Client Deep Dive: How To Think Like a Long-Term Investor with Kate Vidulich
Hi guys, and welcome back to the Healthpreneur Podcast! Today, we’re doing another Client Deep Dive with our close friend and client Kate Vidulich. She started out by selling eBooks and doing third-party affiliate sales, then she did one-on-one trainings, and now she’s almost exclusively online.
Her biggest struggle right now is maintaining the mindset for the long game. Sound familiar? So many of us hesitate when it comes to making investments now that we won’t immediately benefit from until later. But with a growing business comes growing expenses. It’s inevitable.
These episodes are to show you real-life issues that other entrepreneurs in our space are going through. My hope is that, by working through their issues on the show, you benefit, too! So, tune in and look for nuggets of wisdom that you can apply in your business today.
In This Episode Kate and I discuss:
- The mindset for the long game.
- Being ok with “no” and being selective.
- The products she sold then and now.
- Reinventing yourself and your positioning.
- Testing audiences and getting data with your Perfect Client Pipeline.
- Growing your income by growing your expenses and mitigating risk.
2:30 – 8:00 – Introducing Kate and her business
8:00 – 11:00 – Transitioning from small sales to big impact
11:00 – 20:30 – Learning how think and strategize for the long-term
20:30 – 25:00 – Scaling slowly and intelligently
25:00 – 28:30 – The inevitability of growing expenses and knowing what you want
28:30 – 34:00 – Business as cyclical and the power of mindset
Transcription
Yuri Elkaim: Hey, guys. What’s up? Welcome back to the show. Another client deep dive today with our good friend and client Kate Vidulich. What’s up?
Kate Vidulich: Hey, Yuri, how’s it going?
Yuri Elkaim: Good. Did I actually butcher your last name, there? Is it Vulic? Vulic?
Kate Vidulich: You did, but I wasn’t going to … Vidulich. It’s okay.
Yuri Elkaim: Vidulich.
Kate Vidulich: I still love you.
Yuri Elkaim: My bad. My bad. It’s all good.
Kate Vidulich: Okay.
Yuri Elkaim: I really pride myself on making sure I don’t butcher people’s names, so, I apologize for that. Because I’m like, did I just say that out loud? Anyways.
Kate Vidulich: It’s okay.
Introducing Kate and her business
Yuri Elkaim: As you know, the purpose of these episodes is really to serve you. Whatever you need help with, we’re going to go deep into that topic, and hopefully our viewers and listeners get some great value out of this, and if you guys don’t, then, hey, man, what can I do? You got to extract the nuggets out of these conversations. So, Kate, talk to me about what we can get some clarity around and move forward from?
Kate Vidulich: I think it’s mostly around mindset kind of stuff, and playing the long game, versus that instant gratification of the short game. I’ve been in the space online for quite a few years now, and I think, like you were saying in some of the earlier calls that you’ve done with people, was getting that mindset of long-term versus just those short-term, you know, press the button and get the reward kind of thing.
Yuri Elkaim: So, give our viewers and listeners a bit of context, because talk to people how you started online, and what you’ve been doing the last couple of years before we started working together.
Kate Vidulich: Sure. I started out, I think, in 2014. In the beginning it was mostly selling eBooks, videos, and I did that for probably four or so years and had some good success. But I guess I never reached that level of success that I always wanted to reach. So it was quite frustrating, I think, to see the change in the industry over time, but also just not have that same impact on people.
Kate Vidulich: I have a training business here in the city, as well, I’m in San Francisco, and obviously I’m not from San Francisco, I’m from Australia.
Yuri Elkaim: And this whole time I thought that was a San Francisco accent.
Kate Vidulich: Right? Sometimes I sound like I’m from New York, sometimes, certain words I say, which totally messes people up as well.
Yuri Elkaim: Sure.
Kate Vidulich: I was mostly selling eBooks, doing affiliate offers, so doing third-party offers, I was selling other people’s stuff as well. And it’s just something that didn’t really work with me. Something didn’t sit right. So, I think after doing this for so many years, I got burnt out from the whole scenario. I ended up doing more in-person training, which I love doing, I love coaching clients in-person, and having that interaction with people. So, I think once we started working together, it was like, getting this whole webinar up and running and going. And yeah, I delayed it, because I was like, “I don’t know if this is going to work,” and I think you had dragged me through the mud to the other side, which is exactly why hiring a coach is good.
Yuri Elkaim: Totally.
Kate Vidulich: This is what it’s for. That’s where I landed in terms of the webinar, and now I’m doing more group coaching, and coaching of clients via video cam, and that kind of stuff, which I totally love doing. So it’s definitely been a big pivot and shift in my business but it just feels more right. Because, I think, as well, getting started in the online space, it’s a lot of selling. You have to write a lot, and that’s marketing in general. But I was used to doing it in person. I wasn’t used to writing sales copy. I had to teach myself how to do that.
Kate Vidulich: And I think it’s something that health professionals just think, “Oh, I don’t do that. I don’t like it.” But you have to like it. I love getting on the phone with potential clients. Yes, it’s scary in the beginning, but then it’s just a consultation to help somebody. You have a chance to dig in and chat about what they’re doing, give them some advice, not talk too much, as we all know from the learning of how to do these calls. But it’s just great. The right people end up getting on the call, for the most part. And you then have an opportunity to help them, whether they actually join the program or not.
Kate Vidulich: It’s something that I’ve just become used to, I think, in terms of a mindset. Being okay with someone saying, “No.” Because I don’t like when people say no to me, to be honest with you.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s right. Who does?
Kate Vidulich: I don’t know, but it used to really bother me when someone would say, “No.” Now I’m like, “Okay, no, they’re probably just not a good fit, or it’s meant to be.” I hate that saying, like, oh, it’ll happen if it’s supposed to, or whatever.
Yuri Elkaim: I’m going to meditate on ads, and-
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. I’m going to manifest this, and rub a crystal. Sorry, anyone who does that. But I just … I don’t mean to offend people who love crystals. I have crystal candles in my house, but I think, not rubbing them. People who carry them around. Anyway.
Yuri Elkaim: No, yeah. Our house is full of crystals, so if we lost any spiritual viewers or listeners here, you’re talking with very spiritual people over here.
Kate Vidulich: Yes.
Kate Vidulich: Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, I’m more of someone who likes to get on the phone, chat to people, and just be real with people, as well. And people, since setting up that perfect client thing, what’s it called?
Yuri Elkaim: Pipeline.
Kate Vidulich: The pipeline.
Yuri Elkaim: That thing that brings clients in.
Kate Vidulich: The criteria, Yuri. You know.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, sorry, yeah. The Perfect Client Pipeline.
Kate Vidulich: So, having a list of who the perfect client is, it just makes it easier to say yes or no. For example, the other day someone slipped through the cracks, because, again, I don’t work with vegans, and not because I dislike vegans, it’s just I don’t have a plan that will help you to build muscle. And if you have one, let me know, because I’d be really interested to try it out. But it’s just not the type of clients I’ve ever worked with, so I really, 100%, can’t guarantee that they’ll get results if they follow my plan. So, I think the number one thing is just having that criteria to say yes or no. It just makes it easier to get clients.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah. I love that. It’s so good, because I mean, imagine running a physical establishment, like a restaurant, saying, “We don’t allow certain types of people into the restaurant.” You would be shut down and sent to jail. Right? But in the coaching business, you have to be selective like that, because … It’s not about, “I don’t like these types of people.” It’s about, “I know who I can get results for, and if you’re not that type of person, I have nothing against you, it’s just I know that I can’t help you get results.” I think both parties, it’s valuable for the client as well as yourself. So, thank you for bringing that up.
Transitioning from small sales to big impact
Yuri Elkaim: You mentioned … One of the reasons I was so adamant about you doing more of the high-ticket coaching was because I knew how much you loved coaching people, and training people, and speaking to people. With that said, not everyone … I mean, if people are happy hiding behind their computer and writing sales copy and eBooks, that’s totally fine. But I think you have to just be honest about what really fulfills you, right?
Yuri Elkaim: You talked about getting better on the phone an driving conversations. I tell people there’s two things. It’s either you get better at doing that, or you don’t do phone sales and you become the best copywriter on the planet, which I think is a little bit tougher, and it’s tough to sell. Because you were selling, what, eBooks? Memberships for $10-$50?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. And I think the price erosion, too, of the market and the industry over the years that I saw it, and I think just the burnout of people on people’s lists. It was great if you were creating a new product all the time, but it was really draining to create a new product. It was like, “Okay, great, we can do a quick launch,” and it’s not really that quick, and it is a rush, and it’s stressful, and yeah, it’s just stressful. It really was just, “Is it going to hit the numbers? Are people going to be happy with it?”
Kate Vidulich: And then trying to sell it on cold traffic, like on Facebook ads, well, that was just a nightmare, because you have to expect to lose $1,000 straight off the bat, and then maybe have data or not. It was just a rollercoaster ride, and I think that was terrible for my mental health, to be honest with you.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s true, though, because you have to put in, to now work with one client, you have one or two conversations, you tend to enroll about half of the people you speak to, almost, and do you find that to be easier or more enjoyable than trying to sell the latest eBook every single month to hundreds of potential customers? Even just the same revenue, right? Just on that one client that you can enroll, the amount of work that would have to go into selling hundreds of an eBook to make the same revenue.
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that’s where reinventing yourself and positioning of yourself really comes something really important. Because I was really anti the whole webinar thing, and you know this. It took some time for me to really get on board with it. But like I said, it was one of the best things I’ve done for my business, mostly because I feel more fulfilled when I do it. Like I’m actually helping somebody, and I have that contact with them on the phone, or via webcam, to just see their progress, and hey, you know, people drop off, but it’s the same with in-person training.
Learning how think and strategize for the long-term
Kate Vidulich: I think it’s just having that contact versus just sending someone another eBook, because there are people who do the workouts. Don’t get me wrong. But you don’t have that feedback that keeps you motivated. Sometimes you’re like, “Is anyone watching? Is anyone listening? Is anyone hearing this?” And when you actually get on the phone and people resonate with your message, it just feels like you’re having a greater impact on people’s lives.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, and that’s amazing. What are the things that … Oh, my God, I just completely drew a blank. This is embarrassing. I will come back to that in a couple minutes when it comes back. So, let’s talk about the long-term thinking versus the quick fix mindset. What specifically is your challenge with that right now?
Kate Vidulich: I think it’s the idea of investing money to get a return later.
Yuri Elkaim: Sure.
Kate Vidulich: I think, from where I started out, it was more like, “Okay, offer someone a really high commission of the sales. You’ll make X percent, which is normally, now it’s no percent, but you’ll sell people on the backend of the funnel.” Which, by the way, takes a lot of traffic and a lot of time to optimize, which was something that I just never had the patience for, and didn’t have the traffic, either, at certain times, to really get some good data.
Kate Vidulich: So, I think it’s thinking long-term, like, “Hey, how much,” in terms of risk, “how much is a good amount to invest without …?” Like, when to stop and start the amount you spend in order to get that return. I think that’s the thing that I have the greatest trouble with right now, is the fear of loss, the fear of, okay, the risk I’m taking, is this going to pay off? Is this like gambling on the internet? Which it kind of is, to be honest with you.
Yuri Elkaim: Well, initially, maybe. But once you have your critical numbers, and you know your numbers, things start to become more predictable, right?
Kate Vidulich: Oh, absolutely. In the beginning, though, it really is kind of like, “Okay, what’s this interest group that I can test? And how much am I willing to put down to possibly not see any results?” But I think it’s shifting that thinking across that I struggle with pretty often when it comes to the long game.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah. And I think a lot of people can resonate with that, because we do speak to a lot of people who voice the same concerns. So, the way I think of this it’s kind of black and white. Right? You’ve got one side where you build out your perfect pipeline, you know you’re going to be charging premium prices for people to work with you, in more of a group coaching program, and as you … Well, one thing I was going to mention earlier was you actually saw this, too. Because you have a list of several thousand people, and you had offered your higher ticket coaching to existing customers, and you found that even to those people who were paying you for the eBooks, customers, they were not enrolling in the high ticket coaching. Is that right?
Kate Vidulich: Absolutely. It was actually harder. I think it was … It wasn’t demoralizing because I knew the people on the calls, but there were definitely people who were like, “Oh, I have no money,” right from the get-go. And I’m kind of like, “Okay, let me help you,” because I’m probably too nice to people sometimes, but I wanted to help them out. It wasn’t like I was getting on the call to sell somebody. But it was straight off the bat, “I don’t have money for this. Can you help me?”
Yuri Elkaim: And I think that’s such a great thing for people to understand, because the thinking, forever, has been, “Offer your free lead magnet, then the tripwire, then the $47 core product, then the $97 whatever, whatever,” and it’s like, eventually, these people will buy something more from you down the road, but as you’ve seen and as we’ve seen, that’s not the way it works. You attract a very specific type of buyer persona at different price points.
Yuri Elkaim: Direct response for yours, I was like, “If they give you a dollar it’s as good as if they give you $1,000,” and I completely disagree with that. Because it’s not the same. It really is not the same. And you found it easier to enroll people from your Facebook ads who don’t even know you, on the phone, into a higher ticket program, based on your pipeline and based on the fact that they’ve bought into your philosophy and so forth. And that’s just a great example of the two scenarios.
Yuri Elkaim: The two scenarios, as I was alluding to earlier, was you master this one process, which is getting people who don’t know you to go through your pipeline, get in your webinar, buy into or not your webinar. For those who do, they fill in an application, you get on the phone with them, and if they’re a good fit, they enjoy it, they enroll on your program for several thousand dollars, and you transform their life.
Yuri Elkaim: The flip side is if you don’t do that, the flip side is that you need a massive amount of volume at low-end products. Right? Whether it’s $47, $97, whatever it is, and you need a massive amount of volume to make that work. Now, we both know mutual friends in our space who have very successful businesses doing that, eight-figure businesses, but they have openly talked about how, for them, they have, in some cases, three to six months in the negative before they break even on those customers. It’s like they’re willing to go in the hole on a $27 eBook for six months, so that at the six-month and one day mark, they now break even.
Yuri Elkaim: Now, I don’t want to run that kind of business. There’s very little margin. There’s little wriggle room. You have to be a maniac about every little optimization and conversion in your funnel. You have to know your metrics. You become like an investment banker. It’s just insane. So, that’s the one option. That’s what a lot of people don’t realize that’s going to have to go into that.
Yuri Elkaim: As you talked about, price erosion’s a very, very big deal in today’s day and age, and we’re seeing all sorts of free plus shipping offers. It’s very tough to make information products sell the way they used to five to 10 years ago. And especially if you’re buying ads. If you’re using Facebook or YouTube or anything else to buy ads, the cost of those ads has only gone up. It’s only going to continue going up. So if the ad cost is going up, the product prices are going down, you’re going to get squeezed out of the market very, very quickly, unless you are an amazing marketer, and are able to tolerate risk, and really lose money for several months. That’s the reality of the info business as it stands at the end of 2018, 2019.
Yuri Elkaim: So, the flip side is … Okay. You deploy your perfect client pipeline, and you’re saying to yourself, “Okay, I’m going to set some ads up. I’m going to get them running on Facebook.” And as you allude to, it’s kind of like gambling initially. It kind of is. Because you don’t know what’s going to work. Right? You’re going to test an audience. You’re going to test this audience. You’re going to test this ad to this audience. This ad to another audience. And you don’t know exactly what’s going to work.
Yuri Elkaim: So, the way I like to approach it, something I’d recommend, is you look at yourself and you say, “Okay, I’m going to deploy this, and here is what I’m going to get from one client. They’re going to be worth X.” I am willing to spend however much money to collect data from Facebook. So maybe it’s, “All right, I’m going to spend $1,000, and we’re going to see what happens.” And from that $1,000, we’re going to get some initial feedback. We’re going to figure out which audience works better than the others. If it’s too much, we’re going to turn those off. If these ones are good, we’re going to scale those a little bit.
Yuri Elkaim: Initially, it is a little bit of a gamble. So, you have to be okay. You have to figure out, “How much money am I okay giving to Facebook to get data? And when I say giving to Facebook, how much money are you okay not getting back?” Right? And that depends. Every person’s going to be different. Some people are like, “I’m going to give them $10,000, and I’m going to know my numbers in two weeks.” Or whatever it is. Other people are like, “Okay, I can spend $500, $1,000,” but understand that that initial investment isn’t necessarily guaranteed. Because you don’t know. You don’t know what your conversions are going to be like. You don’t know what the metrics through your funnel are going to look like. All that stuff comes with time and with ad spend.
Scaling slowly and intelligently
Yuri Elkaim: Now, once you get closer to starting to collect data, you’re in a position where you’re starting to get some really good data, really good numbers on your calls booked, getting good enrollments, now you have to look at, okay, the question is, “Is this going to be a consistent trend? If I’m paying $1,000 to acquire a $3,000 client, is that going to be consistent, or is it going to be $500 for a $3,000 client, or is it going to be $3,000 for a $3,000 client?” You only know that after you spend a bit of money and have that consistent data coming through.
Yuri Elkaim: And then, honestly, I think it’s just a matter of having faith in the process and in the numbers. Because we know right now that there’s two numbers that we look at, and you obviously look at as well, which is your cost per webinar registrants, and your cost per call booked, and then, obviously, our return on our investment. Once you know that, once you know here’s the upper limit I’m willing to spend for a webinar registrant, and the upper limit I’m willing to spend to get someone on the phone, now you know, you can test all sorts of different things. You could give your Facebook ads management to an agency if you ever wanted to, and say, “Do what you have to do, just hit these metrics.”
Yuri Elkaim: Because it’s almost like investing with stocks. You have … I don’t invest in stocks, so I don’t even know what I’m talking about here, but you have a stock loss … I don’t even know what it’s called, when you say if the stock goes below this number, sell it, if it goes above this, buy more. It’s the same thing. It’s like, if this audience or this ad campaign goes above this, just turn it off. If it goes below this, just keep going. If I’m paying way too much for a call booked, shut it down. And that’s where you want to get into.
Yuri Elkaim: It almost becomes, what starts off as a little bit of a gamble, thinking to yourself, “Okay, how much money am I willing to lose to get more certainty and more data to the point where you have those certain numbers?” And then it’s like, well, how fast or how big do I want to scale this? Does that make sense, Kate?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Absolutely. I think, yeah, what you were saying just there about investing in data, and getting numbers that … And I think it’s just knowing what you’re willing to spend and not willing to spend. I think this comes back from my early days in the online space, was like, “I want to see results right now. If I put an ad out and all of a sudden it’s not doing well, I’m just impatient.” So, I guess that’s another one of the things I need to work on. My patience.
Yuri Elkaim: Well, I mean, the remedy to patience is more ad spend. Right? But then there’s that, it’s like-
Kate Vidulich: Risk. Yeah.
Yuri Elkaim: “Well, I’m super impatient. I’m going to spend $10,000 today and get a lot of data.” But is that going to work out? I don’t know. Right?
Kate Vidulich: I don’t know if that’s going to help me.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah. I wouldn’t recommend that. I mean, like what we recommend with everyone, start small, scale slowly. Right? That’s the surefire way not to go broke, obviously. But yeah, I mean, it’s a very valid concern, because Facebook advertisement, you can lose your shirt very quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re doing great. A lot of people think that they’re not going to do Facebook advertising, because they don’t know how to do it. It’s risky. So, then the question is, well, what else are you going to do? Right? What is the alternative to attracting clients?
The inevitability of growing expenses and knowing what you want
Yuri Elkaim: I tell people, the number one way to grow your income is to grow your expenses. And it doesn’t make sense until it does make sense. Because, we talked about this in LA, if you don’t grow your expenses, how can you grow your income? And the only way is through effort. So either you say to yourself, “Okay, I’m willing to effort my way and just plow through in terms of my time, my energy. I’m going to post on social media 1,000 times a day.” But it’s not scalable and it’s not predictable.
Yuri Elkaim: You know, everything has an opportunity cost. There’s obviously a pro and a con to everything we do. And we just find … I really believe the holy grail for any business is to be able to go into any market you’re in and know, if you spend X number of dollars, you can acquire a client at a profit. If you can do that, that’s like writing your own lottery ticket. And I think most people don’t want to do that because they’re scared, they’re uncertain of how to make it work, and obviously, that’s why we work with our clients on this stuff. Because if you can get to this point, it might take a couple days, or a couple weeks, but once you’re at that point where you confidently know, “I’m spending $500 to attract a $3,000 or a $5,000 client,” that’s like you’ve won the lottery.
Yuri Elkaim: Now it’s like, “How much can I duplicate that to now work, instead of one client it’s 10 clients, or 100 clients?” And like I said, you guys in the health and fitness space, the scalability of what you can do, the sheer size of the audience, is massive. Right? And then it’s just a matter of how big do you want to go?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Absolutely. Sorry. Yeah, I agree with you. I think the switch of growing your expenses to grow your income, that’s been a huge mindset shift. Because even in my own line, I mean in my in-person training, it was mostly referrals. Because it’s just the easiest way. But it’s like growing it through willpower and force. Effort versus through something strategic.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah. So, I’ve put together this model called the Coaching Continuum. It’s basically, it reflects seven phases in business. There are seven stages of business. What a lot of people are doing, is they’re doing things in the earlier stages of business, that they should only be doing when they’re scaling. For example, they’re relying on content marketing to drive new business. Right? I love, I mean, I think content’s amazing. You should definitely be prolific with it at the right stage. But when you’re starting out, when you’re building up your stability in terms of income and so forth, the only thing you got to focus on is making money. Right? Getting new clients coming in. Getting them paying you money and making a profit so you can continue to grow and scale.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s a great place to be in, because initially, if things are set up properly, the profit’s actually pretty good. But as you start to scale and grow your business, you have to understand that that profit, percentage-wise, actually goes down a bit because your expenses might go up in terms of team members you bring on, other things you’re now doing. So, for instance, a lot of people get stuck in what I call this six-figure plateau, where, let’s say about half a million dollars of revenue, life is great, they’ve got 60% profit margins, they’re balling. Right? They’re ballers because they have all this profit.
Yuri Elkaim: And then, when they start to scale, things start to change, because now they have to hire people. They start looking at their balance sheets or their P and Ls, and they’re like, “Hold on, I went from 60% profit to 20% profit. What the hell’s going on? Why am I doing this?” But what we have to remember is that 20% profit of $10 million is $2 million. Right? 60% profit of $500,000 is, I don’t know, $300,000. That’s a very, very, very big difference. Right? So, we have to remember that as the business grows in scales, expenses beyond client acquisition are going to grow as well. But as long as the volume of income increases, the gross amount of your profit increases too. Does that make sense?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yuri Elkaim: So, again, it comes down to really thinking about what type of business do you want to build? And there’s nothing wrong with either answer. Some people just want to build a comfortable business, where it’s them, and maybe a virtual assistant, and they’re making a couple hundred grand a year, good profit margins, and that’s totally fine. And then there’s others who want to build something a little more substantial, who want to build more of a team around them, with more infrastructure. A little bit more complexity, but still, can free them up dramatically.
Yuri Elkaim: And that’s the big difference, too, is that when you are working things yourself, and maybe with one VA, is you are the cog in the wheel. And in a coaching business, this can really burn you out. Because you’re doing all the calls, you’re doing all the coaching, so the alternative is, okay, let’s build this up, let’s bring on more coaches, let’s leverage you and clone you, kind of, so that you have a lot more freedom. So you almost trade profit for freedom as you scale the business. Right?
Yuri Elkaim: That’s a position that I’m in now with Healthpreneur, is I don’t do our enrollment calls any more, but initially I did. I was doing up to seven hours a day of enrollment calls. You can’t do that forever. You lose your voice or burn out. But it’s nice to get to the point where you’re like, “Man, I just brought in $30,000 in one day. That’s cool. Now I’ve got a bit of wiggle room, how can I bring someone in to now help me with that?” And if you’re selling eBooks for $10, that’s very tough to do, unless you’re selling massive amounts of volume.
Yuri Elkaim: So, I don’t even know where I’m going with this discussion, but I think thinking like an investor really helps when you’re thinking of growing something great. And I really believe that everyone has to decide what path they want to take with their business. Not everyone has to build an amazing, dominating company, but just be realistic about where you want to go, and what is necessary at each step, to get you there, and what are some of the things to look out for at those different stages. Because otherwise you might get blindsided and not really know what you’re getting into. Does that make sense?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yuri Elkaim: So, what’s been most useful from our discussion so far for you? What’s been an aha, a takeaway?
Kate Vidulich: I definitely think thinking more like an investor. Exactly what you just said, thinking more like an investor in the business, versus a gambler in the business. So, that, and obviously I think needing to increase your expenses in order to increase the amount of revenue that you can bring into the business. That’s been something that I’m trying to just basically just work on my mindset based around. And then, knowing, “Hey, the risk I take is …” I guess it’s just dealing with mitigating the risk emotionally to some degree.
Yuri Elkaim: True.
Kate Vidulich: You know, managing to ride the rollercoaster without too many ups and downs.
Business as cyclical and the power of mindset
Yuri Elkaim: Totally. This is totally normal. Everyone going through this process is going to go through these emotions. Like, “Oh, my God, I got my ad running, it’s $100 a day, why is nothing happening?” And then all of a sudden the next day it’s like the floodgates open. And some days it doesn’t. And some weeks are higher. Some weeks are lower. It’s cyclical, right? Like the world is. Like nature is. But, it is a very interesting journey, because you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about what are some of the mindset blocks and limiting beliefs?
Yuri Elkaim: Just to clarify for the viewers and listeners, when I say increase your expenses to make more revenue, what I’m saying is increase the amount of money you’re putting into advertising, because advertising and people are the fastest way to grow your business. So you’re going to get to a point where, as we talked about, you can’t do everything yourself. So, you’re going to have to invest in other coaches, other people to work with you, and in so doing, they will move the needle forward for your business.
Yuri Elkaim: And if you are of the opinion and mindset that you want to do everything yourself, you can’t delegate, or have other people do stuff for you, you just have to understand that that’s okay, but with that comes an opportunity cost which is your freedom. Right? And you essentially build a business that you’re a slave to. And if you’re okay with that, that’s fine. But you have to understand that if you want freedom, you have to trade some profit, and you have to increase your expenses, build your team, put more money into ads to build up that brand value or just getting in front of more people with your advertising.
Yuri Elkaim: Because there’s a very big difference between … For instance, if we spend $1000 on Facebook ads and we attract and enroll one client, okay, well, that’s great. Well, how do we now grow our revenue? Well, we have to ask ourselves, well, how do we spend $10,000? Because if the numbers held out the same, if we invested $1,000 to make $10,000, for instance, great. How do we invest $10,000 to make $100,000? Because that’s the fastest way to grow your income, is to just spend more on advertising, assuming you know your numbers, and all of a sudden, you’ve 10-Xed your revenue in this specific, theoretical case.
Yuri Elkaim: Again, just thinking about if you don’t do that, the only other alternative is manual, sheer force and energy and time. And if you’re okay with that, that’s fine, but it’s going to take you a lot longer to get where you want to get to. So.
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. I feel that I was on that train for quite some time.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah.
Kate Vidulich: Particularly just in my training business. And it burns you out. It really does.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah. Totally. So, has this been a helpful conversation for you, Kate?
Kate Vidulich: Yeah. Super awesome. Really good.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah? Cool. So, what is your action step from this discussion?
Kate Vidulich: It’s increasing the amount I’m spending on my advertising.
Yuri Elkaim: Cool. And guys, just so you know, Kate’s numbers, they’re pretty good, right? It’s not like you’re in the negative. So, you’re at a point where you can push a little bit more into it. We’re not saying just throw money in and hope for the best. Once you have your numbers dialed in, then you can intelligently move a little bit faster forward. So, Kate, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun for me, and I’m sure, listeners and viewers, hopefully you guys got a lot of really good insights from this. Because as you guys know, everything’s up here between the ears, right?
Yuri Elkaim: You know, once you’ve got the strategy, once you know what to do, it’s removing those blocks, it’s thinking bigger, it’s getting around other people who are playing at a bigger level, too. And sometimes just borrowing their beliefs. Borrow their courage. Borrow the fact that, man, this has worked out for someone else, this can work for me as well. And I think that’s why we want to create this incubation of … That’s why I love the coaching, right? Because now you’re surrounded by people who are doing big things, and it’s not just one person with you one-on-one. And I think that’s just a great environment to be in for us, and our clients, but also for you guys and your clients, too.
Yuri Elkaim: So, Kate, thank you so much for being awesome and being with us, and openly sharing about what you’re going through, and then, hopefully, we’ve given you some good insights to move forward, fast.
Kate Vidulich: Sure. Sounds awesome. Thank you so much, Yuri, I appreciate it.
Yuri Elkaim: Absolutely.
Yuri Elkaim: Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Healthpreneur Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, here’s what I’d like you to do right now. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes, and while you’re there, leave us a rating or a review, it helps us get in front of more people, and change more lives.
Yuri Elkaim: And if you’re ready to start or scale your health and fitness coaching business, and want to start getting in front of more people, working within a higher level, without trading time for money, then I invite you to check out our free 7-Figure Health Business Blueprint training totally free right now, and you can do so at HealthpreneurGroup.com/Training. For now, thank you so much for joining us. Continue to be great, do great, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
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What You Missed
In our last ‘Between The Ears’ episode with my awesome Results Coaches Amy, Stephanie, and Jackie, talked about the one big choice you have that will determine your success in life and business.
We all have the choice to either lean into fear or put our dreams on hold.
Getting to the top can be scary. Fear is uncomfortable. We get it. But the other side is so much better than where you are now.
Tune in to hear us discuss the ways to lean into fear and finally see it for what it is.
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