Close to a million in total sales over almost two years. Then several million in about six or seven months. Same business, same service.
That’s Mike. He sat down with Molly from my team to talk about how it went, and I wanted to break down what he said because there’s a lesson in here for anyone stuck at that first million.
What Mike actually sells
So Mike runs an ecommerce automation service. They partner with investors and build them an online business on Amazon, Walmart, or basically any other seller platform.
Good offer. Molly said it on the call too, they had a great offer before they ever worked with us. That wasn’t the problem.
Organic sales feel good until you try to plan around them
When Mike came in, he said pretty much all of their sales were organic. Nothing paid. And because of that it was very inconsistent.
I see this all the time. Organic is great, it’s free, it feels like the business is working. But you can’t plan anything around it. You can’t hire ahead of it, you can’t say we’re doing X next month, because you don’t know where the next client comes from. Some months it’s good, some months it’s dead.
He said it himself. Once you get into paid marketing, everything becomes more predictable because you’re tracking everything. That’s it. That’s the whole reason I push people to ads.
I mean, think about my rule of 10. Spend about $10,000 on ads, get about 1,000 leads, 100 calls, at least 10 deals. Give or take, depending on the offer. You can’t do that math with organic. You can do it with ads, because every number in the chain is something you can see and fix.
The offer was fine, the middle was broken
This is the part Molly pointed out that a lot of people skip. You can have a great offer and still be stuck, because you also need a sales team that can enroll people and a solid process for getting leads onto the calendar.
Mike’s list of problems when he joined was long. No marketing system that was dependable and trackable. Needed help with sales. Needed help hiring. Needed help dialing in the service itself. He said they were doing multiple tasks and just needed help everywhere.
That’s pretty normal at a million. You got there by doing everything yourself, and it worked, so you keep doing it. But the stuff that gets you to one million is not the stuff that gets you to five. The decision that got you to where you’re at is not going to get you to the next place.
60 people to over 320 in about seven months
This is the number that got me. When they started with us they had about 60 employees. Now they’re at over 320. In about seven months.
They went from one warehouse in Orlando to eight locations and eight warehouses. They have six office buildings in the Philippines with around 300 workers there, plus about 20 local employees in Orlando.
Obviously that doesn’t happen if the sales side isn’t working. You don’t go 5x on headcount unless the money’s coming in to pay for it. And the reason they could hire that fast is the same reason I talked about above. When the leads and sales are predictable, you know what’s coming, so you can hire ahead of it instead of always being behind.
People do this backwards. They wait until they’re drowning and then hire in a panic. Then they hire the wrong person because they’re desperate.
The ClickFunnels milestone
Mike said they qualified for Two Comma Club with ClickFunnels, and they’re almost halfway to Two Comma Club X. Their goal is to hit the 10 million mark this year with that one funnel.
One funnel. I love that. People always want to build five funnels and run eight offers. What I’d do is find the one that works and pour gas on it. Mike’s team did exactly that.
Why it went faster than doing it alone
Mike said something I agree with completely. He said it comes down to hiring a business coach and taking that leap of faith, because you don’t know what you don’t know. He and his partner had never been at the level they’re at now. And he figured if they’d tried to do it themselves, it probably would’ve taken three or four years to get done what they did in six or seven months.
That’s basically the trade. You pay to skip the years of guessing. I’ve spent $3 million on coaching over the years and a lot of it didn’t move the needle, but it also told me what not to do. The point is getting help from someone who’s already been where you want to go.
Molly also said something on the call I liked. She said these guys are action takers and they don’t waste time on silly things, they focus on the high priority stuff. Honestly that’s half of it. I can tell someone what to fix. If they sit on it for three months, nothing changes.
What I’d take from this
If you’re sitting around a million in total sales and it’s all organic, the problem probably isn’t your offer. It’s that nothing’s predictable. Get on paid, track every number, build the sales side so leads get on the calendar and get enrolled. Then hire ahead of the growth instead of behind it.
Mike went from close to one million over almost two years to several million in about seven months, and he says they now have a clear path to the next level. Same business. Different system for getting customers. That’s it.
Want to know what’s capping your business right now? Take my free 90 Day Ceiling Plan. Answer 18 questions and get a written plan, built on your own numbers, that names the one thing holding you back and what to fix first.
