Double (Your Revenue) Or Nothin' 📈

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Double your online revenue in 3 months

Okay, you’ve piqued my interest.

File that under #samesies. But apparently, research has found 7 key tactics you can use to drive more business through your online efforts. And that’s some timely info considering that 70% of SMBs have been investing more in their digital presence since the start of the pandemic. But to boost that revenue stream, you’ll need to look at your sales funnel first.

Back up – my sales funnel?

Your sales funnel is every step of an online business transaction, starting from a customer visit to your website all the way through product or service purchase. Working to fully optimize each element of your funnel can have a huge impact on your business’ profitability.

Will I have to trash my current website?

Nah. (You’re not on Geocities… right?) But you may have to tinker with it. More on that in a sec.

The tactics:

1. Add “order bumps.” AKA additional products offered on the checkout page. It’s the fast food equivalent of asking “do you want fries with that?”
   The advice: “Look at your most popular product, choose a less expensive product that goes with it, and set up your order bump.” And if you're a service business, consider offering extra benefits.
2. Sell to your email list. Email is a huge driver of revenue for an online business, beating out direct web sales and social media efforts.
   The advice: “Use a mixture of compelling and value-adding content and promotion in every email.” By making your emails informative and entertaining, you’ll “reduce your unsubscribe rate” and start making more sales.
3. Grow your email list. Time to grow your subscriber base. Aim for an opt-in rate of 2-5% to really start seeing some traction.
   The advice: “Grow your email list by creating a highly desirable lead magnet, which is a free resource sent to new subscribers, giving someone a genuine reason to subscribe.”
4. Improve your sales pages. Remember how we said you might have to tinker with your site? Here’s where you do that.
   The advice: Focus on developing 3 areas on the site – testimonials, guarantees, and FAQs. They’ll get you the most bang for your buck.

👉 Dive into the 7 tactics.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

How to recruit and retain in the Great Resignation

Tell me the bad news first.

Through November 2021, an average of more than 3.9 million workers quit their jobs each month – with a record of 4.5 million workers having resigned in November alone.

And the Great Resignation isn’t over. In fact, economists say that worker shortages are likely to persist in 2022.

Will it be harder to hire or keep people?

Tough to say. Per WSJ, there were 2 unemployed workers for every 3 job openings in the US last month. Which gives you some steep hiring competition. Not to mention, it puts all the bargaining power in the hands of the workers.

On the other hand, now is a great time to be a prospective candidate for a new position. People see this as an opportunity to pursue a new career path, seek a more desirable work environment with a better work-life balance, or even start their own business.

So, what’s the good news?

Even though economists suspect that the Great Resignation will continue through the year, they also expect for numbers to ease up. And in the meantime, there are steps you can take to entice prospective candidates and persuade your on-the-fence employees to stay.

How to get more competitive:

Here are some ways to attract perfect additions to your team and get good people to stay:

• Go remote. Before COVID, 1 out of 67 jobs offered remote work; now, 1 out of 6 offer remote flexibility. To stay competitive with other businesses that are offering remote options (that 55% of job seekers are looking for), consider making the switch. 
• Tackle burnout. It’s no surprise that 40% of workers feel so burnt out that they want to quit. To fight the risk of employee burnout and look more attractive to job seekers, invest in additional benefits for your team. This could look like expanded PTO, mental health benefits, mental health affinity groups, and other practices that promote employee wellbeing.
• Fill positions from within. Career investment is associated with feeling valued at work and retention. So why not look to your existing team members to fill open roles?
  

👉 Read more recruiting and retaining tips.

SCALING TIME

The DIY playbook for scalable processes

Wait, why do processes matter?
Plainly put, when it comes to growing your business, you need to make sure that anyone can run your day-to-day operations. And that means having repeatable processes that employees can learn and implement quickly and efficiently.

Sounds easier said than done.

You’re right. But, that's why we asked 3 of our certified consultants to give us the no-BS approach to build processes that actually work. And since each of these consultants have helped many small businesses scale, their strategies are tried and true.

Awesome! So, what’s their first tip?

Get crystal clear on the end goal for your business, suggests Tamara Kemper, founder of The Process Mavens. That means defining your company’s vision and long-term goals before you build the processes.

“That clarity will provide the rest of your team clarity on how their role fits [into the business],” says Tamara. And when that happens, your team is able to identify the most important processes that need to be built first.

Love it. Let’s hear the second tip?

Practice patience. Now, as a small business ourselves, we know what it’s like to want to make progress faster. But according to Josh Fonger, CEO of WTS Enterprises, taking the time to develop important processes is crucial to scaling your business.

That means setting aside time and energy to document those processes out, audit what’s working and what isn’t, and shifting your strategy wherever necessary.

And the last tip?

Get buy-in from your team, suggests Christopher Gwinn, founder and CEO of Great Lakes Advisory. Meaning, your team should be in alignment with your processes as you implement them.

A good way to do this is to start rolling out processes with a single department. Once other teams see how well processes work in real-time, they’ll be more excited about implementing processes for their own teams.

👉 Get the full playbook.

TL;DR

This week's highlight reel

• Sonic boom. The US economy surged past growth predictions and boomed at a 6.9% annual growth rate last year – the fastest rate in 37 years. A great sign that the US economy is on the mend, though the rate was still 1% lower than pre-pandemic forecasts.
• Losing shine. Makeup brand Glossier laid off 80 of its employees last week, equal to one-third of their workforce. The company had to restructure its organization due to mistakes made in their attempts to scale.
• Face-off. A new psychology study shows that people are more likely to struggle with the dreaded “Zoom fatigue” if they experience facial appearance dissatisfaction. In other words, they don’t like the way their face looks while video conferencing.
• Celeb sighting. The vetting process for celebrity-brand partnerships has become more intense. Because while celebrity endorsements can help companies “break through the clutter” of competing ad campaigns, negative celeb behavior can have an impact on a brand’s own reputation.
• What’s the word? Viral game sensation Wordle has been acquired by the New York Times. Creator Josh Wardle, who built the word-guessing game for his partner during the pandemic, stated that the game will still be free to play and that they were working to preserve win streaks for current players.

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