Pop the champagne! We're celebrating our highest revenue months yet!
In this episode, we share our best tips for why we think we hit our best revenue months ever, all while maintaining our sense of humour and enjoying life's pleasures.
Listen in and fuel your business.
As we near our 100th episode—yeah, you heard right, 100! we'd love to hear from you. Please give us a rating or share a review.
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Pop the champagne! We're celebrating our highest revenue months yet!
In this episode, we share our best tips for why we think we hit our best revenue months ever, all while maintaining our sense of humour and enjoying life's pleasures.
Listen in and fuel your business.
As we near our 100th episode—yeah, you heard right, 100! we'd love to hear from you. Please give us a rating or share a review.
Join The Ascension Circle @alannabankscoaching.
Join Ryan's The Simple Social Sanctuary.
A few excellent ways to support us are by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
Joining the community on Instagram @itsthenoexcusespodcast and learning more about what we offer @alannabankscoaching and www.alannabanks.com and @ryanmontisnlp and www.ryanmontis.com
BUY A MUG! Visit our merch store, No Excuses Outfitters.
Want to sponsor an episode and promote your business and social media profiles? Send SPONSOR to @itsthenoexcusespodcast, and we'll get back with the information. Investment is under $20 per episode.
So I thought it would be fun to start this episode with some celebrations. You know how most coaches start a call where they share celebrations, share wins for the week.
Speaker 2:I did not know that it was most coaches. Is that a documented fact?
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's documented, but a lot of the coaches I've ever worked with and you and me that's how I like to start things off, because it's always nice to share something positive that's going on, something cool, something exciting, something you're looking forward to.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I have a celebration. I do too, I do too.
Speaker 2:For weeks I've been trying to find Flamin' Hot Doritos, which is a very specific flavor of Doritos. They've been sold out everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Finally found some.
Speaker 1:Wow, I thought you were going to say Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
Speaker 2:No, no Actually. I don't know those might be good, I don't know. But right now, on this Flamin' Hot Doritos. Okay, I had some today.
Speaker 1:Yum.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:See if we have any of those at my local grocer.
Speaker 2:I bet you all they're hard to come by. Thanks.
Speaker 1:Okay, have you had Takis before the Fuego Takis?
Speaker 2:No, I don't believe so, because I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's also a very hot. They're almost like Doritos that are rolled up. They're really good and so addictive. Takis yeah T-A-K-I oh.
Speaker 2:The only flavor that is good is Fuego. Fuego. Yeah, I've pulled them up in my archives Mm-hmm, which is what I call the internet, and I've seen this package before, but I don't believe. Well, actually, this package looks familiar to me, but I don't believe I've eaten these, so perhaps I will try.
Speaker 1:Give them a try and let me know what you think.
Speaker 2:Is it pronounced Takis? It's T-A-K-I-S. It could be Takis.
Speaker 1:No, they're called Takis, so I call them Takis just to bother my children. They're always like mom.
Speaker 2:Oh, so the youth?
Speaker 1:This is a product that the youth are familiar with Very much, so, yeah, very good Okay. They're the kind of thing that you eat and like you keep eating them and then when you stop, that's when the heat kicks in and you're like, oh my gosh, that's hot.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's hot, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, so those are not the celebrations that we were really going to be talking about today, right? I?
Speaker 2:guess yeah.
Speaker 1:We're celebrating having our best revenue months ever individually. You had your best revenue month in January 2024 and I had mine in January 2024.
Speaker 2:And that is correct. We both happened to have record-breaking revenue months at the same time, in January 2024, and we should clarify for everybody listening in case you don't realize this Alana Banks and I have separate and distinct companies.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:There's no crossover between our companies or our books, other than the fact that we collaborate on this podcast and we're good friends. But Alana has her offers and her clients and my offers and my clients and their separate things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but clearly our accountability rubbed off on each other because we both had our highest revenue months.
Speaker 2:Is that what we're saying? It was Our mutual accountability from doing the podcast.
Speaker 1:Why not? I mean, you can say anything, can't we?
Speaker 2:It's our podcast, it's our businesses. We can just be like, yes, it's all that extra vitamin E. I don't think it's a coincidence. Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so as a result, we're going to talk about it on the podcast this week about having had our best revenue months and why we think that happened for us and maybe what we did. I don't know. We haven't really kind of decided exactly what we're going to talk about, but it's just going to unfold.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the thought was we've both had our highest revenue months ever in January 2024. Let's talk about what we did that we believe has led us to this spot for the benefit of the listeners, in case they can hear our experience in the last couple of months and say, oh, that makes sense, let me do that too, and maybe hit a new revenue high for themselves. I think that's my dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there we go. Well, I actually just, incidentally, got a message today from a follower on Instagram saying hey, how come you haven't posted much lately on Instagram? And I used to be very consistent, I will still be. It's just been kind of on a slight pause on Instagram posting, but in turn, I've been posting sporadically stories on Instagram for the last while, but I haven't done an actual Instagram post or real since December. Right, and so usually when you see a coach do that, it means they've kind of like they're taking one of these many unannounced hiatuses from business that coaches tend to take. But that's not what has happened. I've actually just been so busy with clients and my other marketing initiatives outside of Instagram that it's taken my attention away from that particular platform. Yeah, Cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I was wondering the same thing because I was like oh, Ryan's up and posting. Yeah, yeah, and then I thought oh, I wonder if this is like some strategic thing.
Speaker 2:It's no, not really. I mean, I have been highly strategic for the last couple of months but, like you know, intentionally not posting on Instagram specifically has not been part of that strategy. It's just really that I've gone all in on expanding my community and advancing what I call my movement, which happens to be hosted in a private Facebook group. So all my kind of posting effort has been going to the mission and movement group on Facebook. I just didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with Instagram. For a little bit. This has been temporary. It's going to, you know, now that things are more established in the Facebook group and more consistent over there. I'm going to get back on the Instagram bandwagon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So it's not that you're not showing up on social media. You are because you're showing up in your groups right On Facebook. You're just not using Instagram as like a way to attract clients at the moment.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's still there. It's not like I, you know, took the account.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's still there, but I mean like new content, that's like refreshed and yeah, like people can still find you, yeah, through Instagram, yeah, but that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's part of the answer of what has led me to what I believe has led me to one of my highest revenue months ever on in my business. It's because I diverted a good amount of my sort of marketing and business energy to, you know, this highly engaged audience that I grew in this one specific context and you know it's been highly effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, clearly, that's awesome, yeah, and I've done the complete opposite of that, which is, you know, I've been showing up very consistently, providing high value content and selling every single day.
Speaker 1:So, you know, in addition to getting really clear on you know what I have to offer, and just offering that one thing, being very specific about what I am offering, I've just been like using my Instagram platform as, like, a way to attract new clients, new people, into my world, and you know, before Christmas, I was celebrating this sort of like explosion in terms of growing my community.
Speaker 1:So, because I had that I didn't want, I really wanted to take advantage of this, all these new eyeballs on my work and so I made it a priority to put my effort into creating more of that type of content, which was, you know, sharing techniques and tips and strategies, where you know people could get a quick win, yeah, and really like see the value of my work. So that's what I believe has helped me get to having one of my best revenue months, because, you know, I've been really showing up consistently, creating high quality content and, you know, answering questions, responding to direct messages promptly, responding to comments, just really being there, and that's as a result, I've been spending a lot more time on my phone than I probably ever have, but it's turned into clients, lots of new opportunities and my highest revenue month.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah. It's interesting because, even though I diverted my energy away from Instagram, unlike you, I have not been. It's not like I like, because I was posting pretty much every day on Instagram Monday to Friday or five days a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I didn't take that those numbers over to my private community, because in a private community the shelf life of the content that you do create is significantly greater almost indefinite if you manage the community properly versus the shelf life of content that you create in general social media land right Like a really good piece of content on social media, It'll have.
Speaker 2:It'll see 90% of its exposure, of its exposure in the first couple of days from on average and then slowly fade into the background. But when you have a private community and I host my private, my free private community on Facebook and a Facebook group, if I post a piece of content in there, it keeps getting kind of sustained exposure and views and consumption, as long as I leave it in the group and it does take a little bit of management to be able to do that. So anyway, it's a long story short. I'm posting way less and seeing way more traction and I love that. You're kind of doing the opposite of that. You're posting hyper consistently and seeing way more traction because you know and I've said this before there is no black and black or white when it comes to business. There's no. This is the right way and that's the wrong way. This is the wrong way and that's the right way. Every way is the right way when you execute it properly.
Speaker 2:The land strategy is working for her because she's executing on it properly. My strategy has been working for me because I'm executing it properly, right. And on the flip side are there people who sort of like Atlanta, post consistently but don't see results, Certainly because they're not executing in a way that gets results. Are there people who post less in a private community the way I'm seeing tremendous results with right now and then they don't get results. A lot, A lot of those people Most people who have private communities don't get great results because the devil is in the details. The devil is in the details and so is the profit.
Speaker 1:So is the revenue? Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, because, like, for example, I have a Facebook group that I started in the fall but I haven't been keeping up with it because, actually, right when I started, it is when I exploded on Instagram and so I was like, oh, I'm going to actually put all my effort into Instagram and I'm just going to shelf this group that I created, which I will come back to but I just saw that there was more opportunity in my Instagram and what was happening over there. So why would I ignore that? You know what I mean. Like, if I had been so steadfast and like, no, I need to just do this group and ignore the fact that things were happening for me on Instagram, the results would have been much different, probably. So it's just like I think it's important that you pour gas on what's working for you and what feels natural and what feels sustainable and where you're having the most fun too.
Speaker 1:Because, then that's going to produce the results that you're wanting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I agree. Cool, all right. So episode done, there we go.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have a couple more points to share. I don't know about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, we can talk a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit longer, let's. Why don't we give?
Speaker 2:like our biggest tips. Okay, what's your biggest? One or two things that, like you know, I think this really made a big difference in the last couple of months. That led to your big, your big value.
Speaker 1:I think okay. Number one getting crystal clear on what I'm offering and only offering one thing. I got very crystal clear on the fact that I wanted to offer breakthroughs NLP breakthroughs. I knew exactly what that offer was. I knew exactly what the price was. I knew exactly what the result was going to be. I also gave myself permission to just offer this one thing.
Speaker 1:When I showed up on Instagram, I knew my job for that day was to talk about the breakthrough and a piece of content that was in alignment with what it was I was offering Talk to the type of ideal client that I wanted to be bringing in. It just made everything easy. That would be my biggest tip, because prior to that, I was kind of all over the place. I had a bunch of different things that I was offering. It wasn't clear to the people who were following me what they could buy from me, whereas now, basically for all of January and the end of December, I was just selling the breakthrough On my stories. Every day I was selling and talking about it. I think for me, that was the biggest change in terms of how I was doing things before to now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean now I'm booking for March already, which is crazy. February just started, yeah.
Speaker 2:Good I think that is something that a lot of people really underestimate is that clarity in your offer, both within your own mind and within your content. I've got a new group of people coming through my mission accelerator, which is my premium business coaching program. Right now. Number one priority, first thing we're working on is getting their niche super clear in their mind and what is the result that they offer. I think the big a-ha that a lot of people are having is like we're going through these exercises together to get them clarity on their niche. There's all these other little things clouding the judgment when it comes to their niche. At the end of the day, the niche is who do you help?
Speaker 1:and what is the result? That you get them If you can't answer?
Speaker 2:that in one or two simple sentences. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience, you may not have clarity on who you help or what the result is. You offer Alanis. When you get that clarity, it becomes really easy to message your offer and to draw in the people that want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. That's exactly what happened for me. The best thing was I sat down with a friend who is a strategic planner at the beginning of January. She had me dump out everything that I have to offer and she's like okay, which one is bringing in the most money for you right now? And I said the breakthrough? And she was like okay, from January, february, march, you're only focusing on the breakthrough.
Speaker 1:She's like all this other stuff, like palm reading and other things that I had, like sexual freedom, hypnosis and other things, she was like put that aside, these are all great and you're not. They weren't a waste of time, but you're not offering those right now. You're just going to focus on and, honestly, it felt like I took off a backpack that weighed 100 pounds because I was like it was like she gave me permission, the permission that I needed to just be like okay, I'm just going to focus on this one thing. And when you're, you know there may be people listening who are like multi-passionate, multi-talented, like have a lot of things or ideas and they just want to like put them out there, because that's the kind of person that I am. When someone gives you permission to just focus on one thing. It's like such a light bulb moment, or at least it was for me, because I was like you're right, I can just focus on this one thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it just took all the pressure off and then it allowed me to like settle my mind too, because I was always kind of thinking, okay, well, I need to create a piece of content that's like about palm reading, but then, like, I want to also talk about the breakthrough. So if I'm confused in my mind, then the people watching me are going to be like what the hell does this girl have to offer? Like one day she's talking to what is this lady selling?
Speaker 2:Why does she want to look at my hands? What is this?
Speaker 1:What kind of?
Speaker 2:weirdo is this. Why does she have so many followers? What are these people seeing?
Speaker 1:Yeah so yeah, for me, exactly, exactly For me, it was getting really crystal clear on what I had to offer. And when you say niche, too, I think that's like a scary word. At least, it's always been a scary word for me, because I'm like niche what does that mean? Like I'm serving women between the ages of like 36 and 45 and who have brown hair. You know, like that's where my mind goes when I hear the word niche. But when I discovered that niche could also mean this my breakthrough right, and what is the result that I offer? And who might those people be who would want to have a breakthrough? What kind of problems would they be having? That's how it also got really clear for me, because I was just like, yeah, I just knew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's. I mean that's a big breakthrough for a lot of people. Like you know, with my clients now in the program, you know, I put this little post inside of our private clients Facebook group being like hey, everyone, here's my niche, I help hypnotherapists and NLPP people to get more clients, and the part where we get the more clients, that's actually the result. And then my challenge then was like what's yours? Because everybody like, just like you just said, people hear the word niche and they're like okay, my ideal client avatar and the average demographics of the people who would generally invest in this type of personal development and there's like this whole like explosion of information in their brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like no, no, no, no, just like who do you help in like two words, and what's the result? It's like well, I help people who have anxiety to not have anxiety anymore. You know, like start there Right and then save all that other stuff for, like your speech, for your TED talk, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true, yeah, it's, it's so. It seems so simple. And this is the thing, right? It's like sometimes the most basic things are so overlooked. Yeah, Right, yep, yep. So yeah, I would say, that was, that's my big tip, and I have one more. But do you want to give your big tip my?
Speaker 2:big tip is, I think, when it comes to revenue like we're talking about revenue, we're talking about, ultimately, client attraction here Find a method of client attraction that you really, really believe works, that you've seen the evidence, other people are doing it this way, and then stick with that until you make it work for you. Also. Right, like right up until right up until right up until right up until right up until right up until basically the end of last year. I was still even me, you know, and I've been bringing in good revenue for years, but I was still kind of like having my foot in you know two camps or three camps when it came to marketing and it was working for me.
Speaker 2:But when I, when I accepted the risk of no longer sort of hedging my bat and I was like, okay, there's this one way of growing my business that I fully believe will work, because I've seen the evidence, I've seen other people be successful, I've tested all of this. It's like I know it. What will happen if I just go all in and make it really work for me and get 100% of the potential results? Well, and here we are. You know that was before. Now it's after. Turns out what happened when I did that, and that again goes back to, like you know, I didn't. I believed in it so much that I literally stopped posting on Instagram, which historically has been the source of 50% or more of my revenue. Right, and here I am now when all of a sudden done and I've had my highest revenue month ever because I made that decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. I think that that also leads to just cleaning up your own beliefs about like what works to. You know what I mean Like and surrendering to doing it, like we were talking about this before we got on recording, but like, just sort of like surrendering to the way someone else is doing it that is working for them and then just like modeling that and being okay with that and not, you know, not trying to continue doing what you were doing. That wasn't working the way you like to the point that you were making what you made this past month Right, like I feel like you surrendered to a new belief. Like if you had stepped to your guns and been like no, because I'm getting, you know, a lot of my revenue from Instagram, and you kept, you know, splitting your time and efforts, you probably wouldn't have had the revenue month that you had in January. But because you decided and went all in on this other belief and you trusted it and you really believed in it, you know it worked for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would agree. You know, I heard a business coach must have been a year ago say the thing that prevents people from getting the results when they invest in business coaching is that they either don't understand the plan that they're about to execute or they don't believe fully in it, or a combination of both. But when you fully understand your marketing plan and you believe in it because you've sought out the evidence to know that it does work, and then you execute on it, you're unstoppable, right. But if any of those pieces are not there, if you're wavering, what happens is you stop three feet from the gold, right, like you're doing all the doing and the results are never, almost never, immediate. It's like, because you don't have that certainty that yes, I'm on the right track, which sometimes only comes with supervision and from a good mentor or coach, you give up, like right before you make it Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, on top of that too, like the other big point I was going to say, or big tip, is having full congruence in what you have to offer, like really being believing, living it and believing it Like I had such a huge outcome from my breakthrough, from my own personal breakthrough, that pitching this as what I'm offering now is just like, because I believe in it so much, people can feel that energy. Do you know what I mean? So it's not necessarily the words I'm using and what I'm typing up and like what I'm writing about, but when I'm talking about it, people can feel how strongly I believe in the results that are produced by going through this process, that they're like I want that, I want that too, like I want to feel that way or like admit that kind of energy. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's congruence and it's conviction in your product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I believe in it so much and, as a result, my clients are getting such great results as well, but it's just like inevitable that I'm going to be able to sell it, whereas before, when I was selling things, I didn't have that same congruence, like I didn't feel, like I wasn't fully in integrity, I guess because even some of my closer friends are just so. Everything has changed about the way that you're communicating what you have to offer now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's just like I really believe you, whereas before there was something was missing, and not that they could really put their finger on what it was, but there was something that wasn't there. Yeah, and you know that subconsciously we're kind of like ticking all these boxes when we're being sold too.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so if I'm, if there's something off, then it's going to be a no right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, energetically, I know that it's just like that might sound a bit woo-woo, but it's. You know, energy doesn't lie.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:And people can feel it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got it. I don't think you know I will disagree with one little thing you said, and it's just a wording thing. You kind of use the term out of integrity. I don't think you were ever out of integrity. I don't think you've ever tried to sell anything that you don't believe in.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's just. It's just that I think this is my perception, right, but it's just that you seem to have like extreme conviction now, which maybe you didn't have extreme conviction with some of your previous offers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there wasn't the full congruence. Maybe there was like 90% congruence before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now it's like 100. Yeah, 110, a thousand a million percent.
Speaker 1:Like no one could convince me otherwise that this doesn't work. You know what I mean. Like I can come at you from any angle.
Speaker 2:I come at you like a spider monkey. Do you remember that from that movie, Talladega Nights with the?
Speaker 1:No, I've seen that movie, but I don't remember that.
Speaker 2:It's the, so that's the Will Ferrell and he's the NASCAR driver, right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:He's got those two stepkids, and then there's the grandfather and those two stepkids are awful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're like talking to the grandfather and one of them is like I'll come at you like a spider monkey. Oh, that was a very absurd and funny movie.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We got to wrap it up, we're almost out of time.
Speaker 1:I think we're done. I think we're done.
Speaker 2:I think we're done. Yeah, I would say yeah.
Speaker 1:To like summarize get crystal clear on what you're offering. Show up on wherever you need to show up to sell it. You know wherever you're attracting clients, show up there consistently and sell. It Could be a Facebook group, it could be your Instagram, it could be Facebook, it could be LinkedIn, whatever it is, and then you know, get behind the offer Like you know 100%, believe in the results that you have to offer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree with you on that and get the mentorship, get the coaching, get the answer.
Speaker 2:It doesn't need to be from Atlanta or I, but that's the answer unless you want to work with us, that's, you know, there's this cliche expression we want to collapse time when we're an entrepreneur, and what that means is generally, you know, something that takes you 12 months to figure out on your own through trial and error will take you one month to figure out if you have somebody coaching you who's already done it before. And so when you factor in what it'll cost you to not yet support, it makes often much more sense in terms of an investment of time, money and energy to just get somebody to help you. So you know and again, I don't love these cliches but to collapse time, it really is true.
Speaker 1:It is true. And then I would say the other thing is is like you have to put in the work. You know, like I had my best revenue month ever, but I also worked for it. You know, and I wouldn't say like I broke my back working, like I wasn't just like I'm not burnt out or anything like that, but you know, I was having conversations with people, I was responding to messages, like I was I was getting up every day and posting content and having like you know what I mean Like I was I was working for the sales, I was closing the sales and like I wasn't just sitting back and letting people come to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's another really important thing to mention because, like I, was working hard.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:But hardly working.
Speaker 2:That's a whole other episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah Cool. Okay, cool All right, that's it, get a get a breakthrough everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get a breakthrough. Join the Simple Social Sanctuary.
Speaker 2:Have a eat a plum. They're good for you, okay, bye.