinking a little bit differently, maybe something that you've heard before, but today it really clicked for you. And coming up next week on the show. As I hinted at inside of this episode, we're gonna be talking about the difference between your offer and the real solution your audience is buying from you because there is a huge difference here. And most online digital business owners completely overlook it. So if you're struggling to sell your programs, this could be one of the reasons why as we've discussed today, and we're gonna go into more depth so that you can make the necessary tweaks that you need to make to your offer and the positioning of that offer to your leads your potential clients to increase sales and conversions. Alright, I'll see you back here next Tuesday. Until then, go live your EffortLESS Life®.