Episode #170: Moving to an evergreen business model
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In today’s episode I’m going to be sharing a bit more about what an evergreen business model is by answering y’all’s most frequently ask questions, so let’s dive in!
Why is an evergreen business model something to consider?
In order for me to accurately answer this question I need to give you some backstory, so here goes:
Y’all I’m a bit burnt out. I’ll be totally honest. And I came across an article yesterday that really validated my feelings and explained why all of a sudden I’m feeling this way.
It said that said that moms, especially moms who are working at home and are attempting to home school their kids are working an average of 14 hour work days. We, on average, wake up right around 6:30 am and stop “working” at 8:30 pm. So if you’re feeling burnt out, rightfully so. But you don’t have to stay burnt out.
We’re basically doing two very BIG things (raising businesses AND teaching our kids) whereas before the coronavirus shut downs we had portions of our lives outsourced, and handled, and systematized, and figured out. That’s not the case anymore. Everything is different.
And, here’s the other thing that I keep going back to. This whole idea of home school. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I have literally NEVER had home schooling my kids on my list of things I want to do. We had two days notice to get ready for home schooling our kids. Our school system isn’t set up to home school, we’re not set up at home to home school, and we’re now expected on top of everything else that we’re doing at home and to be our kids’ teacher. Without a support network of other home schoolers. Right? While we’re now all in the same boat, we have no friggin’ clue as to what it is that we are doing.
Expecting us to magically have all of the answers when it comes to educating our kids, isn’t realistic. So if you’re feeling this extreme pressure to get it all right and to check all of the boxes, give yourself some serious grace here.
It’s a lot and know that you’re doing the absolute best thing you can do right now.
What matters the most right now is that you’re keeping your family safe, that your kids are being raised in a loving environment, and that you’re making sure this very strange time actually works for you and your family. So if not getting everything done on the home school front doesn’t happen, it’s ok. Take the pressure off.
Now, the cool thing about having an online business is that we have the freedom to change how we run it. And y’all, as an online entrepreneur WE WERE MADE FOR THIS! We don’t have to fit into a box, we don’t have to work 40 hours a week, and this is true freedom.
So what I’m leaning into is a permanent way of running my business called an evergreen model. So that when I don’t want to (or can’t) actively work my business, I don’t have to. Remember, we make the rules!
If we don’t want to live launch, we don’t have to. If we don’t want to show up on Facebook Live weekly, we don’t have to. If we don’t want to have an Instagram account, we don’t have to. There is nothing saying that we have to run our businesses in a certain way.
An evergreen model appeals to me because it doesn’t require me to do anything actively. If I want to do the active work in my business, cool! If I don’t, that’s fine too.
What is an evergreen business model?
I think of an evergreen business model as an entire ecosystem. It relies heavily on automated email marketing to not only develop the “know, like, and trust” factor, but to also sell, enroll, and off-board your clients. And the most important thing is that this is all running in the background of your business.
What the system does is it drives traffic to your lead magnet, and then from there moves your new email subscriber through an automated system, based on their habits inside of your email funnels.
When they enroll in your program, they are removed from the email funnel and put into another funnel to deliver them their on-boarding information.
And when the program ends, sends them through an effective off-boarding sequence that gets a testimonial from them, delivers them their next steps, and thanks them for their business.
How is an evergreen model different from a passive model?
Maybe this is semantics, but I think of passive marketing and selling as a linear approach. So there is still a lead magnet, still an email funnel that sells in the background of your business, but once that initial funnel is done, there is no habit-based portion that continues on. Instead of being an ecosystem, it’s a simpler approach that can get results, but it’s dependent on more active work in the marketing of your program. And if our goal is to make less active work for you, then this isn’t what you want to implement.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a start, but it shouldn’t be the end game, if your goal is to limit your active work.
How do you get started evergreen-ing your business?
First, you need the systems in place.
You’ll need an email CRM. I use ConvertKit for this.
You’ll need a mechanism to process payments and host your product. I use Kajabi for this.
You’ll need a timer that can do evergreen launches. I use Deadline Funnels for this.
And you’ll need something to hook everything together. I use Zapier for this.
I’ve hyperlinked to these resources with affiliate links. If you decide to use them I will get a small commission from the platform. Also, if you decide to use them they all have somewhere between a 14 and a 30 day free trial (it varies from company to company) for you to try out the platform. So you can get in, test out the platform, see if you like it, and either cancel or move forward.
The question of price point ALWAYS comes up here.
The price point really depends on what you need out of these platforms. I pay around $350 a month for the combination of the four.
And, if you’re shocked at that price point, here’s my perspective on this. If spending $350 per month for a system that not only markets, sells, and works with my clients on my behalf and allows me to SCALE to potentially increase revenue, $350 is well spent.
Now let’s talk about some practical things you need in place to get started.
Your first step in creating an evergreen model, as far as the actual implementation is concerned, is your initial email funnel. You need to create a hearty email funnel that not only serves your subscribers but also opens up the cart for your program fairly early on in your relationship. This creates a culture of not only service, but also selling to your subscriber. They are getting amazing value and consistently being told how to get better results by working with you through a program that you have.
This first initial funnel is actually what we teach inside of the Lead Generation Lab in our Email Funnel Breakdowns. Remember, you can enroll in the Lead Generation Lab right now for a $7, 7-day trial. When you enroll you’ll have immediate access to the Lab and this particular Email Funnel Breakdown.
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If you’re not seeing results, what do you do?
You dive into your numbers. The cool thing about email funnels is they tell you EXACTLY how they’re performing and how to improve based on the data they collect. So you look at the numbers and you see how you could tweak. It also helps to know what numbers you should be striving for. So knowing your industry’s standards are really important here.
How do I get people into the system?
You use platforms to drive traffic. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn are all platforms that you can use to drive traffic to your email funnel. There are many, many more, but those are the bigger and more commonly known ones right now.
You can drive traffic organically, of course. But if you want to see faster results, Facebook and Instagram Ads will give you the biggest return on your investment. Organic traffic can get you results, but it requires more of your time. And if the entire point here is to buy back your time, then I’d consider really leaning into paid advertising. The targeting that is available on Facebook and Instagram, along with the data you can get that is built into their platform, is phenomenal.
Yes, it will require you to run Ads, which may be a different way of working for you, so maybe you outsource it, or maybe you buy that course, or maybe you learn how to do it yourself. Either way, I think Ads can be a game changer in your business. I know for me and my clients, paid advertising has produced bigger results much faster than organic results.
And again, this goes along with what I said earlier when I was talking about the tools you’ll need to implement this system and the cost associated with those tools. If investing in paid advertising helps you to work less, scale more, and increase your revenue, then why wouldn’t you do it?
To take this one step farther, the action you take to create your first 6-figure year or even your first 7-figure year has to be drastically different than the action you are currently taking, if you haven’t seen those kinds of results yet. What got you here, won’t get you there, so that next level requires something different from you.
Inside of the Lead Generation Lab every month you get a new lead generation strategy that helps you to drive traffic more effectively from various platforms. Again, you can get immediate access to all of the trainings with a 7-day, $7 trial right now.
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