If you’re anything like me, there comes the point in your business where your business needs to step up to support you and support your family if you’re going to stick with it.
We all got through those startup stages of our business where we knew it was going to take a while to figure things out and to get people in the door.
Once you get a little bit further along on your journey and you’re ready to make this your full-time focus, you need your business to pay you a real paycheck.
No one loves to run a business that can’t support the entrepreneur running it.
This is why it’s so, so important to have a game plan for how you’re going to design that predictably profitable business.
But the statistics show us that most women do not have a predictably profitable business.
Over 75% of women entrepreneurs do not earn more than $50,000 a year. And most entrepreneurs shut the doors within the first couple of years.
If you are committed to making your business truly work for you and work for your family, you have to have a real profit plan to make it work before you get so burnt out that you throw in the towel.
Do you have a real profit plan?
When I ask women entrepreneurs if they have a profit plan, I often hear some great revenue goals.
I hear from women that they want to earn $50,000 a year in their business this year or $100,000 a year in their business this year.
That’s awesome – I love hearing a solid revenue goals.
But where the system all starts to break down is when I ask “how are you achieving that goal”?
Because often they’re not sure.
- They aren’t sure what product, program, or service they are going to sell to achieve that revenue goal…
- They aren’t sure how many clients they need to sell that offering to…
- They aren’t sure how they are going to market or promote that offering…
- They aren’t sure how they are going to sell that offering…
- And they aren’t sure when they are going to do all of these steps so they can create a steady flow of clients and cash-flow in their business.
If you don’t have answers to all of those questions, I want you just to take a breath! It’s OK – we are going to create that profit plan next!
A lot of entrepreneurs struggle with creating a plan for predictable profits… and as a result you might have found yourself where you’re at the end of the month, realizing you don’t have anything booked for next month, and suddenly you’re hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling to fill those spots.
When you’re in this feast or famine cycle, it always feels like you are continually putting out fires instead of proactively growing your business.
I have to tell you, friends; there’s a considerable difference between continually hustling to fill the next spot in your calendar and having a real plan that helps ensure that you always have those spots filled like clockwork.
How do we start creating that real plan for predictable profits?
Let’s Create Your Predictable Profit Plan
The predictable profit plan starts with a calendar. I am planning all the time, and this is a simple little way I’ve been using for a long time.
The predictable profit plan is all about planning your sales so that you can hit your revenue goals.
Grab a scratch piece of paper, make a quick little calendar for yourself, so each month is laid out 12 months at a time right in front of you.
Plan For Predictable Profits with Baseline Revenue First
Your baseline revenue is a signature product, program, or service. We start with our signature offering because this is the bread and butter of your business! You want to actively promote it 2-4 times per year.
Often a signature offering, it’s going to be a thousand to several thousand dollars to work with you in this particular way. And the signature offering will typically generate up to 80% of your revenue in your business.
Once you’ve decided when you’re going to promote your signature offering, you need a plan for how you’re going to sell it.
One thing that I want you to think about is the way your clients are engaging with your business at different times of the year. Keep that in mind as you’re plugging these into your calendar.
Here’s why that’s important.
In my business, I know that one of the best times to promote my signature offering, The CEO Collective, is January.
I know my dream clients, women entrepreneurs just like you, start the new year excited, they have fantastic new goals, they’re thinking about this is the year… “It’s gonna be a breakthrough year, I’m gonna grow my business, I’m gonna do all these amazing things.” and they’re actively seeking strategy and support to make that happen.
I know that promoting my signature offerings, The CEO Collective, in January is perfect because my dream clients are already thinking about how they are going to achieve those goals.
Another great month for my business is September.
My dream clients are back from vacation, and their kids are back in school, it feels like a fresh start. There’s something about being a student for so long that September feels like the new year. It’s almost the second New Year, and it’s a very similar type of energy. So I promote and fill The CEO Collective in September.
The final month you’ll notice here in my Predictable Profit Plan is May. I choose May very, very intentionally and that’s because I know that I need a third, if not a fourth time to promote my offer.
If I wait until June or July, then I’m too far into the summer months and this in my world is a big no-no. This is when people stop paying attention to their business, and they start getting into vacation mode. So I need to catch people at this time before summer starts to hit.
This is also how I can set my year up to ensure that I’m getting paid every month.
Your signature offering really should be something that is a higher value offering. We’re not talking about things that are just $100 or a couple of hundred dollars; we’re talking about things that are high value because they are results focused.
A signature offering is the foundation for your baseline revenue plan.
Let’s say I filled up my signature offering in January and there is a six-month payment plan available for that signature offering.
There will be some people who are going to pay you upfront, and you’re going to have maybe a percentage of people, it could be anywhere from 20%, 40% who pay in full upfront, which is fantastic. Having one of those great, big months feels excellent.
But if everything’s coming up front, it can create a little bit of challenge as an entrepreneur because that means you have got to manage your budget so that you can continue to pay your expenses and pay yourself until the next launch.
That’s one reason I love payment plans because it creates revenue that comes in month after month after month. A payment plan creates that recurring revenue. You make the sale one month in January, and get paid all the way through until June.
As you run the next promotion, you start layering those payment plans. The January launch creates recurring revenue until June. Then the May promotion brings in more new clients with payment plans extending until October.
And the same thing happens with the September promotion – new clients join with a payment plan that extends into February. I’m setting it up on the calendar so that there will be several months where payments plans overlap, which is a huge plus, and this ensures every month I have recurring revenue coming in.
Take The Pressure Off With Recurring Revenue
Recurring revenue takes so much pressure off you and your business to make sure that you’re consistently getting paid.
Some promotions are going to be bigger than others. After eight years of data with this particular signature program I’m running, I can tell you that’s kind of how it’s always going to shake out for me.
But if I didn’t have that May promotion, I would end up with a gap in revenue when the January promotion’s payment plans finish in June. I’d be left with no revenue until the September promotion.
Create a Predictable Profit Plan with 1×1 Offers
Let’s say in January I’m filling coaching spots for a six-month one-on-one coaching program. Again, some people will pay up front, and that’s awesome. I remember when I first started I had a coaching program one-on-one that was $500 a month or $2,500 pay in full.
About half would pay in full, which means I had a five-figure January. And then the other half would pay me every month, but if you have ten clients and they’re each paying you $500 a month through June, that means yes, I had a great January, and then I’m getting $5,000 a month every single month from February until June.
That is pretty amazing.
Even if I don’t have the bandwidth to take on a full client docket in May, let’s say I couldn’t take on 10 or 12 clients in May, but I could take on four or six through the summer months, it still ensures that I have revenue to keep the business going so that we’re not just going into the summer months with no plan for how we’re going to cover our expenses.
This Profit Plan WORKS.
I have been the sole breadwinner of my family for over five years now. My husband has been a stay at home dad ever since he left teaching in 2013… this is how we pay for our life!
This is how we afford our mortgage, this is how we pay for our minivan, this is how we send the kids to camp. This is how we live, and it makes such a difference when you know that there’s revenue you can depend on.
By regularly promoting your signature offering, you’re setting yourself up for big months, but you’re also setting yourself up for that recurring revenue from payment plans.
You can rinse and repeat promotions. It gets easier to fill that thing when you have a plan for how you’re going to fill it, and you rinse and repeat. You double down on what is working.
Now it’s time for a virtual celebration! I hope you enjoyed the Path to Predictable Profit series. This was so much fun to create and I hope it was super helpful as you start working to generate consistent $5K, $10K, and $15K months in your business. Now it’s your turn to get into inspired action and put these ideas into action!
You’ve done it! This concludes the 9-part series: The Path to a Predictably Profitable Business.
If you’re ready for that consistency, you’re ready to know that your business can support you and your lifestyle with ease, while also helping you do the work that you love – here’s a title summary of what this series has to offer:
1+2: How to Start a Business (And Get Paying Clients ASAP)
3: What to Focus on FIRST with the Ultimate Business Growth Checklist
4: How Designing a Baseline Revenue Gets You Paid Every Single Month
5: Is Your Business Sustainable? 5 Questions to Burnout Proof Your Biz
6: Lessons from Joanna Gains on Designing a Sustainable Business
7: The #1 Mistake Keeping Women Entrepreneurs From A Predictably Profitable Business
8: Do You Have a LEAK In Your Predictable Profit Strategy
9: My Go-To Strategy to Plan for Predictable Profits
If you loved this series – you’ll love The CEO Collective!
The CEO Collective is my most comprehensive training to help you start and scale a predictably profitable business to consistent $5K, $10K, or even $15K months.
If you’re just now finding this series and you’re ready for some clear and actionable steps for your business, click here to jump to the introductory post of The Path to Predictable Profits series: How to Start a Business (And Get Paying Clients ASAP)