The $500K Blueprint: What to Audit, Fix, and Focus On Now

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Amy Porterfield Show
Episode Title: The $500K Blueprint: What to Audit, Fix, and Focus On Now
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Host: Amy Porterfield
Guest: Jessica Marks

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of The Amy Porterfield Show, Amy Porterfield teams up with Jessica Marks, a five-time Forbes business advisor and host of the podcast Millions Were Made. Together, they delve into the strategies and mindsets necessary for online business owners aiming to scale their ventures to the $500K milestone and beyond. The conversation is tailored for entrepreneurs who are serious about growing their revenue sustainably without merely increasing their hustle.

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Setting the Stage: Belief in Success

Amy Porterfield kicks off the discussion by addressing a common barrier among business owners—the belief that scaling requires an insurmountable amount of time and effort. She emphasizes that often, minor tweaks in marketing and positioning can lead to significant profit trajectories.

"If you just changed a few words, one, you could charge more, two, two, you are going to target your ideal customer or client a lot easier. And three, the trajectory of profit is going to be much higher."
—Amy Porterfield [00:11]

Jessica Marks shares her reflections on the importance of mindset, pondering how acting with the conviction of inevitable success from day one could have altered her entrepreneurial journey.

"I just wonder how I would navigate things differently... I think my confidence would have showed up faster in my business if I just assumed it's already done."
—Jessica Marks [00:36]

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The Power of a Business Audit

The core of the episode revolves around conducting a comprehensive business audit—a strategic tool that enables entrepreneurs to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within their businesses.

Amy Porterfield explains that a business audit mimics the due diligence process used by potential buyers or brokers. It involves meticulously reviewing all data and operations to ensure accuracy and uncover areas for improvement.

"There might be thousands of other companies and competitors in your industry, maybe millions... but it is going to be custom tailored to how you've built your business."
—Amy Porterfield [13:24]

Jessica Marks highlights the necessity of such audits even for businesses not yet at the million-dollar mark, emphasizing that understanding internal operations can prevent future scaling disasters.

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Case Study: Guiding "Jane" to $500K

To illustrate the audit process, Amy and Jessica walk through a hypothetical scenario involving "Jane," a business owner aiming to double her revenue from $250K to $500K. They dissect Jane's current operations, offers, and customer base to identify actionable steps for growth.

Key Areas of Focus:

1. Offer Structuring and Price Optimization

   • Assessing Jane's digital courses and membership offerings to ensure they align with customer needs and maximize profitability.
   • Considering an ascension model to increase the lifetime value of each customer.

   "We could look at the curriculum that's in this course and we could break it out into two to three different courses... now we've turned it into a $15,000 product with a lifetime value of... 15000."
   —Amy Porterfield [21:49]

2. Internal Marketing Strategies

   • Leveraging existing customer bases through win-back campaigns and alumni programs to generate additional revenue without the high costs of acquiring new customers.

   "There's a lot of revenue sitting in both of those containers and they typically convert much quicker than obviously a cold lead..."
   —Amy Porterfield [24:29]

3. Expense Auditing and Strategic Investments

   • Shifting the mindset from viewing expenses as costs to viewing them as investments that can generate returns.
   • Identifying areas where spending can be optimized to support growth without unnecessary expenditure.

   "We are never looking at an investment or a cost or an expense as what is this going to cost me? We're always looking at it as what is this going to make me?"
   —Amy Porterfield [30:31]

4. Team Building and Role Definition

   • Determining the right time to hire and identifying key roles that will support scaling efforts.
   • Ensuring that each team member's role is clearly defined to prevent operational inefficiencies.

   "How do we accommodate that the whole way through? The other thing that Jane's probably not doing..."
   —Amy Porterfield [34:45]

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Mindset Shifts for Scaling

Both Amy and Jessica emphasize that scaling a business transcends strategy—it requires significant mindset shifts. Entrepreneurs must cultivate resilience, openness to learning, and a willingness to delegate effectively.

"Mindset is, it's everything, everything right outside of the strategy."
—Amy Porterfield [49:50]

Jessica Marks adds that being coachable is a critical trait for success, as it allows entrepreneurs to adapt and grow continuously.

"If you're coachable, you're already winning right there."
—Jessica Marks [53:19]

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Final Words of Wisdom for "Jane"

In wrapping up, Amy encourages "Jane" to recognize the untapped potential within her current operations and to implement small, strategic changes that can yield substantial growth.

"Small changes, massive impact, and it's not going to require more of Jane. It's going to require Jane to put the right people in the right seats to keep this growing and scaling."
—Amy Porterfield [56:01]

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Conclusion

This episode serves as a valuable roadmap for online business owners aspiring to scale their revenues efficiently. By conducting thorough business audits, optimizing offers, leveraging internal marketing, controlling expenses, and fostering the right mindset, entrepreneurs like "Jane" can confidently navigate the path to $500K and beyond. Amy Porterfield and Jessica Marks provide actionable insights and encouragement, reinforcing that strategic adjustments and a steadfast belief in success are pivotal for sustainable business growth.

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Notable Quotes:

• "If you just changed a few words, one, you could charge more, two, two, you are going to target your ideal customer or client a lot easier. And three, the trajectory of profit is going to be much higher."
  —Amy Porterfield [00:11]

• "Mindset is, it's everything, everything right outside of the strategy."
  —Amy Porterfield [49:50]

• "If you're coachable, you're already winning right there."
  —Jessica Marks [53:19]

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For those eager to apply these strategies, consider conducting a self-audit of your business and explore resources like Jessica Marks' Tailored Premier and Amy Porterfield's Millie Club for further guidance and support.

Transcript

[Amy Porterfield]

Hey there.

[Jessica Marks]

Welcome to the Amy Porterfield show.

[Amy Porterfield]

Oftentimes, business owners feel it's going to be this huge lift to create something new or reposition or market something differently when in all reality, if they just changed a few words, one, they could charge more, two, two, they are going to target their ideal customer or client a lot easier. And three, the trajectory of profit is going to be much higher.

[Jessica Marks]

In preparing for this episode today, I had a thought. What if 16 years ago when I started this online business, what if I thought this business is going to be a success no matter what, I'm going to figure it out. It's going to be a multimillion dollar business. So starting from day one, I'm going to act as though I already know it's going to be a success. I just wonder how I would navigate things differently, how I would, you know, take the, the challenges and the mess ups, how I would look at them differently if I already told myself, oh, no matter what happens, I know this business will be a multi million dollar success. I feel as though I would have made decisions differently. I would have beat myself up a whole lot less. I would have positioned myself probably differently. I think my confidence would have showed up faster in my business if I just assumed it's already done in the morning. This is such a side note, but every time I wake up before my feet hit the floor, I say today is going to be a great day. So it's already done, it's already done. I've already decided the universe is on my side. Today is going to be a good day. So it is done. And so what if I thought about my business in that way as well? And you know, it's easy to say that now 16 years later because in that first year I was so insecure. Everything was so confusing. I had no clue if I'd have to go grovel back for my nine to five job or not. But let's say even year two or three, many of you are in year two, three or beyond. What if starting today you made the decision, oh, I know this is going to be a very successful business. So it is done. Now let's operate from that knowing. I just think we would show up differently. I work with a lot of people that are around the 500k mark and want to get to the million dollar mark. It's to a program I called the Millie Club. And sometimes I notice that the women in there, they are wanting to make more money and we're putting together a plan of how to get to a Million dollar year. And so they're starting to think, okay, maybe I should add this to the business or add that or change this. And I love that way of thinking. Yeah, we've got to think about what do we need to add, subtract, tweak, of course, all day long. Those are important conversations. But, but what I see happening sometimes is that they agree to add something that they don't even want to do. So they'll say, well, maybe I should have this front end membership and it's going to be $47 and I'll let everybody who wants to come in and it will be the first place they join and then I'll give them this kind of content and show up in this way and I'll say, do you want to do that? Is that exciting? I love the idea, but do you want to do that? And they'll say, not really, but I'm really, I just really want to hit this goal. But if she believed, oh, this is going to be successful no matter what, I think that some of my Millie members would make different decisions because they don't have to do this or have to do that. They're creating a business on their terms. So I remind them many times, let's make decisions that light you up, that get you excited, that are sustainable, that you'll want to do two, three, four years from now because, because no matter what, you're going to be successful. So let's just put that out there and now let's make decisions from there. Don't you think that you would make different decisions if you adopted this idea that you're going to be successful in your business no matter what? It's only time. You only have to wait for it to happen. But it is happening. It's already in motion. Just think about that for a moment when especially the next time that you're creating something, you're making a hard decision, you are at a crossroads that you need to kind of choose, say, okay, but if I firmly believed this will be a multimillion dollar business, probably sooner than I even can imagine, if I firmly believe that, how would I choose now? And I think that you're going to choose differently, more confidently. You're going to choose more in line with your values and, and what lights you up and what supports your family, that's where I want you to come from. So why am I bringing all of this up? Well, today we're going to be talking about what it would look like to begin an audit of your business and really look at Some different areas that I know you will find incredibly valuable because my friend, I know you well and what it would look like to self audit. But when you listen to this episode with my special guest, I'll introduce her in a moment when you begin to self audit and I hope you do. And let me just tell you there could be a really cool chat GPT prompt that you could create to self audit. In fact, I'm going to do the research, I'm going to come up with it and I'll put it in my show notes. So the show notes for this episode. So amyporterfield.com 11 just the number 11. I will give you a really great prompt to take what you learn here today, but to expand it so that you can do a self audit of your business. Deal. Okay, so I'm just going to plant the seed now. Make sure to go to my show notes after you listen. But if you're going to do a self audit after this episode, and I hope you do in your mind tell yourself, okay, before I start this self audit, I will be a very successful business. Whether that's a million dollars, multimillion, maybe, maybe a half a million, whatever that means to you, I don't care. I just want you to know what success means to you and then believe it will happen. And now do the self audit from there. I think it will make a difference. So as I was preparing for this episode, that's what was going through my mind. And you know that I like to just share with you what's on my mind. Probably a little too much. Okay, so as we dive into this episode, I want to tell you about my special guest. The woman you're about to meet is a powerhouse. Her name is Jessica Marks. And she's not only a five time Forbes business advisor and host of the podcast Millions Were Made, she's also the founder of Tailored Premier and was named top female coach by Yahoo. Finance. So Jessica works exclusively with seven and eight figure founders, helping them scale their businesses with systems, structures and strategy. And, and get this, she's helped generate over eight figures in revenue annually for her clients. So eight figures in revenue growth annually for her clients. That, my friend, is a lot of money. But here's why I wanted her on the show today. Yes, she's brilliant, but she's also passionate about helping you create true wealth and freedom. And even though she typically works with entrepreneurs who are already at the million dollar mark and beyond, in today's episode, she's doing something really special. I know that many of you are not at the million dollar mark yet. But my friends, we already determined you're going to get there. So if that's inevitable, it's just happening, then I asked Jess to come here and break down how you even if you're not at that million dollar mark yet, but you'll get there can self audit your business using the same principles she uses for with her high level clients. And you're going to learn how to spot inefficiencies, uncover hidden opportunities. She's going to talk about those right out of the gate and start building a more scalable, sustainable business, even if you're a team of one. So I won't make you wait any longer. Let's welcome Jessica Marks. This is going to be a different episode than I've done in the past, which is what the goal is for this new podcast, the Amy Porterfield Show. So I've been really looking forward to this. But before we get into our audit, essentially can you tell people a little bit more about you?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes, absolutely. So I'm Jessica Marks. I am the main company I founded is Tailored Premier, but I also have my hands in several different ventures. At the moment. I am basically a retired healthcare executive. I was involved in a multibillion dollar startup and exited in 2017 when which inspired me to then launch my firm as I had just delivered newborn twins and did not want to get back into the game of working 100, 120 hour work weeks travel makes sense. Yes. And so I got really fortunate in that because I had just come off this, you know, tenure of a career as an executive. I was able to develop, establish and start a referral only business boutique advisory firm. We work only with multi million dollar companies. We come in, we do a full audit and assessment of the business as if I was buying it with my own money and really help founders, especially those who have had quick growth, understand what does the peak performance of the company look like, what needs to shift and change not only for them to either go to acquisition or name a new CEO, but for them to look really reap the benefits of being a founder. And that's freedom through wealth and through time. And we find that that's normally why entrepreneurs get into business is because they want those two assets in their lives and we're able to build a business that allows them both of those and then they can go on and start other companies. They can, you know, end up stepping out of their current company but still owning it. There's a lot of different opportunities for founders out there. And we help identify which is the right route for them, their personal goals and what their company is capable of.

[Jessica Marks]

Okay, so fantastic, because in the intro when I was setting up this episode, I had mentioned that you work with companies that are making a million dollars or more, but the majority of my listeners are not there yet. They're going to get there, but they're not there yet. And so I wanted to do a special audit today for those that are listening that might not have that big a business, but their businesses are growing and they want to look at what, where the weaknesses and the strengths are and really figure out where they should be putting their focus. But before we get into a little role play, audit. And I've set it all up for you, so I'll give you the scenario and I know you're just going to hit it out of the park. But before we get there, can you talk a little bit about an audit, like break it down for us a little bit in terms of what does an audit look like and why is it a powerful tool for business growth?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. And I think that your listeners have a huge advantage and getting exposure to an episode like this at the stage of business that they're in. Because if you ask any 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, dollar 20 million dollar founder that comes to us, they wish they would have done this sooner. They wish they knew this information and what to be looking at. Because honestly, there's some companies that come to us and we won't even take them as a client because at that point there's too much to undo. There's too much, too many bad things, too much of a disaster for something that we would even want to take on. And so if you start a business, whether you're just in the infancy and you've only filed a DBA at this point, or you're doing a couple hundred thousand, what Amy and I are going to talk about today is something that you should be focused on no matter where your business is at. And this is how large corporations are running. They just have the team to be able to pull all of the information and data and the executives in each department to be responsible for it. But you are that center point right now for the company. And it's much easier at your size and really valuable. So when we come in and we start every business off with an audit, because I can't give you information unless I know all of the data that's pertinent to your specific business, there might be thousands of other companies and competitors in your industry, maybe millions of competitors in your industry. But it is going to be custom tailored to how you've built your business. The team that you have, the offers, the results that you get. All of that is really critical. And we find just not enough business owners understand what to pay attention to, how often to be reviewing it, and then what to do with the information.

[Jessica Marks]

Absolutely. I think these are a lot of questions that come up with with my students that are even making a few hundred thousand dollars a year.

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. So to give an idea is that when we do the due diligence process, which is what a firm would do if they were going to come in and buy it, or a broker if they were going to take you to market, we're running through all of that data and information, and it has to be accurate. And we often find a lot of the data and information that's housed within small businesses, even large businesses, too, is inaccurate. People make mistakes, Numbers get skewed. Too many hands are touching the numbers. And so it all paints a picture that really isn't reality. And then you're making decisions off of that. And so we're taking all of that information and we're looking at where are all the strengths, where are some of the opportunities, where are some major risks that we see? And then from there, we're writing the entire strategy of, okay, here's where you need to focus over the next quick wins, which will be 30 days. And then here's where you need to be focused. 60 to 90, 90 to 120, and then six to 12 months in order to really slowly turn the direction so that you don't sink the ship and then be able to go on that trajectory of what the end goal is of you as the founder.

[Jessica Marks]

Got it. Okay. So we're going to simplify all that today and really hopefully look at how my listeners can find the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, the holes in their business in order to essentially, at the end of the day, make more money, and then when they're ready, start scaling that business. So I'm going to set you up with a scenario. Let's pretend that we're talking about Jane. And Jane is bringing in about $250,000 a year, around a 35% profit margin. She has two digital courses and one membership. Okay. And she has an email list of around 4,000 people. And her goal is to hit 500k in revenue this year. So last year she did 250k. She wants to bring in 500k. Maybe that's like, way too high. And you're going to suggest against it. So I want to know all of the information you would tell her or ask her. I think there's probably a lot of questions you would ask her. So the goal of this episode is my listeners will go back and ask themselves these questions. But can you walk through how you might guide someone like Jane to do essentially a self audit of her business?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. Okay, so 250k wanting to get to 500k 35% profit, which is. Is good, especially if Jane's paying herself in that. But if she's not paying herself, we want to look at that might not be.

[Jessica Marks]

Yeah.

[Amy Porterfield]

Okay. Email list of 4,000, which is great. So a couple things is one, if I wasn't doing a full audit and I was just having a conversation with Jane, I would want to know what has happened in order for her to get to 250,000. So what were the wins? What are the programs that have worked really well? What are the clients and customers saying about these digital courses? What is the result that they're getting out of that initial sale and then what are they still craving? What are they wanting more of? What is the next step? And then how has she been positioning herself? Where are you priced amongst your competitors now? Now that you've done that 250k, this means that you have proof of concept, you have testimonials, you can leverage results that have come out of these programs. So this is actually a really great place to be. However, we see that this is the place where a lot of founders cap and they hit the ceiling. So we're going to cover a lot today. And I just want to preface this by if you are listening to this episode and you have questions about your business, you can DM me. I will voice message you back on Instagram. So I am happy to be a resource and answer these. Amy also has a phenomenal program that you should be in. But I'm going to answer a lot, as much as I can today with this little bit of information. So if we were looking at these two signature offers that she has with these courses, I would want to know based off of price, is it ever an objection? Are people just saying this is a no brainer, they're signing up and if so, I would want to look at the curriculum and see is there a way that we can restructure this? Because what this business needs is an ascension plan. What we do not want as founders is we do not want clients coming to us to be a one time purchase purchase and then move on because the cost of acquisition to get a new client, either time or money is costly. And so if there's a way that we can build an ascension model or an ascension ladder, and for those listening who might not know what that is, it's basically increasing the lifetime value of every single client that works with you. So I'm just going to make up my own numbers for Jane. Let's just say Jane's initial course right now is. Or her, her signature course is 997. What I would want to do in the conversations I would want to have with her is if we're seeing a lot of volume come in at 997, we may want to adjust the price point, which will automatically make you more profitable. That's one route we could go. Another route we could go is we could look at the curriculum that's in this course and we could break it out into two to three different courses. So maybe for 997 you are just getting all of the basics and the foundation. And then once you complete level one, you're then invited to come up into level two. And maybe level two is the second half of the course where it goes a little bit more in depth into business or wealth or health or whatever it is that your course is relevant to. Maybe they also get a little bit of additional support so they get to come to a group call. Now we've priced that at let's say four grand. Okay, so we got level one at 9 97, level two at 4,000. They complete that. They are seeing massive results. They love the community, they love you as the course creator and the person that's delivering these results. And then they get invited to come to maybe a one to one conference or a VIP day or a six month program that dives deeper at a much higher level. And let's just say we price that at 10 grand. I'm going to use basic numbers. So now we've taken this 997 course and we've turned it into a $15,000 product with a lifetime value of let's say, say one year. Right. They do the course and they do the second part and then the six months. So in one year now this client has generated 15k with the same cost of acquisition. And so we also then want to know, okay, now we've put people through this one year. Is there an alumni program that we can put them in where everyone who's gone through a one year pays a hundred bucks a month and they're in alumni, they commit to 12 months at a time, it's 1200 bucks. And now we're filling this reoccurring revenue model on the back end with all of our alumni, and we're getting thousands of people in there, generating a hundred bucks per person a month. And we are also creating raving fans who are then telling people like, once you go through, you know, Jane's program, you then become an alumni. And the alumni group is so valuable. There's so much business exchange or so much advice being had. And you've created this journey that you're able to take your clients on or customers that get these phenomenal results because you're focused on more than just an initial sale.

[Jessica Marks]

Yes. Okay, so here's what I'm loving about this. That you're not saying create a bunch of different programs to meet a lot of different needs of a lot of different ideal customer avatars, but you're saying you've worked really hard to attract this one student slash customer who spent 997. Now, let's create a plan where we can grow with them. Essentially, we can go on the journey with them and offer things beyond that initial course so that they're staying in your world longer. Because I think you and I both know it's hard to acquire a new customer slash student, but once they're in their world, your world, it's a whole lot easier to encourage them to go to the next level. Is that what you're thinking?

[Amy Porterfield]

It really is. And here's the thing. I think people throw the whole kitchen sink in the initial offer. So when their clients become overwhelmed, or their customers, they don't finish the course, or they don't finish finish the program, or they don't show up, or they don't implement because they are so overwhelmed with this information overload. I think two, we're seeing a trend, and it's a good trend of people not wanting to just make an investment and then be left on their own to really figure it out. They want longevity. They don't want to bounce around from course to course or service provider to service provider. And so you're really doing a disservice if you're not getting to know that customer so well. And where does she want to be a year from now, two years, three from years from now? And how do we accommodate that the whole way through? The other thing that Jane's probably not doing, because we see a lot of business owners make this mistake, is there's no internal marketing happening. So they're so focused on getting the next sale Selling the next course and just new customer, new customer, new customer. That what she doesn't realize is that over the last three, four years as she's built this $250,000 business, she has this whole container of purchasers that have believed in her enough and believed in the product enough to buy that initial course. So is there something that we can do for a win back campaign or is there something that we can offer this group like an alumni program or a digital download or a in person event? I mean, there's so different ways. We have a client in the health and wellness space who we audited at the end of last year. They had never done any internal marketing, had a large book of business. We did a win back, win back campaign in January and it generated 160,000 worth of sales in five days.

[Jessica Marks]

Wow. And so when you say internal marketing, that's kind of a new term that I've never really used before. Does that mean that you're marketing to the people you've already attracted from versus the external marketing?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. And there's two lists to pull from when it comes to internal marketing. There's false starts. So those who applied and then maybe finances got in the way life happened, they were very interested. They did a discovery call but never moved forward. So that's a container that are warm leads that need to be nurtured and that have a lot of opportunity because we know things become more of an issue for people and their viewpoint changes. Right. They're suffering in their business or their health or their, their weight loss, whatever it may be, is getting to the point now where they're so frustrated. If you are not the one staying in touch with them, they're going to see somebody else on social media and eventually make that purchase. So you need to be nurturing that container. But then you also have this other container and it's anybody and everybody who has ever spent a dollar with your business, you've already marketed to them, they've trusted you enough to make some level of investment. And if you just let that list die and you're not paying attention to it or thinking about what could we offer them or how could we bring them back in? Because we know people will go through a business program, a health program, a wealth program, and they'll do really well. But six months goes by and they fall off. So how can we check back in with them and say, what are you needing? We have this really great program that if you fall off track or you get behind or you need a little boost, come Join this program. It's different than the first one you purchased and here's how we get you back on track or whatever it may be. And so there's a lot of revenue sitting in both of those containers and they typically convert much quicker than obviously a cold lead sitting in your email inbox or on Instagram.

[Jessica Marks]

So I love the idea of an ascension model and really looking at who your customers are and can you explain expand their experience with you. What are some other areas if Jane is self auditing her business, what are some other areas that she needs to look at if she's looking to make more money this year?

[Amy Porterfield]

So I think innovation is huge. We find that at every level. Most founders don't have the time to be in that seat of innovation and be head up and looking at what is happening in the markets. What are our consumers maybe purchasing elsewhere that we could also bring in. That makes sense. It's parallel to what we already offer. And so what happens is, and I mean this, there's a prime example of, you know, the taxi companies and Ubers that I use all the time. The taxi companies dominated the market for so long that they never were thinking, how can we innovate this? How can we do it differently? How can we do it better? How can we serve the customer? Nor were they getting that feedback. And so if you're not having the space and time as a founder to really sit down and ask yourself, how can we tap into other markets? How can we serve our clients at a higher level? Maybe that's the same offer, but just a different type of client that is willing to pay more because the service level is higher. We often find they just get in this repetition of doing the same, same thing over and over again and they wonder why other companies are having so much more success in their industry than they are. And it's oftentimes because they're just not being innovated. So I would say that's number one is if you're so bogged down in the day to day, you really need to ask yourself what your role is as the CEO and are you fulfilling it and what is on your day to day that you shouldn't be doing and that you could pass off. I also think we see that and this is at every level as well. Most founders or their teams are not looking at the whole cycle beginning to end. So yes, maybe people are finding you on social media or podcasts, but it's gotta be deeper than that. It's what is the content that's converting what Are the most successful podcasts that you're going on or if you have your own podcast, what are the most successful episodes? We have some practitioner that's in the health and wellness space. And we started noticing a year ago that anytime she talked about perimenopause, she was getting a ton of engagement. We have to dive deeper into that and ultimately we created a whole program that now is very successful. Why? Because perimenopause is a very trending topic right now. Two, she already had the demographic of audience and three, we were able to strategically map out a strategy through marketing and positioning that didn't take away from her other offers. It just allowed us to take an offer she already had, rebrand it to attract somebody that is dealing with hormones. And so I think that oftentimes business owners feel it's going to be this huge lift to create something new or reposition or market something differently, when in all reality, if they just changed a few words, one, they could charge more, two, they are going to target their ideal customer or client a lot easier. And three, the trajectory of profit is going to be much higher.

[Jessica Marks]

Makes sense. Speaking of profit, I wanted to talk about expenses because some people listening, and maybe this isn't Jane's situation because she has a pretty healthy profit margin, but some of my students are struggling. They're spending time, too much money to make the kind of money they're making. So thinking of Jane and being at that 250k level, what could she do to audit her expenses or pay closer attention to is she spending her money in the right way? In the most strategic way?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. So one of the reframes that we always get our clients into, and this is something that my husband and I as serial entrepreneurs have just ingrained and now we teach it to our children. We're never looking at an investment or a cost or an expense as what is this going to cost me? We're always looking at it as what is this going to make me? So if I hire a $90,000 employee, how much could that $98,000 employee make? How many proposals could I send out? How many contracts could I secure and what would the margins be on that? If we're hiring a marketing agency, same thing. What is the capability of this marketing agency able to make the business versus if I didn't make this decision? I do believe in running lean. We are in a time right now where businesses can run lean with AI, with a lot of the system software's processes that have a minimal spend that can replace headcount that can replace place a lot of the heavy lifting that used to be required for marketing. There isn't really door to door sales. We know we can go online, show up, record a video and that could instantly end up in sales. And so really understanding that yes, a business has to spend money to make money but where do we need to leverage those investments in order to really grow and scale versus where are we investing money because we feel free pressured to or we feel like everybody else is doing it or we just think that we have to have this in the company to be successful when in all reality we see companies in the same sector that we work with and there's some founders, the way that they've structured their companies can run really lean where others, because of the offers that they have or the services they, they provide, they've now had to hire this really high headcount. And then we challenge them on is that necessary? And here's how we can look at that. So if you're somebody that's just starting out, you have a huge advantage because you see every single line item that hits your p. L. You feel it every time you write that check or swipe that credit card. As your business grows and scales, there's just a lot of expenses that just are required and they happen and they're on, you know, monthly retainers or you're, they're on autopay. And so sometimes at the end of the month you're like well wow, how did we get to 50,000 in expenses? And it requires a lot more auditing and due diligence versus you have a huge benefit when you're small is that stay in the know, know where that money's going, have a budget and then really be willing to adapt or invest in some of the areas that might not feel like they make sense but can really be the determining growth factor. Advisory, mentorship, coaching is one of them. It's scary. They cannot promise you an outcome. Right. Because a lot of it is on relevant to what you do with that information. But it is critical. Critical to getting to the million dollar mark.

[Jessica Marks]

Oh, amen to that. I talk about that all the time. I would not have the business I have today without investing in coaching and mentorship and masterminds and conferences. So I can get behind that all day long. But one of the things I was thinking about when you were discussing auditing in different ways, Jane doesn't yet have a team. She has a virtual assistant and she needs to hire her first real hire, whether it be a part time Contractor or full time employee, whatever it might be. I'm curious, what do you think Jane's first hire should be? Knowing that she creates and sells courses, has a membership, she doesn't really do big contracts or have clients, she has students inside her membership and courses. So I was curious about that. And number two, what are some of the big mistakes you've seen your bigger company owners make around team building so that maybe Jane can look ahead and say, okay, when I get closer to that point, I'm going to be really careful about these different elements related to hiring.

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. So the conversation that I would have with Jane is where are we going? Right. Where do you want to be? So if you want to be at 500,000, you need to run this company like it already has 500,000 in sales. And we find, and this is, I find $10 million founders making this mistake in that they hire for where they're at, not for where they're going, number one. Number two, they don't fully understand what the company needs, not just right now, but six to 12 months from now. So from a sale skill set perspective, from a culture perspective, from a capabilities and background of what this person needs to have in order to get them there. And so one of the exercises that we run through with our founders who are looking to name a COO or even a CEO is let's really hone in on what you're doing for the business over a two week period. Write down every single thing. Even if you're embarrassed to say that you're still doing this for the company. We need to know and then what is the time associated with that? And then we're able to go through and sometimes they have a list of over a hundred things and when I get done, there's about seven that I highlight that they should actually be doing. So then you've got this list of 93. Well, that's not a single role. So then we need to go through and extract, okay, if we were going to create a role out of this, you know, is it marketing or is it operations? Is it client experience? Like when we look at this, where is the majority line items can be funneled into an actual job description. So we don't make a wrong hire and expect this person to do all of the things in the business and they're not successful at it. And so for Jane, I would say it's either probably going to be a marketing so that she, she can really get as much exposure as possible and that they can be internally and externally marketing. Or it's going to be a client concierge role. Which means once the sale is complete, Jane's not having to focus on any of the deliverables. If someone can't find a login to the course, if somebody wants to promote into the next level, if somebody wants to, you know, make a suggestion or leave a testimony, that's all handled by the client concierge so she can really focus on new business development versus what is happening in the day to day. But the job description is so critical for that because we, that's one of the things that we audit is when we look at an org chart, we ask to see the job descriptions of what these people were hired for. Very rarely match up. And we're like, well, it's no wonder that operations is suffering because you have operations doing accounting and bookkeeping. And this person has zero experience experience in accounting and bookkeeping. So no wonder the numbers are skewed and the data is wrong. And so really teaching them that even a small business should have departments just like a corporate company.

[Jessica Marks]

That was big, what you just said. Even a small business should have different departments, just like a really big company. I got to tell on myself real quick. Years and years ago. So I've been in business for 16 years, so this might have been 10 years ago, but I was still making millions at that time. And I got to tell you the huge mistake I made. Number one, there was no. Nobody on the team, including me. I'm not the greatest with numbers. Nobody on the team that really understood numbers or our P and L. And so we, we had a bookkeeper, but that's very different than like a fractional cfo. We did not have that role in the company. I wish I had hired a lot sooner, but I had my poor assistant at the time. She was my personal assistant when I lived in Carlsbad. We had her pulling all the numbers and delivering them in a binder to me. And every single month. The poor girl had no idea what these numbers meant. She didn't understand finance. And she was so stressed every single month. And then I realized I have a multimillion dollar business and I literally have not one person in the company that even understands how to put together the numbers or analyze them. And so this is something I should have done a whole lot sooner. So just to kind of put a punctuation point on what you just said. First, the owner understanding her own numbers is so very important. And there's a lot of education online to help you. A P and L and making sure. That every month you're tracking appropriately and understanding your numbers. But number two, starting to think about potentially a fractional CFO, even part time, even 10 hours a week or whatever. 10 hours a month, even someone to help you navigate the numbers. Would you agree is a really important role?

[Amy Porterfield]

Absolutely. Because here's what I always try to drive home. I know that there's a lot of fluff on the online space of if you can dream it and you can achieve it and you can make, that's it. And as somebody who has actually sat in the boardrooms of a multi billion dollar acquisition and I oversaw the entire national sales team, not one private equity or VC or investor was asking me what I felt the numbers were going to be like or what I think we were capable of doing. It's facts and you live and you die by those numbers. And, and small businesses need to run the same exact way because every large company you look at was once a $250,000 business. They just made a decision very early on. I'm going for it and I'm going to do everything that's required in order to make this company as large as it is. And they don't get there on just a belief. Like there is a lot of strategy that goes into this and there is a lot of assurance in cash flow. So when we make decisions with our clients, we're not just going off of historical data. We understand what's coming down the pipeline, we know what their launches are, we know what the marketing efforts are going to be, we know how we can play around with the expenses if we need to. So that these large investments, sometimes to the tune of seven figures, feel a lot easier for our clients because they see the numbers that are facts, not beliefs and they understand, okay, yeah, the company can support making this type of decision, or I understand how we're going to recoup this expense. And it makes decisions as a founder a lot less gut wrenching because you understand it and you know what the business is capable of. Where when you're going off of a wish and a prayer, that's when you start to have the anxiety and the doubt creeps in and you don't feel comfortable making investments because you don't trust that you're going to be able to make it back.

[Jessica Marks]

Oh, so very true. Definitely. Okay, so with that, that leads me to something that you mentioned. And then I took us on a different tangent there, but different departments within your company. So let's say Jane, she doesn't even have full time employees Yet. So would you say before you break up your company into, let's say, operations and marketing and customer experience, maybe content or community? Before you're able to do that, you would need to have the players to be able to run those departments? Or no?

[Amy Porterfield]

No, I don't think so. And here's why. If I'm making 250k a year or even less or 500k a year, now is the time to start dividing the company into these divisions. And how you do that as a founder is that you make sure that you have these reporting structures in place, that you have these dashboards, that you have SOPs. So how frequently are we looking at the backend insights of the website? Or how often are we looking at convertkit or mailchimp numbers? And what do those need to be? What should they look like? What are the goals that we want to put in place for open or click rates? And you start setting that up. So even if it's a folder in Google Drive that says here's the marketing department and you're the one feeding that information in and you're creating the SOPs, or you're using AI to create SOPs, then when you bring somebody on, whether they're 1099 or W2, you can say, this is where we house all of our marketing data. Every single month, a new folder needs to be created that says April 2025. And in there it should every single week of that month in a folder. And I could pull it up at any time. This is so important because when you go to sell your company or when you go to raise, you have to have all this information and it has to be very organized and they want to see it for the last five years, 10 years. If you start now and it just becomes part of the process as a small business owner, as you layer in team and you've now set the standard of excellence that if that information is not in there on any given week and I as the founder go in to find it, there's an issue, right? Someone's not doing their job. It will also create so that anytime, anywhere where you are, you could pull up information and see sales data, marketing data, you can see financials. And we do this for our clients companies. We have four full access. So I can click of clients link and I can see live their dashboard, how many sales came in today, what are the monthly expenses. And it's very important that I have that information because if she pings me this afternoon and says we just got approached with this really incredible opportunity, I'm not having to ask her, where are sales at for the month? How much inventory do we have on hand? I can pop that up and see it at any time as if I was on the board or the CEO. So start now so that you're not bringing on team that doesn't understand what you need to see as the founder and CEO.

[Jessica Marks]

Absolutely. And I just want to plant a little seed. This is something we don't talk about on the show because so many of my listeners are building their businesses from scratch and they're not at that million dollar mark yet. However, I wish when I was in my first, second, third year of business, someone said, you know, one day you might want to sell this business. Because I think more women need to sell businesses and buy businesses. And I wish someone would have said, look, you're not even thinking about it now. Right now you're thinking how to make an extra hundred thousand dollars to hit your goal, but one day you might want to sell. So let's start thinking about how to build a business that could sell for $10 million or more. Something crazy even bigger than that. So whoever is listening right now that you've never even considered it, put a little seed in your mind of maybe one day, who knows? Because I do think, Jessica, you operate differently. If that is something that could potentially be on the table.

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. And when you build to sell, you don't have to sell. And here's what I mean by that, is that a lot of our clients, when they come to us because it's been this next level, girl, boss, move, sell the company. I went through an acquisition and I will tell you, other than maybe Allison, who just sold Poppy, there's not a lot of women that exit companies. And it's life changing. So we're seeing it and we're hearing about it and oftentimes it's literally somebody coming in and buying the debt and the founders walking away with maybe a few hundred thousand dollars. These are not life changing acquisitions that are happening. The Sarah Blakely is like, these are one offs. And then you hear about all of the horror stories of women that did sell their companies and then the companies, you know, tanked and they're buying them back. Or so we have clients that think that is the end goal. When they come to us, when we start structuring their company as if they were going to sell, they start to realize, wow, I can make a ton of money from this. This is a wealth vehicle for me. I don't have to be working 40 hours a week. And this company is what is getting my personal brand to have so many opportunities. It's allowing me to invest in companies, it's allowing me to speak on stages and get connected or start my podcast or whatever it may be. I would be foolish to sell this and give it to somebody else because it has the opportunity to generate wealth and income for 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now. And eventually I can put a succession plan in place for my staff or my children or whatever it may be. And so a lot of times acquisition comes off the table and then they're thinking about M and A deals of who can they buy and bring into their company to then generate even more revenue and become more profitable. But you can't do that if you don't have this rock solid foundation of understanding the business and how it operates. And so if you're at 20,0002-000005-00000, hell, a million, you have such an opportunity right now because you're so nimble that these big companies don't have anymore because they can't operate like that. And so take advantage of it and realize that revenue is a participation trophy. When people tell me I made 15 million, 20 million, I could care less, that's great, but I want to see the actual behind the scenes. I want to know how much money you're making and how hard you're having to work in order to get to that 20 million. So please keep that in mind as you see all these glorified revenues on social media, which I think a lot of them are made up, that you have an opportunity now to build something 30 times more successful than these founders that went before you, because there's so much more information out there, like these podcasts that allow you to do it in a way that's going to be really sustainable and not require as much of you as the founder.

[Jessica Marks]

I love that way of thinking, I love that angle that you just kind of set up. Because I think some people listening, they're like, whoa, that would work for me. I like looking at things that way. You know, when you were talking, it made me think, you work with a lot of entrepreneurs who have these multi, multi million doll businesses and they don't necessarily come to you because they're broken. You said in the beginning many of them are looking to scale and looking to do bigger things and new opportunities, but they want to make sure that what they have is sustainable and scalable. So working with a lot of these entrepreneurs that are already incredibly successful, what do you think are the mindset shifts Jane's going to need to make at this point and work on to get to that million dollar point and beyond. What do you think those million dollar makers have that maybe Jane needs to work on right now? Mindset wise?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. Mindset is, it's everything, everything right outside of the strategy. Because I can give somebody the best strategy in the world. And if they don't have the tenacity, if they don't have the regulated nervous system, if they don't have the understanding of growth and wealth and all of that's required when you get to the next level and then the next level and then the next level, they will self sabotage or they won't ever be able to get there. We're very fortunate that 90% of the women that and men that apply to work with us at their level, they've already invested into either some type of private advisory that focuses on mindset or limiting beliefs or healing trauma or whatever it may be. And so they are a candidate. But every now and then I do get on the phone with somebody that has a $3 million business and they have that victim mentality or that scarcity or they're blaming everybody on their team and we instantly will deny an application and we will suggest that they go and work with one of our resources that can unpack. Why is this happening? Why are you blaming everybody else? Because we know that they've cast and they've capped not because of the business's potential, but because of their own potential. And so I think that there's a few factors that are critical for success. And I don't think you're born with them. I don't think it matters how what your upbringing was like. I think it's the level of commitment that you're willing to put into changing those beliefs and shifting that mindset to be able to be a very successful founder. And so if you are somebody who hasn't done that, I would invest there before you invest into any type of strategy. And I would really dig deep into like what you currently think you're capable of and then how you could be capable of so much more. But I will say I talk with founders at every level. People come to us when they're thinking about starting a business and I, I can tell within 20 seconds if somebody's going to be successful or not, you know, because how the way that they present not just the business or the offer or the results that they want to get, but the impact that they want to have, the level of grit and grind and passion that in their voice, I would say. And then the how they can solve problems and challenges is huge. So when somebody comes to me and says, yeah, a year ago our company was facing this issue and, you know, here's what we were able to do, it's not exactly where I want it to be 100%, but we're committed to having this change. Or we're committed to cleaning house and getting the right people in the right seats versus somebody that comes in and says, nobody on my team works. They call in sick, they're always late. I don't understand it. And I mean, you can just tell. But I also can see the level of passion and enthusiasm in somebody's voice. And you can have all the enthusiasm in the world. It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be successful. But if they have enthusiasm, but they're also open to not being the smartest person in the room and getting that advice and immersing themselves into business development, they'll be successful.

[Jessica Marks]

Oh, yeah. I say if you're coachable, you're already winning right there. So many of my students that come in when I notice, oh, you are very coachable, I know they're going to see results. So I totally agree with you on that one. Okay, so to wrap us up, let's talk about Jane. Jane wants to get to that 500k. She doesn't really have a team, but she has aspirations to have a multimillion dollar business. She's in it to win it. What would be your final parting words of wisdom for Jane at where she is now? Knowing what you know about the businesses you work in with the multimillion dollar businesses and the successes they've had.

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes. 0 to 100 is the hardest. If you can get to a hundred thousand, you've got that proof of concept. So when I hear you talk about Jane and this 500,000, I think Jane's actually probably shooting a little too low, aiming too low on what the business is capable of, especially since she just has these two signature offers and 4,000 people. 4,000 people don't sign up for your email list because you have nothing to.

[Jessica Marks]

So true.

[Amy Porterfield]

There's obviously a level of value, there's a level of respect in how she's marketing what she's doing. And so I would say the business is already capable of hitting 500. She just needs to step back and be able to see what is the easiest, shortest way to get us to 500. Because once we get to 500, we'll be able to jump to a Million with that. And so, Jane, you need to step back. You need to look at the data. It is telling you something. And it's. I bet it's screaming loud and clear. You need to also decide what is the full lifetime value capability of our client or customer and what are they craving more of? What is the result that we're getting? And so, one, how do we get more volume in the door? But then two, once that volume's in the door, how do we easily extend, expand upon it to bring in what I call no brainer revenue. It is just sitting there staring her in the face. And I would imagine the 500k can happen very quickly with small shifts and changes. Nothing that we're ever implementing is like, let's burn this whole thing to the ground and start over. It's, have you thought of doing it this way? Or why isn't there a level two? Why isn't there a level three? What are your customers saying as they leave? Let's look at these offboarding surveys that you're taking and then let's build off of that. And so it's small changes, massive impact, and it's not going to require more of Jane. It's going to require Jane to put the right people in the right seats to keep this growing and scaling.

[Jessica Marks]

Ooh, so good. Okay, real quick. If Jane, so, AKA my listeners do want to reach out to you, how do they find you on Instagram to send you a DM?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes, on Instagram, I'm @thejessicamarks M A R X and I have my own podcast, which Amy was on, which is a really great episode that really ties in nicely to what we're talking about called Millions are Made. And every single week, it's either me giving you tangible business advice that you can apply right now or guest speakers coming on who have gone where you're looking to go, sharing their insights and their value. Because we really are in a capacity right now where everything's at our fingertips. And so you should be leaning into all of this information and guidance that's out there. The Millie Club would also be a great place for you guys to start and join, because that's where you're going to not only get to the next level, but you're going to meet the next level of entrepreneurs also going to that level. And they're going to be critical when you're in the millions to have that network to surround yourselves with.

[Jessica Marks]

Oh, my gosh, I so love you saying that. So appreciate it. But also, Jessica, there are people listening right now that are at that million dollar mark. I have many million makers in my business as well. I shouldn't say many, but a good handful. And so what if they did want to work with you? How would they go about that?

[Amy Porterfield]

Say that Amy referred you because we're referral only is have an application. We'll be the first to tell you if you're a good fit. Not a good fit. We turn down more than we except for good cause. We'll let you know where we think you should focus before you come to work with us. That could be a rebrand. It could be a lot of different things. So we'll give you that advice. We'll connect you with the right people. But if you happen to be the right fit to go through our audit, we'll explain the whole process to you and what we think the outcome will look like for a business of your size and the industry you're in.

[Jessica Marks]

So where do they go to check that out?

[Amy Porterfield]

Yes, they can go to TailoredPremier.com and all of those links are included too on my Instagram if you connect with me there.

[Jessica Marks]

Wonderful. Well, Jessica, thank you so very much for walking through Jane's journey and helping her get to that million dollar and beyond Mark. And just thanks for being on the show. I so appreciate it.

[Amy Porterfield]

Thank you, Amy.