The secrets behind how I doubled my sales in 2020

Transcript

2020 has been a huge year. I am so grateful that my business has thrived this year. And in today’s episode, I can’t wait to share with you all the juicy details about exactly how my sales have doubled since the start of this year, so that you can do the same in your business.

Hello, and welcome to The Clare Wood Podcast, where myself and incredible guests share about money mindset, financial successes, and how to manage your money in a fun and practical way to create wealth and abundance in both your business and your life. I’m your host, Clare Wood. I’m a business coach and a money mentor. I strongly believe that money has the power to positively change the world. I can’t wait to help you transform your mindset around money, create a love of numbers and build the business of your dreams, so you can live a life of financial freedom giving and global impact.

Let’s just take a moment to reflect on the train wreck of the year that 2020 has been. The Australian bushfires wreaking havoc across Australia, coronavirus, global pandemic and lockdowns, and millions of deaths across the world, the global stock market crash, Black Lives Matters protests, a crazy US election, the West Coast fires in California, just to name a few of the huge events that have gone on. And if that wasn’t enough, a lot of people, myself included have had a lot happen on the personal front.

With all of the challenges that have gone on in the world, it feels almost wrong to celebrate business success, but we always need to look for the good. Even if your business has had a really rough year this year, I encourage you to seek out the things that have gone well this year and celebrate those.

The reason I wanted to record this episode for you is to share some of the results that my business has achieved this year, but importantly, I wanted to dive into the how behind it to support you to your next level of growth in business. I recently recorded an episode of the podcast with Suzy Ashworth about how she quadrupled her sales in a year. And that episode was so well received. So I thought I’d share my incredible growth journey that happened in a small period of time as well.

Creating digital products for business growth

So what has been the biggest secrets behind my growth in business this year? The first thing was creating digital products. This is the first year I’ve taken online launching really seriously and created a bunch of incredible offerings throughout the year. Creating digital products is a fantastic way to scale your service offering, to reach and help more people. If you aren’t sure what a digital product is, it is a course, an ebook, a membership, or any sort of offering where you can serve and help many members of your community without it requiring more of your time.

I had reached capacity with my one-to-one coaching multiple times, and I started to realise that I needed to come up with a way to help more than one person at a time. So what products did I create? I launched my membership in April, which is called Money and Marketing Makers. This was originally a course that I had created. And when I delivered the course, I realized there was way too much content to pack into a 12-week window. The feedback I got was that there was just too much to keep up with in the program, as I’m literally teaching all of the different elements of marketing and of money management that I teach to help business owners scale.

It includes modules on creating a marketing strategy to attract your dream clients, how to write emails that convert, growing your email list, how to nail your social media, understanding your financial statements, creating a plan, tracking your financial results against your plan, just to name a few. As you can see, there is a lot going on and it was way too much to try and deliver in a 12-week window. So I’ve now converted this to a membership and that content is delivered in a fully supported community over a 12-month period. I love this product because it’s all of my best practical tools and templates to help you grow at a really accessible price point.

The next product I launched in June, because I was fully booked for private coaching clients and I was struggling to keep up with the workload. And I thought maybe I should try and create a Mastermind. Truthfully, I did a bit of a half-ass launch. I just did a couple of stories, an email or two. I think I might’ve done a few Instagram posts. There wasn’t really much strategy behind it. And the demand blew me away. I filled six places easily and effortlessly, and this launch helped me achieve my biggest month in business today at $50,000 AUD.

The Mastermind is a high ticket exclusive community, which is focused on mindset work and also practical strategy to help already successful business owners to scale. I have loved this Mastermind and welcomed the most beautiful human beings in for the first round. And I’m launching this program again at the moment. At the time of recording, eight of the 10 places in the Mastermind have been taken with most of the current round opting to invest in a one-to-one strategy session also. So to date, this launch has delivered about 80,000 Australian dollars in revenue.

The third product I created this year was a course. The reason I wanted to create this was that I have the membership, which has all the practical strategies I teach, but I wanted to create a way to share the tools and strategies around money mindset and money management, i.e. how to understand your money or financials in your business. This is the exact same frameworks that I use with my Masterminders and high-ticket private coaching clients, but I wanted to be able to share it in a way that could help more people. So, hence I created the course Million Dollar Money Management, which I launched the first round of in October this year.

In hindsight, creating three new products is a ridiculous amount of products to create all in one year. I look back and I am super proud of my offering. I truly believe I have created something for everyone who wants to learn more about money and how to scale their business. But to create this many new products while juggling two young children who, let’s be honest, who are home from childcare full time for 11 whole weeks of the year, plus managing a portfolio of clients was a lot.

So takeaway number one, creating digital products has definitely been a pivotal part of my growth this year. And if you haven’t already considered creating a digital and scalable offer, I strongly suggest that it is something you look into.

Increasing my prices without increasing my workload

The second way I grew my business this year was selling with confidence and increasing pricing on my private coaching and high-ticket offer. I’ve been very blessed with a stream of new and continuing clients this year. As I plan to increasingly transition to one-to-many offerings, to help more people at the same time, I also chose to increase my prices, including to my existing client base. And all but one of them chose to continue private coaching with me, even with the new pricing.

Increasing pricing is a great way to increase your revenue without adding any extra workload into your week. If you’re wondering if increasing your pricing is the right strategy for you, I recently recorded a podcast episode around pricing, if you’re wondering if it’s appropriate to increase prices on your offering, and if this might be a strategy that could work for you. It is not always a smart idea to increase your prices. So make sure you go and check that episode out, if it’s something that you are considering.

The business investments I made in 2020

Secret number three of how I doubled my sales this year, I invested in a big way. I’ve gotten out of my way and I have massively invested in my business. Let me share what I’ve invested in this year. February this year, I went to a retreat hosted by Denise Duffield-Thomas. This was a five-figure investment, which at the time was the most money I had ever invested in any one thing in my business. Anyone who’s a regular listener of the podcast will know what a huge fan I am of Denise and her work. So as soon as I heard that she was running a retreat, it was an absolute no-brainer for me to go.

I didn’t have all that money sitting in a bank account, but the second I saw the email, I filled out the application form instantly, and just knew I’d figure a way to manifest the money. Well, manifest the money, I did. She offered a payment plan over a few months and I put down the first payment. And every month from there on in the money showed up. This retreat was huge for me. It was about being in the energy of Denise. And I just knew the group that chose to go to a retreat like this would be amazing. I am still friends with the group. And honestly, the experience for me was priceless. I will definitely be doing more retreats in the future.

Another big investment I made this year was joining a high-end mastermind by my amazing coach, Ruby Lee. Again, at the time, this was a huge investment for me in terms of a percentage of my business profit, but I felt so called to work with her that I just lent in and went for it. And boy, has it paid off. As her business has skyrocketed, she’s now consistently making more than a $100,000 every month. That energy has rubbed off on me. I’ve recently upgraded from the Mastermind to private coaching with her, and I’m now working with her one-on-one every week. And I’m just loving the energy, support and upleveling that is happening working with her.

The investment in the Mastermind over the year has been approximately $31,000. In my business, I’ve also invested in my assistant, Facebook ads, a Facebook ads manager, my accounting fees. I’ve worked with several business managers over the year. I’ve done Facebook ads coaching, I’ve hired a copywriter, I’ve done a high-ticket spiritual session. I bought the domain name, clarewood.com to give my business more of a global presence. I did a mindset course called Rich Babe Academy by Manifestation Babe. And I also invested in a course called Launch Magic by my very good friend, Steph Taylor.

Over and above my usual business expenses, i.e. the assistant, Facebook ads, et cetera, these additional investments came to total of $12,000. So in total this year, I spent over $50,000 on my self-development. That sounds like so much money to invest, right? But I have to say all of these investments were made in a considered way and with a lot of strategy behind them. A word of warning about investing, I do not want to encourage anyone to invest money they do not have, or to make investments without clearly thinking about the purpose behind each investment. However, the investments I’ve made this year have been absolutely transformational for me.

How I uplevelled my mindset

Another big upleveling that has happened this year has been around my mindset. As you guys know, I’ve done a lot of work on my money mindset. However, I still used to operate from a space of fear and lack. It’s all those years of my accounting training. And this year was the first year that I’ve really started to flip my thinking into a true abundance mindset. And the more that I uplevel my thinking about money, the more that money continues to show up for me.

If you’re wondering what upleveling your mindset means, I’ve spoken a lot about this on the podcast already, including my best money mindset strategies. So I won’t go into this any further today, but I just wanted to point out that every time you level up there is a new level of mindset blocks and challenges around thinking and scarcity that come up. So the mindset work never ends. Even as you grow, new challenges around your thinking come up.

Focusing on money management

The last tool that I used to double my sales this year is really getting diligent around tracking and money management. This year, I’ve been using a really cool visual tracking tool to track sales. And I have found this really powerful in growing my results. It’s a way of visually seeing what sales are coming in. And if things aren’t going to plan, course-correcting, or adding in new strategies to call in more sales. As always, I’ve continued to manage my profit and loss statement every month and make sure that my business is continuing to be profitable as the top line grows. Money management or staying right across your financials is one of the key strategies that I use to support people, to grow their business.

To sum up, the big growth in my results this year has come down to a few key strategies, continuing to uplevel my money beliefs, investing in a big way in my business, tracking my results, and managing money inside my business. I am beyond grateful for the growth I’ve experienced this year. And I know this is only the beginning. I want every single one of you to experience big growth in a short period of time. So I hope that the secrets I have shared today are helpful to you in your growth journey. Thank you for listening. And I look forward to chatting to you again next week.

Thanks so much for listening. If you loved this episode, please share it with your audience. And don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @clare_wood_coach. And also, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Have an abundant week. And I look forward to talking to you again next week.