This Is How a Million Dollar Year Actually Begins [Ep 77]

Welcome to the Thriving Therapeneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeneur podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the show, my friends. Today I want to talk to you about something that most business coaches just throw around like a buzzword. Seven figures. Seven figures. Seven figures. P.S. hopefully you can hear me because they're mowing my lawn and my housekeepers here. So if you hear a lawnmower and a vacuum in the background, that's what's going on. But hopefully my systems cancel it out. But yeah, seven figures. Everybody says they want it, but few actually understand what it means deeply. Like what it looks like on paper, what it feels like in your body, what has to change, not only in your strategy and your systems, because we know that it's strategy and that's probably where you're putting all of your focus. You feel like you're, you're missing marketing pieces. There's a, a missing piece in your system and your strategy, but it's also self leadership to make it sustainable. When I hit my first million dollar year, it wasn't because I worked harder. And here's the thing too. Pretty much anybody can hustle their way to a million dollars, but. But sustaining million dollar years over and over while continuously scaling to multiple millions, that's not for everyone. You have to have true self leadership in order to hold it, to sustain it. So when I hit my first million dollar year, it wasn't because I was just working harder and I was hustling. It was because I learned how to hold more. Because I learned how to hold more. Yes. More revenue. Yeah. But also there's a shit ton more pressure, more leadership, more trust involved. So if you're already at six figures, this episode is for you. You have a proven offer, your audience is buying, you've got traction, but there's a next leap for you. You can feel it in your bones and your body and you're just not sure exactly the next steps. What are you going to do next? And here's the plot twist. It's not just about what you're going to do next. I'm going to talk about that and I'm going to reverse engineer. I'm going down the math. I'm going to pull back the curtains and just share what I did. Because that's what I do. I don't gatekeep. But the plot twist is it's also about who you need to become. It is an identity shift to make your first million dollar year. So let's truly dive in. Let's break down the math, the milestones and the mindset behind your first million dollar year. I want to take the emotion out of it for a second because I. Emotions don't scale. And when we get too tied up in our emotions and we take everything personal in our business, we can go down a whole rabbit hole. No, I need to pull you out of the emotions for a second. I have plenty of other episodes on emotions and mindset. I want to talk about systems, I want to talk about math. I hate math. I've always hated math. I literally took liberal arts in college. Like the class where you're doing x plus x equals 2x. I'm a social worker, not mathematician, but I'm really good at money. I don't like math. I like money. I'm good at money. But this math, this is fun math. A million dollars divided by 12 months, that's 83,000 and some change. So if your main offer is $6,000, that's about average in the high ticket space. That's 167 clients per year, which is about 14 new clients a month. That's doable when you have the proper systems in place. When your close rate is 25% or higher, average high ticket close rate is approximately 20%. Obviously we're aiming for higher. If you can double that, you're going to be to a really good place. So this means that you need about 56 qualified calls per month. Those are console calls, qualified calls, not just a bunch of freebie seekers on your calendar. And if 30% of your leads book a call, then you'll need around 185 qualified leads every single month. Month, that's about six per day. That's it. That's the entire math of a million dollar business. So when you look at it like this, a million stops being this mystical big facade that you want to hit. It really becomes measurable. We're reverse engineering, we're breaking it down. And this is where so many brilliant coaches get stuck. They're just chasing momentum. They get that shiny object syndrome. Instead of actually tracking their numbers, doing the math, having the metrics, focusing on the data. Data does not lie. They want consistency, but they never actually track the conversion. You don't need another funnel. You don't need to know every single number, right? But you, you need to know your numbers. And if it's not you who's knowing every single number, like, you need to have a team. So if you have an ADS team and you're outsourcing that, or you have a fractional marketing manager, they need to know every single number in your business. Now, there are many paths to a million. You could have the 6k offer that I gave you. An example of 167 clients to a million. Let's say you have a 10k offer, then you need less clients. That's a hundred clients. Let's say you have a 15k offer. All right, now we need even less, which is about 67 clients. But what if you just have a $2,000 course, then you need 500 buyers. If you have a thousand dollar course or membership, then you need 83 members paying for 12 months. So I have this whole spreadsheet that I give my paying clients around. What do you want to sell your offer at? Is it going to be completely passive? Or how many hours a week do you want to work rather? And then it spits out how many clients they need per year, per month. It's all math, it's all data. The math is neutral. You get to choose the model that fits your capacity, your energy, your delivery. But what doesn't change is this. Million dollar businesses are boring. They're predictable, they're measured, they're systematized. Wouldn't it be cool to have a boring business that just makes a million dollars because it's systematized? It's data, it's consistent, it's every single month over and over and over and over again and then some. But your minimum, you have an energetic minimum, is a million dollars a year. That's no brainer. That is just what you make. You make a million dollars a year. This is your first million dollar year. When I first saw those numbers in my business consistently, it wasn't because I had gone viral. I don't think I've ever gone viral, to be honest, or reinvented my offer. It wasn't because I finally had data. I knew how many leads, how many calls, how many conversions. It was because I actually focused on the data. I always had the data. But I dialed in, I got the clarity. I need it to reverse engineer and stay calm. As I scaled to that million, I knew exactly how many leads, how many calls, how many conversions I needed. That's the clarity I'm talking about. That is the real flex. It's numbers. Here's the shift that I want to talk about now. From six to seven figures. Identity, Leadership, energy. When you're at six figures, your business runs on you. You're still probably in the weeds to a certain extent. Your creativity, your personality, your energy, you're. You're in it, you're in the thick of it, right? You're still chasing the freedom a little bit. You're the marketer, you're the sales team, the delivery coach, the content creator, the tech support. You're the brand. Yeah, maybe you have some contractors you don't have full in house support. Maybe you outsource some of that, but not all of it. Like you're still wearing a lot of hats. And honestly that works until it doesn't. And at seven figures, you can't do it anymore. You're gonna hit a breaking point. I've been there, I've cried in my office multiple times as I was scaling to seven figures. You have to become more. This means you have to move from that operator to the owner. You have to move from the doer, the operator to the CEO, the visionary. You have to move from control to collaboration and leaning on other people and trusting them and training them properly or there will be turnaround. You have to move from forcing everything to it flowing. How does it flow? Systems, data, reliability. For me, that looked like learning to delegate before I was ready. I made two major hires when I was scaling from six to seven figures and that was completely outsourcing my ads and hiring a fractional operation and marketing manager. That expense alone was really scary for me. But it was an investment. I was like, whoa, that's a huge chunk of change that I'm going to be taking out of my take home. I'm going to be taking that out of my business. I don't know that I'm ready for that. At the same time, I just couldn't run my own ads anymore. I, I couldn't be the CEO visionary when I was still running my whole entire marketing team, sales team. I was in the day to day operations. I w. I was wearing all of the hats. And I do think that there's beauty in learning how to do every single position in your business before you delegate because Then you can properly delegate and hire and train. But I had to hire before I felt safe. Letting go of control and trusting systems, trusting experts. I remember the, the time I first paid somebody $4,000 a month to take over part of my business. It. It felt terrifying. Now I pay multiple people, a lot of people on my team, thousands and thousands of dollars every single month. My ego said, no, Carly, you can do it better. You don't need this yet. You don't need it yet. But my higher self said, you're never going to grow if you keep doing it all. You're going to stay burnt out. And that's when I was crying in my office and I just decided. And that decision created more space than strategy ever could. Here's what no one tells you about scaling. Growth doesn't necessarily feel like confidence all the time. It's not always fun. It is taking risk. Entrepreneurship is taking risk. Welcome to the entrepreneurship world. You take risk, it is scary. You're on your growth edge. There is fear and you have to choose. Are you going to face everything and rise? Are you going to fuck everything and run? You'll question everything. You'll hire too fast sometimes, you'll hire too slow sometimes. You'll have launches that underperform. You'll have launches that blow your goals out of the water. You'll have months where you feel like nothing is working and you're questioning everything. And if you're really cut out to do this, you'll have months where you're deep in comparisonitis. It's all important. Those are the months where you're gonna learn to lead from neutrality, not emotion. Because you gotta keep going, you gotta feel the comparisonitis and then get back on the wagon and be the visionary in your own business. Because you're a leader, you're a thought leader. And if you don't have time to think and you're a thought leader, then you're not gonna show up as the visionary that you were meant to show up as. Does that make sense? You have to have time to think. If you're a thought leader and if you're wearing all the hats in your business and you're too afraid to deleg, not looking at the numbers and you're ignoring your systems, you're not gonna hit your first million dollar year. It's about nervous system regulation. I talk about this with my clients all the time. You can't out strategize a dysregulated nervous system. You can have the best funnel, but if you panic every time Your metrics dip. You're gonna self sabotage. Your ability to hold calm energy and chaos determines your capacity to cash flow. And I get this compliment all the time that I'm a very calm CEO, very calm leader. I'm calm in the chaos. I'm almost immune to it at this point. And I'm learning this again as I'm making major freaking shifts in my business and I'm scaling to eight figures. You don't think there's chaos going on behind the scenes in my business, you're wrong. But it's calm chaos. It's organized chaos. There's changes happening behind the scenes every single freaking minute of my business. And I'm making the most biggest changes I've ever made in my whole entire business right now. But this is what I have to do to scale to eight figures. Sometimes it feels like chaos internally, but I am leaning on. I do my card readings for myself. I go on walks, I make sure I'm going to the gym or getting on the peloton. I'm having healthy conversations with my husband. I'm spending time with my baby. I'm making time to hang out with my friends and family, taking trips. I'm eating healthy. I'm focusing on myself. I try to get as much sleep as possible, even though I have a baby who doesn't love to sleep. I'm trying to stay grounded as everything changes. Not from Hustle, but I'm self regulating. I'm learning how to hold more. Just as I was talking about earlier. Money expands in direct proportion to your ability to hold uncertainty. People always ask me, well, what if it doesn't work out, Carly? And I'm like, well, what if it does? You're asking the wrong question. Money expands in direct proportion to your ability to hold uncertainty. We don't know what's going to happen, but are you willing to try? That's the invisible work behind the scenes. Hey there. Did you know we give away one of our incredible digital products every single week? All you have to do is leave a review for the show, then submit proof using the link in the show notes and you'll be entered to win. Prizes include amazing resources like our passive income course, the license protection bundle, top business trainings, my best selling book, and so much more. It's super simple and your review helps us reach more listeners just like you. So take a moment to share your thoughts, enter to win and maybe you'll be our next winner. Let me get practical again. There are five levers you need to master to reach your first million dollar year. It's offer optimization, so you don't need more offers. And I'm currently stripping back a lot of my offers. I combined all of my offers. I had so many damn offers, I didn't even know what my offers were. I had so many low ticket offers and then I was like popping up offers because people were asking about things. I was in creation mode, the exact opposite of what I teach. Power of one. So I'm stripping everything away. As I scale to eight figures, I'm going deep. So when I talk about offer optimization, I'm talking about depth. You don't need more. You need one refined scalable offer that delivers massive results. It's worth more than five mediocre offers that are just maybe creating noise. You also need to ask yourself, is my offer irresistible? Is it repeatable? Is it referable? Does it pass the high ticket test? Does it solve a persistent painful problem? These are all things that I teach. Number two is predictable lead flow. This is your engine, your pipeline is your lifeline. If your pipeline runs dry, you're going to be out of luck. No business scales on just random spikes of visibility. You need consistent lead generation, whether that be just organic marketing or paid advertising or referrals. Like one right person could fill your whole entire business. But you need to systematize it. You need to systematize your lead flow. You need to have predictable lead flow leads that come in even when you're on vacation. So when you stop working, you're still getting leads that are coming into your business. You should be able to like turn on the faucet and turn down the faucet in your business at any given time you have predictable lead flow. But when you want more, you turn up the faucet. When you want to really focus on client fulfillment and you don't want any more clients, you just want to keep it status quo. You should be able to turn it down. Number three is sales infrastructure. At six figures, you cannot close all your own calls. I'm working with a one to one client on this right now and I've been telling her for months, you need to hire a sales team. If you're trying to go from six to seven figures, you need systems, you need a team, you need a CRM. We can't piecemeal all of these different systems together anymore. It just doesn't work at this level. You need scripts for your team, you need SOPs, you need KPIs and treat sales like a science. It's not just guesswork. Spend the Time training your team. Not enough people do that. Number four is delivery depth. This is where most people drop the ball. Client results will drive your retention and your referrals. And like I said, one right person can fill your whole entire business. And getting good testimonials will fill your whole entire business. 90% of my marketing is just testimonials. It's just client results and they're driving retention. Most people drop the ball here on delivery and they're so focused on just getting more clients. More clients, more clients. But you need to have a best in class experience for your clients. Your second six figures often comes from past clients. Re enroll, re enrolling or increasing the lifetime value, the LTV of your paying clients. How can you get them to stay or buy from you? Again, this way you're not constantly looking for new leads all the time. Redefine your delivery so people want to stay. Number five is CEO energy. This is the glue that's going to tie all of those four pieces together. We talked about offer optimization, predictable lead flow, sales, sales infrastructure, delivery depth. But yeah, you have to have the CEO energy too. It's the glue. You're no longer just a coach. You're the visionary. You're the culture keeper. You're the financial steward. The business expands at the pace you do. I have some team members that can't pace with me right now. Like, I have big goals. I am going places. Mark my words, I'll be an icon in this space. Okay. Can't stop, won't stop. So many ideas. And I just keep learning and investing in myself. And this work is so close to my heart. But they can't keep up with the ideas. They can't pace with me. And your business expands at the pace you do. So guess what's happening? I'm making changes in my team. You have to prioritize your regulation, your rest, your reflection just as much as your marketing calendar. So all those things I said I was doing to focus on myself, whatever that looks like for you, you need to do that too. You need to have that CEO energy. If you're scatterbrained all the time, if your mindset is, you know, your cup is half empty instead of half full, and you're just being pessimistic about things and you are getting that shiny object syndrome and again, you're just scattered. That's gonna fall over and pour into your team as well. Your CEO energy is the glue. When I crossed seven figures, I had a team. It was tight, small, mighty. Yes, I have a lot of monthly expenses. But my profit margins are always ranging between 45 and 55%. I take pride in that and I would recommend that your profit margins stay the same. So when you are hiring and scaling, make sure you look at your profit margins before you make those decisions. This means that you can bring home multiple six figures personally, even after taxes, payroll, ads. And it didn't start that way. For the first few years, I was constantly reinvesting aggressively. Every dollar went back into improving systems and mentorship and infrastructure. And that's another truth nobody shares too. You'll likely make less personally in the short term as you scale, but your equity value as a brand, it multiplies. You go from being a self employed coach to a true CEO and you have this asset. Your business then becomes safe. I built systems that made sales while I was feeding my baby or traveling or sleeping. Like that's when I knew I wasn't just making money, I was building wealth. It was consistent always. I have that energetic minimum. And now as I scale from seven to eight figures, I'm learning those same lessons again, but at a completely different level. We're always shedding old layers of identity that once served us, but they're not serving us anymore. As we continue to grow, I'm expanding my team. I'm not just adding support, but I'm focusing more on leadership. I am investing in proximity and more mentorship again. I've been working with consultants. I'm spending more time developing people and vision and creating content for myself. I'm stretching myself in new ways than I ever have. It's humbling. It's also beautiful. I'm living proof that this work never stops. Every level requires a new layer of letting go. A new version of trust, a new relationship. A new relationship with your leadership. What you can hold. A new relationship with ease. So whether you're building your first million dollar year or your next million dollars, I need you to know this. I'm right here in it with you. Yes, we may be at different stages, but the principles are the same. Your first million dollar year will ask you to confront every shadow you've avoided. We know life is just a mirror, right? Your fear of being seen, your guilt around success, your resistance to leadership. You're going to realize that it's not just about strategy alone. Yes, strategy is important, but it's about capacity. Success expands the very parts of you that used to hide. And I want to say this to everyone who's listening. You're not greedy for wanting more. I know that we can be brainwashed into thinking that we're just capitalizing on people's pain or we shouldn't want more. And we do feel greedy or guilty for wanting more, but it can be both. And you could transform people's lives for a living and also simultaneously want to make more money. You're expanding what's possible for you and for everyone watching you. You can build a company that generates a million dollars and still pick up your kids from school. You can make money while honoring your energy, your relationships, your nervous system. You just have to decide that that can coexist, that ease and excellence can coexist. It lights me up to talk about so if this conversation lit something up in you, you're already at multiple six figures. You know it's time for your next evolution. You this is exactly what we do inside my mentorship, the Coach Intensive. We help established coaches and newbie coaches go from solid success. If if you're already making multiple six figures and you want to have your first million dollar a year, I'm gonna help you go from solid success to a scalable, consistent system. From a business that's just depending on you all the time to one that grows beyond your wildest dreams. Grows beyond you. Your biggest your business becomes bigger than you. I remember when my business became bigger than me. I was like, whoa, my business has outgrown me. But your business will never outgrow your consciousness. I have a whole nother episode on that. Take a scroll back. If you're a long time listener, leave a review. Come find me on Instagram. I would just love to hear what resonated with you in this episode. And you can always book a call with my team if you want to know more. Link up with my wing woman. It's a 45 minute, no pressure strategy call. We'll map out your million dollar year together. Your exact numbers, your next tires, what this missing puzzle piece might be for you, your scalable offer. And maybe this conversation is the conversation that will change everything for you. Check out the show notes. My love is with you and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the thriving Therapeneur podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around.