EP 73: Planning Ahead: Keep Your Business Thriving No Matter What
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Acquire podcast. And today I'm going to help you future-proof your business when things get really uncertain. And unless you're living under a rock and you're in the States or you're in Canada, then you know that things are a little bit uncertain.

probably right now. And so I want to help you prepare for this regardless of what other direction things may go. And this is not a political statement. We're literally just talking facts about how businesses run in economies that seem a little bit off. And smart entrepreneurs plan ahead and I want you to get ahead of the curve. So regardless of what happens,

even if nothing happens at all, that you've been the pragmatist and you're ready. Okay. And you'll benefit either way, but this is a great wake up call for a lot of people to think about what has to happen in the next, uh,

month, three months and six months to make sure that if there is an economic downturn, which a lot of smarter people than me think will happen, that you're ready for it, right? So now don't get me wrong, I'm not here to spread doom or gloom or anything of the sort. I am actually coming at this from a very positive place.

so that you're ready. And like I said, smart entrepreneurs prepare ahead of time and they're ahead of the curve when it comes to shifts that are happening around them.

This is all this is. So if this is an interesting topic to you, then stick around because I really want to get into it. And I'm not going to tell you anything you don't necessarily probably already know. I'm not going to say already know, but I'm going to affirm some things and I'm going to give you some insights. Now, I've done a lot of thinking about this. And I've been in this business, well, for 13 years. And I went through an economic downturn, a soft one at least,

and how I had to prepare my business for that. So I really want to get this ready for you. So what you need to be doing right now is focusing on your list building. If in fact we do have an economic downturn in three months or six months up here in Canada, they're saying it might be six months between now and a recession, then I'm

Now is the time to be preparing for that, right? So when the economies get wobbly, it doesn't matter where you live, ad spend becomes more expensive. People tighten their budgets. Businesses that don't have a direct line to their audience will struggle.

And so that's why growing an email list right now is one of the smartest moves you could ever make. And doing it organically is going to cost you a lot less money. And that's what you should be doing right now. So social media is so incredibly unpredictable. And the reach that you have depends on the whim of an algorithm and people who don't necessarily care about you or your business, but care about their bottom line.

And so because it's so unpredictable and you're relying on things like Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn, um,

grow your business. You're actually playing somebody else's game and you're working within their sandbox. And I want to flip that. I want it to be you in charge, right? So a strong email list gives you all of the control because when you own that audience and you don't have to worry about an algorithm basically tanking your reach overnight, you are in a better and stronger position.

And email converts way better than social ever could. And so if you need to drive sales quickly, which a lot of people do, email is still, in my opinion, the most effective way to do it. And because we want to, you know, keep an eye on costs. I mean, I know that I'm looking at my bottom line right now and preparing and thinking. The best thing you can do is be part of free and low cost building strategies right now for your list. So email

If you're thinking, but Jenny, I don't want to spend thousands on an SLO right now or dollars on ads to grow my business, don't worry. I wouldn't suggest any of that right now. Now, I'm not saying to abandon your strategies, right? So if you have an SLO, a self-liquidating offer that's working for you,

then stay with it for now. But keep an eye on your spend, keep an eye on your CAC, keep an eye on everything that's around those paid ads so you can move quickly and nimbly when the time comes. For everybody else that isn't currently spending money on ads, this is the time where I would say,

Be a little more cautious. I mean, feel free to put some money behind paid advertising, but definitely make sure that you're using strategies that are warming up the pixel and all those things, okay?

My best advice right now is collaborations, bundles, and summits. And I want you to strengthen your community muscle because when we go into things like recessions or economic downturns, when people tighten their belts and we can't spend the money that we want to spend, say, on paid advertising as an example, the best thing you can have is community and collaborations and be part of those types of collaborations.

events and those types of list building and that type of business building. Okay, you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck doing it that way. Your, you know, cost per client acquisition or your client acquisition cost is going to go down substantially on referrals and warm audiences. And one of the best ways to do that is collaborations, bundles and summits.

Also, for the most part, participating in a bundle or a summit is completely free. And so that's an easy, easy thing to do. I've already got summits and bundles booked out until July in my business that I'll appear on other people's podcasts and their summits and their bundles.

And my own bundle, Many Bundles, I will be doubling down. I'm going to double down on my efforts there to help people, right? And so if you're looking for a bundle to participate on and you are in the business space, go to manybundles.com, see if you can qualify to be a contributor on that bundle and start participating now.

Because we've been since November of 2024 building an audience so that when you participate in a bundle like many bundles, you get a ton of exposure and you get that exposure for 90 days, right? Most bundles run for like seven to 10 days. Our bundle runs for 90 days, which means you get 90 days of leads. And so not that I'm going to say that we saw things coming, but we were planning and this is the result. Okay. So, um,

Get on summits, be a speaker on summits. It gets your voice out there more often. And a pro tip would be to take part in at least one big event

and successful bundle out there if you can, at least once a quarter. So I want one big summit, one big bundle every single quarter so that you're getting additional exposure. And that's irregardless of when you're doing launches. So make sure you're constantly building up your list, you're constantly showing up in people's feeds, you're constantly participating, and you're constantly building community.

Now, I want you to take a look for the second thing at any lead magnets that you have right now. Do they actually solve a problem? Some lead magnets are just fluffy and that's just the truth of it. And I hate fluff. So I want you to completely do an audit of everything that is front facing in terms of a lead gen activity such as lead magnets. And I want you to do a complete audit.

Take a look at what actually could solve the problem. And I want you to future cast what that problem might be in three months or six months for your potential ideal client. What is going to change, right? So if you're teaching people how to, I don't know, how to build a highly successful course that they can sell, what is that going to look like for people? How hard is that going to be if there's an economic downturn?

How hard is it going to be if people are tightening their budgets and their belts and saying, you know, in 2024, early 2025, yeah, I totally would have dropped $500 on a course, but now I'm not going to drop anything more than a buck 50. Okay. Like 150 bucks. Right. What does that look like? And I want you to plan ahead.

And we're going to talk about that in future, you know, future proofing your offers in a second. But I want you to start thinking about your lead magnets and thinking about how you can solve a problem now that will lead down the garden path towards your offer. And now do not overcomplicate this. Okay. It doesn't have to be a difficult and lengthy process.

really great lead magnets that solve a really great problem can be a one page checklist. One of the most valuable lead magnets I ever received was a one page checklist. And it was just enough information presented in just the way I needed it to kick my butt into gear. And that was a thing. That was one of the things that helped get me over into, into six figures. Right. And then literally the lead magnet that got me into multi six figure, uh,

was a masterclass and it was free and it was a lead magnet. It was awesome, right? So what are you doing to actually solve these problems? And I want you to look also at leveraging other people's audiences because

This is the third thing, and this is hugely important. Leveraging other people's audiences is going to be the absolute key to growth. Now, we've talked about you being on summits and bundles and building community, and that is leveraging other people's audiences, but it's also about exposure. Leveraging other people's audiences is going to be about podcasting.

If you don't have your own podcast, get on other people's podcasts. Apply like crazy. Do it really, really authentically. Honestly, I obviously have a podcast. And if I get copy-paste emails saying, hey, I think I'd be a great guest on your podcast, I can tell. I can tell they're just copy-paste. I know they haven't listened to a choir. I know they have no idea who I am or what I do.

and they don't care. It's just literally a like a spray and pray approach and I hate that approach and I don't recommend you do it. Please don't do it but definitely reach out to podcasts that are within your niche that speak to the thing that you want to speak to that have your ideal client in the audience and then do that. Offer podcast swaps. If you have a podcast, offer podcast swaps. A recent summit that I did for my client Dustin

We had a kickoff call with all of our speakers and we did a big, big, big, and this is something I do for a lot of my clients. I did a big networking opportunity, a big networking event, um,

And all of the experts were like, yeah, I want to be on this podcast and I want to be on this podcast. And I was moderating and running this kickoff. And I had this big spreadsheet where everybody put their information and started planning podcast swaps. Okay. Super good stuff. The other thing that people did said, I will come into your Facebook group and teach your audience. And then other people, I'll come into your Facebook group and teach your audience. So you get these really great community swaps as well. So look at those.

Now, I know this is going to seem really maybe mid-2000s, but guest blogging and email swaps still work. I mean, they're not the darling they once were. They're not as popular as they once were, but they still work and they work because of SEO. So if you do a guest blog on somebody else's website with backlinks to yours, you're increasing your SEO opportunity of, you know, Google just pays you for that kind of stuff. Not pay you money, but, you know, pays you in exposure. Yeah.

And there's a lot more people smarter than me that can explain why. I just know that it works. And so I do it. And I know it just honestly, it seems out of fashion to appear on other people's blogs and write blogs for other people's websites. But it's really cool, actually. And it works. So create those communities and then do that as well. Okay?

Let's switch gears from the list building side. So we've talked about leveraging other people's audiences, making sure you do an audit on your lead magnets and make sure they're solving a real problem and plan ahead to solve problems that you anticipate having or people having.

And then make sure you're doing collaborations, bundles and summits and spending time creating community. Okay, so those are the three things with list building I really want you to focus on. I want you to go heavy, really, really heavy into this. And at the same time, I want you to future proof your offers. Now, list building is step one. We've just talked about it. But let's talk about what you're selling and what you're selling it for. Because when it becomes, when life becomes uncertain and when people start wondering ifs,

buying habits shift, right? So consumer goods, what we will buy, what we won't buy, how much we'll spend on an item changes significantly. And so you'll see people, instead of going out and spending a ton of money on dinner, they'll back it up a little bit. Or they may or may not spend money on the 30K mastermind they were going to do, or they may not travel to your in-person retreat.

Because of money, right? Because everybody starts to hedge their bets a little bit with economic uncertainty. They start to go, okay, I don't know what's coming, but maybe I do need to buy five packages of toilet paper and a whole bunch of microwave popcorn because I don't know what's coming. And I may or may not have done that years ago. We're not going to talk about it.

However, I really want you to look at future proofing your offers. And the first thing I want you to look at is offer tiers. So not everybody's going to be able to afford your highest ticket offer. And that doesn't mean I want you to get rid of it. I want you to look at building a tier. Can you introduce a lower tier option that still delivers value, maybe has less exposure to you or, you know, whatever is in your product?

and still offers some really great value. Okay, I want you to look at payment plans, making your offers more accessible with flexible payment plans. I also want you to look at memberships. You know, memberships are really going to be hot this year. In my opinion, a lot of people are also saying that I know they were getting hotter in 2024. I really think that low cost memberships, or mid cost memberships are going to be very, very important in 2025. And in that case, you're not going for

you know, high paying client, you're going for volume, right? So if you have an established list, you can go pure volume on a membership and pull in really, really great revenue, as opposed to going after six people for a 30k year, like 30k per year mastermind, you could get 600 people for $30 a month, you know,

Don't do the math. I did not. Okay. Transparently, I failed grade 11 math. I'm so sorry, Madame Boyko, for doing that, but it happened. But you get my gist. Okay. So I really want you to look at that. And then additionally, I want you to look at your messaging because your messaging really, really matters in this instance. People

People buy from you when they believe you're going to solve a really intrinsic problem that they're experiencing that makes them feel hopeless or makes them feel like they can't do it themselves or that it feels too overwhelming to do it themselves. Now, you could give everybody, everybody can Google how to build whatever, an Ikea bookcase, like the one behind me if you're watching me on video. But not everybody wants to spend the time building this thing or not everybody wants to figure out how to do something

A summit as an example, right? So I've done comprehensive summit classes and courses and everything where I've taught people the step-by-step on building a multi-six-figure result off of a summit. But then not everybody has the opportunity, their time or the skill or the team to effectively put all of that teaching into play.

So I also offer a done for you service. I've taught you how to do it. You don't have the time, inclination, et cetera, to do it. My team will come in and white glove it for you, right? And there's a premium cost to have my team do that. Now, can you do it yourself? Abso-fricking-lutely. Can you do it successfully? 100%. Do you want to?

If you don't, you're going to pay to get somebody to do it for you. And I want you to look at that messaging that you're putting out in the world because if people believe that you can solve their problem first, they'll listen to you. If they believe that the product that you're creating or you're selling can help them get closer, they'll most likely buy it from you.

If they don't want to do it themselves, having an option where you take care of it for them, if that's your business model or whatever it is, have that. Just make sure your messaging is speaking directly to the current challenge. And then in your head, you're planning ahead for what the challenge might look like in a month, three months or six months. Right. Six months is going to look a lot different than it does right today.

And we're putting this out on like February 4th. Okay, so what the world looks like on February 4th, 2024 is going to look vastly different in six months. And you know, fingers crossed, it's everything will be okay. But I want you to future proof. I'm one of those people. I am. I'm definitely the person that brings an umbrella when there's a chance of rain.

Because I'm not going to be the person caught outside. I'm also the person who carries a backpack when I take a trip downtown. Like I did last week, I had to go for a doctor's appointment to a hospital in downtown Toronto. I don't travel without like I don't I'm not a purse girl. Okay, so

But I carry a backpack. I had my bottle of water. I had band-aids in case I got a blister because that happens to me and I know it happens to me. You know, I had a small snack in my bag in case there was a delay. There was a delay on the subway. I had a book with me. You know, I had a fully charged battery on my cell phone. I had a backup battery and a charging cord. I'm only going downtown for a couple hours to go to this appointment and

But I will tell you as somebody who has been taking the bus and the subway in Toronto for decades,

long, long, long, long time that I have seen some things. And so I plan ahead. Like I had to once, you know, I was on a, I was on a subway once where it stopped completely. I was stuck in the subway on a hot summer's day trying to get to school or hot spring day trying to get to school. And that subway went up to almost 35 degrees. Everybody was sweating. And I was the only one who had a bottle of water.

Pretty much. Right. And so we ended up evacuating the subway, having to walk down a completely dark subway tunnel, which is why I now carry an LED flashlight in my backpack. Right. Like I'm one of those people. And so even though that may not be your thing to be one of those people, and that's totally fine. You should be friends with me because I am and I will make sure you get through that.

I want you to get through. I want you to get through what might be coming and I just want you to plan. Again, it's not doom and gloom, it's preparation. And I always see it as preparation and preparing, like preparing for,

for something to happen helps mitigate it when it does. Like I'm ready when it does. Okay. I'm just one of those people. And so that's where this is coming from. It's coming from a place of, of really wanting to support and help you. And I really hope that we don't see economic craziness and I really hope that we all do well, but I want you to plan ahead for it. Okay. The pandemic was that soft time. You know, I lost a whole bunch of business at the beginning of the pandemic and

And I had to pivot and I did. And I actually got bigger during the pandemic. Like my business grew during the pandemic. So highly recommend you look at this.

Thank you so much for listening. If this is helpful to you, great. If this is content that you want to hear, amazing. Make sure that you're listening to the podcast. I've got some great experts coming up in the next couple of weeks. We're going to talk some really cool stuff and we're going to get deep into how to build a business, not only to scale, but also talking about how you can prepare your business for when you no longer want to have it. When you're getting up there in terms of either you want a different thing

or you want a different stage in your life,

We're going to talk about that too. And so I really want you to look at making sure you're following the podcast. I would love if you could consider leaving me a review. It helps me get in front of more people like you who enjoy this show. And so I hope that you do that. Uh, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help and support you. You can go to Jenny, right.com and check out the website. Make sure you also go to many bundles.com. Consider becoming a contributor and getting that list building going. Uh, I'm going to be launching at the time that I'm recording this, I'm going to be launching a new product, uh,

I've been talking about it for a while and it had to be waylaid for a bit, but now we're going to get this thing going where I'm going to teach people how to build their own bundle product. And this is going to help you grow your business. So stay tuned for that. Thanks so much for listening. Take care. We'll talk to y'all soon.