How I Overcame a $3m/Year Business Plateau

My business was stuck at around 3 million per year for a long time. If I stopped working, the business stopped earning. We recently made $318,000 in just 5 days and this kind of profit has become normal thanks to the 5 things I’ll share in this quick 2 min post.

By the way… my new model is 0 ads, 0 launches and 0 landing pages. So, hold on tight and save this for later because if I’d have known this sooner I’d probs be a billionaire by now…

JK lol, but I have got so much time back that I sometimes find myself twiddling my thumbs and joining team calls uninvited. Soz Impact School team.

The first thing I learned is that no one is coming to save me.

Have you ever seen those posts across social media about “this one new funnel that will make you millions” or “the ultimate ad strategy to get unlimited new clients.”

…I used to spend hundreds of thousands per year on external agencies to solve “this one thing” in my business so that everything would be ok.

…I’d “partner” with people to do a “trade” (always ended up going badly)

…I’d have so many calls with different companies to get their input and I’d change the direction of what we’re doing in the hope that I’d get some marginal gain.

But it’s a fact that a symptom is not the problem. It’s a second order consequence of something not being quite right.

And that “something” is usually that you just haven’t yet found product market fit.

That’s when I realised that I was able to get by, by selling a great solution to a sub-par problem thanks to my personal brand.

But, beyond my closest audience, it wasn’t so easy.

Ultimately, the prospect’s problem is why they pay you money.

So, we leaned into our prospects to see what they really wanted… and we had to make a decision as to which level of sophistication we wanted to work with.

Every market has a continuum of less sophisticated → more sophisticated prospects and with every level of sophistication comes another level of problems.

We analysed our strengths which led us to lean into the “more sophisticated” prospect and started selling higher priced packages.

That’s when we started to offer a guaranteed outcome.

Having an outcome-producing product which is always “open” but where you cycle through different offers changed everything for Impact School.

Very few people in my market have the guts to offer guaranteed results.

At Impact School, we know our system produces the outcome so we are willing to put that at the forefront of our marketing. Our clients have often been burned in the past, and through doing this, they know that we are here with them no matter what.

When you know your prospect better than anyone else, there’s no way you can’t win.

This was easy for me because I was that prospect just a few years ago.

Plus, I’ve taken thousands of hours of sales calls and even more hours of messaging convos so I know exactly what’s bogging them down.

But I finally had to remove my excitement of figuring something out (such as how to close high ticket deals in the DMs)...

…And, instead, I had to get hyped when my team were able to use the system to do it for themselves.

Otherwise, everything would rely on me.

I posted the exact system on my YT channel so comment “link” if you want the link and I’ll have someone from my team get it to you.

As the business owner, I had to delay my gratification so that it would happen through other people, otherwise I’d stay as a glorified freelancer for years to come.

Realising that my system could work without it relying on ME (and waking up to tens of thousands in sales most days) has become a much better feeling than the very high high of making a sale myself.

I could do an entire post on this and how I’ve changed my sales process to allow for these results but the biggest thing was stopping what everyone else was doing just because it worked for them and instead, doing what worked for me.

I had to let people’s owner boners stop taking my energy.

As you scale your business and brand, more people want your energy.

Whenever someone wanted to talk to me, I’d be on a call with them in minutes.

My clients always wanted me, my team brought me all their problems, and new prospects always wanted “Lauren”.

I had to position myself as a business owner vs a coach both externally (marketing) and internally (team).

My COO became the “go to” for my team (and they now have to bring 2 solutions every time they raise a concern) and Impact School now spotlights our team versus just me.

I got my assistant to protect my energy through taking control of my meetings and calendar…

This freed up so much energy for me and I realised that if I try to be everything to everyone then no one ever gets my best.

And this is only possible because I hire the crème de la crème.

I used to hire based upon urgency and lack.

…I’d go on a hiring spree and bring in the first 10-20 people I’d find to see who’d be best.

It was mayhem.

And totally exhausting.

Now, my COO is very methodical in hiring and follows this 4-page hiring SOP which allows us to only bring in team members who align with our values.

My business philosophy is:

Let systems run the business and let people run those systems.

And that’s ultimately what we help our clients with at Impact School.

We only hire great people especially now we work with more sophisticated clients.

We’ve poached people from leadership positions at HUGE companies everyone would know of.

And this is when I could finally trust in knowing that my business could run without me, even if I got hit by a bus.

I get to stay in my zone of genius and the machine produces results without me.

I get to do what I like to do, which is things like writing this post.

So, I truly hope this helps you today.

And remember - Impact School is here to help you.

As above, we will work with you with guaranteed results to add all the systems you need in your business to…

Reach high value prospects

Convert them into clients

…And retain those clients into the long run…

All while building your team and ensuring you have all your sales and marketing optimized for growth.

We solve the real problem and not just the symptom. And we’ve already built all the systems so we work with you to apply them to your business.

When you’re ready, send me a message saying “guarantee” on LinkedIn and someone from my team will send you a quick video (3 mins on 2x speed) with all the info on how it works…

We are pretty selective about who we’re taking into this so if you are great at what you do and you’re ready to invest into the right systems for your business to scale once and for all… Send me a message saying “guarantee” so my team can get this video to you right now.

Grateful to serve you,

Lauren