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Win With Paid Ads
101: $1.4M to $7M: The Exact Decisions Powering Our Growth and Our 2026 Plan
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Welcome to the Win with Paid Ads podcast for small business owners, entrepreneurs and really anyone who has anything you want more people to find. Whether you're starting from ground zero or scaling an eight figure business, you are exactly who this podcast was created for. Because you being the best kept secret helps no one. Right? That's why in every episode, I'll show you how you can use paid ads to hit your goals 10 times sooner. It's time you finally learn how to win with paid ads. You or someone on your team can do this. I'll show you how to score and be known by more. Let's get started. Today we're going to talk about how we took our business in 2024 from 1.4 million to in 2025, 6.5 million. And how in 2026 we're going to take this thing to greater than 10 million. And I just know it. This is our year. So I want to give you like, like, honestly, a rapid fire reflection of when I was looking back and saying, what did we do that led us to scale? And so I wrote down 10 things. So I'm gonna share with you 10 things about how we're scaling and I actually made something up. Like I made another. Like, the more that I dive in and actually think and reflect, it's crazy how I can put together the reasons why something happens so clearly. I think very often we just go do the thing and we forget to look back at the thing. Like, maybe it's a sales call that you did, maybe it's an ad that you did, maybe it's a video that you wrote, maybe it's an email that you sent. How often do you actually go back and look at the thing and say, did do this? Well, how can I reflect and be better? And one of the things I'm training my brain to do and I'm training my team and our brain to do is to default to reflect. And the way that you train someone to default to reflect is you actually make the reflecting a habit so that it becomes a default. And so what I'm gonna do on today's episode is share with you the 10 things that we are doing to scale past 10 million this year. And then I'll also share a few other little bonus nuggets of extra things that we're doing. But when I outline these, these are things that I truly believe led to the growth of. And then I'll share with you the little nuggets for this year too. So by the way, before you continue on on this episode, make sure that you've gotten your ticket to the Win with Paid Ads challenge. And that is an opportunity for me to get to see you one on one and be able to give you personalized feedback, especially when you get a platinum ticket. That platinum ticket gives you an access and an opportunity for me to actually answer specific question that you have for your business. And you'll be in the room with other six, seven and eight figure entrepreneurs. It is invaluable. Get your ticket below. Let's dive in to this. Okay, so the first thing about how we are scaling, how we were able to grow the business so well is we make decisions quickly. And for those of you that have never listened to an episode before, you've never heard this, but for those of you that have, I will say this and it will. I'll probably make a shirt about it eventually. Actually, we are making some merch, so just know that that's coming. But one of the things I love is that indecision is a prison. But you gain traction when you take action. You've heard me say that before. There are different types of people and I absolutely understand and respect. Sometimes it's going to take other people and maybe you, if you're listening, a little bit of a slower time to make a decision. But I will tell you this. The rooms that I've been getting in that have these seven, eight and even nine figure entrepreneurs, they buy like you can almost see it, the six figure versus seven, eight, nine, they all make decisions. As every step of the ladder goes up, they make decisions even more quickly because they don't have time to be an indecision. And they know that there's really no bad decision. Every decision is an education. And so what I found is the people who are achieving the most, they are actually just deciding things more quickly and putting things into action more quickly. It is a speed thing. And it's so funny because I remember laying in a tanning bed one time. Don't judge me. I was laying in a tanning bed listening to Tony Robbins and I'll never forget is when I first started my business. And all I hear is him on the other side and he's like, take massive action. Okay. He doesn't sound like that. Take massive action. Okay. I still can't do it. He has a voice like anybody else's. Just go with it. But he's really like, you take massive action and then you do it again. You take massive action, you go to a different direction. Take massive action. And you're like, oh, this is working. And I just remember thinking about like when I was closed my eyes laying there in that tanning bed, I remembered thinking of a clock. Okay, so I was envisioning a clock. And you know how a clock, if you, if you close your eyes and think about it, it, it has like 12. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. If you look at the difference between 12 and 1 and 1 to 2, that little triangle, that little sliver of the pie between the hours, I envisioned in my brain that every, with every single little triangle, you're taking massive action. And out of the 12, you're gonna find one that sticks. And so many people, they'll get through massive action. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And then they're like, why is this not working? And that's when they give up and being able to make a decision quickly that this is or isn't working. That's the only caveat I have here is some people, they're taking massive action. Yes. And you do keep taking massive action. But some people are taking so much action that they're not letting anything gain traction. So you have to be really intentional of take massive action toward one specific thing and keep doing that specific thing and other actions for that specific thing. That's one thing that I really feel like helped us. Number two is investing on anything and everything before we are ready. Whether it is hiring, whether it is advertising, whether it is paying an expert. We did it before, I felt like we were ready. And that has paid off indefinitely because it has allowed us to pay for speed. And so what I think in my brain is I'm like, okay, I would rather not have this money. I'd rather have the asset or this decision or this thing or this knowledge. So how quickly can I speed up my results by just paying like crazy and investing before we're ready? So that has been honestly a game changer for our business and last year. And number three is paying for expertise with the four Cs. So these four Cs, these are huge. These are huge for you if you're trying to grow a company. And so I wrote down the first one is the C of coaching, getting other people. So if you think about coaching, that is paying other people for their knowledge. The second C is connection. Paying to be around other people who have connections. For instance, I invested five figures to have someone with an eight figure business come to train my mastermind people in February of this year. And I know that, yes, I am, I am paying for their keynote, their topic. But I'm also paying to build a connection with that person because I will get to connect with that person. And the way that my brain works is I'm like even five minutes of just one on one time with this person could allow me to show them how I can also help them and they can help me. And even if I can't help them or they're like not in a place where they need my services, they will know someone who is. And it could be an affiliate and a partnership. And every connection, every conversation is worth it. And so the first thing is coaching. The second thing is connection. So paying to get advice and then paying to connect and paying to be around people who are connected, that is number two is connections. The third thing I want to pay for is that we paid for that I truly believe helped scale our business so quickly was community. So getting in other people and being in community with other people who were either at my level or layer or above. So if you are about to be invest in a program, say you're about to invest in my mastermind. I have a mastermind and I have two masterminds. One is you have to have a six figure business. One, you have to have a seven or eight figure business. And I have people that when I first started my mastermind and made it seven and eight figures, she was like, I'm just freshly seven. And I was like, great. You need to be around the eight because you will elevate quickly when you're with people that are at a higher level than you. And so and simultaneously it's nice to be in people who are at a similar level than you because they might be just one little step ahead to give you an idea so that you can get feedback. And you also just feel so validated the way that at our hall of Fame retreat for our seven and eight figure entrepreneurs in December, we had this one moment and it was a really, really, really special moment. And all of us, or not all of us, I would say most of us in the hall of Fame had children. And one of the challenges that we were able to identify was how we feel this guilt associated with the the time that we spend on our business versus the time we spend with our kids. And I've never had a room of that many successful people that we were all able to have a moment and be like, oh, this is a thing that you're feeling really struggling with. And we were literally able to help each other as humans through something we were all really struggling with. And I just feel like that was so special. That's why community matters. Because sometimes you feel like you're isolated, like, am I the only one struggling with this? And just feeling seen and validated and not feeling and guilt was just, it was, it was a really special moment. So. And these are very successful people, seven and eight figure businesses. And we're like, yeah, this is what we're struggling with. So that community really matters. And then D, that we invested in. So paying. So I, I said that, you know, These are the 10 ways we scaled. One, making decisions quickly. Two, investing before ready. Three, is paying for expertise with the four Cs. The fourth C, so it's community, connection, sorry, coaching connection. Community. The fourth is career building. And that is paying for people who have skills and values and beliefs and ideas that you don't to be a part of your company. I am really thinking about now, especially in 2026, how can I pay people that are smarter than me? I want to learn from everybody else. That for me and my team, we all just want to learn and be better and be challenged. And the way that we're going to do that is just paying for career building, getting people to actually want to build their career here and nowhere else. So Those are the four Cs that we invested in that I really feel like helped us grow last year. So the fourth thing out of the 10 is taking feedback like crazy. If we were defensive, if we were not open to feedback, we would never be able to make our product the best advertising training product that exists. There's nowhere else. And so we are so receptive to feedback and we apply it very quickly. My team and I will know this and even my clients actually complimented me, which I thought was very freaking kind. So for those of you that are listening, that have given me this feedback, I hope you know how much I genuinely appreciate it. They'll be like, hey, I watched you change feedback and like change the program this year. And I got more than I paid for because you sold me on XYZ and I got this and it was so much better and different. And I just, that that's my goal is to continue to make it better. So taking feedback, feedback like crazy. I believe that you can't get feedback if you're not doing something to get feedback on or asking for the feedback. And so if you're not getting feedback from your clients, your customers, on your team, on what you could be doing differently, you are missing out on making your product the best. And that's what we're all about up in here. How can we make this thing better? And how can we just invest to make it the best? Number five is making our product better than everybody else's. So I know four is, is we take feedback like crazy. Five is we make our product better than everybody else's. We work so hard to make the client experience the absolute best. And it is not perfect, because in my brain, it's never going to be so. It is always going to be something. I'm like, we could make this better. We could make this better. How can we make it better? How can we make it better? And you know what? Nobody wants to be a part of something that's just staying about the same. I'm reading this book right now. It's called the Science of Scaling. And it basically says if your company isn't rapidly growing, then it's probably slowly dying. And so being able to say, how can. What can we do to make our product better than everybody else's? Even this year, we've already implemented things that are making our. That is allowing our clients to win with their paid ads even better and even sooner. That is something that we've really been working on is how can we just be better than anyone else who could teach ads? And the good news is, every time someone says that they've taken another cheap ads course somewhere else, I'm like, tell me about it. Tell me about your experience. Tell me, what was the pain point? What was the challenge? And I'm like, okay, we're gonna do everything we can, and that's why ours is better. So number six, one of the reasons that we grew is admitting that we're wrong and admitting when we're wrong. And I'm the first to do it. So I read this book called Extreme Ownership. I'll link to that book below this episode. Extreme Ownership. It's really good. And one of the things that I've done since reading this book is when something doesn't go well with a client or with a team. Team member. Because I think so often we talk about all the good. And I'm gonna be honest, I have the best clients and the best team that exist. And so 95% of the time, things are absolutely amazing. And 5%, it's just like normal human stuff. And you're like, this is not going well. I don't like this. I wanna make it better. And oftentimes I think I've said this before, I get frustrated when people don't read my mind. And I'm like, that is the most unrealistic expectation you could ever have. You will. If you're expecting people to read your mind, you will always be disappointed. And so me being able to like take ownership and say, you know what? I bet it's because I never communicated this. I bet it's because I never made, made this clear or asked questions or was curious or got feedback. Me being able to say, yep, I know this isn't what it should be. That's also my fault and what can we do to fix it? So being able to admit when you're wrong is a big thing that I feel like has helped us. Number seven is knowing that everything is data. So in my opinion, nothing is good or bad. It is simply just data that helps us inform what we're gonna do or not do. I think so often people really get sidetracked. They're like, well, this is going wrong and this is going wrong. I'm like, great, what an opportunity for you to be able to say, how can we make this better? What can we do about this? What could we have done differently? So just knowing that everything is data. And remember I'm gonna make a shirt about this eventually and it's gonna say data over drama. Don't tell me you feel like your ads aren't working. Give me the data. Are the ads working? Are you getting clicks? Are you not getting conversions? It like, let's really dissect this and just being so clear and knowing that it's, it's actually good when your ads aren't converting because it gives us an opportunity to say, what can we fix? Cause there is always a next move. Number eight is making other people win our number one priority. So I actually said this on a team meeting recently. We're reading this book called Unreasonable Hospitality and apparently everybody else on the planet has read this one but me. So if you haven't, I'll also link that book below this episode. So Unreasonable Hospitality, there's this one thing that is that. Okay, I'll give you the context of this book. So I'm in a mastermind about short term rentals. And for those of you that do or don't know, I am, I have a short term rental. I may also link the admin. There's gonna be a bunch of things linked below. But I have a short term rental and we advertise it directly. So we don't actually post on Airbnb or VRBO to fill the it. We actually advertise it straight, direct. And I'm in a mastermind where that's exactly what they do, is they Built their business and they teach on just the operations of building a short term rental. And one of the things that they do is advertise. And I was like, yeah, this makes complete sense. So of course I knew how to do that. So I was excited to do the short term rental. I'm probably gonna have a whole episode on how that's going, and I'll give you an update later. But they mentioned that book, Unreasonable Hospitality, because when I experienced their property at Built Farm, it was next level. And I was like, where did this come from? And they referenced this book. And so I went and read it and it was about what is. I think it's called, like a Levison Madison Avenue or something like that. It's one of the top restaurants in New York City, a fine dining restaurant. And how they ranked number one, basically, is the story. And it's about unreasonable hospitality going beyond what you would think is absolutely reasonable and just doing the next level, which is actually one of our core values as a company is next level. And so everything, it's like off brand to just be, yeah, this is good. Like, we want to be great. That's why I say we choose to be the best on purpose and for a purpose. So one of the things that I really feel like helped us is we don't win if our clients don't win. And so I told the team, I was like, I can't take care of you if we don't take care of the clients. Because if our clients are absolutely killing it and winning, that gives us the opportunity for us to invest in the team and help every single goal that we all have for our lives be achieved. But if our clients are failing and they're canceling or they're unhappy and they're not getting results like our dreams are our splat, right? So I was like, our number one priority has to be our clients and so obsessing over other people's problems so that they can win. One of the things that says that unreasonable hospitality, which is so dang good is it says that it is kind of a little bit selfish to take care of other people because it feels so good. Like, you know when you just deliver a great experience or you do something so kind for someone and they're so appreciative, it's like, that felt good. It feels good to give. It feels good to take care of other people. And so that is our obsession over here at the Paid ads Academy. Number nine on what I feel like helped us scale is buying back my time. And then Slowly actually buying back my team's time. So I would be like, okay, Laura Beth, what are you doing that you should not be doing? And how can we invest in having someone else own and come onto the company to take that off your plate? Even my executive assistant, her plate got so full that there was someone who is her friend that actually works in our. On our business and helps with the kids. And we were like, hey, I wonder if she could just do these. These tasks, because these are ones that would give Rose space to do X, Y, Z. So it's all like, how can we have room for strategy and then slowly be able to delegate for people to execute? But honestly, me being able to take the cooking and the cleaning and even the hiring Rose for as my executive and personal assistant, which, if you haven't seen that episode, you need to go listen to it a couple episodes back. Buying back my time gave me time to be able to think about the systems and process and team and strategy and coaching that and even the content like this that I wanted to create that would help our clients elevate and win. So my role as CEO right now is content coaching and being creative about how we can grow the company. Like, those are. Those are my. My lanes that I'm really trying to spend time in. And so I really don't feel like we would have scaled if we hadn't invested in being able to buy back some of my time so that I was spending my time on the things that are most worth it for my time. See, number. Okay, so that was number nine, buying back my time. And then number 10, how did we scale ads and more ads and better ads? So we spent more on advertising than we've ever spent, and we got more revenue than we ever had. And one of the things I'm gonna do in 2026 is continue to have more ads and better ads. And with the Andromeda update on Meta, Meta simply needs more ads. Now, I'll tell you, when I say more ads, I don't just mean more ads and meta ad sets. I mean more ads on Spotify, more ads on LinkedIn, more ads on TikTok, more ads on YouTube, more ads on Google, more ads on Amazon. I'm like, I want to be every single place that my prospects and clients are and where my competitors are. So I just. I want to be seen everywhere. And that's actually what makes us different as a company at paid Ads Academy is it is more than just Facebook and Instagram. It is all of these different places of shoot, pinterest I want to be everywhere. So in 2026, one of our goals is more ads, better ads and more platforms. So a few other things we're doing in 2026 to scale, that's different. So, you know, those 10 things were what actually led us to grow last year. 2026 is. What are we doing this year? Well, obviously more ads and more team and being able to invest in people with long, deep experience. So what I'm looking for now as we grow is people that have been doing the same thing in a same department or area for 10 to 20 years. Like, I want to start saying, what problems have you solved in companies exponentially larger than mine? Like, I want to have a community of leaders and people that have said no for the last 20 years. I helped scale this company to $500 million. And this is how we did it. I want me and my team to have access to that level of knowledge. So that's one thing that we'll do to scale in 2026. So PR or sorry, growing the team, more ads. PR. So we actually one of our clients, if you know me, you know I love supporting my clients. And so I wear their clothes, I buy their jewelry, I do their photography, hired them as a PR agency. So one of my clients invested in our ads training. And I was preparing for one of the calls and I was looking at her website and I was like, wait, she was like a Hollywood reporter. Wait, this is so good. And so I got to know her, I watched her video and her content and I was like, this could be the person. So my team met with her, went off, and we decided it was, it was going to be a great partnership. So pr, I've never. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna pay for exposure one way or the other. And thank God I know how to control the speed of paid advertising. Cause in my brain, it's guaranteed. It's like for you, when you have a method and once you figure out how advertising works and you have something that people are buying, especially if you have a seven or eight figure business or even a multiple six figure business, if you know people want what you're selling and you're actually selling it, being able to advertise and speed it up, it's gonna take a little bit of time to figure it out. But when you do, oh my gosh, the rewards, it's like you actually can control. Just takes time. So now that I feel like I have control on the number one most important thing, which is the speed and Actually having a lever in my business now, my brain is like, okay, what are these other lanes of opportunity? Organic exposure, PR and press. Those are like the other cherry on tops that I've never dabbled into. And so that's something we're going to do. I also want some affiliate partnerships. So in 2026, I'm trying to find people with large audiences that can have an affiliate partnership with me that I can refer business to them or and vice versa, they can share my challenge link and my opportunities and be able to just people that have other entrepreneurs and business owners and their audiences that want to get some massive rewards from having a sick affiliate partnership with us because we help so many people that would grow our impact. So anybody listening, if you feel like that qualifies, if that's you, if you're like, I have a massive audience, I'd love to figure out what that partnership could look like. If you do have a massive audience, please reach out. I'd love to partner with you. So that's one of my goals for 2026. The other thing is spend more on ads than ever before. On more channels we talked about. I'm gonna do more LinkedIn this year. I wanna do more LinkedIn organic and LinkedIn paid ads. It's actually one of the things that we teach. So I'm really excited just to expand into that more. Fun fact. I actually love writing. I love writing LinkedIn, I love writing emails and I just wanna create space so that I can create the content. Cause it's in my brain and I just, I wanna be able to get it out and then more long form content like this, like this podcast and YouTube. I'm just gonna keep doing more of this. I think there's a day where I would really love to have more than one episode a week. We'll see. But what I do know is I value like the consistency. So trying to figure out what that could look like. But having more long form content is my goal. And then we talked about more people and deeper experience. So that's it. That's where we're at. Those are the things that I feel like grew our company so well. And I know like this, that's the crazy thing is you have to have a little bit of a crazy level of unreasonable belief that you can do something even though it doesn't make sense. And so I just, I actually think it does make sense. But I know that we can do 10 million this year. So I hope that you'll just follow along on this journey of going from three years ago. I mean, I think I really want to, like, think back for just a moment. In 2020, December of 2022, I quit my full time job when I was six weeks pregnant. And my first year in my own business in 2023, I did 250,000 in revenue. In 2024, we did 1.4 million. And I had one teammate for the whole year and then added two in the last month of the year. In 2025, we did 6.5 million and had nine more teammates. So we on average almost hired one person per month, which is crazy. And in 2026, I see us surpassing 10 million and having greater than 20 people on the team. That is what I see. That is the vision. So I'm reporting live here in January of 2026. This is our goal. So follow along and we'll see where we end up at the end of the year. So, Don, click the link below, get your ticket to the Win with paid ads challenge. I would love to get to meet you and see you live and for you to be able to really dive into the five things that you have to have for your ads to win so that we can teach you actually how to bring your paid advertising in house, whether you or someone on your team does it. So click the link below and I cannot wait to see you on the next episode.