AF276 - Your 2023 Growth Plan

Are you ready to see what your business REALLY looks like on the inside? From simple data points to purpose and direction, this episode is only for serious business owners who are done playing too small. Grab your pen. You’re going to want to write this down! 

Know what to do and how to stop playing small and start chasing after what you really want! So grab your pen and take down notes, contemplate and think about this because this will give you an accurate assessment of your business as it is currently at the end of this year. 

Start planning for 2023 and figure out what we are doing, what we want to do, what we still want to do, and what we do not want to do. 

I am not a huge planner. I am more of a spontaneous person. However, what I have learned in this business is that if I want to get what I have always gotten, then I should keep doing the same things. There are good times in bad, there are hard years, and there are amazing years. The longer that you are in business, the more you realize how much there are ups and downs. 

So instead of looking at the micro, tiny things that all went wrong and freaking out about any kind of beating ourselves up about it, we are going to take an accurate assessment of our business over the past 12 months. What can we improve on? What do we need to change in order to grow?

So today we are all about your Amazon growth plan. Before I get started, I just want to remind you that part of your growth plan can be one of the events that we are hosting here at Mommy Income in the next 12 months. Starting with January 4th, we are hosting a confident wholesale bundler workshop in Dallas in conjunction with the Dallas Marketplace Home and Gift Show, which is one of the largest trade shows and the first one of 2023. There will be meetings of vendors and getting catalogs and getting high-quality products. I want to stress that. High-quality products, bring customers back, leave good reviews, and have positive experiences. They have the best stuff, they have the best vendors, and you have the best opportunity to get products first off the table. It's just a really, really great show to go to. 

What's included in the workshop?

First is a meet and greet party. I get to sit with you, have drinks and food and just learn about you and your business and talk with you and other sellers about their Amazon experience. Whether you are new or you have been doing this for 10 years or 20 years like me, we are just going to sit and chat and get to know each other. I love that. I love people and I just want to meet you and listen to your story and just discover who you are. And then on Thursday, we are going to roll up our sleeves and we are going to build bundles from catalogs from scratch using the framework that you are already familiar with so that while you are creating your bundle, you can ask questions along the way. But I am going to walk you through the process so that you can do it yourself.

And when you get stuck, you can ask questions, raise your hand, bring me over to your table, and look over your shoulder so you can say, this is where I am stuck. Get me over this hump. You are going to walk away with a profitable bundle for your store. And then Friday I am going to walk with you side by side together to the trade show so we can talk with vendors and get you accounts and get you familiar with products that are out there that you can put in the bundles that you can start ordering immediately from these companies who cannot wait to see your face meet you and sell product to you. Hundreds of thousands of vendors, catalogs, and legitimate wholesale products. 

I have heard a couple of you guys say a few things about the workshop, how it is very expensive and it is out of your budget. 

And I totally get that because I understand I have a budget, too. I just had to forego a really awesome conference that I really wanted to go to in November because it just was not in the budget for right now. So I get it if now is not the time, save up. We are going to have other workshops. We also have just a trade show walkthrough event happening at the end of February at ASD in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, it is not as much of an investment, but that is what it is. An investment that pays dividends. An investment that builds six and seven-figure businesses of one client that came in January of 2018 and now is hitting multiple six-figure, all with bundles, a little bit of regular wholesale, and a little tiny bit of retail arbitrage.

Those things are fun, but bundles are fun, too. It is really fun when you create something and then you sell it over and over and over again. All you have to do is repurchase the same things and the customers are buying and they are happy and they are coming back over and over and over again.

So what you invest into the workshop can pay you dividends over and over and over again. It is an investment for sure. It is a costly one. It costs money to fly across the country to stay overnight, to stay for three days to put the work in. But by this time next year, you could be at your goal succeeding beyond your goal. It depends on what you invest in right now. So that is what we are going to talk about today, mommy income.com/workshop. You can get all of the workshop information there and everything that we have on the docket.

Where are you right now in your business? What does your business look like today? How many bundles have you launched this year? Or how many products have you launched? How many new things have you brought to Amazon? How many new listings have you created? How many sales have you made? How many units have you sold? What is your best-selling product to date? And how much revenue have you generated off of that one product?

There is no shame in this. There are no ups and downs, there is no emotion or meaning attached to it. It is just an assessment. These are numbers that people do not usually collect and they have no idea. When we are collecting data, there is not like good data or bad data or good numbers or bad numbers.

What do we need to keep track of some of these numbers?

These are the numbers that Amazon gives you. Your ASP or average selling price of each unit. You should calculate the numbers of hours you spend on your business and how much you are making out of your profit.

If you are not much of a data collection person, you need to become one. It is one of those skills that you need in your business. During a free coaching session, when I ask you about your numbers, you should be ready to give those. Those numbers are readily available in your Amazon reports, especially if you have Inventory Lab. Did you have sales goals? Do you have a profit goal? Have you paid off any debt? Take note of your milestones. Go back to January and start scrolling through your camera roll. What was happening? Where did you go? What did you participate in? What were some of the events that happened in your life that may have caused some ups and downs in business? If you did not have a goal, then what are your current numbers, and are you happy with them? 

And where is all the revenue and money going and coming from? Did you take a vacation? Look at your calendar for the last year and what triggers some memories of some great things that happened, not just in your business, but in your life. Did you launch a certain product? Did someone get married? Did you have a child? Did to get a new pet? Did a pet die? All of these different things that have happened over time, how it has affected you and how does it affect your bottom line? Life factors in. It is not just about data and numbers and all these things. 

And then, take an assessment of what went wrong. List only those things that went wrong that you can control, fix, and change. Did you invest in a bad product that just never sold? Did you write a bad listing?

I will give you an example of things that I can not put on the list. We lost a lot of money this year due to customer returns. We have since put some things in place to help us not have customer returns as much anymore by adding stickers to our products that say, wait, stop, if this seal has been broken, please return this item immediately. That is something that has been helping us to do that. But that is something that was in halfway in our control and halfway out of our control, Amazon chooses what they receive and what they put back on the shelf, and what they send out to customers. And unfortunately for us, they have done that several times this year where they have received a customer return and made a mistake on the condition of such an item and then sent that item back to another customer, which then creates this whole customer service nightmare because now someone else is getting a used product and now we have two angry customers and that went wrong. Yes, we did something to fix it and so we are letting it go.

These are some options of goals that you can set within your business, but you can choose whatever it is you want. So if you are making $5,000 a month in your business and you want that to be $10,000, we are going to take small steps to get there. So what is your goal? Number one, it could be increasing revenue by a certain percentage. I like 25% because that is something easily measurable and doable. Increasing revenue would mean increasing your financial investment. 

If you are a startup or a small business, that is easily obtainable. If you have been in business for a while, doubling your sales is going to take a lot more output. So setting something at a reasonable growth rate, 10%, even 25% is reasonable. Increasing profits by 25% do not mean increasing output. Increasing profits can mean simply increasing by decreasing expenses, finding products that cost less, or finding them at a lesser cost or raising your price. 

Maybe one of your goals is just to reduce your debt. Maybe you have gotten yourself into some debt and you have some inventory debt or a personal debt or whatever it is. And instead of spending your money reinvesting in your business, you are going to decide that your number one goal for the next 12 months is to be debt free. Your goal is up to you. But I am going to ask you a couple of things. Number one, you got to know where you are and where you want to go. And then we can fill in the gaps together. How will we get there? By applying the 80-20 rule, spend 80% of your time and money on the things that are already working and that you already know how to do. You spend 20% of your money and time on future things. Things that are not yet, things that you are working on, and working towards new things.

There are some things in your business that you absolutely hate or that drive you crazy, tasks you hate, and things that you just cannot stand doing that might need doing. So number one, you could outsource those things. Hire someone a few hours a week to do something to take off your plate. Maybe it is a service, maybe it is software, maybe it is something that you can pay and not be doing anymore.

Examine your business and your life. What is it that you really want? What is this business, this job, this money doing for you? What do you want it to do for you? Because there is nothing worse than spending all of your time and money and effort climbing a ladder that gets to a place that you do not want to be. So whatever is motivating you, whatever causes you to take action, think about it, analyze it, decide, and you know what, no one is here to judge you. So you just take an assessment of your business, of yourself, of what you really want. And then let us make steps. Take steps, small steps to get there. 12-month goal. By this time next year, I want to hear from you and say, “Hey, that podcast you did. I did what you said and I got there.” 

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QUOTE:

“If I want something different, something big, something small, a change, then I'm the one that's responsible for making it, planning it, thinking about it, looking at the pros and cons, talking myself in and out of it over and over again. And then finally just doing it. ”   - Kristin Ostrander.

RESOURCES:

• 2023 Mommy Income LIVE Events
• Why You Should Sell Wholesale Bundles on Amazon
• Everything You Need to Know - Dallas Total Home & Gift Market
• 3 Reasons to Attend a Tradeshow Walkthrough
• Wholesale Bundle System 3.0
• Dream Big Step Small
• Mommy Income Hub Group
• HUB

Share your AHA moments with me on my free private Facebook group  - the Amazon Files (use the code word GROWTH) and tag me so I can celebrate with you! 

Have questions? Email me directly at [email protected] with all your questions, concerns, or doubts. I would love to answer them all for you.

Keep on bundling…

-KO