Revealed! A sneak peek into what day-to-day life looks like as a business owner, mother, partner and friend juggling all of the things! For anyone that has ever wished that they had a behind-the-scenes snapshot of what it's REALLY like to run this business, today's podcast episode is for you.

This sneak peek is an insight into how I plan and execute my week.

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ The Season I Am IN and Maintenance v Growth Modes;
✔️ Day-To-Day Breakdown;
✔️ Managing Faults;
✔️ Health and Happiness;
✔️ And MORE!

As mentioned, here is the link to check out the Oura Ring: the most accurate sleep and activity tracker.

Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/187

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Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

A couple of years ago, I had a profound epiphany that changed my business and my life forever.

At the time, my digital course business was rapidly growing, revenue was skyrocketing. Had more students than ever.

On paper – I had achieved the success that I had thought I so desperately wanted.

I should have felt happy, excited and full of pride.

Here’s how I felt instead:
🚩 Tired, burnt out and over it
🚩 Like an imposter
🚩 Betrayed
🚩 Like a bad mama

I carried guilt around 24/7 and wondered whether I’d created a hamster wheel that I might not ever be able to get off.

I knew something had to change…

One Saturday, I sat down with my own thoughts.

What is the purpose of all of this? What is it that I WANT, at the end of the day?

My Goals:
1. More Profit
2. More Time

The Business Model I Needed to Get There:

A simple business with high profit margins, working 5-hour days with a lean, remote team of 1-5 and a mostly clear calendar.

AKA... A Business With the Endgame of The Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Since that day, I have been hellbent on a different goal.

Getting clarity on my endgame and reverse engineering into a business that achieves it the epiphany that profoundly changed my business and my life.

This is the "Life First" Business Plan we are implementing in 2023.

If YOU are aligned with our desired endgame in business, maybe it's a model you'd like to follow?

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ Traffic Strategies;
✔️ Offers;
✔️ Selling Systems;
✔️ Team;
✔️ Delivery;
✔️ And MORE!


Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/186

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

REPEAT AFTER ME: DO NOT MANAGE YOUR BUSINESS BY LOOKING AT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.

Hands up if you're guilty of this!

Here's what it looks like:

Opening up your banking app.
Taking a quick squeeze and using the "cash in the bank" to assess the "health" of your business.
Making decisions on spend based on the figure you see.
Rinse, repeat.

It's normal for a LOT of businesses to operate this way.

The truth is though? It's problematic, ESPECIALLY so, when you have a business that has inherently "lumpy" income. Lumpy income means that you don't have a consistent "amount" ending up in your bank account each and every week, and it's really common for course creators (and all online business owners).

Oftentimes, we're launching so we will get a big cash injection in one month thanks to pay in full payments, and then slower months where you have MRR (monthly recurring revenue) from older payment plans still coming in. Or you might sell year round (no launch model), but you have a BIG influx of pay in fulls and have an unexpectedly big month whilst other months might be unexpectedly smaller -- even if you hit your "goal" intake numbers.

In these circumstances, running your business by simply looking at your bank account could land you in serious hot water.

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ Implications of Managing Your Business By Your Bank Account;
✔️ Set PERCENTAGE Budgets;
✔️ Use Revenue as MRR to Set DOLLAR Budgets;
✔️ Allocate Your CASH COLLECTED Monthly Into Your Buckets;
✔️ And MORE!


Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/185

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

TRUTHBOMB: You DON’T have to scale your business to the moon (and in fact, the pursuit of doing so might be costing you dearly).

Here's how to set yourself up for LIFE - both in terms of revenue, wealth and your TIME (aka the ultimate freedom) - and enjoy the ride along the way.

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ Stop listening to people with a completely different endgame to you;
✔️ Swap "scale" for "simplicity";
✔️ Go deep, not wide;
✔️ Create very specific organic content;
✔️ Stay small and serve deeply;
✔️ Grow slowly;
✔️ Watch your time;
✔️ Invest cashflow;
✔️ Don't sacrifice your health;
✔️ And MORE!



Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/184

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

Who needs to get more eyeballs on their business without spending a cent?

*Everyone raises hand*

It's critically important, and even more so RIGHT NOW. Attention is currency, and the more you are able to command it, the more competitive you will be in the marketplace. From the very start of our business, we have relied heavily on organic strategies to grow our business. The power of doing so?

1) Increased Profit Margins: Having an organic audience means you can spend less on paid advertising -- meaning higher profit margins for your business.

2) Higher Conversion Rates: Organic traffic converts at a higher rate than paid traffic, because there is a "know, like and trust" factor.

3) Fuels Paid Traffic: Having a paid strategy alone is no longer recommended even by paid ad agencies; complementing your paid ad traffic strategies with organic reach strategies helps to warm those leads up to "stick" and convert.

4) Avoid Commoditisation: A strong organic reach strategy combined with thought leadership content means that you can differentiate from others in your space and avoid your business becoming "commoditised". People will want to work with YOU specifically rather than just any coach, course creator, etc. This also means the ability to NOT need to compete on price.

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ Give More Than You Think;
✔️ Have a Broadcast Channel;
✔️ Share Your Unique Perspective;
✔️ Create Your Dream 100;
✔️ DM New Followers;
✔️ Searchable Content;
✔️ Focus On It;
✔️ And MORE!


Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/183

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

Tough love-bomb 💘💣 

Without authority, you will find it incredibly tough to sell.

And without authoring content (literally, the “author” in authority), you will find it incredibly tough to build authority. It’s as simple (and as difficult!) as that.

Think about the people that you buy from and work with online. Most likely, you decided to do so because you had developed a sense of rapport and trust with them through the content that they created and shared online.

If you want a sustainable business online, you can’t simply show up and start selling and expect for people to flock through the door. 

If you want an expert business, in which people look up to you as a thought leader and want to follow your processes to achieve the transformation promise of your course? You NEED authority, and authoring content. Well, it’s a complete non-negotiable.

For our last Podcast Best Of episode, we revisit five tips for building authority and becoming a thought leader in your niche:

1️⃣ Commit to a Core Content Channel
2️⃣ Take a Stand and Stake Your Ground
3️⃣ Be Consistent AND Consistently Awesome
4️⃣ Build Multiple Touchpoints
5️⃣ Create Micro Content



Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/156

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

Next up in our Podcast Best Of session, we revisit Why Starting THIS Podcast is BEST Thing We’ve Done — Ever (And What We'd Do Differently If We Were Starting Today)!

Starting my podcast is hands down, without a doubt, the single most powerful and highest ROI marketing strategy I have ever adopted in my business. It is almost singlehandedly responsible for 40% of enrolments into our Launchpad program, and for the remaining 60% it is a significant warm up strategy for people who “found” us through other means. We know, because we ask.

In this throwback  episode, I am going to give you a behind the scenes breakdown of the exact impact that podcasting has had on our business, how you can expect it to impact your business if you were to start one, and what I would do differently if I was starting out today.

✔️  Who Is Podcasting Best Suited To?
✔️  What Role Does a Podcast Play in Your Content Marketing Strategy?
✔️  What Tangible Impact Has Podcasting Had on Our Business?
✔️  Would We Still Start a Podcast Today?
✔️  What Would I Do Differently If I Was Starting Out Today?



Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/157

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

First up in our walk down memory lane, we revisit for Podcast Best Of how our podcast makes us $8,300 an hour!

“I don’t have TIME to start a podcast...”
“The tech is overwhelming, I don’t know where to start...”
“But what if I run out of topic ideas?”

If you’ve EVER considered starting a podcast, it’s likely that one of these “buts” have stopped you dead in your tracks. And, I get it.

In a world where we’re all frantically trying trying to run a business, maintain a social life, juggle family, drink enough water, text everyone back, stay sane, survive and be happy (PHEW), adding another ‘thing’ to the list can feel like the actual definition of insanity.

Plus, you need a mic, you need to learn how to edit, and -- sure you could probably Google it but every time you do -- it feels like you’re drinking water from a fire house. Not to mention the imposter syndrome that creeps in every time it enters your mind like, "Who am I to start a podcast?” Says your mean girl/guy brain.

"Why ME?! What if I run out of ideas? Do I even KNOW enough to create a podcast each and every week?"

In this throwback  episode, you’ll learn why you need to kick all of the “buts” currently holding you back to the curb and go all in on what will likely become the single biggest ROI marketing activity you do in your business.

✔️  Our Podcast SAVES Us Time (Our Three Hour/Month Podcast Workflow);
✔️  Podcasting Makes Social Media Easier;
✔️  The Tech is Dead Easy;
✔️  And MORE!



Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/158

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

No one wants a marketing plan, but EVERYONE wants to make more money, right?

And even more so, they want to do it in a way that doesn't mean posting 132 Instagram stories, labouring for hours over their next Instagram post, wasting precious time trying to come up with content ideas and dropping BIG money on ads with no ROI to show for it -- right?

And that, my friends, is the power of a simple, powerful marketing plan.

So, let's breakdown the process we used inside of our own business this year to build out a marketing plan in an hour, and to then spend no more than 5 hours a week making it come to life.

This is the strategy we will be using to further establish our authority and go-to status in our industry, to ensure that we are attracting perfect fit clients into our business and to create a bulletproof attraction system that brings BOTH new people into our ecosystem and primes the ones already in it to purchase from us.

You ready?

In this episode, we discussed:
✔️ Where a Marketing Plan Sits in the Full Ecosystem;
✔️ Front-End Marketing Is Only One Component;
✔️ Data Focused;
✔️ Our Chosen Marketing Channels;
✔️ KPIs;
✔️ Workflow;
✔️ And MORE!


Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/182

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool

Want to create custom, bespoke and BEAUTIFUL delivery experiences for my students to separate me from others in the industry, AND to create beautiful sales pages and assets to boot, too? KLEQ is an "all-in-one" course platform that is completely customisable from a design perspective, and enables you to create an ENTIRELY bespoke student experience for your courses and programs that look COMPLETELY unique to you. For just a few days, the KLEQ team are offering a $1 trial for 30 days, and (wait for it) 50% OFF your first five months. Check out KLEQ here!

Brand power is the sum of all of the elements that make up the strength of a business or person’s brand and how they are perceived in the eyes of prospects.

It influences someone's decision to buy heavily... and in some cases, FAR MORE than the actual sales process, funnel or launch event set up to make sales.

There could be two people or businesses with identical launch events, or evergreen funnels, or sales call processes... and they would experience SIGNIFICANTLY different conversion rates (which is the percentage of leads that purchase) on account of their brand power.

The good news?

Is that brand power is something that you BUILD, not some ethereal quality that one either has or doesn’t have.

Here’s some ways you can increase your brand power. Investing time and energy into this process is one of the most important things you will do. It doesn’t have “direct ROI”; you can’t measure it in a spreadsheet and it’s still one of the highest ROI activities you will ever undertake.

In this episode, we discussed:
👉🏻 Podcasting and Core Content;
👉🏻 Top Notch Design;
👉🏻 Proximity;
👉🏻  When to increase your Brand Power;
👉🏻 And MORE!


Full show notes for this episode can be found at:
https://thecoursecartel.com/181

----------

Want more? Here’s how we can help you:

→ Free Workshop — Create our knowledge-based lifestyle business in 2025

→ Subscribe to the Fully Free Newsletter — Come and join the party on Substack! Subscribe for weekly articles, essays and behind the scenes to help you build a lifestyle business.

→ Join Lifestyle Business School — Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.

Enjoy this content? Follow and subscribe for more:

→ Follow Stevie on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_/

→ Subscribe to Fully Free on Substack — https://lifestylebusinessschool.substack.com/

→ Subscribe to Lifestyle Business School on Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@lifestylebusinessschool