Leonie Dawson's Blog, page 22
May 13, 2022
April 2022: Biz & Life Review
Possums!
Yay! Welcome back to my monthly tradition where I review my life & business & share behind-the-scenes numbers as well.
I’ll cover:
life blessings & challengeswhat I’ve created in my businesshow much revenue generatedmy goals for next month.You can read previous monthly reviews here:
2021
April & MayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovember2022
Dec 21 & Jan 22February MarchHow I went with my goals for the monthLife:
Stay sane – DOINGSupreme self care – DOINGPack – DOINGOrganise renovations & moving – DOINGBusiness:
Launch Get Organised! – DONEGet everyone settled into the Uplevel Incubator & it working beautifully – DONECreate & share delicious content – DONEGet into good management habits of assigning priorities etc! – DONE
What I got up to in life!As I mentioned in March’s update, we signed a contract on a new home about 30 minutes south of here. So we spent April organising home loans & renovations. We’ll move in end of May.Kids finished up their first term at school. They’ve both got such a great friend group this year, I’m so grateful!We went on holidays for a week to Hervey Bay and stayed at an Airbnb with a pool near the beach. We spent many happy hours out by the pool… can’t wait to move to our new home with a pool! We went to a wildlife park, an aquarium, the botanic gardens, a few markets & a gorgeous restaurant that sits on stilts over the ocean. We raced after the ice cream truck barefoot and walked to the end of one of Australia’s longest piers. We got to spend some time with Chris’ parents too.We went to Sea Life and a big trampoline park with some of the kids’ friends and had a glorious day out!My kids got their second vaccination – hip hip hooray at last! Thanks modern medicine! You’re so rad!I had lunch with some gorgeous business goddess friends: Tash Corbin, Brigit Esselmont and Emma Veiga-Malta.Chris’ parents came and stayed with us overnight. My littlest was so funny – she squeezed herself between them on the couch and spent the rest of the evening blissfully cuddled in a Nanny and Poppy sandwich.My biggest kid went to a friend’s high tea-inspired birthday party. She bought a dress, got her hair curled and wore mascara. My tiny baby is growing up!My kids got new haircuts – my eldest chose a shag cut which just cracks me up! She’s so cute!We went to an art sale at a huge old Queenslander house. It was just gorgeous, and we got some beautiful paintings for our new house!We gave away some furniture, toys and gardening equipment on a local community board & met some absolutely gorgeous people! It made my heart so happy!I started seeing a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist – I feel like I need more tools in my mental health toolkit, and more coping mechanisms. I really like my new therapist, it feels like a great fit, and I’m so glad to be doing.After my disastrous attempt 2 years ago of walking the Camino virtually (which resulted in a prolapsed disc & 5 month recovery time), I decided to try doing virtual walks again – this time using World Walking. This time however, instead of throwing myself headlong into a 700km long walk, I’m doing the smallest walks first! Some of them are only 1km or so. It’s a bit of fun inspiration to walk more, then look at the digital view of the city I’m walking in. Here’s all the walks I’ve done so far. Quebec City was most surprising to me. CASTLES! Walking around European cities is just wildly dreamy too.
Best Books & Audiobooks & Favourite TV/MoviesApril wasn’t a big book reading month for me (only 10 finished – about half my avergae), but my 5 star favourites out of what I did read were:
A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape (short and ridiculously funny… made me snort out my nose.)Invisible Differences: A Story of Aspergers, Adulting and Living A Life In Full Colour (great graphic novel on ASD)Re-read some favourites – The Kiss Quotient and two of the Bridgerton series – Romancing Mister Bridgerton and The Viscount Who Loved Me.On the audiobook front, I’ve been listening to Rachel Rodger’s We Should All Be Millionaires. It’s blooming brilliant, and a smart read on money and time management.
I also binge watched Heartstopper season 1 in a day. I fell head over heels in love with the Heartstopper graphic novel series, and the TV version was just as delightful. It’s just EXQUISITE to see LGBTQIA+ love stories and friendship on the screen!
What I did in business!Finished launching The Uplevel Incubator – a 3 month small group coaching programGot all my new Incubator coaching clients settled inReleased “Dear God, It’s Me, Leonie” – a free illustrated zine I made about keeping the creative flame alive after 2 decades in the industry!Released my brand new free Inspiration Library – a collection of the dozens of free goodies I’ve made over the years to help you live a shining life & biz!Launch Get Organised! – my new course on getting organised in life & business.How much money I madeTotal income: $116,291.70
Where that income came from:E-courses: $81,608Uplevel Incubator (small group coaching): $31,912Goal Getter planners: $1,301Passive income business: $7,875Shares & Ethical Managed Funds: No growth this monthInvestment property: Currently not rented while we wait for my in-laws to move inAffiliate for Kajabi: $1,463Affiliate for Pure Accountability: $90Calm Christmas Planner on Etsy: $9.70E-course income breakdown:Get Organised! workshop: $62,527Marketing Without Social Media: $8,191.4040 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course: $3,714Work Less, Earn More: $968.43Sales Star: $4,906Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income: $1,08140 Days To A Finished Book: $811Mini workshop: Behind The Scenes of A Multi-Millionaire’s Finances: $220
ExpensesDue to popular request, I’m going to include expenses for the business for the last month as well to give you an even more transparent look at profitability.
Contractors: $5,345This is for 1 part time Customer Service Virtual Assistant and 1 part time Online Business Manager. This is probably on the higher side for pricing, but I prefer paying more for people who I trust and have a long term working relationship with. I want them to feel appreciated, and I want them to be able to live good lives.Donation: $1,000 to OzHarvest (this delivers 2,000 meals to food-insecure families in Australia)Affiliates: $3,200Paypal & account fees: $1,374Software subscriptions for everything we use to run our business online (see full list further below): $1,774Website hosting: $128Accountability Coach: $330Courses & books (for me & my staff to learn from, we are continuously learning): $2,196Minimum purchase order to qualify for my passive income business income: $150
Total expenses this month: $15,497
Profit levels!Total profit: $100,794.70
That’s approx 86% profit EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes).
Most businesses run on around 5-30% profit margins.
From that profit, my husband and I take salaries (that we then pay personal tax on) and pay compulsory superannuation (contributions to retirement funds).
The rest of the profit stays in the holding company, and regularly gets invested in ethical managed funds. We invest with Australian Ethical, and they’ve just shared they currently won’t hold Russian investments.
If you want more details on how we manage and grow our income streams, Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income is the course for you!
Blog posts I publishedHow I Know I Am Officially Middle Aged (An Illustrated Zine)March 2022 Biz & Life Review: How Much I Made & Spent, What I Did & Read!Current list of software I use to run my business:Kajabi for most things in my business:selling through their shopping cartteaching my courses through their learning management systemrunning my affiliate programActiveCampaign to send all our marketing emails.Zapier to connect Kajabi and ActiveCampaignOptin Monster to create all the pop-ups, reminder windows & lead magnet forms on my website.Calendly to screen interviewers and book in interviews.Xero is my accounting & financial management system.I host my WordPress websites on WPEngine.More tools of the trade here if you find that kind of thing useful!
Goals for next monthLife:
New house renovationMove inPrep new house for saleStay saneAlso, don’t fuck up my backOr my nervous systemBusiness:
Work with my Incubator coaching clientsGet Organised completed, launched & put to bedWeekly newsletters.Hooray!Let’s do this!
Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Love,
FREE GOODIES:
Weekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Get Organised!Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-CourseThe post April 2022: Biz & Life Review appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
May 8, 2022
Marketing Without Social Media with Viv Guy
Love bugs,
Are you ready for an absolute banger of an interview, babes?
I sat down with Viv Guy on her podcast Marketing Without Social Media and we talked all things running & marketing a $12 million dollar business!
Here’s what Viv had to say about our interview:
A lot of entrepreneurs think that to grow their leads means they have to grow their Social Media reach as well.
Absolutely not the case!
Social media in marketing is an option.
Yes, you heard it right.
Our esteemed guest in this episode is a fellow & kindred spirit, the epitome of Marketing WITHOUT social media. She is the owner of a business that has made over $12 million so far, a successful entrepreneur/blogger and course creator and swear bear, the one and only Leonie Dawson. Listen as Leonie shares her wisdom and techniques in running a successful multi million dollar online business without using social media.
In this episode you will learn:
How running a business that’s made $12 million (so far) has always had better leads without social media than with it, and where those leads come fromFinding partners and collaborators without social mediaHow to run a business and market it in just 10 hrs a week
Get ready to be inspired as fuck!
Ready to listen?Click HERE!
Love always,
FREE GOODIES:
Newsletter with absoloodely everything I createWeekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Get Organised!Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-CourseThe post Marketing Without Social Media with Viv Guy appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
April 27, 2022
Business Success Series #9: Facebook Advertising
Darlings,
Let’s talk about Facebook Advertising today, and how to use them in your business.
Now, full transparency: I don’t use Facebook ads. I’ve done them at various times over the years. Last year I did a fairly intensive experiment with them. We poured hours of time, energy and money into it and it just didn’t feel right for me for lots of reasons. It didn’t attract the right customer for me – the ones that become mates and stick around for decades, and it also didn’t feel like a good use of my precious time here on this earth. It was an excellent reminder that the best advertising for my business is my mailing list and word of mouth.
In fact, that was probably the start of my “breaking up with social media” journey.
But! That doesn’t mean Facebook Advertising is something you should chuck to the curb. There are plenty of business owners who LOVE and swear by Facebook ads. If you’re a fan of social media or it’s one of your main marketing tools, then keep on reading! I’ll be telling you everything I have learned from doing Facebook ads in my business.
Before we carry on, here’s what we’ve covered so far in the Business Success Series!
How to Work Out Your Ideal ClientOnline Networking & MastermindingHow to Sell More with BloggingHow to Grow a Mailing ListGrow Your Biz Using Free Opt-InsUnderstanding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)Booking Podcasts & InterviewsSocial MediaWant to listen to the companion podcast for this post as you read?Easyyyy babes! Just click play above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)
How To Be A Facebook Advertising Superstar!Just as with each of the advertising methods, it’s a science unto itself. The more you learn, the better you get at it!Facebook ads get “old” very quickly. When you advertise elsewhere, you can use the same image and copy for months or even YEARS!) with it still converting well. Facebook ads need to be refreshed and tested on an almost daily basis – anything older than three days usually doesn’t convert as well!Split testing is the name of the game in Facebook. You want to run different ads for the same thing at the same time to see what converts better.Create a library of images that you can start using in ads to see which one converts better. You can also test if borders convert more – consider testing thickness of borders and colour of borders. Test whether faces convert better, or photos of your item, or go wildly creative with the image. It’s all about what draws the eye (and the eye of your target market!)Brainstorm as many titles and sales copy as you can and keep in mind your target audience.Keep track of your visits and sales from Facebook. Create a separate sales page that is just for Facebook ads to point to, so you can track exactly how many visits and sales you are getting from that page.
Facebook PixelWhen we were using Facebook Advertising, we had Facebook Pixel installed on the website and within Kajabi. What’s Facebook Pixel?
The Facebook pixel is a piece of code that you put on your website that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website. You can use the pixel to: Make sure that your ads are shown to the right people. – Facebook
Facebook Pixel was super helpful for collating the stats each month and getting a detailed look at how well the ads were performing in relation to sales and traffic.
You can hire a Facebook campaign manager as a contractor on a monthly or ongoing basis.A campaign manager is someone you can hire to create and manage your Facebook ads for you. A good campaign manager will be on the forefront of what’s working in Facebook ads and what the advertising rules are (they are constantly changing).
A campaign manager can be useful during a launch period when you are doing active promotion for something with a deadline. They are an investment, so this is when it’s particularly useful to track your visits and sales.
You can also train someone on your team to be your inhouse Facebook ad campaign manager. Kit them up with educational materials, get them to stay abreast of the latest ad developments, and set up a system for them to be testing ads regularly for you (at least once a week).A good Click Through Rate (i.e. how many people click on your ad – also called “CTR” to work towards is a minimum of .05% but best to have .10%Consider having ads targeted just for people who’ve already LIKED your page to get them on your mailing list.Use content from your sales page to come up with different ads.Consider doing ads targeted at specific sections of your market (for example, write copy just for women entrepreneurs or Aussie women entrepreneurs)Track your sales page conversions (i.e. how many of your visits turn into sales) so you can tell if your Facebook ads suck or if your sales page sucks. If you’re getting a huge number of visits and bugger all sales, it’s your sales page that sucks. You need to revise it, make it better, and do split-testing on it to see if you can improve the conversion rate.How I’ve Used Facebook Advertising In My Business:I was a bit afraid of FB ad marketing to begin with – it took me a long while to start dipping my toes into the water.
So I read a couple of Facebook advertising books, blog articles, booked a one hour coaching session with a Facebook advertising specialist and got myself educated up. Then I started trialling out, implementing, seeing what worked and what didn’t. I also decided to hire a dedicated team who ONLY deal with Facebook ads, to free up my and my assistant’s time.
(Notice there’s a theme to all these different ways of marketing? You start out with knowing not much about it. Then you decide to learn something. You gather some resources and you start implementing and experimenting. And learning more and more about what works. And all of a sudden, you’re doing it! And you’re no longer a complete newbie anymore! NOBODY is born a Facebook advertising expert or any other kind of marketing expert for that matter – it is ALL a learned, doable skill!)
(function(d,u,ac){var s=d.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.src='https://a.omappapi.com/app/js/api.min...
I don’t! Hahahaha! Like I mentioned at the start, it’s just not something that suits my business. And now being off social media entirely, it’s not relevant at all.
If you decide to use Facebook advertising in your biz, make sure you’re using it mindfully.
Endlessly scrolling through your feed is not “work” or “research”. Don’t let social media trap you into a false sense of productivity. Use it mindfully. Keep track of your data.
And of course if you’ve tried Facebook ads and they aren’t the right fit for you either, I recommend you check out my course “Marketing Without Social Media” for all the tips, tricks and tools for running a business without social media.
Whatever you decide, you’ve got this!
Big love,
FREE GOODIES:
Newsletter with absoloodely everything I createWeekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course
The post Business Success Series #9: Facebook Advertising appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
April 21, 2022
I Made You Something: Dear God, It’s Me: an illustrated zine
My treasures,
I made you something.
On my floor, with a 50 year old typewriter, cutting and pasting and collaging and drawing and colouring. Photos I took 20 years ago. Stickers from my kids’ collection.
Hammering away this illustrated zine/letter/meditation on creativity & commerce & keeping the inspired flame alive even two decades on.
I’m SO fucking chuffed with it.
Click the download button below to get free access to Dear God, It’s Me (and my entire freebie inspiration library!)
I am THRILLEd to share this with you…
and can’t wait to see what you think!
All my creative love,
Days Left To Enrol:
The post I Made You Something: Dear God, It’s Me: an illustrated zine appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
April 16, 2022
March 2022 Biz & Life Review: How Much I Made & Spent, What I Did & Read!
Possums!
Yay! Welcome back to my monthly tradition where I review my life & business & share behind-the-scenes numbers as well.
I’ll cover:
life blessings & challengeswhat I’ve created in my businesshow much revenue generatedmy goals for next month.You can read previous monthly reviews here:
2021
April & MayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovember2022
Dec 21 & Jan 22February 22How I went with my goals for the monthLife:
Finish my Goal Getter Life workbook planning for the year – DONECelebrate the shit out of my two kids’ birthdays! – DONEKeep working on investment house – DONEDo my 21 Day Happy Habits challenge – DONEBusiness:
HIGHEST priority: Create a new e-course – DONE Finish my Goal Getter Biz workbook planning for the year – DONEFinish “Deep Work” – DONECreate 2 free lead magnets – DONEFinish EG course – DONETest 5 videos – Decided not toComplete a Project 10% on Pinterest – NOPEBatch create March & April content – NOPEWhat I got up to in life!March was HECTIC.
We started with extensive flooding in our region. It meant school was cancelled some days. On other days, our usual route to school was under water, and our detour took us 4+ hours a day to do school runs. It was intense and exhausting. I’m still so grateful our home was safe.My girls celebrated their birthdays – they turned 8 and 12. TWELVE. TWELVE. HOW DO I HAVE A TWELVE YEAR OLD.My big kid also went to the movies with her friends by herself for the first time.I ended the month by having a spa afternoon with my darling friend Mads. It was screamingly funny.Finished off the school term for my kids & started school holidays.
We bought a new house! We’re moving again!You’re probably laughing right now. I CERTAINLY AM!
If you’ve been around these parts for a long time, you’ll know I’m a serial mover… usually moving across the country when we do. In the last 12 years, we’ve lived in Canberra, Whitsundays, Cairns, Kuranda, Hobart, back to Canberra, to a suburb on the Sunshine Coast and then here on the acreage on the Sunshine Coast.
We’ve been in our current house on acreage for almost 3 years. It’s been a real blessing during the pandemic to have so much space around us, and being back on acreage was definitely a dream we wanted to fill after living in Kuranda. About six months ago, we started considering that as much as it had worked for a season of our lives, we might need something different for the next stage of our lives.
We mused over some options, and decided to move back into town closer to the beach. We’ve bought a house about 30 minutes south of here.
Here’s the reasons why:We currently spend 2 hours a day in the car doing school run. There’s no school bus options where we live. It’s exhausting and not sustainable. By moving, we’ll be able to reduce our school run and also open up the possibility of the kids taking the school bus when they are ready.Our eldest is now 12, and is becoming ever more social. We’re currently out of the way here. I have to say no to a lot of playdates with her friends because it would be a 2 hour round trip for me to drop her off then pick her up again.We live 30 minutes from the beach where we are. By the end of doing school runs each week, we’re exhausted and don’t want to add more driving time. So we rarely go to the beach on weekends now. When we lived 5 minutes from the beach we were there every weekend, and it was the highlight of our week and created some special family moments. We want that back in our lives again.We rented a house with a pool over Christmas and had THE BEST time. Our kids were in it all day, and we’d jump in too. The kids were happier and us middle aged parents had much less pain. We realised a pool would be fantastic for my back and a bonza thing for the kids. We *could* get a pool built on the acreage, but for all the reasons above, thought we’d buy a house with a pool instead.We feel like we’ve completed our acreage dream, and we’re ready for something new.Last of all, but a really important piece of the puzzle: we’re moving my in-laws into our investment property in the same suburb as our new house. They currently live two hours away, and we’d love to be able to pop over more often. Having them around the corner will be useful to nurture family time and also provide support to them as they age.We’ll likely move in end of May once we have some new flooring installed in the house. I’m feeling really excited about the move and feel like it will be such a good one for our family. I’m also feeling a teensy bit overwhelmed by the enormity of what’s happening.
We finally caught CovidAdded into the excitement of March, my biggest kid caught Covid then gave it to me. We were quarantined for 10 days waiting for it to pass. All in all, we didn’t get off too badly from it. I was triple vaxxed, she was due for her second vaccination on the day she tested positive. My kid napped for hours the first few days which is VERY unusual for her – she’s never been much of a sleeper, and hasn’t slept during the day in probably… 8 years?
It did make me worry, but it passed and she’s back to 100% now. Mine was pretty mild, but I do still feel waves of bone-deep exhaustion even 3 weeks later… I’m not sure if it’s post-viral fatigue or just… you know… life. I’m really grateful it doesn’t seem to have affected us too badly – I had a shithouse experience with Swine Flu years ago, and was really concerned about being ill like that again.
Thank you vaccines. Thank you healthcare workers. I am grateful.
Best Books I Read & Favourite TV/MoviesFavourite TV:
Bridgerton Season 2. Now… I fucking LOVED Bridgerton Season 1. I thought it was perfection on a stick. So much so that I get my dentist to play it on the overhead screen when I get dental work done because it’s the best pain relief ever. HOWEVER, I have major issues with Season 2 being more “slow burn sexual tension” than “all out boink fest.” My preference is FIRMLY in the “all out boink fest” category. “Slow burn sexual tension” is for what the REST OF BEIGE BORING TELEVISION IS FOR. Still, regardless of the lack of boinkage, I still love the series anyway and am rooting for it to return to its rooty roots in Season 3.Best Books I Read:
After reading only 3 books in February, I got back into the swing of things by reading 17 books.
My 5 star favourites were:
Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself by Kate Toon. Aussie entrepreneur shares her business journey in a quirky, upfront kinda way. Gal after my own heart!How To Have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide by Flo Perry. Got some huge insights out of this. Plus… graphic novel! My very favourite way to learn complex topics!Rich As Fuck by Amanda Frances. I listened to this as an audiobook and holy shitter, it was PHENOMENAL. Absolutely adored it. Definitely going to add it to the mega money recommended resources list in Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income.I went on a Cat Sebastian BENDER, and I regret nothing. She is the Queen of queer Regency romance! A Delicate Deception, Two Rogues Make A Right, A Duke In Disguise & The Ruin of a Rake were all bonza reads.I started reading David Walliams books to the kids and we got very into it. We tore through The World’s Worst Parents and Gangsta Granny, and quickly ordered more!
What I got up to in business!March ended up being a combination month of lots of different things happening:
I ran a live round of Marketing without Social MediaI hosted my monthly group coaching call for all my e-course students. Always so fun!Prepared for new e-course launch of Get Organised!The biggest project I pulled of was:My small group coaching program, The Uplevel Incubator.
I haven’t offered this level of intensive coaching in 10 years. It’s not something that’s part of my usual business model.
I just had an intuitive inkling that I’d like to offer it again and mentor another small cohort again. I felt like it would be most powerful if it was existing business owners who are already turning a decent level of profit, so we could accelerate their growth even faster. To make sure that I was supported as a mentor, and to provide as much client support as possible, I asked my business manager Zita and my best mate Tam to be assistant coaches.
I made it a higher priced offering to compensate me and my team’s time and energy. Even though it’s a higher priced offering, I definitely could make more money from e-courses & with much less time & work… but I felt called to doing it. I regard it a wee bit as a community service to offer it – just one that I get paid for. It’s a joy to connect more deeply with my incubators, and support them to help them make their next dreams come true.
Stats:
Price: USD $5,000 (or 3 payments of USD $1,888)People had to apply via an application form so I could determine if they were the right fitI had 17 applications.I didn’t accept 4 applications for various reasons – some weren’t at the right stage of business yet, I referred another to work 1:1 directly with Tam (my accountability coach) & one was a dude who didn’t feel like the right fit for the energy of the group.I accepted 13 applications.All 13 enrolled.Total earnings: AUD $93,000 (once all payment plans are completed).How much money I made overall in April$90,617
Where that income came from:Uplevel Incubator: $38,317 (enrolments were also paid in April, plus more in payment plans to come through over the next 2 months)E-courses: $31,455Passive income business: $11,121 (I set this up 6 years ago & now do nothing with it except get paid)Goal Getter planners: $8,239Affiliate for Kajabi: $1,462Calm Christmas Planner on Etsy: $23Shares & Ethical Managed Funds: Market has recovered quite a bit, but hasn’t made more profit just yet.Investment property: Currently not rented while we prepare for my parents-in-law to move into it instead.E-course income breakdown:Marketing Without Social Media: $22,22240 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course: $3,160Work Less, Earn More: $1,172Sales Star: $2,417Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income: $1,89840 Days To A Finished Book: $937Mini workshop: Behind The Scenes of A Multi-Millionaire’s Finances: $135
ExpensesDue to popular request, I’m going to include expenses for the business for the last month as well to give you an even more transparent look at profitability.
Contractors: $5,925This is for 1 part time Customer Service Virtual Assistant and 1 part time Online Business Manager. This is probably on the higher side for pricing, but I don’t mind paying more for people who I trust and have a long term working relationship with. I want them to feel appreciated, and I want them to be able to live good lives.Accountants: $19,320 (covers most of the financial year plus a large one-off cost to create our holding company)Affiliates: $12,595Paypal & account fees: $1,168Software subscriptions for everything we use to run our business online (see full list further below): $3,502 (twice more than we usually pay – we paid for some subscriptions annually that month)Website hosting: $98Courses & books (for me & my staff to learn from, we are continuously learning): $3,052Minimum purchase order to qualify for my passive income business income: $123
Total expenses this month: $45,783
Total profit: $44,834
This is a super high expense month for me because I paid for my accounting for most of the year, plus paid for some of our software in full for the year because it was most effective. Overall, it’s still a rad monthly profit to have, and I’m grateful!
From that profit, my husband and I then take salaries (that we then pay personal tax on) and pay compulsory superannuation (contributions to retirement funds). The rest of the profit stays in the holding company, and regularly gets invested in ethical managed funds.
If you want more details on how we manage and grow our income streams, Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income is the course for you!
Blog posts I publishedPodcast: Entrepreneur in Car Talking ShittttttttttLeonie’s Notes on “Billionaire In Training”21 Day Challenge: Healthy Habits ResetDiary: Flooding, Maybe Moving & MoreInterviewsMarketing without Social Media
Current list of software I use to run my business:Kajabi for most things in my business:selling through their shopping cartteaching my courses through their learning management systemrunning my affiliate programActiveCampaign to send all our marketing emails.Optin Monster to create all the pop-ups, reminder windows & lead magnet forms on my website.Calendly to screen interviewers and book in interviews.Xero is my accounting & financial management system.I host my WordPress websites on WPEngine.More tools of the trade here if you find that kind of thing useful!
Goals for AprilLife:
Stay saneSupreme self carePackOrganise renovations & movingBusiness:
Launch Get Organised!Get everyone settled into the Uplevel Incubator & it working beautifullyCreate & share delicious contentGet into good management habits of assigning priorities etc!Yahoo!Let’s do this thing!
Love,
FREE GOODIES:
Weekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Get Organised! (starts May 1!)Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-CourseThe post March 2022 Biz & Life Review: How Much I Made & Spent, What I Did & Read! appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
April 5, 2022
March 28, 2022
Ask Leonie Anything: Business & Marketing & E-Course Questions!
Darling hearts!
Welcome to the highly anticipated second Q&A episode of Leonie Dawson Refuses to be Categorised!
It’s another THRILLING episode where I answer brilliant listener questions asked by the ever delightful bestie: Tam Protassow Adams!
How To Listen:Listen above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)
Prefer to feast your eyes instead of your ears?I’ve gotchu! You can watch over on my YouTube channel!
Here are the questions I answered:Jenny: What’s the best way to market a new podcast?
Shivani: What are the hot topics for online courses?
Everyone talks about a formula for success. You don’t seem to follow it and are super successful. Why? How long do you give it before you know a course is unsuccessful? Any signs? Is it best to keep launching the same product or new ones?Kate: How did you avoid overwhelm with making and launching online programmes when you started out?
Anonymous: How do you ride a wild donkey without the rest of your life falling apart?
I love the wild donkey technique. In the past, I have ridden the wild donkey to great success! I’ve completed the project, but have become literally sick by the end and needed months to recover. Juggling parenting, wife-ing, work, sleep and exercise is hard enough. Squeezing donkey riding into every spare minute was satisfying but in the end not healthy for me. My creative project was complete, but I could not share it with the world to its full potential because I was exhausted. I want to ride more donkeys but I can’t afford to get sick again. Am I doing it wrong?Nora from Germany: I am a young mother trying to balance family and work-life. Would love to hear your insights on how to find clarity as to what to prioritise and how to find a balance the expectations of myself and the surroundings.
Shez: How do you keep yourself motivated and enthusiastic about your business?
Shez: I would definitely love to know what ‘a day in the life of Leonie’ looks like and whether you classify ‘dreamtime’ (creating new ideas and products) as ‘work’?
Rachael: If you had to build an audience today starting from 0 subscribers – what consistent actions would you take to start growing quickly?
Anonymous:
How do you know what online course to create next? Do you do market research or follow your guidance/interests?
You can find the transcript of the episode HERE!
Just like last time, there’s still oodles and oodles of Qs we didn’t get to, so if you liked this episode please let me know by emailing support @ leoniedawson . com (without the spaces, which we only do here to avoid spam bots. FUCK YOUUUU SPAM BOTS).
And! And and and. If you have a Q that wasn’t answered, you can totes magotes send one in! Just fill out the brilliant little form my assistant Zeets created here.
Last but so not least, I mentioned a couple of cool offerings in this episode!
The first is my Wild Donkey eBook! It’s free and you can download it here!
Secondly, the Uplevel Incubator! This is now closed BUUUUUT you can totally check out my brand new course Get Organised!
Right! That’s everything!With showers of love & confetti,
Time left before we begin Get Organised:
The post Ask Leonie Anything: Business & Marketing & E-Course Questions! appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
March 23, 2022
Podcast: Entrepeneur In Car Talking Shitttttttttttttt
Babes,
New ep on the pod: what I’ve been thinking about, reading & making!
Plus check out my brand new, once-in-a-decade offering HERE!
Enjoy!
Explicit AFJust to reiterate: this is one sweary motherfucker of a podcast. So if you listen to it around kids… they will defo learn some new vocabulary from Aunty Leonie. MWHAHAHAHA. ENJOYYYYY!
How to listenListen below, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)
Want to find all of my podcast episodes?Just pop over here treasure!
You can also just sit on your couch and yell “OK Google! Play me “Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be Categorised” podcast!” and your digital servant shall administer to your needs.
Who gives a fuck about privacy when you can have a little robot assistant at your beck and call so you may never leave the couch again.
HONESTLY HOW GOOD IS LIFE.
THE END.
Big hugs,
The post Podcast: Entrepeneur In Car Talking Shitttttttttttttt appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
March 17, 2022
Leonie’s Notes on “Billionaire In Training”
Babes,
I read “Billionaire In Training” last year, and found it useful.
I had enough highlighted sections I kept a copy on my favourite bookshelf, but I’m now decluttering and want to get rid of it. So I thought I’d write up my notes to keep here instead… and make them public because you might find them useful as well!
“Billionaire In Training” by Brad Sugars details how to buy, grow and sell businesses to become wealthier. Brad is an Australian entrepreneur who has owned companies in everything from business consulting, insurance, property investment, dog food, ladies fashion retail, pizza manufacturing and wholesale.
Entrepreneurial SkillsIt doesn’t take much to outperform your competitors in business. You only need to do some basic, commonsense things to win in the minds of customers.Becoming great at sales requires a lot of reading, learning and application.Bringing in the cashflow is by far the most important area for any companyYou can cut costs, but you can only sell your way to prosperity.Everyone in the world knows more than you and me – about everything. We just need to ask the right questions and listen long enough to find what that “something” is.Revenue streams in businesses can jump massively in a couple of weeks, day or hours. A 10% increase in income can double or triple the profits, thus doubling or tripling the paper value of the company.Steps to success: invest in knowledge, absorb knowledge, apply knowledge & take action.Doing the work is one side of the seesaw and sales and marketing is the other.Bigger is not always better.Systems should run a business and people should run the systems.The aim of the game isn’t to work harder, it’s to create better results with less effort. It’s about finding ways of achieving more with less.Create an income stream that flows whether you work or not, and gets better all the time.Brad makes cashflow from businesses and keeps money/assets growing in property. Doesn’t like property for generating cashflow – prefers businesses.Brad’s definition of a business: a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without him.
Wealthy MindsetMost people’s only relationship with money is of never having enough. Most people live a “paycheck to paycheck” existence and use this month’s paycheck to pay off last month’s bills. Most people spend every dollar they earn, and then some.If you believe that “stuff” is more important than wealth, you will always use money poorly. Spend your life buying stuff and you’ll end up with stuff all.Trust that you’ll learn along the way, trust you’ll make mistakes but that you can recover. Trust that the only way to truly learn how to be an entrepreneur is just to get started.It’s easy to choose success over failure. What’s hard to do is rechoose that same goal, that same dream, that same level of success every single day, every single hour, until it becomes a reality.Understand the difference between a holding company and a trading company. You should always have two companies rather than one: one to own the assets, the other to trade and make the ongoing profits.Make money with money to create wealth.Tell yourself you are a money magnet and you’ll come across many interesting propositions that you wouldn’t have noticed before.Buy businesses/property/everything at wholesale and sell retail.
Three Stages of Getting WealthyStage 1: get yourself to a stage where you’ve made enough investments over time to give you what I call a passive income rather than a paycheck existence. In other words, your investments and businesses make money whether you get out of bed or not. (Leonie says: First stage? WTF! I thought that was the end goal! Woops! Time for me to expand my mindset!)Stage 2: Passive Income + Physical AssetsAssets must have both capital growth and income. If they don’t, then they are not assets.Stage 3: Passive Income + Physical Assets + Paper Assets
Paper assets: shares, contracts, licenses, royalties, franchise documentation.
PropertyYou can buy property for much less than it’s worth – people will sell for less than it’s worth because they can’t wait.Shop around and negotiate well.You can easily add value to a property with a few simple and cost-effective renovation and cleanup techniques.Invest in the dirt more than the building.Brad doesn’t like units – unless he owns the whole block.Brad uses debt to finance properties.The best deals are out there waiting for those of us who’ve bothered to read one or two books on property, learn about what we are doing, and then put in the time to find the deals.
Buying & Selling BusinessesFind a company that isn’t performing anywhere near its true potential, buy it at rock-bottom price, build it up quickly using all the knowledge, skills and systems you have learned or developed, and then sell it for a premium price.You also need to find good jockeys – good people with whom to build up those companies.Get a good deal & never pay full asking price.The value of a business is determined only by two things: revenues and profit.Don’t sell your business until you have a business with greater cashflow to replace it.Walk away from more deals than you make.Look at 50 businesses, make an offer on 10 of them, negotiate 3 of the 10 to get a great deal, should be able to get financing for just 1 of the 3.Starting a business from scratch can take more time than buying an existing business that’s already profitable or just about profitable.Brad recommends buying businesses for less than half of what they are advertised for.Make sure you get the previous owner to work with you for up to a month as part of the purchase price to train you.You don’t make profit when you sell – you make it when you buy. Negotiate from zero.Fall in love with the deal, not the business.Your job in growing a business is finished when all the systems are in place, allowing it to run without you.Five levers to grow a businessLeads (prospects or potential customers)Conversion rate (difference between those who could have bought and those you did)Average number of times each customer buys from you each yearAverage dollar sale pricePercent of each sale that’s profit
How to affect business growth leversLeads: advertising, sponsorships, PR, competitionsConversion rate: promotions, improving sales techniques, first buyer’s incentivesNumber of transactions: underpromise and overdeliver, keep in regular contact, free trialsAverage dollar sale: increase prices, upsell, upgrade purchases, add-on selling, incentives for bigger purchasesMargin: reduce overheads, sell online, sell higher-priced items
Loyalty LadderGet people to move up your ladder.
The rungs of the loyalty ladder:
Suspect: Potential customerProspect: Adding to databaseCustomer Has spent money with youMember: Spent money with you twice, starting a feeling of belongingAdvocate: Sells you to other people. Gives referrals or promotes you. Keeps buying.Raving Fan: Someone who can’t stop selling for you. They want to see you succeed. Keep buying.Hope you’ve found this useful!If you want to read the book in full, you can find it here: “Billionaire In Training” by Brad Sugars
Sending you much book love,
FREE GOODIES:
Weekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course
The post Leonie’s Notes on “Billionaire In Training” appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
March 14, 2022
February 2022: Monthly Life & Biz Review
Possums!
Yay! Welcome back to my monthly tradition where I review my life & business & share behind-the-scenes numbers as well.
I’ll cover:
how I went with achieving my monthly goalslife blessings & challengeswhat I’ve created in my businessmy exact revenue, expenses and profit numbersmy goals for next month.You can read previous monthly reviews here:
April & MayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember & JanWant to list to this as a podcast instead?Easyyyy babes! Just click play above, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCast (or wherever else you listen to podcasts!)
How I went with my goals for the monthLife:
Settle back into work routine & get my kids settled back into school – YAY! DID IT!Start weekly Pilates again (and tea and cake at my favourite cafe afterwards) – YAY! DID IT!Finish my Goal Getter Life workbook planning for the year – NOPE. NEED TO DO IN MARCH!Schedule school tours – ONE DOWN. STILL WAITING TO HEAR BACK ON 2 MORE.Get investment house organised – PARTIALLY.Business:
Finish my Goal Getter Biz workbook planning for the year – NOPE. NEED TO DO IN MARCH!Do a live round launch of a course – YES!Complete a Project 10% on Pinterest – NOPE. GOT BUSY WITH LAUNCH INSTEAD.Mostly… get back into the swing of creating again and decide on what I want to do next! – KINDA.
What I got up to in life!My kids didn’t go back to school until Feb 7. School was delayed by the government while we waited for the omicron wave to pass. They were home with us for nine weeks all up.Got kids settled back into school. We were worried about how this would go as there’s been a lot of teacher transitions, but their new teachers have been wonderful. Huge sigh of relief. They’ve been in school for three weeks now and still haven’t managed to catch Covid yet. Thank goodness! We’re still waiting for their second vaccine (still two weeks away).Started back at reformer pilates after taking a couple of months off over holidays. So great to be back but damnnnn I lost some strength while I was away. Ahhh well, I’m just thrilled to be back in my weekly routine of pilates followed by tea and cake at my favourite bookstore.Mr D got his booster shot hooray!We had/have a stressful neighbourhood situation. Oof. I can’t say much more than that, but it’s currently taking up a lot of my headspace.Our 17 year old dog had a series of medical issues in the last month which meant a bunch of trips to the vets. It was wildly stressful and anxiety-inducing. Thankfully, she’s recovered, but isn’t the same as she was before. We’re lucky for every extra day we have with her, but we’ll miss her terribly when she goes. Ooof, my heart!We have been doing a couple of things with our investment property that is currently empty. We spent a weekend morning sanding and re-staining the deck and got a quantity survey done.We’re still in the midst of working out what we’ll do with the investment property next – whether it will be used by our ageing parents or use it as a temporary home for us to reduce our school run time.I did a school tour for a possible high school for my big kid for next year.I have been considering trying CBD oil to see how if it would be beneficial for my pain levels & general anxiety disorder. I did a telehealth appointment with Alternaleaf to get it prescribed (it’s legal only when prescribed in Australia). I’ll let you know how my experiment goes once my prescription arrives!Got our car serviced & new tyres fitted. Which ended up being perfect timing, because then…We had torrential rain for days and major flooding in our region. Our house was fine, thankfully, but it has made transport pretty difficult. Our village centre were under water, and our bridge to get into town still is. Yesterday, school was cancelled. Today, it took us over 4 hours to do school run because of the amount of detours we had to take.
And all this combined, combined, meant that…I had a major depressive episode. It was nowhere near as bad as my last episode 4 years ago, but it still knocked the shit out of me. At one point, I was sobbing on the floor, on the phone to my Wild Bushman Dad about how fucked I felt. And in the most emotionally aware moment of his farming life, he told me that I wasn’t myself, and that I needed to go back to my doctor to get a medication increase or counselling. So that’s what I did. It was the right thing to do.
I’m feeling much better than what I was, and am no longer weeping silently at Coffee Club, so that’s a real win. There wasn’t a real cause for it – just a combination of All The Life Things. I’m going as gently as I can, realising I don’t have much more emotional bandwidth to cope with more. A dear friend shared with me that her own recent depressive episode made her realise that the pandemic had wiped out her capacity for coping with anything more than that. I feel that.
Best Books I Read & Favourite TV/MoviesI can tell my brain has been not functioning super well, because I only finished THREE books (usually I read 20-30 in a month!)
Still studying Deep Work.Read George and The Great Brain Swappery outloud to my kids and it was really fun!Enjoyed The Art of Free Travel – a fascinating travel memoir of a family who cycled around Australia& another kids book read to my little loves.My brain only seemed enough online to watch TV… and watch TV I did!
Love is Blind season 2: I got OBSESSED with this and binge watched 10 hours in 2 days. 15 people date by talking without ever seeing each other. Interesting premise, but it descended into reality tv bonkledoodlery once the couples met each other face to face. Do I regret my life choices? Yes. Will I watch season 1? Absolutely yes. Will I probably watch Love is Blind (Japan edition)? Also yes. What I got up to in biz!We launched a live round of Marketing Without Social Media.I did our usual Open Office coaching call for all my course students… I love these!Blog posts I publishedDiary: Dispatches From My Ancient Dog’s Exploding Asshole35 Glorious Things I’ve Found On The Interwebs of Late12 Months Without Social Media: What Was It Like, How Much Did I Earn & Will I Go Back?Leonie Answers Your Business & Marketing Questions!8 Ways to Increase Your Sales Today!Current list of software I use to run my business:Kajabi for most things in my business:selling through their shopping cartteaching my courses through their learning management systemrunning my affiliate programActiveCampaign to send all our marketing emails.Optin Monster to create all the pop-ups, reminder windows & lead magnet forms on my website.Calendly to screen interviewers and book in interviews.TrustPulse for customer purchase pop-ups on the website.Xero is my accounting & financial management system.I host my WordPress websites on WPEngine.More tools of the trade here if you find that kind of thing useful!
How much money I madeTotal money made: $81,592
Where that income came from:E-courses: $68,850Passive income business: $7500Goal Getter planners: $4780Affiliate for Kajabi: $462Shares & Ethical Managed Funds: These dropped big time over the last couple of months. That’s fine – they are long term investments, not short term ones. I’m not selling.E-course income breakdown:Marketing Without Social Media: $56,992.94 (The launch ran into March – total launch figure was $78K)40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-Course: $4,243.26Work Less, Earn More: $1,526.32Sales Star: $3,284.37Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income: $1,911.0240 Days To A Finished Book: $599.78Mini workshop: Behind The Scenes of A Multi-Millionaire’s Finances: $300.53
ExpensesDue to popular request, I’m going to include expenses for the business for the last month as well to give you an even more transparent look at profitability.
Contractors: $5,100This is for 1 part time Customer Service Virtual Assistant and 1 part time Online Business Manager. This is probably on the higher side for pricing, but I don’t mind paying more for people who I trust and have a long term working relationship with. I want them to feel appreciated, and I want them to be able to live good lives.Donation to Red Cross Ukraine Appeal: $1,000Business tax paid: $9,000 (this is a usual monthly amount, however I also have larger tax bills to pay every quarter)Affiliates: $1,200 (this is to pay for affiliates for January sales. In March, we pay for February sales which were much bigger, so it will be 10x that amount).Paypal & account fees: $1,200Software subscriptions for everything we use to run our business online (see full list further below): $1,450Website hosting: $100Courses & books (for me & my staff to learn from, we are continuously learning): $557Minimum purchase order to qualify for my passive income business income: $150
Total expenses this month: $19,757
Profit levels!Total profit: $61,835
That’s approx 87% profit EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) and 75% profit earnings after tax (EAT) – both are pretty amazing numbers.
Most businesses run on around 5-30% profit margins.
From that profit, my husband and I take salaries (that we then pay personal tax on) and pay compulsory superannuation (contributions to retirement funds).
The rest of the profit stays in the holding company, and regularly gets invested in ethical managed funds. We invest with Australian Ethical, and they’ve just shared they currently won’t hold Russian investments.
If you want more details on how we manage and grow our income streams, Money, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income is the course for you!
Other Money StuffIn Feb I started trying out a new thing – Upstreet. When you shop online, Upstreet enables you to receive partial shares in the businesses you are buying from. I set it up so my Marley Spoon account is connected with Upstreet so every week I get a couple more shares. It’s pretty small amounts so far, but whatever, it’s a bit of fun, and it’s free money!
At the moment, I’m not investing surplus personal or holding company funds into ethical managed funds. It would be a good time to buy into them as prices are down, but I’m saving it as cash because we may need to purchase another property for family reasons soon. If we decide we don’t need to, we’ll shuffle the excess into ethical managed funds again.
Goals for next monthLife:
Finish my Goal Getter Life workbook planning for the yearCelebrate the shit out of my two kids’ birthdays!Keep working on investment houseDo my 21 Day Happy Habits challengeBusiness:
HIGHEST priority: Create a new e-course Finish my Goal Getter Biz workbook planning for the yearFinish “Deep Work”Create 2 free lead magnetsFinish EG courseTest 5 videosComplete a Project 10% on PinterestBatch create March & April contentIt’s a joy to be here!Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Love,
FREE GOODIES:
Newsletter with absoloodely everything I createWeekly love lettersPodcast: Leonie Dawson Refuses To Be CategorisedA library of free treasuresBOOKS:
Goal Getter workbooks for 2022 & beyond!Calm Christmas PlannerSalt: a hottttt romance novella (published under my pen name Lola Leigh)COURSES:
Work Less, Earn MoreBehind The Scenes of a Multi-Millionaire’s Finances (only $7!)Sales StarMarketing Without Social MediaMoney, Manifesting & Multiple Streams of Income40 Days To A Finished Book40 Days To Create & Sell Your E-CourseThe post February 2022: Monthly Life & Biz Review appeared first on Leonie Dawson | Goals, Marketing + Creativity For Glorious Humans.
