It sucks, but it's bound to happen to most entrepreneurs at one time or another: your business & your revenue absolutely TANKS. Your profits go down the hole, and you wonder if THIS is the defining moment that'll make your business (and you) a failure.

Freelancers experience it in the feast-or-famine cycle, product sellers experience it when something upsets their supply chain, and A LOT of people experience it when the economy hits a downturn. (Like with what happened to a lot of us during the Covid outbreak.)

Unfortunately, dips in business will happen, but we CAN make sure it doesn't spell the end of our companies or our dream business ventures.

In this episode, I'm talking to Matt Warnock of Matt Warnock Guitar, who saw his profits absolutely PLUMMET at the end of 2019 and into the beginning of 2020.

Today he's back on track, but it took some smart business moves to get there, which is exactly what we talk about in this interview.

👉 I can't emphasize how helpful this interview was for me, and I've been an entrepreneur for five years now.

Matt's insights & business disciplines that saved him & his company when the shit hit the fan and his profits bottomed out for four months straight (less than 1/10 of the sales he expected! 😱) were a big inspiration for me.

Even though my companies aren't in as dire of a situation as his were at the end of 2019, I'm inspired to use some of his strategies both NOW when things are hard, and when things get easier again.

 

Here are the talking points from the interview:

• Matt's background as a musician & how he ended up as an online entrepreneur.
• How a transition in Matt's business (from selling ebooks to digital courses) ended up causing a crash & everything fell apart in his business.
• The moment of hitting rock bottom and thinking…. shit…
• The four months where he didn't take a salary & cutting ad spend by 80% to keep the company afloat.
• The business saving, salary, and spending discipline enforced by an investor that saved his ass when the shit hit the fan.
• How business finance discipline can translate to personal finance discipline to protect yourself against your business tanking for a while.
• The tactical thing he & his team members did to recover from their profitability tanking. (Like going all-in & producing A TON of courses to sell because they saw signs in the data that it would work.)
• Breaking down technological barriers to their target audience so they could sell more courses.
• Creating "pathways" to sell more courses.
• Why paying close attention to the customers mattered SO MUCH in helping them recover their business profitability.

Find Matt online:

• MWGcourses.com
• Facebook: Matt Warnock Guitar Lessons
• Instagram: @mattwarnockguitar

His book & podcast recommendations:

• Pat Flynn's podcast: a series on what to do when your business is tanking
• Amy Porterfield's podcast
• Frank Kern podcast
• How to Write a Good Advertisement – Victor Schwab
• Books by David Ogilvy