Are you here because you’ve been scouring the internet for content to devour to help you on your journey of growing a business?

Maybe you’re about to start a new endeavor, create a new offer or you’re just feeling stuck and lost…whatever the case, I GET IT.

I really do.

Being in business for 10 years means I’ve worked my little booty off, I’ve devoured the podcast episodes, signed up for all the courses and hired coaches and mentors to help me scale and grow my company. Some of those have been extremely beneficial and worth the time and money and others have not!

So I’m here with this blog post to share with you information I wish I knew or had before investing in tools to grow my business. This would’ve helped me save a whole lot of time and money if I just had a little list, but here you go!

The Most Influential Aspects to Growing My Business 

Email Marketing

Having an email list and focusing on email marketing is non-negotiable in my opinion.

If you are a business owner and don’t prioritize email marketing, the time is NOW. Nearly ten years into being a full-time entrepreneur, I’ve seen the growth of my revenue and reputation as an educator, artist and leader directly tied to the consistency and growth of my email list. Now, maybe you have a list and it’s just collecting cobwebs or you don’t have one and have just been focusing on social media growth first, I know you’ve heard it all…

>> There’s no algorithm with email!

>> With over 4.3 billion email accounts 90% of emails sent to subscriber’s inboxes are seen vs. the 2% of your posts that are seen on Facebook and Instagram!

…And DMA did a study looking at investment data and found that “Email marketing has an ROI of 3800%.”

I could go on and on, but I won’t bore you with more data and statistics. Email is more relevant and reliable than ever. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

How often do you get frustrated with a post you put tons of effort into for IG annnnd *crickets*??

Or thinking about how much money you’d have to spend in FB ads, IG ads, etc. to sell a product or book a new client?

With the right email strategy, email marketing can increase your revenue by over 5x when it’s done right according to McKinsey Consulting Group.

Related: An Overview of Email Marketing

If you’re curious about my email marketing tech stack, head over to my business resources page on my site!

Pinterest!

Pinterest is a goodie because you get SUCH a good return on very little investment. You could spend as little as one hour a week on Pinterest and get great organic search traffic, on repeat and autopilot, going to your blog, your courses, your online shop, etc.!

We spend money each month on having a Pinterest manager because it’s just that awesome, but you could definitely do this on your own if you don’t have the ability to hire a Pinterest manager. Just look into implementing SEO strategies (Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform!) and voila!

Related: 3 Pinterest Tips to Help You Achieve More Passive Income

Starting and growing a YouTube Channel

We started our YouTube Channel in 2019, about 6 years after I started my business and roughly 3 or 4 years after I started teaching and launching online courses.

YouTube and Patreon revenue and growth absolutely crushes every other platform we use and post on. It grows like crazy!

We were able to grow to nearly 300K subscribers in less than 4 years on YouTube and because it’s evergreen content on a search engine, our posts and videos are always getting watched and driving new leads and traffic to my website and courses while we sleep!

This is the GOAL right here for growing your business. Content that sells your products for you while you sleep and while you’re not actively pushing that product or service is how you unlock the limit or cap on your revenue!

Making the RIGHT hires

I’ve hired quite a few people over the years from a high schooler to help me package prints to an assistant, calligraphy and design expert, surface pattern designer, operations manager, financial officer, video guy and more. There are a couple SUPER important things I’ve learned about hiring over the years.

First and foremost, hire someone who can grow with the company. I’ve had many VA’s and assistants before I had Kelly and when the company grew, they did not grow with it. They were great people, but just couldn’t keep up with the level of output and the direction my business was going and I needed someone who was going to help me take the biz to the next level.

When I hired Kelly, I hired her as a Virtual Assistant, but quickly found out that she was capable of so much more and was going to grow and keep growing as the company kept expanding. I cannot underscore enough the importance of finding someone who’s an action taker, has a deep desire to grow with the company and who knows more than you in their area of expertise! 

Joining a Mastermind

The first year I joined a mastermind I was terrified to spend the money, but deep down I knew it was going to be amazing for my business. I made sure to vet the mastermind well and choose one that was best suited for my needs in my business. I spent $23k on that first mastermind and within weeks I was able to justify and make my money back on that expense by utilizing the launching strategies I learned from the calls in one of my course launches.

Surrounding yourself with experts who can direct you on the path to the next level of growth in your business is absolutely necessary. You don’t know what you don’t know and when you find people who can show you the roadmap for success for your particular business, you will always make your money back (and then some). 

Hiring a coach

This year I’m a part of my first ever, year-long coaching program. A YEAR! That’s a long time! But one thing I’ve learned in the past 10 years of growing businesses is that huuuuuge amounts of growth takes planned, strategic steps toward that growth over a bigger chunk of time.

Creating, planning for and launching a course all in one month is never going to be as successful as if you take time to dig through the strategies, refine the copy and messaging and build up awareness and desire for your product over time! Along with this, having someone there by your side to help guide you and be there for questions and coaching along the way I’ve found is absolutely life changing. 

Have an idea I forgot that has transformed your business growth? Let me know in the comments!