496 Angela Henderson:

What is the best way to grow a great business amid the recession brought on by Coronavirus? What are the steps you should be taking NOW to ensure you emerge from this crisis with a solid foundation to best attract and grow customers?

MELINDA

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who grew and sold the highly successful online store Finlee and Me, before turning her attention to helping female founders create prospering businesses with consistent 5-figure months and high 6-figure years without burning out in the process.

Angela Henderson is an international award-winning business consultant and coach, international speaker and podcaster… and today she shares her 7 Profit Pillars. Listen on because Angela shares very good advice about what you should be doing … right now … in the midst of Coronavirus.

Angela Henderson says women entrepreneurs often struggle with finding clarity and aligning their actions for maximum leverage to grow profitable businesses. She says now is the time to double down on getting close to your customers … discovering their true needs. She says the power of your network equals your net worth … and human-to-human connection … and having systems to convert prospects into returning customers … is the recipe for success. That’s why she says podcasting is the best way right now to develop the intimate “know like trust” you need to grow a great business.

Founder of the highly successful online store Finlee and Me, Angela taps into a decade’s worth of knowledge of how to grow a thriving enterprise and pours it into her business consulting clients. After continually getting asked for business advice, Angela found herself in front of women entrepreneurs who had the right ideas and bucketloads of skill, but didn’t know how to translate that into a successful, sustainable business. Determined to change that, she started Angela Henderson Consulting in 2017. Her skills were honed at the helm of Finlee and Me, where she learned everything from branding, PR, sales funnels, email marketing, website, copy, SEO and more. She knows what it truly takes to have a strong brand, consistent sales, steady growth and over all dedication. Also a mental health clinician of 15 + years before she started Finlee and Me, Angela also believes the key to a successful business is overcoming inner challenges and roadblocks to improve external results.

So let’s put on our Wings with Angela Henderson

Melinda Wittstock:       Angela, welcome to Wings.

Angela Henderson:       Yeah, welcome, welcome to me too. How are you today?

Melinda Wittstock:       I am doing great actually. People are so challenged obviously by coronavirus and it’s impacting different parts of the population differently, where I’m sitting I feel incredibly blessed. So every day I am just in a gratitude practice at the moment and working super hard. How about you? How is it impacting you and your business?

Angela Henderson:       Listen, I’m in a very similar situation. I mean, I’m busier than I ever have been before as a business consultant. So working with a variety of different businesses, helping them shift, do you know what I mean? Getting them online or just looking at different pricing structures, et cetera. So over here in Australia, for me, nothing has really changed. If anything it’s gotten busier for me. So again, I too I’m grateful every single day for being able to help more women in business to grow sustainable and profitable businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:       Every entrepreneur I know says the same thing right now. They have never been busier. And everybody who’s not an entrepreneur is like, “What should I do with my day?” It’s a fascinating time. So tell me a little bit about your clients and the things that they’re going through right now, and some of the ways that you’re helping them through this challenge.

Angela Henderson:       Yeah. So some of them we’re looking at, during certain parts of their business. And then what we’ve done is we’ve assessed, okay, well, what is the consumer behavior that is happening at the moment? So things like, some people we’re going to start with our content marketing strategies, looking at blog articles and things like that, from an SEO perspective. And though that is still necessary, we said, well listen, are they consuming blog articles now? Probably, because a lot of people are online. But we said, even more than that podcasts. And so I know one of my clients today just launched her podcast, How To Live Slow, because again, perfect time, that’s what her whole website is all about, is how to live slow.

Angela Henderson:       But I said now more than ever, we actually have slowed down as a community and as a world. And because of that I said, “Instead, let’s screw the blog posts, let’s get your podcast up and launch.” So we moved the podcast forward, it launched today. So again, for me it’s really been looking at and assessing what our plans were and how we had to change those, such as this particular individual, this client, to make it work more in her favor while at the same time giving back to the audience, in this pandemic.

Melinda Wittstock:       I agree with you about podcasting, but then I would, I’m in the middle of launching a podcasting network. It’s a wonderful way to really get closer to your customers and grow your community, because there’s an inherent no like and trust that comes from podcasting. People get to know you. So you’re in a situation where you’re really, I guess, warming an audience, a group of people, that can ultimately become your customers. And it’s always a great medium. It’s the fastest growing medium of everything right now, and even before coronavirus.

Angela Henderson:       100%.

Melinda Wittstock:       So now especially, so that’s great that you’re encouraging people to launch podcasts.

Angela Henderson:       Yes, absolutely. I mean, I’m also a huge believer from a human to human marketing perspective, that conversations equal conversions. And if I take that one step further, doing connections equal conversations. And when you have connections and conversations there’s that kind of trifecta. Do you know what I mean? As in you’ve got conversion. I mean, I love podcasting, I can’t emphasize enough, I think, the importance of being able to get into someone’s ears. I mean, yes, blog articles still have a place, especially from SEO point of view, but podcasting, it’s like people can hear you, they can feel you. And a lot of people will say to me is, “Angie you were my virtual coach, you were my virtual mentor every single week until I was able to take about the reigns and invest in you.” So it’s like there’s just such a powerful way of being able to connect with people and have those conversations.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. I’ve found the same thing with Wings of Inspired Business. How many people it’s actually helping, and especially now. I think with coronavirus a lot of businesses find themselves having to pivot really quickly, or the revenue suddenly dried up, or they’re in a situation where they have to lay off people or they have to figure out how they’re going to be relevant in a society that looks like… Especially here in the United States, the virus is really shown all the ways that things are broken. So there’s an opportunity in that for entrepreneurs to really remake themselves.

Melinda Wittstock:       So now that we’re a little bit slowed down, what are the different ways that you can really get closer to your customers, understand them better, like you said, involve them in conversation, really get to know them? I believe that businesses will be better placed to really take advantage of the regeneration of the economy when that comes, if they invest that time now in really, yes, doubling down and getting closer to their customers, also closer to their team. And so podcasting can play a big role in that, right?

Angela Henderson:       And I actually think people focus so much on B2B and B2C that they forget about the H2H, or other people say human are people to people, P2P, it depends on where you live in the world. But now is a time where customer experiences and customer services may have really not been the forefront of business owners, and they can now make that the forefront of their business. And I think those businesses who are placing, whether or not it’s podcasting and connecting with their audience that way, or doing videos or doing Zooms, or whatever the platform they’re choosing to do depending on how their consumer has access to technology or consumes information, is going to help them.

Angela Henderson:       So in this essence, they’re able to create those experiences and interactions that they haven’t potentially maybe looked upon, because they’ve now got time to work on their business versus in their business. And I also think when people look at working in your business, you’re working on today’s income, but when you’re working on your business, you’re working on tomorrow’s income. And so many times people are only focused what’s in front of them, where now I think the coronavirus, I believe one of the positive things is allowing businesses to really look at their long-term strategy and not just a short-term strategy.

Melinda Wittstock:       We’re going to get into all your profit pillars and all the things you do to really teach women about how to grow their businesses. But I just want you to say a few words about your podcast. What made you launch your podcast? And how long has it been going? And tell us a little bit about your experience with it specifically.

Angela Henderson:       Yeah. So podcasting for me was, I surveyed my audience to see how they consumed information. So I didn’t want to just go either start a YouTube channel or Pinterest or whatever. We had already honed in on Instagram and Facebook, but then I was like, okay, what’s our next platform? And so when I surveyed the audience, the numbers came back via our newsletter database survey and also my Facebook community, the Australian Business Collaborative, there’s about 6,500 members in there. There’s a ton of them that responded. Podcasting was the next one. So it seemed like it’s not what I want, it’s what my audience wants. So that was primarily about how I could get in front of my audience.

Angela Henderson:       The second part was, is I’m really big about connections. I also believe in the power of your network equals your net worth. So by having your own podcast, you’ve got this opportunity and amazingness to connect with so many cool people from not only in your country or your own town, but from around the world. And so for me it was about building those relationships, increasing my brand, increasing my credibility, increasing my authority within the market, but ultimately being able to help more women in business to get the tools, resources, and support they need in their ears every single week through podcasting.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, podcasting can do a number of things. It can attract money, it can help you learn, and there’s this lovely dharma about it. I think of all the conversations, I’m almost at episode 500.

Angela Henderson:       So fun.

Melinda Wittstock:       I can’t think of how many amazing relationships that I’ve created, and the dividends that those have paid indirectly and sometimes in really surprising ways. And on the learning side, I just think I have my own personal mastermind every time I do an interview. And then there’s the money as well, if you figure out how to monetize a podcast. How do you monetize your podcast?

Angela Henderson:       We’re not doing sponsorship; we’re not doing anything like that. However, what I do, where I think my ROI comes in is, every episode is sponsored by something that I’m currently doing. So the ROI that I’m seeing is I’m getting increased people on with my discovery calls, I’m getting more people into my programs, I run Australia’s leading 4 day/3 night women in business retreat. So I use my podcast to product place my own products and services at the beginning of every episode and closing at the end of every episode.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, I do a similar thing. I mean, I do have sponsors every now and again, but lately I’ve been acting as my own sponsor, which works really, really well. So tell me a little bit about how you got going as an entrepreneur yourself. What was the thing that sparked your entrepreneurial career?

Angela Henderson:       My son was about nine months old and I just remember sitting down playing with him, and we were given these toys that were electronic toys. And I thought, listen, don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place for electronic toys, but I just saw a nine month old, I was like, surely all these bells and whistles, there’s got to be something else, something educational. And as a social worker by trade and really looking at fine motor skill development, gross motor skill development, connections with parents, et cetera, I started researching and I just started a business called Finlee after my son, Finlee and Me. It was one of Australia’s leading educational toy stores, and we had about 1400 products at one particular stage. And I also became one of Australia’s leading parenting bloggers.

Angela Henderson:       I’m assigned with Netflix as one of their top 30 influencers here in Australia, New Zealand. And I worked with a lot of big internal and national and international brands. So that’s how I initially started Finlee and Me. And then through that people, after seven years of doing that, people were just picking my brain, what can I do? I had this aha moment when I was driving home after a coffee date, and I don’t even drink coffee, and I was like, hold on, I’ve met with 14 people over the last two months who have wanted to pick my brain. And that’s how Angela Henderson Consulting came about. And I just started, threw up a website, did everything, and now I work with a variety of women here in Australia and internationally on their business growth.

Melinda Wittstock:       Isn’t that interesting? I had Lisa Sasevich, known as the queen of sales conversions, on the podcast a few weeks ago. Well, we were talking about, how do we know what the right business is for us? And almost everyone has something where the clue is, “can I pick your brain?”

Angela Henderson:       Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:       And kind of pattern recognition of that, people asking you over and over and over again. And if they’re showing you that demand, you probably have a business or at least an info product or something-

Angela Henderson:       Something, totally.

Melinda Wittstock:       That you can spin out of that. So tell me a little bit about who your clients are and what are their biggest needs.

Angela Henderson:       So for me, my clients, a lot of my clients are particularly women in businesses who I focus on. But even more if I unpack some of that, what I find is a lot of women actually know what they need to do, they’re super clued on, they’ve got a great mindset, they come from a place of that growth mindset, but it’s just the how to. And often my clients have been doing it alone for so long. So they’ve been trying to Google this, stitch it together with a YouTube video, go and ask it in a free Facebook group, but they’re not getting advice from people who’ve actually been in the trenches and can help move them forward collectively. Also, my clients are typically mothers who have kids the high school age, so the juggle is real, the struggle is real. But they’re determined no matter what it takes. Like even the time of recording here in Australia, it’s 12:15 in the morning. You just get up, you do what you need to do.

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh my goodness, I clocked that actually, that it’s in the middle of the night for you right now.

Angela Henderson:       Yes, [inaudible 00:13:05], we just hit midnight my time, so yes. But they also, the women that I work with, take responsibility for themselves and their actions. They identify that every single day they get up and they have a choice and a responsibility for what they do or don’t do. So yeah, so that’s a little bit about the women that I work with. And I guess in regards to, because my background initially was e-com, any given month I could work with 60% of my clients could be e-comm, 40% would be service-based, and then the next month it could be swapped 60, 40 again. So I haven’t necessarily niche down to just online women in business or service businesses or e-com, because I have the strategies from both of those skillsets.

Melinda Wittstock:       What do you think is the biggest thing that holds women back from succeeding?

Angela Henderson:       I believe what’s holding them back is they’re lacking clarity on what actions to take. I mean, they’re jumping in head first, they’re overwhelmed, they’re chasing their tail. And so for me, one of the number one things, the lacking and failing, potentially are setting themselves up to fail is lack of clarity. The other thing that I’ve seen women in business do is that they’ve got shiny object syndrome, they’re moving really fast but getting nowhere, and then they’re constantly being distracted by the newest graphic design, or latest building technique, or whatever that is.

Angela Henderson:       And again, because they’re not clear on what they need to do, they’re lacking the strategy on what to do, they’re then getting easily distracted or procrastinating. So that’s the second thing that I see women in business do. The third thing is, and I think it’s not talked about often enough, is that they treat social media as a safety net. So many women will come to me and say, “Oh well, I’ve got such and such followers on, say, my podcast or listeners, and I’ve got so many followers on Instagram, and dah, dah, dah.” But then I’m like, “Okay, well, but are you driving them back to your ecosystem?” And they’ll say, “Well, what do you mean?” And I’m like, “Well, do you have a conversional website? Is it SEO optimized?” Because your website and everything is open 24 hours a day. I say, “And that’s your asset. You’re not building on other people’s ground.” They’re like, “No.”

Angela Henderson:       So the other one thing that I see businesses, women in business particular, one of the reasons why they struggle to survive, is the again, treating social media like a safety net. And the last thing that I’ve seen over the decade of being in business, is that they do it alone. They’re constantly trying to do it alone. It’s whether or not it’s an ego thing, a pride thing, they don’t want to ask for help because again, they’re the woman of the house and they should be able to take care of all of this responsibility. Once women give themselves permission to ask for help and just go and do it, do you know what I mean? Their door opens up to so many opportunities. So yeah, those are the four main things that I’ve seen over the years of being in business.

Melinda Wittstock:       I think we sometimes confuse having it all with doing it all. We do not and should not do it all because that leads to the overwhelm and that sense of like, I think there’s a perfectionism in there too. Where we think we have to just make it perfect before we can show it to anybody else, which is the exact opposite is true is that you really want to start co-creating with your customers and getting them invested in what you’re doing, and actually really, really hear what your customers actually want and need, and where the biggest value drivers are, and then focus on those particular activities. I mean, you mentioned earlier the difference between working in your business and on it and trying to shift that. Obviously when it’s a startup, you are necessarily doing a lot of the things, but trying to hire, asking for help as soon as possible out of the gate is probably the single biggest differentiator between succeeding or not.

Angela Henderson:       And so many women I think also, because again, social media and whatever they’re consuming is saying like, “Oh, you must hire within your own country or VA’s and these people cost such amount.” When I first started out, I didn’t have a lot of money. As in, you’re bootstrapping, you’re by yourself, I was still working full time as a mental health clinician, diagnosing adult student with schizophrenia and bipolar and everything else among the two, but the reality of it is, is that you can still get help overseas. There are Upwork, Fiverr, and what I had to do is again allow myself to understand that I’m still giving another woman in business a job.

Angela Henderson:       And one of the ladies from the Philippines, Sheila, who’s worked with me now for four years, I pay her $7 US, she works four hours a week, which isn’t a lot, but she only does certain tasks for this particular thing, but she actually still makes more money than what her husband does. So her confidence has been increased. She’s been able to still stay home with her daughter. She has purpose. So just know that again, you can ask for help and it doesn’t have to mean that you have to buy local. I was like, I support local, but if it’s going to be the difference between your business going belly up or suffering from anxiety or depression, just know there are other options there, and that you are equally giving back to our overall economy.

Melinda Wittstock:       You know, it’s fascinating. I had an experience like that just the other day. I needed an animated video for the launch of the podcasting network, [inaudible 00:18:23], and I looked at this company called Beyond, which has really cool software, costs quite a lot to use Beyond. And then I talked to other people who do Beyond in the US, and I was getting all kinds of quotes, like that’ll cost $2,000, $5,000 or whatever. I went on to Upwork, I found a woman in Egypt. She made the most amazing video. It’s so good. She said she was paid more for it than she’s ever been paid for any of her other work. She’s going to get a lot of follow on work from us. Guess how much it costs.

Angela Henderson:       Gosh, how long was the video? How many minutes?

Melinda Wittstock:       A minute and a half.

Angela Henderson:       So I’d say maybe $150, $200.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, right. So $75. And it made all the difference to her. And then it’s so amazing, she’s going to get lots of follow on work from us, I’m going to recommend her to other people, et cetera. So it is really, really possible exactly what you’re saying. And so if you need help posting to social media or getting your podcast episode edited, all these sorts of things you can make a real difference. It doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but it is to that person.

Angela Henderson:       Exactly right. And it is to their family. And now like I said, it’s all the other stuff, it’s like it builds their confidence and their self-esteem and they have purpose. There’s so much more than what meets the eye.

Melinda Wittstock:       So you talk about seven profit pillars that you really need to be able to grow a sustainable, profitable business. So let’s go through those seven. What’s the first?

Angela Henderson:       So I just wanted to rewind just really quickly though in regards before we jump straight into this, because this is the thing, the reason why I talked about the seven profit pillars, is the analogy I use is the story of kind of the three little pigs. If you have a house made of hay and a house made of sticks and a house made a bricks, it’s very much like businesses. So many businesses will come to me and they’ve got a business made of hay or they’ve got a business made of sticks, but it could collapse at any given moment. So I’m really big about building pillars, aka the bricks of a business.

Angela Henderson:       So even if you have a bad month, or I guess again, stuff goes down in the economy, if we’re looking at different income streams, a variety of different things, is that your business will still be structurally there. You might not make as much money in a particular month, but you’re not going to go and belly up. So that’s where the essence of those pillars have come from. Because I believe if you’ve got a strong foundation just like you do in a house, that everything else will be a much more easier impact. Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh, it makes total sense. And it’s especially important now, because I think people are having to either create a foundation or build a new foundation right now in 2020 specifically, sparked by coronavirus.

Angela Henderson:       So when I look at profit pillar number one, I talk about really your perfect profit profile. And what I say there is this, if you don’t understand your own core values, if you don’t understand what lights you up, if you don’t have a good product. Our service, I mean, my whole thing is, you can’t polish a turd. If you don’t understand who you’re selling to, you don’t understand your ideal client, if you don’t understand that perfect profit profile, what’s going to happen is everything else is going to be so much harder. You’re either going to be creating content or podcasts or whatever, that aren’t going to be relevant to your audience. If it’s not relevant to your audience or your offer, they’re not going to buy from you. So then you’ve just wasted all this time. So I’m really big about profit pillar number one, understanding your perfect profit profile, which again is your values, what lights you up, do you have a good quality product and understanding your ideal client.

Melinda Wittstock:       Right. Not only your mission and what lights you up, but just what you’re good at and really doubling down on that. It’s hard to sustain something through all the swings, roundabouts, things you can’t control, downturns, all that kind of stuff, unless you can stay focused on a vision. I like to use the sailing metaphor, because it’s impossible to sail in a straight line because the winds are going to blow. You’ve got a jibe and tack, and you’ve got to go back, you got to zigzag to get to your destination. So that’s why it’s so important to be focused on the vision, not necessarily the circumstance you’re in, because some of those things you can’t control, but if you have that vision really clear and you’re in alignment, magic starts to happen there.

Angela Henderson:       And that’s what I’ve been saying to a lot of my clients in my mastermind group or my one to one is, if I asked you what your vision was two weeks ago, five weeks ago, two months ago, before all of this happened in the world, the plan has changed, but your vision still remains. The only thing we have to do is change the plan in order to get to the vision. So for example, my goal is to break into the international market this year, I was signed to offer three different speaking events in the United States and in Canada, obviously those have been postponed due to the circumstances. Well, has my vision changed to still help an additional 3000 women before 2025? No, that hasn’t changed. But my plan to get there has. So what I have to do now is adapt. So I’m obviously getting on more podcasting episodes, I’m doing more virtual summits, I’m doing my own speaking and more workshops online. Do you know what I mean? It’s like my vision still hasn’t changed. It’s only the plan that’s changed.

Melinda Wittstock:       So that’s kind of pillar number one.

Angela Henderson:       Pillar number one, yep. Is understanding your profile. Do you know what I mean? And your consumer profile and your product profile. 100%, yep.

Melinda Wittstock:       Okay. So what’s the next?

Angela Henderson:       The next one is about understanding your, I call it the pillar two is your profit ready website. And again, as I was saying early on, why so many businesses fail is they’re so dependent on social media platforms and other outlets. So my whole thing is, in order for you to have that sustainable and profitable business to grow, your website has to be conversional. So many times when I’m working with clients, they’re like, “Yeah, but I paid a designer, my website looks so pretty.” And I’m like, I call BS. Because if your website is pretty, so often nine times out of 10 I will go into someone’s website, it’s not functional. A website is made and needs to be ready to take your customer on the journey and take them to the next step.

Angela Henderson:       So your website, you only have six seconds, the record is probably closer to five seconds, From the time someone lands on your website, the person that’s landing there, to understand who you are, what you do and what that next call to action is. All that clear messaging, that primary call to action needs to be above the fold. And when I mean above the fold is, before you scroll or before you swipe up on your phone. But I get there and it’s like, I’ll get on these websites and they look lovely, but there’s no messaging, no one’s telling me who they are or what they do. There’s no button to take me to the next step. I’m floundering all over the place. There’s no lead magnet for me to be able to collect emails and start nurture sequences and sales funnels. There’s no contact me. Their website looks great but it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter because you’re not probably going to get any sales.

Angela Henderson:       I often see also so many people are doing Facebook ads or Google ads or whatever, and they’re driving all this beautiful traffic back to a crappy website. So profit pillar number two is really making sure that you’ve got a profit ready website ready to rock and roll, that’s conversional and also includes your SEO, your onsite SEO strategy, your offsite SEO strategy, understanding what your short tail and long tail keywords are. Again, if you can do that, you’re not dependent on social media and you’re going to be found organically. If you’re found organically because you’ve got an optimized website, you’re more likely to have a higher conversion rate. Because the data says 30% of buyers that search for you via Google, are already that much closer to the cart. So for example, my traffic to my website, 44% of my traffic comes from Google because we’ve optimized everything correctly on our conversional website.

Melinda Wittstock:       And I love that you know your numbers, you know exactly where stuff is coming from. I’m amazed how many women don’t know. I mean, they just don’t know or they don’t look at it.

Angela Henderson:       One of my last profit pillars is about knowing your numbers. I promise, because it’s-

Melinda Wittstock:       You are going to get there.

Angela Henderson:       But when we start out in business though, because again, that’s what I’m saying. If you look at these pillars, there’s a method to my analysis. Right when we start, we’re not thinking about numbers, we’re just trying to survive. We’re just trying to get from where we’re working so much in the business that we can’t even think about the on part of that stage. And I get that. I think we all go through that. But the sooner that, again, you can learn that, and, you know what mean? Plant the seed with that, it will make your life and your business grow so much easier.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. Okay, so we’re onto number three.

Angela Henderson:       So number three is, I call the profit pillar, is the moneymaker profit pillar. And what I mean by that is, you need to be able to understand, how are you getting people into your ecosystem? How are you moving them from free to a lower end product or service, to that mid-range to high range? How are you marketing to these people? How are you going to convert traffic to sales or prospects to clients? So often I’ll start saying to something like, “Hey,” in my discovery call, “Can you tell me a little bit about what your sales funnels are?”

Angela Henderson:       How are you getting them into your business? I post a few things. Okay, what’d you do after you post? I don’t really know. So profit pillar number three around that moneymaker map is really understanding how are you making money? How are you putting that content out to these people? Are you starting them with a podcast? Okay, what happens once they listen to the podcast? How are you taking them on that buyer’s journey? What happens next? Is it a blog article? Are you doing lives? So it’s really important, this particular pillar is all about focusing your marketing and your energies to deliver the best ROI for your business. But again, so many people are just throwing spaghetti at a wall hoping that it sticks.

Angela Henderson:       So my advice here is, choose one or two platforms and do them really well. So you either choose Facebook or Instagram, or choose a podcast and a blog, or choose whatever it is, but do two of them really well because there’s no way, especially when you’re first starting out, that you can do a podcast, Pinterest, blog, Facebook, Instagram. Do you know what I mean? LinkedIn. There’s just no way possible when you’re a solopreneur, and do it well to get the conversions and ROI that you want. So yeah, that’s profit pillar number three.

Melinda Wittstock:       Fantastic. And it presumes that you know kind of where your customers are, right? Where do they congregate? And having some sense of that as well in terms of choosing which one of these you’re going to double down on first.

Angela Henderson:       Yeah. And that’s for, it’s like, again, if you’ve understood what the buyer’s needs are, if you understand what type of product it is, if you understand again, who the ideal client it is. For example, if it’s a mom, so often I will see videos that are targeted for moms who could be breastfeeding or bottle feeding in the middle of the night, but they don’t have any captions on their videos. So yes, the moms are consuming videos, but they’re probably not going to consume yours because now you don’t have captions, and now you’ve just woken the baby up because you’re screaming because you don’t have captions. It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to be able to understand how your audience is going to take that information in, you get them into your ecosystem, and then how are you going to funnel them after that?

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. Okay. So number four I guess is [inaudible 00:30:09].

Angela Henderson:       So profit pillar number four is all about making sure that you’ve got your turbo powered email list building. Now I say list building, but an equal site audience building there too, just because email list building is important, but building your audience on different platforms like a podcast or building your audience through Facebook ads, et cetera. So I’m kind of looking this as an audience. But for me with email list building, again, remember is you’re owning that asset. My own coach talks about, own your own race course. And so by building your email list and building that audience, you then are going to be able to have contact with them off the platform. You’re going to be able to get in front of them regularly to share your podcast episode, your regular blog podcast, sorry, blog article, et cetera.

Angela Henderson:       So really profit pillar number four is all about the turbo powered email list building. You must have it. What is your opt in on your homepage? What are you driving people to potentially to download after a podcast episode? Is it a checklist? Is it a PDF? Who knows what it is? There’s so many options out there. Do you have an exit popup that you might be testing? There’s so many ways that you can get people to sign up to get on your email list so you can nurture them long past the time they’ve left your website or your podcast. So yeah, so it’s really important, profit pillar number four about list building.

Melinda Wittstock:       I’m a long time media and tech entrepreneur, and I know one thing about monetization of content or communities is, if you own those communities, you can monetize them. If you don’t, you can’t. Facebook’s monetizing them. Instagram is monetizing them. Everybody else is except you. So like from a podcast, getting people from a podcast to your list or to your website or whatever, or from Instagram to something that you own, is absolutely vital.

Angela Henderson:       But also for if you’re ever going to sell your business, people forget about this. So I got approached to sell Finlee and Me, I don’t know, maybe year five or whatever, and when we were assessing the worth of the business, at that stage each email person I had on my list was worth just under $4. So I had over 50,000 people on my email list. So you do the math. I mean, that’s 200 grand just for my email list, without the worth of anything else in my business.

Melinda Wittstock:       Well, this is really important in terms of what grows the valuation of your business. And a lot of business owners forget this. They think about profits and earnings and revenue, and those are all good things, you have to think about those. But it’s actually, the value is usually in the eye of the holder, the business that’s actually buying you. So why would Amazon buy Zappos, say, some years back for a billion dollars when Zappos wasn’t doing anything that Amazon wasn’t already doing in terms of e-commerce? What it did have though that Amazon really valued was a really wonderful culture, and the culture was worth a billion dollars to Amazon. So what are the value drivers of your business? And I mean, that’s really important. A lot of people don’t think really about exits. Their exit strategy is kind of like, well, someday I’ll sell it, which is interesting, but not really a strategy.

Angela Henderson:       I always say, whatever your opening strategy is, you should be planning your exit strategy from the beginning. So often I’ll say, people will want to start coaching or a life thing or whatever it is that they want to start, and they’ll talk about branding and they’ll say, “Well, do you ever want to sell your business again?” Maybe, maybe not. “Do you ever want to have your own individual branding?” Oh, I don’t know. But again, these are the things, again, you have to think about. Because if you do want to sell your business and you probably don’t want to put it into your personal brand, because it’s going to be really hard. Do you know what I mean?

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah. This is something that I’m very mindful of with the podcasting network. I’m thinking about right from the get-go in terms of what are the valuation drivers, and it will exit. So it’s very, very important to be thinking about these things. Okay. I think we’re going to five now?

Angela Henderson:       Pillar number five. So if you’ve got a great website, your website’s firing off, you’ve now got lead magnets, you’ve got people on your list. The thing is, then I get this from people, I’ve got like 6,000 people or 9,000 people on my email list, I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s amazing. How often are you emailing?” I’m not. “What’s the sales funnel?” Don’t have one. So again, once you understand this, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of mapping out your sales funnels. And this is all what profit pillar number five is about, is simplified sales funnels. Sales funnels do not need to be complicated, but you do need to get clued up about the art of simple sales funnels, how they work, how they move your subscribers from your freebie to a paid service without that sleaziness or pushiness. So yeah, profit pillar number five is making sure that you start understanding and mapping out those sales funnels.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely right. Okay, next.

Angela Henderson:       Profit pillar number six is, okay, you’ve got everything firing, you’ve got money coming in, your now like, great, I can’t keep doing this on my own. It’s absolutely killing me, it’s killing my family life, it’s compromising my mental health. This is when you need to really start looking at building your dream team, is all about profit pillar number six. So being able to start working less in it, being able to work on it. Really becoming the visionary, but you’re going to have to start looking for outsourcing. So understanding again, what tools do you need in order for your business to grow? Who needs to be in those positions? So really looking at your organizational structure, understanding what the job descriptions are, and hiring people to fit the seats, not the other way around.

Angela Henderson:       And I also think it’s really important that, if you’re just looking at building your team and also you’re mindful of that money, is also remember what is a task worth? Worth to your time, but also worth when you’re paying someone. So for example, my lady in the Philippines, she is literally like, the content is given to her. She’s just copying, pasting and uploading it on the social media platforms. It’s very simple, you don’t need a lot of training to do it, it’s super simple. So that’s why she gets paid $7 an hour, versus my podcast team who gets paid a lot more because obviously I’m paying them and they’re here in Australia, pretty much all I do is record, upload to drop box and then edit, stitch everything together, blah, blah, blah, to make it work well. So again, hire based on task. So often people are like, “Oh, I’m paying $50 for this person to do a task that someone else could be doing it for $7.” So be mindful of that when you’re hiring.

Melinda Wittstock:       Absolutely. A mentor of mine once quizzed me about the value of my own time and doing something. So I think he caught me fixing some links or something on my website, way, way back, and he was like, “Okay, so Melinda, if you were spending an hour of your time right now developing a whole new business line or a strategic partnership or advancing the IP, what would your hourly rate be? Is it $100 an hour? $1,000 an hour? $10,000 an hour or more? Because of the value that you’re driving for your business? Or how much would you pay someone to fix a link? Well, you’re the most expensive link fixer in the history of time. You’re robbing from your own business.” And that was just such a powerful lesson articulated in that way. It just hit. And so whenever I find myself tempted to do something that somebody else really can do, and probably do better than me frankly, so I can stay focused on the things only I can do, that’s kind of my division. What is the thing that only I can do, and what is the stuff that other people can do?

Angela Henderson:       Amen to that. And I also just want to touch upon like, so often people talk about hiring their dream team, just like I have here with profit pillar number six, but I also want to say that when you’re hiring your dream team, your dream team could also be the help you need within the home. So it could be a cleaner, it could be a chef, it could be a nanny. I’ll give you an example. So when Angela Henderson Consulting started to take off, I said to my husband, we had had a cleaner, unfortunately she had got hurt at another job, so we were out without a cleaner and we had been starting to make a little bit more money and my husband was like, “No, we got the cleaning.” And I was like, “Hmm, okay.” And then I was like, “I need to hire a cleaner.” And he’s like, “Oh, just because we make more money doesn’t mean you can just spend it.” And I said, “Well, that’s cool. So let’s just do the math.” And so I said, “$40 for a cleaner, my hourly rate is X, Y, and Z.” He’s like, “Never mind, hire the cleaner.”

Melinda Wittstock:       Right, this is so true. Although in coronavirus, no one can hire like that.

Angela Henderson:       Not right now, but once-

Melinda Wittstock:       And we’re homeschooling on top of it all.

Angela Henderson:       Well, again, in Australia we’ve been, not lax, but because again, we’re an Island as we are talking about prerecording, like for example, because I’m deemed an essential work and my husband is an essential worker, my kids are already back at school. So of a school of 700, there’s already 59 that are back for us essential workers. Because I literally work eight hours a day consulting people, I can’t physically watch my children. So they’ve deemed us essential workers. But again, our country is very laxed, as in not lax as we’re not doing the right thing, but because our numbers are so low, we’re already looking at opening back up. But take coronavirus away, I would still say, when you’re looking at hiring your dream team, don’t just think about what tasks you can outsource from a business perspective, but what tasks could you outsource within the home too? Because it might be that that’s actually where you start.

Melinda Wittstock:       Yeah, that’s a really, really good point.

Angela Henderson:       And so then the last profit pillar is, I call it productive and profitable profit pillar. That’s a bit of a mouthful. But what I talk about here is, unless you get really clear about your revenue goals, unless you start to set income targets, unless you start mastering your schedule and staying on top of your priorities, unless you start knowing your numbers, it’s going to be very difficult to grow businesses. And what I say to people is, if you think back when you were making like four figures and then you moved to five figures, well, people who are making seven, eight, nine, ten, figures, almost it’s like their job responsibility, as part of the job description, is understanding the numbers in order to make better informed decisions.

Angela Henderson:       So that’s why it’s really important every month that my team put together, where’s our traffic coming from? Has our traffic dropped in particular areas? What’s working? What isn’t working? We also track our time every single day by using Toggl, because before I was tracking my time, it was crazy how much time I was spending on certain tasks. And then when I start looking at it I’m like, “Oh my goodness, that is taking away from me to grow the business.” So all I’m saying is, profit pillar number seven is about understanding your productivity and your profitability by knowing your numbers, understanding your revenue goals, and again, pushing through with those.

Melinda Wittstock:       So Angela, did you really learn all of this in the experience of launching your business? I mean your first business. Was this all experiential or did you come into it kind of knowing these things already? How did you come to this knowledge? Because it’s such a great framework, it makes so much sense, and it’s such a great roadmap.

Angela Henderson:       I mean, yes, at the beginning I kind of knew about it, but I didn’t know the how to’s. And so I then just made through trial and error, started realizing like again, when I didn’t have a conversional website, well, why are so many people going to my website but they’re not going to check out? Well, my functionality, my website sucked. My cart was broken. People were trying to add things to the cart, but we had an error. Also it’s like, well, you launch a website and you think the people are going to come. Well, they don’t come. Well, why aren’t they coming? Okay, well I’m trying marketing, that’s kind of working, but what else? How can they find you? SEO, well, what’s SEO? So over the last decade of being in business, I’ve made it my business to understand all the moving pieces that are necessary for a business to run holistically.

Angela Henderson:       There’s a lot of coaches, in my opinion, that will focus on numbers, or they’ll focus on messaging, or they’ll focus on branding. My big thing as a coach is, I can look at all those pieces, I know enough about all those pieces, but I would never go and do their SEO. I would refer that to an SEO expert to go and do their short tail and long tail keywords. But I made it my business to understand what pieces are missing in businesses in order for us to fix those, fix the puzzle.

Melinda Wittstock:       So we were talking about vision a little bit earlier on, and as we start to wrap up, I want to know what your big vision is. Tell me more about where you’re going.

Angela Henderson:       So my big vision for me is, I also work with the Queensland State Government as one of their female mentors for business owners. And looking at some of our data here in Australia, that women are more likely to fail in business because they don’t have the tools and resources and community that they need. And so when I started looking, I always wanted to help more women in business, but it was really more when I looked at the data. So my mission for me is to be able to support an additional 2,500 women in business by 2025. So they’ve got access to the resources, tools and community, and coaching they need to grow sustainable and profitable business. That’s part of it.

Angela Henderson:       My other thing is, as a mental health clinician of 15 years, but also someone who’s in remission of almost two years from anxiety and depression, mental health is really important topics for me to be able to break down the stigma, especially for entrepreneurs, but female entrepreneurs who are also mothers and they’re juggling motherhood while running a business and potentially even working. So for me it’s, whenever I have an opportunity, I make sure that people understand the importance of taking care of their mental health. I mean, eight people alone in Australia every day take their lives. Some of that can be reduced substantially if the stigma wasn’t there.

Melinda Wittstock:       Oh my goodness, that’s such important work. And I think now too with coronavirus and the impact it’s having around the world, I know some people went into it with a more, I don’t know, you could call it spiritually evolves kind of perspective, they’ve done a lot of work on themselves, they’re kind of coping with this a lot better because they have those tools. They meditate, or they have ways of knowing that their feelings are not them, and things like that. All the different processes and ways in which we can really have very positive mental, emotional health and all of that. Other people though, went into this without those skills. And the impact it’s going to have could be sizable. I mean, and that might be an understatement.

Angela Henderson:       I totally agree. It’s quite scary to think that a lot of countries, Australia’s just released like an $18 million mental health package, to accommodate for what’s happening with the coronavirus. I don’t know what’s happening in the other parts of the world, but they have. I will give credit where credit is due, that they have acknowledged that. Because the other thing that again cracks me up really to some degree is, you have essential workers but the bottle shops can still remain open. All right, so now some data was released here in Australia, alcohol consumption has gone up by 70%. 70%. So now, we potentially have, not only mental health problems, but we also have alcohol and or drug addictions that we’re going to have to deal with. Not to mention the domestic violence that is occurring. On any given day before coronavirus-

Melinda Wittstock:       And now people are on lockdown, yeah.

Angela Henderson:       It’s even more. And I was listening to a psychologist speak about the coronavirus and what she said was, is everyone is going to go through some level of trauma during this experience, no matter how functioning you are in your coping skills. She also talks about the level of grief. Every one of us will go through some level of grief because where there is loss, there is grief. And so like for my children for example, is they’re really big into sport and their friends, that has been a significant loss for them. A loss of where they belong, a loss of their friendships, a loss of routine, a loss of understanding. So everyone will go through it.

Angela Henderson:       But she said, then there’s going to be the others who are actually going to be traumatized because of what has happened. Either loved ones have died suddenly because of this, or children who are witnessing domestic violence on any given day, the magnitude that they now are going to be experiencing because there’s no outlet for them. So I would say that we are in for another wave of what will happen to economy collectively in community in the next few months.

Melinda Wittstock:       Wonderful. Well, I just want to make sure that everybody knows how to find you and work with you, Angela.

Angela Henderson:       Yeah, no worries. I always say the best of place is just to go to my website, that’s kind of my ecosystem, at angelahenderson.com.au. And from there, depending on what you need, you can choose, you can listen to my podcast, The Business & Life Conversations Podcast. You can read our weekly blog, you can download some of my freebies, go to the mastermind. Or of course you can look at paid ways to work with me, which is my mastermind, my one-to-one, come to my retreat or my group coaching program. So again, just head to angelahenderson.com.au, and just choose whatever it is you need right now.

Melinda Wittstock:       Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Angela Henderson:       Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

 

Angela Henderson
Subscribe to Wings!
 
Listen to learn the secrets, strategies, practical tips and epiphanies of women entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, built that” so you too can manifest the confidence, capital and connections to soar to success!
Instantly get Melinda’s Wings Success Formula
Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda
Subscribe to Wings!
 
Listen to learn the secrets, strategies, practical tips and epiphanies of women entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, built that” so you too can manifest the confidence, capital and connections to soar to success!
Instantly get Melinda’s Wings Success Formula
Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda
Subscribe to 10X Together!
Listen to learn from top entrepreneur couples how they juggle the business of love … with the love of business.
Instantly get Melinda’s Mindset Mojo Money Manifesto
Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda
Subscribe to Wings!
 
Listen to learn the secrets, strategies, practical tips and epiphanies of women entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, built that” so you too can manifest the confidence, capital and connections to soar to success!
Instantly get Melinda’s Wings Success Formula
Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda