Episode #073: Behind the Scenes of Our Profitable Business Model
Behind the Scenes of Our Profitable Business Model
On this week's episode of the podcast, I'll break down how I've been able to maintain my business revenue and growth while LIFE happens...
He'll cover various strategies he's deployed to create the ability to rest, travel, and still serve his audience, through the past couple years.
When you tune in you'll hear...
The FOUR primary strategies that we've deployed to work an average of ~30 hours per week when not launching.
The EXACT business models that I've used, and transitioned from (and into) to grow the membership to the point that it's at today with over 400 active members.
A look at the Revenue and Profit over the last 2 years and the lessons that it has given me about our business (and my goals).
I can wait to hear what you think of this episode!
xx
Zach
Links Mentioned:
Full Transcript:
Zach Spuckler:
Your average online marketing podcast episode number 73. And in this episode, I'm taking you behind the scenes of our business model and talking about how we built a business that generates a healthy amount of revenue, allows me to travel, take time, enjoy my life, and still be able to like be in and on my business all the time. So if you're looking to learn how to scale your business or glean insights from the way we run ours, this episode is for you. So stay tuned. Hey. Hey. Hey. Not so average marketers.
Zach Spuckler:
Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Now I'm really excited for today's episode. And I first have to tell you, the audio may not be top tier on Today's episode, because I'm actually recording from the couch. I know that's a little unorthodox and you wouldn't have known if I hadn't shared. But we'll talk about Why that matters today, because back in end of December, I got sick, for a few weeks. I had like a post COVID sickness. I got COVID in October. I got sick for about 2 weeks in December.
Zach Spuckler:
And then in mid January, I threw out my back. And I'm still kind of Not a 100% recovered. I'm now, you know, doing physical therapy, chiropractor. I had a anti inflammatory injection action at the doctor's office. And I'm sharing this with you not so that you feel bad or don't send me flowers. I'm good. But I'm sharing that with you as I want you to understand that part of the reason I wanted to do this episode was to talk about how we've created a business and a business model that creates the space for life to happen. Okay? And realistically, my team has been incredible.
Zach Spuckler:
I have to give a shout To, Jessica and Heather, who have really been helping me hold down the fort as I haven't been able to quite literally sit up, for more than a few hours a day, but I also know that my business model as a whole really contributes to the Fact that I'm able to slow down and speed up when I need to. So what I wanted to talk to you on today's episode about was really how we've created a business that has been profitable, has created growth for myself, has created great opportunities for myself and my husband to travel. Last year, we traveled quite a bit. We hit up California, the Dominican Republic, some of Europe, the UK, Florida. Like, we traveled a lot. And I I know that it feel like honestly, as I'm recording this, this feels a little bit like I'm just like, look at all the great stuff I've done with my business. But I swear there's a point to this. And that is that we have built My business to the point where it is now that it caters to the type of life I wanna live.
Zach Spuckler:
And so I I thought it would be really fun to, like, start by talking to you a little bit about our revenue numbers for the last couple years. So in twenty 22. We did about $476,000 in revenue with about, seventy $9,000 in profit. Okay? Now one thing to be aware of is that I run My business as a LLC filing as an s corp, which is a super nerdy way of saying, my payroll, my take home pay is considered an expense. So the amount of money I put in my pocket is not 80 k at the end of the year. It's more than that. And in 2023, we did 448 k in revenue with about 70 to 75 k in profit. And the reason I don't have an exact number on 2023 Is, we are finishing our books for the year.
Zach Spuckler:
As you can imagine with being sick, I didn't get everything to my bookkeeper that I wanted to, but we have approximate numbers. And so both years, we were around $450,000. Both years around 75 k in profit. And I share that with you 1st and foremost because I want you to understand. I had somebody on the podcast whose episode is gonna be dropping Shortly, I won't spoil too much, but we kind of talked a little bit about how we really need to be building a business that serves our goals and our lifestyle style above hitting some elusive target. Right? Now I can't sit here and say, like, oh, I don't want a $1,000,000 business. Right? But I wanna share the numbers with you and be transparent with you because I want you to understand that for me, from 2022 to 2023, keeping the revenue relatively similar firm and hitting a similar, amount of profit, while I did increase how much I was taking home a little bit, Was it was great for me. I was happy with that number.
Zach Spuckler:
And so I wanted to talk to you about how we've structured it so This is consistent. Right? Because I think a lot of times we hear like growth, growth, growth, growth. The business has to grow. How are you growing the business? How are you getting more clients? How are you selling More spots. How are you growing your agency? How are you growing your membership? How are you selling more courses? How are you doing bigger launches? And frankly, in In 2023, we made a big decision to try to hit the same number. And the reason we did that is because we actually discontinued one of our core programs, our coaching program. And so in 2022, the way our Business was modeled was we had essentially 3 primary streams of revenue. So we have our membership revenue, which was between 5 to $8,000 a month, give or take.
Zach Spuckler:
Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. But on average, about 5 to 8,000 a month that we collected on monthly subscriptions in 2022. And then we had 1 on 1 agency clients, which was between 10,012,000 a month. And then we also had a coaching program. Okay? So in 2022, we had a quarterly group coaching program. It was about $2,500, per quarter. And we had a maximum of 12 people in there. And we typically filled about 10 to 12 spots, 10 to all of them.
Zach Spuckler:
That was, like, our primary business model. And I I like to talk about this because I think a lot of people see what we're doing now, which is, like, we're We're really focused on our membership. It's got about 400 people in there. And it's just like that's where we put all our time, attention and energy. But the membership to grow required a lot of, frankly, financial resources. And so our coaching program that we launched every quarter, which brought about 60 to $80,000 a year on average was paying to grow our membership. So we were funneling money right from our coaching program into our membership growth. And I wanted to make sure Talk about that on this episode because I think so often we think, oh, Zach's membership is like or anyone's membership, but in this case, my membership is, like, his primary revenue.
Zach Spuckler:
And he's getting all this money from it, and it's just like he puts it all in there. But, like, for us, for about a Year and a half, 2 years, we started it at the end of 2021. The membership was a financial, drain, really. Like, it took a lot of resources, time resources, money resources, team resources. And so in 2023, We built the membership up to a place where it was doing about $10,000 a month in revenue. And at that point, I felt comfortable discontinuing our coaching program. K? And I I did that because I wanted to put more time and energy into growing the membership. Obviously, resources are finite, especially time.
Zach Spuckler:
And I was, like, I've only got so much Time, I'm putting a lot of time into my coaching program, and I wanna give more time to growing the membership. And so we did that. Right? And so I wanted to start this podcast with that story because I'm gonna talk to you about how we structured our business now. But really, like, for me, I'm a firm believer that There's nothing wrong with having a healthy spread of income streams in your business. Right? We hear, like, do the one thing. Do the one thing. Launch your 1 course, but it's like launching requires resources. And so for us, we always thought we wanted a 1 on 1, which is our agency where we run ads for people.
Zach Spuckler:
We wanted our small group, which was our coaching program, and we wanted our one to many, which was our membership. And that's kind of the model we settled on in 2022. And then like I said, in 2023, when the membership had grown to a level that the financial resources from the coaching and the 1 on 1 frankly, had allowed us to, we kind of Scaled back the amount of group coaching that I was doing. Okay? So in 2023, the way that we structured the business It was very similar up until about the second half of the year, maybe the the the Q3 of the year when we discontinued the coaching program. Q 3 of 2023 was our last live coaching round. Okay? So q 4, no group coaching. And so our our Revenue kind of came on average a month about 10 to 15 k recurring from the membership, about 10 to 15 k from 1 on 1 clients, and about 2 to 4000 from miscellaneous sources. So this would be like our low ticket products, maybe our launches, Because when we do launches, we do a low ticket launch, maybe from affiliate payouts.
Zach Spuckler:
Right? So we kind of had, like, this miscellaneous of about 25 to 30 on average every month, which I know doesn't add up to 450 k in revenue, but that was kind of like The average outside of launch months. Launch months obviously brought in a little more revenue. And so this is the way that we've structured our business, is that We have high ticket clients that kind of pay us revenue that allows us to fuel and grow the growth of the membership. The membership which allows as you fuel consistent and stable revenue of the business and then miscellaneous expenses where I can share people, softwares that give me a commission. Okay? So that is the really high level of how we've modeled our business. And I hope that you're listening to this and it's kinda getting your wheels turning about the way that we've structured things. But what I want to really break it down is I mentioned this at the beginning is, like, I'm recording this from the couch because it's It's hard to sit in my office chair right now, but we've also structured the business in a way that kind of serves me not having to be plugged in 247. Okay? I work on average about 25 to 30 hours a week.
Zach Spuckler:
Launch weeks are busier. Usually, the week before and After a launch or a little busier, but most weeks I would say at least 60 to 70% of the time, I'm working 25 to 30 hours. My husband makes fun of me all Time because I'm like, ugh, I work too much. And he's like, you don't work that much. And we always joke about it. Right? But here's how I'm able to do that. So there's 4 core elements to the business if we get really tactical that I leverage that allow me to essentially work less and earn more. And I know that that's a little buzzwordy to be like, oh, work less, earn more.
Zach Spuckler:
But, like, really these are the things I put in place that allow me to focus on growth, consistency, and not feeling like I have to be plugged in 247. So The first key element of our business model is what I call 90 day profit cycles. Okay? And this is something that we've Really rolled out going into 2024 is once a quarter, we do a big launch. And for us, it's typically our Facebook ads boot camp. But we are looking to really profit in that 90 day period. Right? Specifically on our ad spend to new customer revenue generated. Okay? So a lot of people are chasing, like, I'm gonna do an automated webinar. Right? And I'm gonna run tons of traffic through with advertising, and I'm gonna, you know, spend $100 this week and make $200 this week.
Zach Spuckler:
And we think that that is like the old way of advertising. It's like chasing this instantaneous cash. Instead, what we think about is we're running ads 247 to grow Our email list, you guys know I'm a huge advocate of that if you listen to the podcast. If you're new here, welcome. I'm a huge advocate of running ads 247, even 5, 10, $20 today to grow your email list every single day. And we're nurturing relationships with all our leads. And then once a quarter, we're giving those leads the opportunity to join us in a launch. And so our launch months generate a lot of revenue.
Zach Spuckler:
And to be really specific, in January of 2024. I'm dropping this on February 2nd, so I have, like, those final numbers. We ended up generating just over $51,000 in revenue. Now we spent a lot on the launch that is not all profit, but we had a really good revenue month. And that was like, does that revenue, that income, that profit offset the past 60 to 90 days of work that we've done. That's the way that we've started thinking. Right? And I wanna be really clear. I'm able to think that way because of the story that I told you leading up to this, because I have 1 on 1 clients, because I have miscellaneous Genius Revenue.
Zach Spuckler:
Because I had a group coaching program where I had built up, financial resources to pour into a launch, I think so many people Here, like, oh, just do, like, you know, 6 k or a a 6 figure launch or a, you know, a big 5 figure launch. And it's like, right, but what goes into that? Right? What what all does that require? And so to give you some insight, when we did our launch in January, I'm just pulling up some really specific stats here. Our profit was about 14,000, and our total revenue generated was about, 23,000. So on top of the launch, we also had, revenue from the month from, like, 1 on 1 clients, recurring membership dues, miscellaneous places. Right? So our launch month is like this big month, like, bring in all this profit that we then pour into advertising for the next 90 days. And so that brings me right into the next thing that we're doing, which is in addition to 9 day profit cycles, and I kind of already mentioned this, but I wanna really expand on it, is we're advertising pretty much 247. Now full stop, we we finished our launch about a week ago, a little over Over a week ago, and we haven't resumed advertising yet, and that's mostly because I've been flat on the couch. But here's the thing about advertising.
Zach Spuckler:
We generally, I would say 90% of the time in the year, have an ad running. And those ads are growing our list, Selling our Facebook Ads boot camp on Evergreen, maybe sharing our podcast, our content. We're always running ads. Right? And the reason that I do that is because I'm not a big social media person. If you go to my Instagram, yes. It got shut down about, 7 months ago back in July of 2023 when we started over. But, like, we're only up to 850 followers since last year, the, July of last year. Right? We haven't even crossed a 1000 followers yet.
Zach Spuckler:
My Facebook page only has, like, 1,200 likes, I think, I say only, I know it's all subjective. But the thing is when you look at those numbers of, like, 800 followers on Instagram, you You know, a 1,000 fall likes on Facebook compared to our revenue of 450 k, like, I share that because for us, social media is not a driver because social media requires hires me to show up. Now is social media a goal of mine to be more present and do more organic? Absolutely. But for us, I'm always asking the question, Can I leverage the financial resources I built up from having multiple streams of income 2, make it so I can be less quote unquote present in terms of content creation or curation? Right? And so do I wanna get more into Reels this year? Kind of. Do I wanna get more into YouTube? Yeah. A little bit. But I know even if I drop the ball, Even if I'm not great in Instagram, even if I don't post on Facebook every day, my business and my email list is gonna keep growing. Okay? Which brings us to the 3rd strategy that I employ, which is email marketing.
Zach Spuckler:
So there's 2 forms of email marketing thing that we deploy to keep the business growing and engaging. Right? Or even steady, I should say, in this case. And that is regular emails that I write. So that's that's the first part. Like, I try and send an email once a week. Now December through January, I sent a ton of emails because we were launching. But in terms of, like, regular For weekly emails, I honestly didn't do a ton. It's like, honestly, the one thing if I have to, like, own and be, like, the most, like I I don't think shame is the right word, but, like, feel bad about is, like, I wish I would've just emailed more.
Zach Spuckler:
Like, I could've emailed from bed. I could've written an email. But I also had to honor, you know, my body Adi and the place that I was in life and the place I'm at right now. But I really, I'm a huge advocate of just, like, regular email marketing. So I try to email my list at least once a week. Typically, I average at least 1 email a week, over the course of the year between launch emails and all those things. But I send out emails that just tell people what's going on, that maybe mention an offer, that share something I'm an affiliate for, that talk about a book that I'm reading, that share experiences or tell a story. For me, regular, like, non automated email It allows me to build those relationships with my customers that feed into my 90 day profit cycles.
Zach Spuckler:
The other side of email marketing Thing is automation. So because we're running ads all the time to grow our email list, I'm also always promoting, products to new subscribers. Specifically, we promote a lot our $25 Facebook ads for list growth boot camp, which is just a recording of the launch we've done in the previous quarter. Right? So for $25 people can get the recordings of our 5 day Facebook ads challenge. Right? And they can learn to run Facebook ads to grow their list for $25. Total no brainer. We put it in our list building process, and it works great. Okay? Those 2 things Together, magic.
Zach Spuckler:
Because all new customers get to go through, for us, we do a 14 email sequence for new subscribers that, like, Onboards people into our business. They get to learn about me, my business, listen to hear about the podcast, check out our Low ticket offers. Like, do we integrate them into our business? And then if they buy, great. If they don't, then they stay connected to us. Right? So now they're in a connected place where it's like, every week they're gonna hear from me about just good value, and then once a quarter, I'm gonna launch to them. So email marketing has been huge. Kidding has been huge. Okay? So the last thing that I would say is, like, really essential to my kind of like odd like semi I'm gonna use the word semi automated business, is like team and automation.
Zach Spuckler:
Okay? And I think that these things are connected and also independent, in the sense that I have an incredible team. And I mentioned this at the beginning, I couldn't do this without my, right hand Jessica, who just, makes everything hum along. She comes on to calls during launches. She schedules clients. She makes sure my calendar looks good. She tells me when my calendar is overloaded because I always think I can do more than I can. And having someone on your team, it may not be something that you can do right from the start, so we'll talk about that. But having a team you can rely on is huge.
Zach Spuckler:
And I have Jessica. I also have, another team member, Heather, who helps us in the agency side of things and, like, does client setup and client check-ins and communication, which is huge and takes stuff off my plate. But my team is, like, the reason I'm able to do this. Right? Now I know that some of you listen to this are like, well, I'm not ready for a team. Or Zach, you're talking about building up these financial resources and I haven't done that yet, so I don't have the means to hire, and that's okay. The other thing we rely on is automation. So as silly as it sounds, the more you can automate, the better. Right? And this can be as simple as, like, when someone Joins your program, are they automatically being sent a login? Or are you doing that manually, right, with something like Zapier? It can be as complex as we have an Automated process, which to be fair does rely on our team, but an automated process for our clients that they fill out forms that How's my team what they need to set up? And so automation can even add human elements to it, but it automates me not having to step in.
Zach Spuckler:
And And so when I use the word automation, I could be talking about something like Zapier, but I could also be talking about something like a process that removes me from the equation. Right? And so I just want to do a quick recap, like, the way that we've been able to build this business to the place where we have and Create consistency and predictability with it is the 90 day profit cycles, consistent advertising, automated and manual email marketing, and team and automation support. Those are the 4 key elements that allowed me to really Get this business kind of where it is now, and have set us up to hopefully grow even bigger in 2024. My goal for 2024 is between 607100 50,000 in revenue, just to be totally honest. Will we hit it? I don't know. But I'm open to the possibility that it's possible. Now the last thing that I wanna talk about is just, like, we think in those 90 day profit cycles, but we also have a monthly strategy. And that monthly strategy is really simple.
Zach Spuckler:
Right? It's grow the email list, sell low ticket products, and share offers, products, and services that we get a commission on. So every month I'm asking, did I do something today or this week to grow my list? Did I sell copies of our evergreen boot camp, which ultimately sells our membership through automation? And am I sharing something that my my friends or people I trust, have, promoted, that I can get a commission on. Right? I'm doing that every single month. I'm asking that question. And then quarterly, I'm launching my my 5 day Facebook ads boot camp live, which also launches our membership, which then influxes people who I spend the quarter engaging and retaining inside our membership. So I'm always trying to keep retention high and churn low in our membership. So all of this Together is the process. And if I can just do a super quick recap, I know I did, but I just wanna talk about a couple of things here, like the key elements.
Zach Spuckler:
So key element number One is in order to grow a one to many offer, it helps to have a high ticket service or additional cash flow levers that you can pull to help offset the costs of launching, growing a membership, filling a course. Because the reality is business takes resources, financial and time resources. Key element number 2 is those 4 levers that we look at for consistent, Growth and consistent maintenance of business revenue. The 90 day profit cycles, ongoing advertising, email marketing, and team and automation support. And then the last key point is we're looking at everything both monthly and quarterly. Right? Are we doing something every month to grow the list, sell the low ticket Offers, move people into the membership, and get affiliate commission. And then quarterly, are we launching? Are we doing something to offset our costs over the last 3 months with a nice influx of profit that we can pour into the next quarter to retain and grow, for us specifically the membership, but the business as a whole. So I hope this episode has kind of given you some insight into the way we run our business.
Zach Spuckler:
I know I've talked some numbers. I I like to talk numbers. The point of these numbers is not to, like I always wanna say this because I I feel like I clearly have some stuff around money that I'm still working on, but, Like, I don't share this to show off or be, like, oh, wow. Look how much money we've made. It's, like, I want you to see what we're doing. I want you to see the numbers behind the numbers. I want you to see that, you know, We in our launch in January 2024, we spent over $7,000. We paid out, 1,000 of dollars to our affiliates, and we only profited 14 you know, again, subjective, but we only profited about $14,000, $13,901.26 if If you're a numbers person like me, but that's not massive.
Zach Spuckler:
But we grew our membership, and we created ongoing growth. Right? And so I share these numbers with you so that you could have a realistic view of what people are doing. That you can kind of hopefully, on some level, separate yourself from the market or math of, like, you must have a 7 figure business. Right? I know people making $1,000,000 a year in revenue who profit and pocket just as much as I do. I know people making half what I make pocketing more. So it really depends on your business model, your goals. For me, it's about freedom and flexibility, and so that's what I do. I take on a few 1 on 1 clients a month.
Zach Spuckler:
I have agency clients. I maybe do a couple of consult calls a month, 3 to 4. Like, I'm building the business that serves the lifestyle I wanna live, that includes Abel, that includes a day off, that includes, you know, not working every single Thursday so that I have a gap in my week to recover. And that's what I hope you take away from this. Not that you need to be making $450,000 a year, or that that should be your next goal, or that that's the goal that live live leaves you living the lifestyle that I have. It's just to give you context and content that supports you in doing what you wanna do. So I hope you got mad value from this episode. You wanna check out the show notes, you could head over to heartsoulhustle.com/nyap073.
Zach Spuckler:
Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap073 or Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, episode number 73. Love the full show notes there for you. A full transcript of the episode like we always do. And And, of course, if you got mad value, tag me on Instagram. I'm @zachspuckler, z a c h s p u c k l e r. Give me a tag. Take a screenshot of you listening. Let me know your big takeaway.
Zach Spuckler:
I really love these episodes where I get to draw back the curtain, and I wanna know if you do too. So Even if you don't wanna post, drop me a DM. Let me know what you thought. I love hearing from you guys. I love hearing what you think about these episodes. I hope you got massive value today. I'm gonna head back to the couch for a few minutes until my next call. And I hope you have a great week.
Zach Spuckler:
And until next time, stay not so average.
