The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 190: How My Business Has Evolved

Today, I am diving into how my business has transformed throughout the years. I will be giving you the inside scoop on where I started, where I am now, and how I got there. I will also be sharing behind the scenes of my business and how it’s structured on the back end to give you some inspiration for how to transform your own business.

How My Business Has Evolved

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of the Fierce Business Babe Podcast! I hope you have been enjoying our double features every single week on the podcast for a few weeks now. We're definitely going to be continuing that for the near future. As long as you are loving them, we will definitely continue them. Today is a bit of a longer episode and on Thursday morning we will have another shorter mini episode where I dive into one question that a client asked in one of our programs and go into full-on coaching with you in that episode. Today is going to be all about how my business has evolved over the years. If you are brand-new to me, maybe you feel like, wow, she's got this big business and has really grown it. I want to be there one day. Maybe you’re worried you can’t get there. I just want you to know that it did take quite a bit of time and that you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it as well.

I'm going to go into how it looked in the beginning stages of my business, how my programs evolved, and how many programs look now. Do I create new programs every month? What that looks like. I’m also going to go behind the scenes so you can get a sense of why I created my business the way I did. This will also show you how it’s structured on the back end to help you brainstorm what you want to do next in your business. I've been very, very intentional every single year in my business about how I want my business to run, how I want my business to be structured, feel, and look. This way I can be living the life I want to live while also creating and building my dream business. My business really serves my lifestyle, and I'll go into quite a bit of that today. So today we're going to get all into how my business shifted every single year, some of the things that I needed to change as my business grew, requirements that my business needed from me, and so much more.

How My Business Started

So, how did my business start? How did it shift from year to year? It definitely did not start the way it looks now. I definitely did not have this full expansive product suite when I first started. When I first started, year one, I mostly had one-on-one coaching for the first six to eight months. I didn't even launch my first group program until about eight months into my business. I had about 10 to 12 private clients and knew that it was time to then start to expand into group coaching. That is when I launched the Fierce Business Academy, which you may be familiar with. I share all about it over on my Instagram and it's all over my website. It's one of my core offers and one of my first group programs for this business. I believe we launched that for the first time back in mid-2018, I did a big one for the program. Back then it was an open-close model. What I mean by that is everyone started at the same time, it was a three month program, and everyone ended after 12-weeks, you couldn't come in all year long. I actually only had it available a few times per year, so it was an open-close model versus evergreen like it is now. Now you can actually hop in anytime throughout the year as long as we have availability and space inside of the program. I did that for quite a while.

At the end of the first year I also created my first passive course. Technically I didn't create anything new. I actually repurposed some of my Academy. It was the sales portion of my Academy, which includes sales training, scripts, templates, how to handle objections, how to follow up, and more. It was pulled out from my Academy. It’s still included in my Academy, but we pulled it out for my first passive course, which is called Sell Like a Sales Queen. It is fully hands off and we open it a few times throughout the year, we’ll take it out of our vault and sell it. It’s very hands-off, there's no coaching included. Again, if you're in the Academy you get it with the Academy. It comes with that, plus all of the support inside and coaching calls and things like that.

If you look at that timeline, that was about a full year before you actually launched my first passive offer. Not that you need to wait a full year, but it all didn't happen overnight. I spent a lot of time creating my one-on-one coaching program. Once I felt so great about it, I then turned that into my group coaching program, and then continued to evolve my one-on-one. The things that I was teaching my one-on-one clients is what I now teach my Academy clients. My next version of one-on-one continues to grow and continues to scale as I also continue to evolve as a coach and grow as that mentor. Of course, I have taken everything that I've learned over the past six years now and have started to put that into my other programs. So it was a full year before I really started to create anything passive. Again, not that that's the timeline that you need to match, because it's your timeline. You get to do what feels best to you and also do what's going to really serve your lifestyle and where you want to take it. Again, it does take time. It definitely didn't happen overnight for me. You don’t have to create everything in the first week that you start your business. You can definitely take your time with your business.

My Second Year in Business

So I created that at the end of the first year. As I went into the next year I started to develop my next few programs and my private coaching became more and more selective. I no longer worked with private clients that were just starting their businesses because I could support them in my Academy. I started supporting clients privately that were scaling to $20k months, $30k months, $50k months and beyond because I had already done that and I could help others do it as well. My private coaching definitely continues to evolve over the years. I started to also add more things into my product suite. I do have a lot of people come to me who are starting their businesses, and so excited for them. They say, “I need a one-on-one coach. I need to work with you privately.” The thing I'll say is working privately with somebody can be much, much more expensive since it is so high level access. It's also not necessary to get your business started and to start signing clients. I actually feel that having a community and the support to get started is much, much better than a private coach. It can be more important and can really serve you to help you get to where you want to go, so that's why I've opened my Academy. It creates that community for my clients and we also give them all the tools that they need to start signing clients, even if they have no niche figured out or have no idea what the type of business they want to create. If you're starting you don't necessarily need a one-on-one coach. Yes, you may get more access to somebody, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be as high of an expert as someone who has been running their business for six, seven, eight years, whatever that timeline is for whoever you're looking to work with. Again, definitely be open-minded for whatever you decide to do first. Whether it’s a course, a group program, or one-on-one coaching, be very intentional about what it is that you're looking for, the support that you need, and what's going to help you get to where you want to go even faster. After that, I started to expand my product suite. Then that next year I actually opened my first Mastermind where I was helping women scale to $10K months. I didn't open that Mastermind until I was already helping women, do this privately for at least a year.

Shifting My Programs into an Evergreen Model

So you can start to see the trends that my business is going through as my one-on-one continues to evolve. Once that got filled up and once I became an expert at that I then started to open other containers that could support more people and help them with that same result. Throughout 2019 and 2020 I created a few hands-off courses, but mostly focused on my signature offers. In 2020 I actually shifted all of my coaching programs to an evergreen model so that they were no longer open-close and it's really served my business. I have talked about evergreen models on my podcast before and why I love them so much. They really give me a lot of flexibility with my business and my personal life. It’s provided me structure in my business and also given me space to create any other courses that I want to for fun. Because I have these signature offers, I'm not creating something new every single month. I've got these signature offers that I can sell all year round and bring clients into any day of the week. There's so much structure to it that I can then go and create any kind of course I want to because I have space to do it. If I wanted to, I could go and create a course about how to be a cat mom or how to teach your cat to do different tricks, whatever I wanted to. Not that that's what I would do, but I think you kind of get where I'm going. As you create some structure in your business with a few core offers and continue to create brand awareness around those offers you can then have that flexibility to create whatever feels good to you and whatever excites you in that moment instead of me creating something new every single month. That's the way that I went for my business, having some strong offers that grew over the years and really gave me that flexibility to create other things whenever I want to. I don't want to then I don't need to.

Lots of things that have been supportive as I filled my business. My product suite really hasn't changed much in the last year or two, and that's been very intentional. It's taken me quite a few years to get my business to where it is now and the product suite I have now. Again, if I can do it, you can do it. It doesn't need to look anything like my business. Your business gets to look and become a model that's going to really serve you and your lifestyle that you want to live. I was chatting with a few folks over on Instagram, I think I shared this over on my Instagram stories last week as well, I have some clients that only have one course and they’re scaling their entire business with one course. I have some clients who only want to do private coaching. I have some clients who don't want to do any coaching, so it’s all digital products. It really gets to be about what excites you and what you want to do. It doesn't have to be a certain way. It doesn't have to follow somebody else's path or the way somebody else has built their business. You are the CEO, so you get to make up the rules. You get to sell whatever you want to sell and you get to open programs that really excite you. If something doesn't excite you nearly as much as it used to, you can always shift. You can always add more things into your business or subtract things from your business. You're always allowed to make adjustments to your product suite. I will say, have something that is core, that is signature so that you do have something to sell to help you bring in some cash flow as you do all of the other things that you want to do in your business, such as some of these mini courses that excite you or the cat moms course, or whatever else it is that you want to do. I've been crocheting a lot, so how to crochet a blanket course if I wanted to.

Things I Needed to Change as My Business Grew

As I grew my business, things needed to change. I could see that the things that got me to $5K months or $10K months were not necessarily what was going to get me to $20, $30, $40, $50K months. I definitely needed to change quite a few things. The first thing I would say is how my programs were running. When I was doing bigger launches and opening programs three or four times a year it really burnt me out because I was launching almost every single month. I was doing big, big launches, which were great for the business, but it burnt me out. It wasn't really serving me and the lifestyle that I wanted. Shifting into an evergreen model was a big change that really supported me. I would say it was one of the biggest changes to help my business grow to where it is now.

Another thing that helped my business was growing my team. To get from $10K, $20K, $50K months and so on, I definitely needed a team to help support me. I knew that it was something that I really needed for me to really quantum leap. I think my first hire was back in 2018. Since then I have continued to hire and I now have over ten amazing, amazing team members. I also have support coaches and team members inside of my programs. For example, when I first started my business, that first year when I started the Fierce Business Academy, it did not run and did not look the way that it does now. I like to share this a lot with my clients inside of the Academy so I can show them what the program used to look like when it first started, because it definitely doesn't need to look perfect and beautiful. I didn't even have a coursehub when I launched my Academy for the first time. Once we did have a coursehub we gave anyone who had been a prior client in the Academy access to that coursehub as well. Before everything was in the Google drive folder, and that's totally okay. You can have everything set up in a Facebook group if you want to. My program did not run the way it runs now. I was the only coach inside and I by myself could not support more than eight to ten people at a time. I knew that I wanted to create an even bigger impact, so that was one reason why I wanted to shift into evergreen. I wanted to help people 365 days a year. This is also why I added in support coaches. I by myself could not support more than about eight to ten people at a time. I wanted to be able to support more and more, so that's why we have support coaches in my programs. Even inside of my highest level, even with my private clients, they get access to and support from my own team members, such as my Facebook ads manager. Inside of Fiercely Scale, my higher-level mastermind where I help you scale from six figures to multiple six figures, my clients get access to and hop on calls with my Facebook ads manager and my OBM for systems, strategy, operations, running your team, and things like that. There's so much that I'm being supported with inside of my programs too, like with this evergreen model, support coaches, and my team.

There were definitely quite a few things that I changed as I continued to grow my business, but I would say the last thing was really amplifying my systems on the back end so that it could handle and support everything coming in. This helped with handling all of the support emails coming in from both people wanting to work with us and clients, because we answer both in our support email. This also helped with keeping track of all of our clients behind the scenes as our programs continue to grow. I like to have a pulse on how the programs are running and things that we can do to improve things. So amplifying our system so that we could really support the influx of leads coming in every single week and also support our clients and support the growth that we knew was on its way was really important. It's something that we're always doing. We’re always prepping for that next level, and I'm going to talk about this in just a few minutes. We're always wanting us to be prepped for the next level and also prepping our clients for it too. For example, inside of our Academy we help our clients start their businesses, start signing high-ticket clients, and scale to $5K months. At the very end of it, we start to help them get ready for the $10K month level. Same thing inside of my Six-Figure Fierce Business Mastermind. You don't necessarily need Facebook ads to scale to $10K months. I personally didn't even touch Facebook ads until I was at about $20K months, maybe even $25K months in my business. Even though it's not needed, we have that as part of the bonus section. We have some information and some modules and things like that for how to get ads started, that way you have some type of information and have some support there when you are ready for that in the next level. We are always wanting to prep you for the next level, that way you don't crash and burn when you hit that level because your back end and your systems can actually handle it and support it. We do lots of that because we're always wanting to help prep you for the next level. We are always miles ahead in our business for that exact reason.

Things My Business Needed From Me

Now let’s talk about some requirements that my business needed from me. I would say the biggest thing is to let the strategy work, give it enough time. If you start a new program, or open doors for a new launch, or maybe you’re launching a new training series, whatever it is, give it more than two weeks before you pivot and feel that strategy isn't working. I typically like to give a strategy 90 days because at the end of the day almost any strategy can work, you just have to actually stick to the strategy for more than a few weeks and let it work it. I usually like to give any kind of strategy 90 days before adjusting anything or going back and taking a look at, okay, how does this make sense? Why are these the results? What can we tweak? I like to give it at least 90 days or so.

Besides that, I would say a requirement that my business needed from me was continuing to step out of my comfort zone. There was no way that I could scale to the next level unless I stepped out of my comfort zone and did new things that scared me and really did things that I hadn't done before. As I mentioned a few minutes ago on things that I started to change, a requirement was also having to prep ahead of time. I never wanted my business to burn out or go into firefighting mode. We're always ready for that next level in terms of basically everything. With launches, for example, we always have a minimum of the next three months planned out for launches. We know what that's going to look like and the content that we're going to be putting out there. We’re always planning ahead for a bigger project. Every quarter we have quite a few big projects that my team and I work on. For example, in 2019 and 2020 some of our bigger projects were creating our long-term funnels. Funnels take time to build. Some of our funnels took anywhere from six months to nine months to build out and test. You get to continue to tweak and continue to test because things are shifting. Social media is shifting. Things are changing. That's really part of entrepreneurship, really being able to adapt and pivot when you need to. You might need to start to shift your messaging in your funnel if things are changing and things aren't the same as they were in the world or social media. You've really got to be open to some of that. I've definitely learned over the years that that is something that does happen and it will happen. Instagram wasn't here however many years ago. TikTok wasn’t here however many years ago. We've got to be open to adapting and pivoting, including your messaging. If a funnel is working today it doesn't necessarily mean it'll still work two years from now, so you have to be continuing to test. Look at the numbers. See what's working and what's not working. Try to determine where the gap could be after you've given it enough time to really work it. So stepping out of my comfort zone, giving it enough time, continuing to move forward and keep going, not giving up, really doing things I hadn’t done before, and trying to prep as much as I can ahead of time so that we can continue to do everything else that we were doing in the business.

We have touched on so much today. We have talked about how my business has shifted each year, things I needed to change as my business grew, requirements my business needed from me, and so much more. I had mentioned at the beginning of today's episode that this Thursday there will be another brand new episode, a shorter episode for you, so get ready for that. Then, of course, next Monday you'll also have our typical normal schedule podcast episode as well. You will get another double feature next week as well. We will see you for the next episode Thursday morning bright and early on the Fierce Business Babe Podcast.

Topics we cover include:

What my business looked like when I started
How my programs have evolved
Ways my one-on-one coaching has shifted

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(09:36) The beginning stages of my business

(13:45) What my second year of business looked like

(16:28) Switching to an evergreen model

(20:44) Things I needed to change as I grew my business

(26:54) What my business required from me

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