Ep 39 - How to Lead With Confidence When Revenue is Down

Running an online business isn't always sunshine and rainbows. When revenue takes a dip, which it is sure to do at some point in your journey, how do you tackle it? Do you panic or pivot? Tough times don't have to define us but how we lead through them does. When the numbers dip, your leadership ability takes center stage. How do you rally your team when revenue is down? What strategies can you implement to weather the storm? Tune in for a candid discussion on navigating uncertainty with resilience and determination. Are you that driven entrepreneur who believes that working harder holds the key to your dreams? Are you drowning in the day to day task wishing you had more time to strategize and cast the vision for your business growth? Hi. I'm Donna Dube, your guide on this entrepreneurial journey. I've walked in your worn out shoes, burning the midnight oil, convinced that sheer hard work was the secret to success. Just one more email, one more task until I found myself on a one way track to burnout.

But here's the twist in the tale. I discovered that success isn't just about working harder, it's about working smarter. It's about being intentional with our time. It's about steering our ship with focus because no team, system, or automation can outperform a lack of direction. In this podcast, I'm sharing with you all the strategies for business growth that it took me years to learn. If you're ready to step out of the daily overwhelm so you can amplify your profits, then I'm ready to teach you. I believe the only limit to your business growth is the one you set for yourself. Go grab a notebook, warm up that cup of tea, and let's do this.

Hey, hey, entrepreneurs. I've got some exciting news for those ready to take their business to the next level without the unnecessary hustle and grind. Are you feeling like your business should be achieving more? It's time to banish the chaos and overwhelm and gain crystal clear clarity on how to operationalize your business. The Operations in Your Pocket strategy session will give you more clarity, confidence, and a step by step action plan for growth. So you can lead with calm and purpose and see the growth you deserve. Book a quick clarity call to see if the operations in your pocket session is a good fit for you. Visit ceoamplify.ca/ops to schedule your free scale. Clarity brings action, action brings transformation, and transformation brings success.

Head on over to ceoamplify.ca/ops to book your session. Hello, welcome back CEOs. I'm so happy you're here. You know, earlier this week I saw a video on social media that caught my attention and so I continued watching it. The truth is I don't know the person on the video. I don't know if there's any facts behind this video or not, but the video was about a lady who had an online business and wasn't making the revenue that she used to be making, and so she was visibly upset about it, going to close the business down, selling her stuff, getting rid of her team, and on it went. And to be truthful her video was very doomy and gloomy and certainly not what I want to bring to this episode, but I do think it's good to have some space and time to think about as business leader what do we do when revenue dips? How do we get through that? How do we pivot if we need to pivot? And what do we do when we're talking with our team if we have a team? And I don't know how you feel but I truly believe that any problem is solvable, but we have to get down to the real truth. And I think that whenever we land in the truth, once you start solving the problem from real truth - not the pretty truth, not the scary truth, not the truth that our, you know, client's best friend's business buddy told them about. No, the truth that's right in front of us.

The truth about our own unique business - once we start looking at those facts, we can find a solution. Now, you may not like the solution, but that's not always the point of a solution, is it? We don't always get the solutions we want, but we do get solutions that we're willing to consider and evaluate, right? Run them through some sort of profit, look at the facts and help us come up with a reasonable outcome for what we're trying to create and grow in our business. So I don't know about you and the world that you're in, but certainly in mine, there seems to be a trend of business owners noticing a change in their revenue. And it doesn't seem to be niche or industry specific. It seems to go across the board, and we're starting to see a dip in revenue. And of course, as business leader, that gets us a little bit alarmed, right? And so our mind can start going with all the thoughts and we can say well I'm doing it wrong and this is scary and uncomfortable, and you know we can take that all the way to my business is falling apart and I don't have a business anymore. I mean we as entrepreneurs sometimes like to blow things bigger than they are, but I think we have to be very thoughtful about the evidence we're using when we're making decisions to believe that certain things aren't great or aren't the way we want them to be.

So when a client comes to me and says Donna, I don't really know what to do. My revenue is down, I'm not sure what to do about it, and I don't know how to talk to my team. So today I wanna walk you through how I help a client in that situation. What kind of things we look at and think about. And I wanna be clear here that I'm not just talking about their feelings of revenue being down. This is when it's actually measurable. So we know that revenue is down. So let's talk about that first part revenue down compared to what it's currently 2024.

We have all gone through COVID and now this post COVID world. And during COVID time, we were all stuck inside. Many of your potential customers and buyers were inside on their phones purchasing and buying from their phones. Their buying habits and trends completely changed during COVID compared to now. And so we saw this sort of random, if you wanna say explosion or bubble of online businesses and online growth because of the way our world was, but that's changing. It's 2024 now. People are going outside. We're traveling.

Right? We're spending our money different than we used to during COVID time. We're not just buying household goods and, you know, clothes and that sort of thing. We might even be looking at education, personal development, things for our kids, etcetera. So when we see a shift in what people are purchasing, we have to look at that as business leader because that's going to affect our revenue and what we see in terms of a downward or an upward shift in our revenue. And for many businesses during this sort of COVID bubble, I'll call it, many businesses didn't have to do much marketing. They had to do selling, but not a lot of marketing, and there's a difference there. So the first thing I ask my clients when they say to me, revenue's down. I question, okay, is it down and based on what? Is it down based on your projection of where you want it to be this year? Is it down based on last year? What are we actually talking about? And let's make sure that we're talking about the same thing.

Let's be clear on what that number is. And then the next question is what is marketing like in your And when I ask them that usually the answer is, well, we don't really do a lot of marketing. I don't really have a solid strategy for marketing. And while I know this isn't true for everybody, it is true for a lot of businesses who came in this online bubble. So it's like all of a sudden their business just seemed to work. They did a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and this happened and that happened and boom, they're getting customers, right? Right? They're getting referrals. And so they haven't had to spend a lot of time, energy, or thought into having a solid marketing strategy. The second piece to this is the environment and what you're used to.

So if you over the past 2 or 3 years have seen a 20% increase in growth in your business or a 30% year over year increase, you start to believe that this is normal and expect the same kind of growth year after year. But what if this isn't necessarily normal? What if it's possible that your business is going to stay at the same level or grow a little bit and you're not to see that 20 or 30% growth year over year. So I certainly want you to be very thoughtful when you say, oh, my revenue is down. What's that based on? It's down based on your projection, but it's or is it down based on what you've already been able to earn? Because a lot of times you may have already earned what you earned last year, and so you think oh my revenue is down, but you're not taking into account that last year was the best year you've ever had in your business. So now when we look at it that way, it's not really a problem, is it? I mean, yes, it'd be good and awesome if we could grow and, you know, make a little bit more, of course, But let's be grateful for what we do have. And if last year was the best year ever and you've been able to do that again and repeat that again this year, That's good news in my books. And then beyond revenue, what about profit? What about operating expenses? Is your business running in a healthy sustainable way? Because if the answer to those questions is yes, then let's not get into scarcity mode because we don't make good decisions as a leader when we're coming from a source of scarcity. Right? We start switching things up.

We start making desperate decisions, trying to achieve some goal. We may not use our team properly, and we certainly don't take good care in making those decisions. And some of us may even get to a mode of, you know, starting to panic. So if you're that person right now and you think, yeah, I'm coming from a place of scarcity. I want you to look at your revenue thinking I'm not where we think we could have been and dig into what are the facts. Know your numbers. What are your expenses? How does your expense line compare year over year? How does your revenue line compare year over year? How does your profit compare year over year? And one thing that I really encourage my clients to do is to look at what may have changed or happened to you during the year. Did you market your signature offer 3 to 4 times a year? Did you have a time when you didn't market anything because you were stuck or you were pivoting or you were changing? Dig into it a little bit more and see if there's a good reason why your revenue is down based on your own actions.

Alright. Now I want to dig into this profit piece a little bit. Did your profit stay the same or dip? So you tell me your revenue is down, but what about your profit? What about the number of new customers or clients you had? Is that number up or down? Because you could have a situation where you had high revenue, but the number of new customers and clients you brought in dropped dramatically. And so this starts to tell you, wait a second, my pipeline is possibly drying up. So you gotta be smart when you're looking at your numbers, not just take one number out of context, but look at the whole picture. We can't just look at revenue alone. And the truth is there's going to be some years where we're going to make a lot of revenue, and there's going to be some years where we're not. And we have to ask why.

Maybe it's because you built a team and so your payroll went up, or maybe you had to buy or invest in new equipment or new technology. So we can't just look at what that top line number is. Alright. So you see that your revenue is down and now you're saying, but I've never really marketed. Well guess what? Now's the time it's time to embrace marketing. And yes, there are a ton of different strategies out there when it comes to marketing, but really the way we sell is the way we talk to people who will buy from us and the way we market is what we do to get in front of the people who need what we have the most so that they know we're the people who can solve their profit. All right. Another thing I want to touch on here is that when revenue is down, the last thing I want you to do or feel is to become helpless and victim.

And I know I can hear you saying it now. Oh, but you don't understand. If only you knew. I can't. You don't know how. If I and when I say to you I'll ask you this. Do you want this business to grow? It's a question. What's your answer? Because you can make excuses and find reasons that it's not it's gonna be too hard.

You don't know how it'll cost too much. It's just not the right time. You don't know this and on it goes. Or you could decide, no. I am going to figure this out. I might need help to do this. Right? I might need an advisor who understands my industry and my program and my products. I might need to get with other people who work in my space and find out what they're doing.

CEO, there's so many things we can do, but sitting in fear is not the one I want you to choose. It doesn't get you what you want. And that's if you really want it. Of course. Now let's talk a little bit for those of you with a team. So we know revenue's down, now what? How do we talk to our team? You talk to your team in the language of a team, and that means you talk about goals, results, plans, strategy, ideas. I don't necessarily believe that it's the entire team's responsibility or business for you to walk in and say, well, we're not hitting our revenue goals. You all need to xyz.

I don't think that's useful. In fact, I actually think it makes people scared and scared employees don't work well because now they're afraid they're gonna lose their job, And guess what? People who are afraid they're gonna lose their job, what do they do? They look for a new one. So even if you're not close to closing, people start to get a little panicked, right? We many times believe that working for a small business is less secure than working for a big company. Whether that's true or not that's for a discussion on another day, but if that's what your employees believe and you come in with the framework that revenue's down, you need to do this, this and this. We're setting people up to be afraid. So when we have a revenue gap that you wanna tighten up, I want you to approach it in a fun way, in a playful way, and bring your team into the solution. So for example, you could say, all right team, it would be really good if we could focus on getting Profit some of what we've talked about as far as goals and strategies and ideas, but we'd love your opinion. And if we were to move forward with these what kind of resources would you need? How could I help you get there? Because I believe you're the team that's going to be able to do it, and together we're gonna do this.

And when we accomplish it, we're gonna celebrate. Right? That's a total different experience. Now your team is a part of it and it's not woe is us fear fear fear. It's more how can we accomplish this together? So I want you to understand that all of us at some point in time are going to have a year or years where revenue is down, and I don't think there's an entrepreneur on this planet that would tell you any different. Revenue being down is not the end of the world. You know, I recently sent this to my client once and of course she was a little shocked by it. But I said, listen, you've had this business for what? 12, 14 years? Something like that. You're in this for the long game, correct? Or are you in it just for this year? Of course, she's in it for the long game, but sometimes we need someone to give us that perspective, right? So let's use this year as evidence.

Let's evaluate it. Let's understand it. The year and the results that you have, they're giving you feedback, so let's use it. Let it speak to you and tell you the story so that as you think about next year you can be more thoughtful in making your operations, and I think all of us need to evaluate that if you have been in a situation where you're doubling every year, let's look at that. It's growth. It feels good. No doubt, but is it reasonable? Is the market that you operate in, in this current climate of what's going on in the world, is it reasonable for you to expect yourself to double every year? Is that a reasonable way to set up your business right now? It doesn't mean that you can't have these goals, but what you're building in the business, the goals that you build the business around, you've got to be thoughtful about it. So I think there's a difference between me sitting in my room thinking, I want this to be our goal and I write it up somewhere for me and I work with my team and we have a strategy.

Oh, yeah, that could be fun but the goal that the business is going to be built around is different because that's how we make decisions for how we hire, what money we spend, what technology we need, what customers we want, what marketing dollars we spend. A lot of decisions come from the goal of the business But when we've been so busy with achieving some outrageous performance result we do develop almost what I call lazy leadership practice right? Where we want to just put marketing aside and forget that we don't need that side of our business or put a, you know, one of our systems aside and forget that we don't need it. I hope that all of this has helped you so far and that if you're tuning in, you know, maybe you tuned in because the title caught your attention, or maybe you've never really been in this situation before and you're interested to hear what I had to say. I hope this helped, and I want you to sit down and I want you to write down all the ways that you know that there is room for you to explore and develop other potential revenue avenues because absolutely there's other ones out there yet we just haven't taken the time to find them. So after you've made that list then go through the process of vetting them, which is the right one, which is the best one for right now. Don't just put your head in the sand and think, oh, this is awful. My revenue is down. There's nothing I can do.

Because there is lots you can do. Again, focus on the real truth, and you will find a solution to the profit. And decide if you're in this for the long game or not. And many times that, you know, that involves looking at more than just revenue. It looks at involved looking at all of your numbers and quite frankly the world around you. I mean, at the time I'm recording this honestly part of our world is in a mess. We have a war in the Middle East. We have political issues going on left, right, and center and this has an effect on what we're trying to do.

We have changes happening in our industry. AI is changing. Technology is changing. I mean gone are the days when you could you know put a pretty picture out on Instagram or Facebook and people would come. That's not business you know, thinking just thinking of pivoting is difficult, right? It's painful for a lot of people and I've heard lots of people say I can't stop doing that thing. I mean I've worked so hard to create it and I get that I do but are people buying it? I can appreciate the fact that you love what you do and that you're attached to it, but that isn't how we build a company Because once you get that business to, you know, 6, 7 figure status, that company is now its own entity, and it has to be and you have to think of yourself as the custodian of that company. You have to take care of that company and you have to be able to fuel it and you fuel it with revenue. You fuel it with customers.

You fuel it by being very thoughtful and aware and studious and involved. You look around, you see what's happening in our world, what's happening with your customers buying patterns and you make strategic decisions based on real truth. So, you know, back to the video that I watched on social media. I don't know the operations. I don't know what their real truth was, but you know, it's sad when we see someone and their business is going under and you know, I'm not really sure. I don't really know the product she sells, but maybe what she sells, you know, there's 10 other people just down the street that sell the same thing. And so how is she standing out and being different? Our world is very noisy these days, right? We always have someone talking at us trying to sell us something. So the question really is what's the reality? What's the truth? When you say your revenue is down compared to what? Your goal? Your year after year? And if it's your year after year, how much are we talking about? And if this was last year, like a really good year, and so now we're saying that this year is not so growth, but last year was already growth.

So is it really that bad? Can we be excited and proud of what we have? And if we're playing the long game, does this really matter? Have we assessed our market? Have we assessed our client? Have we done all that we could do? Have we been marketing? Have we done all that we could do in advertising? Or have we relied solely on referrals from former clients or vendors or partners? Have we hired sales staff? What have you not done that's still available for you to try? And do you actually understand what's going on in the world and how it's affecting what you do? And if you're listening right now and your business is thriving and you're having the best year you've ever had because that also happens sometimes, that's growth, but don't just ride that. Let's look at why. This is really good, but do I have a marketing strategy? Do I advertise? Do I only rely on this thing to generate revenue? And what am I doing next year to build this business and sustain this type of performance? Am I doing the work I need to do to develop the expertise to lead the business of this size of revenue? Because with each of these moments in growth it always asks for more of us as a business leader, Right? New things from us as business leader. Are we doing those new things? And just because revenue is down doesn't mean it's the end of the world. So if you have that sort of feeling and that thought and you're feeling a little anxious about it I hope that this podcast episode has given you a little extra to think about and to go off of and to say no. No. Let's get to the facts because facts don't lie, and then let's tell the truth about what's really going on and then we can follow the steps and go forward. So I hope this was helpful for you.

Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you for joining me on this episode of CEO Amplify. I appreciate you being part of our thriving community of ambitious business owners. If you enjoy today's episode, I kindly ask you to share this podcast with a friend and take a hot minute to rate and leave a review. It would mean the world to me. Your feedback helps me reach more people and continue providing valuable content. Thanks so much for your support. Keep shining, and we'll catch you on the next episode.