Why My Revenue Grew by 34% In a Turbulent Year – 4 Key Strategies

Hey Friend!

After returning from my annual CEO retreat, I am thrilled to share a remarkable finding from my online business analytics. This past year I achieved an impressive 34% growth in revenue, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars more in income. This substantial increase is a testament to our resilience and strategic efforts.

Reflecting on this past year, a year that was almost marked as a recession year, I was shocked to see the growth that we sustained through it all. Yes, we can all agree it was a turbulent year, an off year, a down year, whatever you label it as we can all agree it was a tough year for businesses and the world. We had inflation to contend with, wars, and political disruption. 

Through the uncertain times, one thing is for certain; I was not giving up on my business. I stayed consistent and with that consistency came growth, a lot of growth! Continue reading to find out the 4 key strategies you can implement to grow your revenue in your online business.

Testimonial

“I stumbled on Stef’s Facebook community when I was doing market research for her mastermind program. Her mission view of Christ-centered business without social media resonated with me. After binge-listening to several episodes, I enrolled in Clarify Your Calling.

I took the leap to start my podcast by enrolling in Podcast Pro University and launched my podcast on December 31st.  I jumped into Podcast To Profit (P2P) and my results have been mind-blowing. My podcast grew and impacted lives in 41 countries and now my podcast is ranked in the top 2.5% globally.I am extremely grateful for Stef and for taking the leap into her programs. Stef has an amazing team helping other Christian women succeed. 

Stef, I am very grateful for your help, coaching feedback, and prayers. Thank you so much for fulfilling your purpose so other women like me can fulfill theirs. I pray for more growth and impact for you and your team.” – Chichi

4 Key Strategies Behind My 34% Revenue Growth

Isn’t it amazing to see how Chichi started with finding the free Facebook group, which is strategically set up for people to find us using key phrases?  She then was led to my podcast after joining that community.  

Chichi bing-listened to the show, which then led her to join Clarify Your Calling. And that course led her to take Podcast Pro University, which then led her to take Podcast To Profit. I’m happy to say Chichi is a lifetime student and we love seeing the amazing results come from her efforts inside The Stephanie Gass school. 

And this right here is a snippet of my strategy behind why my revenue growth this year. Let’s take a closer look into the 4 key strategies behind my 34% revenue growth. 

#1 Clear Messaging and SEO-Focused Keywords

Having clear messaging and SEO keywords throughout my business, and the brand itself, including my Facebook group, is a crucial part of my growth strategy. Remember, Chichi found us in the Facebook group and she did that by searching for specific terms. These terms are known as keywords. 

When you join P2P, one of the lessons you receive is focused on the optimization of your Facebook group through the utilization of SEO. This helps your group to be easily found by your target audience. 

Throughout my Facebook group, my website, my podcast, and all the words I use throughout my brand, I am speaking your language. I’m not guessing what my avatar is saying or thinking, I’m not making up words, but rather I’m digging into the data and researching the exact phrases my avatar says.  

I do market research and my team dives into every comment received after I post a Facebook question in my group. This is so valuable. I’m collecting the answers for future use in my marketing. We are consistently researching to see what my audience needs. Then we pull those answers and use them for marketing, and messaging and use them in almost everything we do within the business and brand.  

This right here is one of the big reasons why my company grew and brought in new leads; my messaging was clear and my SEO was on point. If you don’t have clear messaging and focused SEO keywords, 

• You are not going to resonate with your audience

• You won’t have devoted listeners

• And your audience won’t buy from you

Something else to keep in mind is you want to continue to generate new leads in your business. This is crucial. If you don’t have new leads, then you won’t have new revenue growth. 

#2 Consistent Long-Form Content

Having long-form consistent content is why my revenue continued to grow this past year. What is my long-form content? It’s my podcast!

If you read Chichi’s testimonial at the beginning of the article, you would have seen that she said she bing-listened to the podcast. Have you ever binge-listened to my podcast or another podcast? Have you ever listened to 3 or 4 episodes in a row? Or maybe you even spent an entire weekend listening to my show. It’s hard to stop listening because you feel so attached to the content and to the host of the podcast. That’s what you want. You want consistent content on your podcast that speaks to the person who is listening. You have to be consistent to develop that “know, like, and trust” from your audience. 

If you do one show once every three months, you basically are starting over every time you air an episode because you aren’t connecting on a consistent basis.  Your audience has lost connection with you over that length of time. If you are starting and stopping, having dry spells where you don’t podcast for a month, you’ve lost those listeners. You want your content to speak to the heart and you want to connect on a regular occurrence, just like a true friend would.

Podcasts are a dime a dozen. But the ones who stick it out, and are consistent and dedicated for years, are the ones who will have the breakthrough. Stop being distracted and be consistent. This is one of the biggest reasons why I have revenue growth.  Plus I have a very quick conversion rate from podcast to offer. As you can see in Chichi’s story, she binge-listened to the show, and then she immediately joined Clarify Your Calling. If you want revenue growth that is sustainable, you need to have consistent long-form content.

#3 Strategic Product Ladder

In my business, my product ladder consists of Clarify Your Calling, Podcast Pro University, and Podcast To Profit. This does not mean I want you to create 3 offers right now. I actually want you to do the opposite. I want you to have one offer that converts really well!  Grow it to $100,000 in revenue first before making a second offer. Next, you ask your student what the next step is. Do your research before making a product in Step 2. Your students will tell you what they want their next step to be. Don’t just guess and create a product by doing market research first. Listen to what your audience needs.

Then you build that new product, offer #2 during Step 2, and grow it to $100,000 without losing the momentum of Step 1.  And then it’s time to move on to Step 3.

3-Tier Business Model

Keep in mind, when you go to a 3-tier business, ideally, you are a half-a-million-dollar company at this point. When you create 3 offers too soon, you lose all the momentum in offer #1. Offer #1 is the feeder into the rest of your future programs. When you have too many offers too soon, it becomes a distraction. Plus at this stage, you don’t have a large enough demand or enough superfans to support the 3 offers.

It’s more strategic to zone in on one offer only when you are just starting out and making less than $100,000.

When you join P2P we will:

• Create and clean up offer #1

• Clean up your messaging

• Use SEO keywords

• Create a consistent plan for your long-form content

• And address your mindset hurdles

• We build your offer

• Have clarity on your coaching offer

• Fix your sales page

• Fix your pitch

We do it all so we have an offer that is going to be highly converting and making money for you.

Then once you hit $100,000, you can start offer #2 and build out a funnel that takes your past students into your other offers. This is a strategic way to grow year after year because once your fans start working with you, they often want to keep working with you. There are very few people who choose to work with someone else after they join your first course.

We have a 50% rate of return of our students that move from CYC to PPU and then about 20-30% of people move to P2P. It’s highly successful because these students are eager to continue on and move to the next step in their journey.

#4 Team and Systems

Why my revenue grew in a turbulent year has everything to do with team and systems. There’s only so much you can do on your own. You will become the lid to your success. Maybe you already are. God gave each of us unique gifts. Many CEOs are visionary and more action-oriented. But on the other hand operations managers or COOs are more detail-oriented, organized, behind the scenes, and intentional. 

What it takes to get to your first 100,000K in your business is extremely different from the journey of $500,000 to $1,000,000. As you get into those higher numbers in your company, think about finding people who support you in your weaknesses. My gifts do not revolve around detailed work so I look to team members to help me in those areas. As you grow, your business grows and the more systems and strategic team members you have in place, the faster you can grow.

Having a system in place to repurpose content is key. We repurpose the podcast into a blog, Pinterest and some of my interviews are now on YouTube. I didn’t need to repurpose my content to get to my first $500,000 in revenue but I needed to use those strategies to get to $1,000,000.

Remember, you can’t do it all on your own. Why my business continues to grow even in a turbulent year, even when everything else seems really hard economically speaking, is because we have foundational systems in place to keep us successful, productive, and organized.

I have a loyal focused team who steps up, knows what they are doing, and provides vision, organization, and operational excellence at every turn. Plus, we have interns who are working towards earning P2P and provide exceptional support for our team.

The Business Can’t Grow if You Stop Growing.

Having systems and a team is what helped me to grow 34%. I needed to have both in place to see the growth. If you need help with systems, I highly recommend Chelsi Jo’s Systemize Your Biz and save using code STEF100. This is the first step in building a top-notch operation system. 

But if you are just in the beginning stages of your business, I recommend focusing on SEO and having clear messaging throughout your brand. Not sure what your brand should be? Your next step will be to follow the framework inside freeclarityworkshop.com. This will help you learn how to get clear on your calling so you can start an online business. 

If you already know what your brand is but are not sure how to use long-form content consistency in your business, come on over and watch my free workshop podcastforgrowth.com which teaches you why podcasting works so well to grow an audience organically.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

This free workshop is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

It will teach you how to explode your audience without the social media hustle, make consistent sales using a podcast, and plan, record, and launch a podcast with ease!

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