Show Notes:

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Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the Your Biggest Vision show. This is Leah and I am so excited to share this episode with you, which is a, both a behind the scenes and a how to, so in today’s episode, I want to talk to you about how to have your highest cash month in your business without having to do launches or tons of selling. And this was inspired by a real month that I had a few months ago in which I was very early on in my pregnancy. And I also have a new puppy. 

So between the two things I just was not able to work as much as I usually do my first pregnancy. Definitely. I’m sorry. My first trimester of my pregnancy definitely came with symptoms and I’m going to do a whole episode on that separately, just as a, by the way I am pregnant.

I’m very excited. And again, I’m going to share more on that in this whole separate episode, but the point is I found out I was pregnant and I went into this month and I had a brand new puppy. I mean, we only had her for like a week. And when we found out, I didn’t know I was pregnant when we got her. 

And then we found out, so between the two of them, between the brand new dog, and then also, um, my body going through all these changes, I just found myself in a very different place than I usually am in business. And just my hormones, my mind, my emotions, absolutely everything, um, which I will share more in depth on, in a later episode. But for the sake of this episode, I want to share how I made the decision that that month was going to be the highest cash month we had all year in it actually I think is my highest cash month to date, knowing that I was in no condition to do a huge launch or a really aggressive sales.

I mean, I could barely some days get out of bed, let alone get on video or, you know, do sales calls or all the things that really can help things launch. So this was how I got creative and you really can use this if you are at any point in your life, when you need a month where you’re getting more cashflow and rather than sales, now, it is really important to know when to push which harder. 

Oftentimes we are more sales focused in my business than we are in cash because sales are what set us up for the rest of the, you know, the following months, the next year, sometimes the next several years. Um, it is based on sales that I make hiring decisions that I make marketing decisions that I make budget decisions. So we usually focus more on getting our sales numbers higher than our cash number. But this month I knew that sales are not what I could focus on as much. And I knew that I would feel, you know, just, um, better if I had a high, a high cash month. So no, the chapter of business you’re in, but if you are in a place where you are looking to increase your cash month and you don’t want to do it with a launch, maybe you’re pregnant, or maybe you just want to take a vacation, or maybe you need it that little bit of extra cash, uh, or a lot of extra cash.

Maybe you are going through something traumatic. Um, and you just need to step away. I really wish I would’ve had this episode when I was going through some of the grief around my dad because, uh, you know, life happens. And when you understand that you should be able to make both sales and cash on demand. Um, life happening does not need to be at the sacrifice of your business growing or of your cash coming in. And it certainly does not need to cause you any stress. And I certainly did not want any, any stress. So that is what I decided to do. And I’m going to share three ways in which you can have at your highest cash month to date without any launches or sales. But before I do that, I also want to preface this by saying that it’s so, so important to have a business set up that allows you to make money on demand.

It isn’t enough to just want to make money on demand, but have not put in the work and the infrastructure and the mindset that allows you to do that kind of thing. Specifically, what we’re looking for here is both an audience that is set up and something to sell that is set up. And probably most importantly is that no month should start at zero. 

So, you know, I guess, let me talk about those three things on their own for just a second, to be very clear. So first and foremost, in order to make money on demand, you have to have people to sell to. It’s very, very simple, uh, all too often. However, even though that is very simple and logical, I see very smart entrepreneurs thinking that just because they have a great product, a great service, a great idea, a great Instagram account.

That means that they should be able to sell things, but it doesn’t matter if you have the cure for cancer. If you don’t have an audience that knows about it, if you don’t have people that are aware that you have this and that you sell it, you have no one to sell it to, and you will not be able to make that money on demand. Or even if you, if you are able to make it, it will not be as easy as it could or should be. 

So you have to continually build and nurture your audience, honestly, every single day. And you don’t have to do it on your own. Uh, you can have a team do it. You can have automation do it. You can batch content, you can have different softwares do it. It doesn’t have to be a huge job. It doesn’t have to be a stressful piece, but you really don’t have a business if you don’t have customers, if you don’t have a database, if you don’t have an audience.

And so that is the first thing to keep in mind is that I was able to have this very, very high cash month. Um, partially because I went into it with an audience you and an email list of, of, of tens of thousands of people and, uh, uh, you know, uh, an audience that I have been nurturing and being transparent with and sharing with and giving value with, for years at this point, now you don’t need to have necessarily those numbers or that amount of time. It’s not about that. It’s just about knowing that you have an audience and knowing that at least a few times a week, um, you’re doing something to continue nurturing and grow that audience. The second thing that you need to have to go into a month like this, or just to be able to really have this flexibility in this kind of on demand ability is that you need to obviously have something to sell.

You need to have a product or service that you can sell. Um, and ideally it will be a product or service that your audience already knows about and that you’ve talked about and that you haven’t been bashful about, or that you haven’t sold yourself short on. That’s going to come in handy later, which I will talk more about, but that is also an obvious component of a business is having a product or service that you sell. You might be listening to this and thinking, Leah, this is business 101. This is so simple, but really ask yourself, does your audience right now, would they be able to get up this morning, think, Hey, I want to buy this particular product or service from you. Could they pull out their credit card and could they do it right then? Do they know enough about it? Have you talked about it enough?

Have you talked about how great it is? Is it clear the process of how to get it? Is it clear the person that it is for all of that, is that clear and is that known and is that accessible? And then finally the third thing that is very, very important is to not go into months starting at zero. Um, I think in the beginning, this is very common. 

I did this in the beginning and I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world in the beginning when you’re just trying to get off the ground, but it should be course corrected quite quickly where you want to, instead of feeling like you make sales one month and then the month’s over and those sales and that cash has already disappeared. You are constantly patting your recurring monthly revenue every single month with, with almost every sale.

Um, and you can do this by encouraging payment plans, offering payment plans, offering subscriptions, if that’s your cup of tea, offering ongoing services or products, things like that. There’s a lot of different ways, but having just a launch where everyone pays in full and just pays that, um, and, and then, you know, having to start over the next month is very stressful and really won’t help you with this kind of making money on demand, um, you know, flexibility that you should be have that we’re talking about here. 

Now, the exception to this, if you do have a launch that you just want to do one month and you don’t want to launch every month, I get that, you know, you shouldn’t need to do that. Let’s say recurring revenue doesn’t make sense, given what you’re selling, your launch needs to be big enough where it can sustain you for two to three months, and you should know that in advance or however long it takes for you to do it again.

So just to recap, going into this, I had an audience that I had been nurturing and giving value to for years, I had clear products and services that I have sold have been selling, have testimonials on, and my audience knows about. And then I also already had recurring monthly revenue coming in. I always do. We always do. I would not feel comfortable having the team that I have if we didn’t have recurring monthly revenue. So knowing those three things, and by the way, if you don’t feel solid in those three things, please reach out to my team. We have really incredible opportunities right now to work with us. We are doing, uh, we have a waitlist for scale, your side hustle open, which is opening in, um, in August. And you can get on that wait list and get a discount. We also have a new one-on-one package.

Um, that’s really inventive and also more affordable than, um, the directly with me. So, you know, we have all different ways for, uh, you to be supported and to have a business that allows you to make money on demand. So if you don’t have those things, don’t stress, don’t feel bad. Don’t feel guilty, but don’t stay in that place any longer. You can get help. All right, let’s talk about the three ways that you can now from there have a high cash month during any month with no launch, with no aggressive sales, no matter what you’re going through. The first thing to do is to look at your monthly recurring revenue plans and the commitments people have and consider rewarding and incentivizing people on payment plans, on subscription plans, on anything like that to pay in full. 

So for example, if you have a client that is a one-on-one client and they pay monthly, um, for four months, maybe you reach out to them and say, Hey, we are actually doing a deal this month, where if you pay for the rest of the remainder of your sessions or of your months in full this month, you get a 5% total discount, or you get a 10% total discount, or I’ll offer you two extra sessions or something like that.

Maybe you offer a subscription service where people pay every month, and this is your opportunity to reach out and let them know that if they’re loving the subscription, they can pay for the subscription through the end of the year, um, at a discounted price. Again, maybe they do it for 5% off, 10% off. Maybe you do a little more, it’s totally up to you. Or you could add a bonus in there, but giving them some incentive to pay off the remainder of what they owe or the rest of the year or six months at a time, whatever feels good for you now, so that you get more of that cash upfront. Now this will not result. You might be thinking Leah, but then I won’t have monthly recurring revenue because I will have just had everyone painful. Usually not every single person will take you up on this.

Usually some people will though, and that, you know, that’s enough, that’s enough to get your cash way, bumped up. Just from that. If you’re all of a sudden getting, you know, from three people who pay monthly, now they pay four months worth of payments. You’re getting 12 worth 12 payments in one month instead of three payments. I mean, that could double your income right there. So it’s definitely enough to make a dent, but typically not everyone will take you up on it. Um, and then, you know, you will still have a little bit leftover and then you can kind of decide what you want to do in the next month, or if you want to watch something again, or if you don’t need to, or you can do whatever feels good for you. But that is a very simple way to do that.

Um, the second tip, and this is along the same lines, but if you, if you are selling something in real time, even if you’re not actively selling it, maybe you have your team selling it, or maybe you are launching something on the backend or whatever the case may be. If you are launching something, um, just hugely incentivized pay-in-full during this time, maybe usually offer payment plans and maybe if pay in full, you do a huge, a bonus for them or a huge discount. 

One of the best techniques I ever saw from this, I hope that I’m not like giving away a secret here, but I’m sure, you know, I went through it. And so it’s probably relatively public knowledge, but I joined, um, James Wedmore’s business by design, and he has the payment plan that you can do. And after you joined via the payment plan, he gets on a video like right then and there with you and says, Hey, I noticed you joined via the payment plan.

And I want to give you $400 or $500. I don’t remember what it is, but it’s some hundred dollars right now. And the way I can do that is if you actually take me up on paying in full right now, because it’s four or $500 cheaper overall than the payment plan. So I’m literally giving you free money. You still get in the program that you’ve already committed to. Uh, but if you take me up on this one more offer to pay in full, then you’re going to save hundreds of dollars and you’ve already committed. So this is money that you for sure are going to spend, unless you take me up on that, it’s totally genius. So you could do something like that. You could do a launch, allow people a payment plan, but then if they do do the payment plan option, you could kind of, you know, touch on that with them there and say, Hey, I know that you’re in now, which is great.

I’m so happy you’re here. And you will literally get free money at this point, since you’re already committed, if you decide to painful at this moment or something like that. So just kind of a different approach here. But again, we are incentivizing the pay-in-full option where we’re incentivizing the cash upfront option so that you get more of that cash injection and you kind of have that mentality around it. 

Okay. Another thing you can do to increase your cash flow during a month is to obviously run a flash sale. Now, this is where it becomes very important that your audience, that you have knows about your product or service because flash sales work best when you don’t need to educate your audience on what it is that you’re offering, you only need to inform them of the sale. So if you’re doing a 48 hour flash sale and during that 48 hours, you’re trying to explain what you’re selling, explain the benefit, explain what the product or services, explain who it’s for and simultaneously add urgency, add value, add clarity around why they should buy now.

Um, it can get very jumbled. It can get very messy. It’s kind of a lot of information. People probably won’t see everything anyway. They might not really know what’s going on. Do they really need this? Is it really on sale? It can just be a little bit unclear. So instead, if you have a product or service you’ve been talking about for years, that people know about that you have testimonials on, and then out of the blue, you can say, Hey, this amazing thing that I’ve been selling for years and people love is on sale for 48 hours. That’s going to sell very, very well. Um, another thing that works well for flash sales, and this is somewhat contradictory to my advice about having people know this already, but this is a slightly different angle is bundle up content that either you’ve sold or done for free, but no longer give for free.

I find that people really love bundles with flash sales. So maybe if your niche is health, um, and you’ve noticed that, and you, you have some content either free or paid. It doesn’t really matter on, um, healing, your gut, maybe that’s, you know, one of your specialties and you bundled together by videos. You’ve created on gut health and 15 recipes. And, um, you know, maybe, uh, an interview you’ve done with an expert on gut health. I’m just kind of making this up here, but let’s say you have this content and you bundle it all up together and you sell kind of like the gut health bundle for 48 hours. That will typically work pretty well as well. So that’s, you know, people don’t know what the bundle is yet. That’s not something you’ve been talking about for years per my advice, but it is something that people are probably very aware of that you talk about and have an expertise in if you’ve already created a lot of content around it.

So those bundles can be really fun and work really well too. I know I love buying bundles myself because I just feel like they take the pressure off of me having to go through every single thing. The way you do a course bundles can just kind of be about like picking and choosing, having fun with what you have time for and what you want. And just kind of getting in the energy of the person or the, um, business that creates them. 

So big fan of bundles. All right, the third, a way that you can increase your cashflow without launching something is to presale something. So this saves you of having to create a new program, create a new service, create a new product or whatever it is that you need to do. But this is a good opportunity for you to take something in the back of your mind that you’ve been excited about for awhile.

And just tell people about it, see if they’re interested and if so, give them the opportunity to buy it in advance at a discounted price. This is something that I recommend doing anyway, before you create something, because it allows you to basically get proof in the pudding before you spend all this time creating something, but it’s especially useful for a cash injection because, um, it doesn’t require you to create it before you do it. And, and, you know, simultaneously you get a test, your idea, which is always a bonus. 

So that is another very good strategy as well. All right, to wrap this all up, I don’t know if this is a tip on its own or just kind of a mindset for all of this. I also want to share that when you’re going through a tough time, whether you are wanting to make it your biggest cash month or not, but when you’re going through life, when you’re going through busy-ness things that make you feel not as quite in your group, the way I certainly was in my first month of pregnancy, when my symptoms were at the peak and my puppy was really young and taking a lot of my husband and I time and energy, um, use that as an opportunity to cut out your own, excuse my language, to have to be so focused when you are working, because those times are less frequent.

And so when you are working, you don’t have time to worry about is this sales email going to annoy someone? What if this person says, no, what if they reject me? What if this doesn’t work, literally force yourself to do something big every time you have a window to work so that you’re constantly taking action. And I actually found that that is probably why from that mindset, why this month worked so well for me, because since the windows of me working lessened in comparison to how much I typically did, I just went into the mindset of like, this is my opportunity to be bold, to be brave, to try new things, because I don’t have time to talk myself out of it. This is my time to pitch myself. This is my time to write that email because I either need to be with my puppy or I need to take care of myself, or I need to, you know, do something else, or I need to do one of my other work obligations in 15 minutes.

So I just, all I have to do all I have time for is to write this thing and hit send, or all I have time for is to write this thing and post it, or all I have time for is to try this. I don’t have time to ask my team about it, to strategize, to journal, to go back and forth, to question myself. I mean, those things aren’t inherently wrong. I’m a big fan of journaling and team collaboration, but sometimes it can be at the cost of your productivity and at the cost of your guts. And I think that if you’re wanting to do something aggressive and when your time shrinks, you know, you always hear new mothers say, and I’m guessing I’ll find out soon that they almost become more productive because their time becomes more precious. And so you can approach it from that mindset.

Your time is more precious when you’re working, because you might not have the capacity to do it as much right now. So how can you make more of that time and be more aggressive and be more excited and be more bold and be more daring. And I think when you can approach it with that mindset, it becomes fun. 

It becomes experimental. It becomes a huge learning experience, and it doesn’t feel like there’s pressure on you, which there never should be. If you have a business set up the way we talked about here. So I hope that you guys found this helpful. Uh, and once again, if you want help setting up a business and the way that we talked about here, please just reach out to us at help@LeahGervais.com. We’re happy to talk to you about scale, your side hustle, getting you on the wait list or our new one-on-one coaching package or anything else we can help you with. Um, and I always love hearing from you guys on Instagram. So you can always reach out to me at, @LeahGervais_. And I would love to hear from you here is your biggest vision.

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