12-Month Revenue Growth Template

Month 1

Solution & Offer

Determine your solution

  • What is your client’s dream outcome?
  • What problems/obstacles are in your client’s way?
  • What are all the possible solutions to your client’s problems?
  • Create a value matrix (value on one axis and cost to deliver on another axis).

Optimize value equation

  • (Dream Outcome * Perceived likelihood of achievement)/(Time delay * effort & sacrifice) = Value

Enhance the offer

  • Scarcity
    • Rotate a free bonus, so the ‘limited time free bonus’ becomes the scarcity component.
  • Urgency
    • End on [date]
  • Bonuses
  • Guarantees
    • Unconditional
      • “No Questions Asked” Refund
      • Satisfaction-Based Refund
    • Conditional
      • Outsized Refund – additional money back attached to doing the work to qualify
      • Service – provide work that is free of charge until X result is achieved
      • Modified Service – grant another period Y of service or access free of charge
      • Credit-Based – provide a refund in the form of a credit toward your other offers
      • Personal Service – work with client one-on-one for free until X result is achieved
      • Wage-Payment – pay their hourly rate if they don’t get value from your session
      • Release of Service – cancel the contract free of charge if they stop getting value
      • Delayed Second Payment – stop 2nd payment until the first outcome is reached
      • First Outcome – pay ancillary costs until they reach their first outcome
      • Anti-Guarantee – a non-guarantee that explicitly states “all sales are final” with a creative reason for why
    • Implied Guarantees – a performance-based offer based on trust and transparency
      • Performance
      • Revenue-Share
      • Profit-Share
      • Ratchets
      • Bonuses/Triggers
  • Name the offers

100 Primary Actions

Do 100 primary actions every day for 100 days.

  • Examples of primary actions could be a mix of warm outreach, cold outreach, posting free content, or running paid ads.

KPIs

Determine KPIs to track and create a monthly scorecard to track them.

Month 2

Warm Outreach

  1. Pull all of your leads
  2. Pick a platform you have the most contacts on
  3. Personalize your greeting (Example: Saw you just had a baby, congrats!)
  4. Consider using video (Loom)
  5. Reach out to 100 people per day. Reach out to them 3 times.
  6. When they respond, use the ACA method (ACKNOWLEDGE what they said, COMPLIMENT what they said, and then ASK another question close to your offer).
    • Make them an offer. Get through a normal amount of conversation (3-4 messages or 3-4 minutes of talk) and then make them an offer to see if they’re interested.
    • Value Equation: (Dream Outcome * Perceived Likelihood of Success)/(Time Delay * Effort and Sacrifice) = Value
    • Pro Tip: Increase the perceived likelihood of achievement
    • Show proof we have done what they want (our own story)
    • Show proof we have helped people just like them (testimonials)
    • The volume of 5-star reviews or the number of people we’ve helped
    • 3rd party accreditation, degrees, etc.
    • Stats/research to support our offer
    • Experts vouching for us
    • New characteristic they haven’t failed with before, so they think it might work
    • Celebrity endorsement
    • Guaranteeing they achieve it
    • How well you describe them or the current pain they’re experiencing
    • Demonstrate the outcome live or show a recording of it happening

Free

  • When you launch a new product/service, make the first ≈5 free.
  • Make it easy for them to say ‘yes’ to your free offer.
  • You will learn a ton from the people you help for free.
  • Initial customers will help generate positive reviews and referrals.

Employees

If you trained someone properly and in three weeks they still don’t get it, cut them.

Month 3

Cold Outreach

  • Pull a list of your target audience.
  • Create cold outreach messaging.

How to get people to overcome trust issues:

  • Personalize and act like you know them.
    • 1-3 personalized pieces of information
  • Pro Tip: Make the reading level at a 3rd-degree reading level using software.

Contact the same person multiple times and in multiple ways.

  • After you’ve contacted them 3-6 times and they haven’t engaged, wait 6 months, and try again.

Cold outreach is difficult because it’s difficult for people to care. Therefore, show you care by giving away free value until they’re ready to buy.

Softwares

  • LinkedIn Automation
  • Cold email automation

Month 4

Paid Advertising

Most successful ads include:

  1. Page/Business Name
  2. Hook (1st Line of Copy)
  3. Eye Catching Photo/Video
  4. Geographical Call Out
  5. Demographic Call Out
  6. Time/Duration
  7. Wrapper/Benefit
  8. Headline/Wrapper
  9. Call-to-Action

Focus on the first 5-seconds more than anything.

Pro tip: Record 10 ads, and 30 5-second intros, which can create 300 different combinations of ads.

Key Elements of an Ad

  • Aligns dream outcome and shows bad stuff they experience if they don’t buy
  • Perceived likelihood of achievement
  • How risky it is to not act. How their problems become bigger
  • Time delay
    • How low their current trajectory is.
  • Effort and sacrifice
    • How much work they’ll need without your solution.

Month 5

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet should solve a narrow problem that your customer has and then lead them to their main problem, which is what your core offer should solve.

Example: If your client’s main problem is selling their home, perhaps a free lead magnet could be ‘How to price your home calculator.’

Three types of lead magnets

  • Reveal Problems
    • Example: Website loads 30% slower than it should. Calculate how much this costs them in missed leads
  • Samples and Trials
    • Example: Give full but brief access to your offer
  • One-Step in a Multi-Step Process
    • Example: Free finance courses, but you offer financial services to do it for them

The lead magnet should be packed with value. This will make people believe that if they buy, your offer will also be packed with tons of value.

Always include a call-to-action after the lead magnet. CTAs should always tell the audience what to do and why to do it right now (scarcity).

Month 6

Free Content

All free content has three components

  1. Hook
  2. Retain
  3. Reward

Headline ideas:

  • Recency
  • Relevancy (personally meaningful)
  • Celebrity
  • Proximity (close to home geographically)
  • Conflict (opposing ideas, people, ideas)
  • Unusual
  • Ongoing (stories still in progress)

Retain by asking questions

  • Lists
  • Steps (actions that must be completed in a specific order)
  • Stories

Think in terms of reward-per-second.

Be sure to fulfill the hook with the reward.

Make all your content for strangers. Make it easy for strangers, who have never heard of you, easy to consume.

Dramatically overgive and ask less. “Give until they ask.”

  • Give in public, and you will get a lot of people to ask you in private.

Only have one call to action.

  • Example: Don’t say ‘Share, Like, and Subscribe.’ Just say ‘Subscribe’ or just ‘Share.’

People don’t have short attention spans, they have high standards. Make good stuff people like instead of worrying about people’s attention spans.

Manual posts are better than scheduled posts, because you’ll make sure the content you are actually about to publish is of the highest quality.

Community

Building a community around your brand or product can act as a force multiplier, creating an environment where customers not only buy but also become brand advocates.

Month 7

Refine Sales Process

Sales Process steps:

  1. Pre-Frame (Ask questions and give information that positions your business as busy and highly desirable. Example: Did you hear about us from the local news story on X?)
  2. Price Anchor (15,000 value)
  3. Splinter Stack (Break out the offer into all of its components. The long stack makes it feel like people are getting a lot more psychologically).
  4. Scarcity
  5. Urgency
  6. Crazy Guarantee
  7. Bribe (One high-ticket choice and one low-ticket with continuity or monthly commitment. Example: 6-Week Challenge that normally costs $600 as a free gift if they just sign up for a membership today)
  8. Downsell your upsell. Sell an ‘X Day’ program, and then, at the end of the program, sell a continuity program. This will outperform selling a monthly engagement upfront.

Leverage an intake questionnaire.

  • Sample questions include:
    • What are you here for?
    • What’s your current situation?
    • What’s your dream goal?
    • How long would it take to accomplish this on your own?
    • Do you want to sustain your goal after you achieve it?
    • How long have you wanted to [goal]?
    • Why do you want this so badly?
    • Why are you applying now?
    • Why do you think you’ll succeed this time?
    • What’s your current state? What is your desired state?
    • Have you struggled in the past?

Copywriting tips

  • Headline comes first
  • Say what only you can say
    • If you’ve done anything remarkable or different, say it.
  • Always call out who you are looking for
    • And, who you are NOT looking for.
  • Reason why
    • Always tell the prospect WHY you are running a promotion. The word ‘Because’ is one of the best words to use here.
  • Damaging admission
    • Always own your flaws
  • Show, don’t tell.
  • Tie benefits to status whenever possible
  • Use urgency and scarcity whenever possible
  • Implied authority
  • P.S. = power sentence
  • Clear next steps
  • Third-grade reading level

Improve meeting attendance:

  • Get people to show up to meetings/appointments by saying: “We don’t do reschedules because we’re simply too booked up. And we only work with people who are serious and keep their word.”
  • Have a hard-line policy of not rescheduling.
  • Message people the day before the meeting with either a video or photo of you in front of your business or with a funny face to show you are a real person.

Have a testimonial wall wherever possible. Lots of before & afters.

  1. CLOSER Sales Formula
  2. CLARIFY why they are there.
  3. LABEL them with the problem you plan on solving.
  4. OVERVIEW their past pains and experiences.
  5. SELL them the “vacation.”
  6. EXPLAIN away their concerns.
  7. REINFORCE their decision…WOW them.

Send new customers a handwritten letter, make a call from the CEO, or send some company swag.

Month 8

Referrals

Types of referrals:

  • One-sided referral
  • Two-sided referral benefits
  • Ask for a referral when they buy
  • Ongoing referral promotion

Match the thing you give with the thing you sell

Get a three-way introduction for a referral

  • The customer should initiate the referral.
  • Once people start referring, you know you’ve got something of value.

Month 9

Affiliates & Partners

Create an affiliate army:

  1. Find your ideal affiliates
  2. Make them an offer
  3. Qualify them
  4. Figure out what to pay them
  5. Get them sharing
  6. Keep them sharing

Whitelabel lead magnets.

Don’t cap payouts.

Affiliates can bundle your products.

You can give your affiliates a free X to their customers, and then upsell them your core offer.

Help affiliates sell more of their stuff, and integrate your core offer into their business.

Month 10

Reviews

Methods to get reviews:

  • Inspiration
  • Requirement
  • Ethical bribe

Ascend

What do you sell someone after you’ve already sold them something?

Create a value ladder and determine the sales points between steps in the value ladder.

Month 11

Retention

5 Keys for Increased Retention

  1. Reach-Outs/Touch Points
    • Reach out every 14 days to every customer
  2. Engagement Tracking
  3. Handwritten Cards or Swag
  4. Member Events
  5. Exit Interviews

Month 12

Key Metrics Review

  • New customer acquisition rate
  • Average transaction value
  • Customer lifetime value
  • Cost of customer acquisition
  • Monthly recurring revenue
  • Retention/churn rate
  • Number of active affiliates and referrals

Feedback and Customer Insights

  • Collate customer feedback received over the past 11 months.
  • Analyze the most frequent reasons for complaints and praise.
  • Hold a focus group or send out surveys to gain deeper insights into customer preferences.

Tools and Software Assessment

  • Check the effectiveness of the tools and software used.
  • Determine if there are better alternatives available for the next year.

Team Performance Review

  • Evaluate individual and team performances.
  • Recognize outstanding contributions and areas that need improvement.
  • Determine if any additional training or resources are required.

Adjustment of Strategy

  • Identify which strategies worked and which didn’t.
  • Make necessary adjustments based on data and feedback.
  • Consider introducing new tools, technologies, or processes.

Resource Allocation

  • Based on your analysis, allocate resources more effectively for the next year.
  • Consider hiring new team members or reallocating tasks among current members.

Budget Review and Financial Projections

  • Review the annual budget against actual expenditure.
  • Adjust future budgets based on past data and future goals.
  • Create financial projections for the next year.

Innovation and Diversification

  • Explore new market opportunities.
  • Consider introducing new products/services or entering new markets.

Roadmap for the Next Year

  • Outline a detailed plan for the next year, broken down by quarter.
  • Include specific goals, key initiatives, and metrics to track.

Automate & Scale

Once you’ve determined a system that works, automate a defined system for scale.

  • Leverage CRM
  • Outsourced virtual assistants
  • Process software