The 3 Key Activities That Drive Real Revenue

You’re Listening to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast, Episode # 36! Today, I’m going to give you the 3 key revenue generating activities and entrepreneurial skills you need to focus on for real success in entrepreneurship. If you’re not spending time on these revenue generating activities every day or cultivating these entrepreneurial skills, then chances are you’re losing money in your business. That’s coming up next, so stay tuned. 

[INTRO TRACK]

Have you ever been frustrated by your inability to generate consistent money in your business? Does finding success in entrepreneurship feel like a struggle? If you have, you’re NOT alone. In fact if you’re like most, these revenue generating activities are often one of the last things people learn to develop among their entrepreneurial skills, so figuring out how to make consistent income in your business is a constant struggle. Some months are up, some months are down, some months you think you’re making it and things are growing, then bam the next month clients unexpectedly cancel contracts and you start to wonder if you’re cut out for entrepreneurship. Maybe you lay in bed awake at night wondering how today’s highly influential entrepreneurs do it. Do they have some secret ninja entrepreneurial skills? How do they make multiple 6 figures a month? What revenue generating activities are they focusing on to go out and create 7 figure launches and make it look easy? What's the real secret to success in entrepreneurship?

Today, I’m going to show you the 3 key revenue generating activities you need to develop within your entrepreneurial skill set so you can start making real money in your business and experience real success in entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, most people never learn these critical entrepreneurial skills and focus on everything BUT these 3 revenue generating activities, which keeps them stuck and struggling to achieve success in entrepreneurship. Worse, it causes them to feel discouraged and some even give up altogether. I don’t want that to happen to you! I want to see you achieve wild success in entrepreneurship, and develop these key entrepreneurial skills and start focusing on these three revenue generating activities, making money in your business becomes so much easier than you might think. 

It all boils down to tracking a few metrics -- i.e., these specific 'revenue generating activities' -- and noticing if they’re trending up, or down. If they’re trending down, not to worry. These metrics are simply an indicator of where you’re spending your time. One of the critical entrepreneurial skills to develop is not time management, but awareness of where your time is being spent in the course of a day. The more time you spend on these revenue generating activities, the more these metrics will trend upward, which is what you want, and you’ll see that reflected in your bank account. When you master this process, your success in entrepreneurship is inevitable.

I can relate all too well to the struggle of working at your max and honing your entrepreneurial skills but still not making the kind of money you want to make. If you go down this road for too long, it reaches a certain point where you feel frustrated at the lack of freedom you have in your business… which if I had to guess, more freedom was probably one of the reasons you started your business for in the first place. I'd also guess that money is a means to that end -- to that freedom you’re looking for. 

That’s the first thing to understand here. I’m going to bend your mind a little bit before we dive into these three key revenue generating activities.  I encounter a lot of entrepreneurs who want success in entrepreneurship. They're listening to podcasts, reading books, developing their entrepreneurial skills, but they don’t hold money as one of their highest values. So, it’s no surprise they’re not making more of it. (This gets us into a whole 'nother conversation, about the labels people assign to money, and the desire of money, and make it mean all kinds of things about themselves. For example, If I want money, that means I’m a bad person, because money isn’t everything, or money is evil, etc.)

So what do people do? They need money to grow their business, but in their mind they label the pursuit of money as bad, and it creates this inner conflict that prevents them from being able to MAKE money in their business. They resist doing these revenue generating activities and focus on other less important entrepreneurial skills, so the money they do make feels like a struggle. They want success in entrepreneurship, but unknowingly, they resist it at the same time.

What I want you to understand here is that the real issue is not whether money is good or bad. The only thing that really matters is that you understand there are TWO TYPES OF VALUES: MEANS values… and END values. 

Means values are exactly what they sound like: they are a MEANS to an END. They allow you to achieve whatever it is you ultimately want to achieve, whether that's success in entrepreneurship or something else.

END values are those things you want to achieve in themselves: success in entrepreneurship, influence, impact, freedom, etc. 

Freedom, for example, is a value that a lot of entrepreneurs hold for themselves. They might have walked away from their 9-5 or left their corporate life behind, in order to have a business and a lifestyle that provides them more FREEDOM. Freedom of time to spend with the people they love. Freedom financially to be able to do more of the things they want to do, including giving back and helping others.

FREEDOM is typically an end value. It is the end goal. For some, it's like the benchmark of success in entrepreneurship. 

MONEY, on the other hand, is usually a means value. It’s a MEANS to that end, to that freedom. The revenue generating activities I'm going to teach you here today will help you achieve the greater purpose you're working toward, whether that's freedom, or impact, or legacy, ultimate success in entrepreneurship, or all of the above.

Do you see where I'm going with this? If money then, is a means to an end, a means to achieving something you value that’s even greater, a means to achieving that bigger vision, and when you begin to see it as such, it helps remove the internal conflict. 

It’s not a matter of money being good or bad, it’s a matter of money being a tool -- a key to unlock your true success in entrepreneurship: Freedom. Impact. Connection. Helping others. Transforming lives. 

Money helps you do more of that. That's when honing your entrepreneurial skills and focusing on the revenue generating activities becomes fun, because you begin to see them from that viewpoint: as a vehicle that helps get you where you want to go.

Following this line of thinking, if money is a tool that is going to help you achieve these ultimate things you value, then wouldn’t you like to know how to start making more of it, in a way that feels good and not icky or slimy or sleazy? 

If you answered yes to that, then listen closely to what I’m saying right now. The degree to which you focus on these 3 key revenue generating activities as part of your entrepreneurial skill set is the degree to which your bank account will grow, plain and simple. And the degree to which your bank account grows, is the degree to which you’ll be able to have the impact, the influence, and the freedom you want to have in the world and achieve the success in entrepreneurship you're looking for.

Think for a second about the wealthiest people you know. It’s not the wealth that’s good or bad, is it. It’s about what these people choose to DO with their wealth. There are many, many people in the world who use their wealth for good: they single-handedly fund schools, medical research, non-profit organizations, outreach missions, and more. Wealth is simply a tool in the hands of the person using it. And just as often, wealth can be used for selfish purposes. Chances are, you’ve seen that happening too. 

So now that you understand that money is just money and wealth is just wealth, and it’s what you DO with that money and that wealth that matters, let’s dive into the 3 key revenue generating activities you need to be spending the majority of your time on in your business, so you can develop these entrepreneurial skills to create true success in entrepreneurship, and use your wealth to do good. (I’m going to go ahead and assume that if you’re listening to this, you’re the kind of person who WOULD use that wealth for good, of this much I am certain.)

Key Revenue Generating Activity #1: How are you sourcing new leads?  

Leads are the lifeblood of your business. But you know what? I bet you didn’t get into business to help leads, did you. You got into business to help people. The problem is, when we start to label people as things -- like leads -- we lose our connection with them. We see this happening a LOT in the entrepreneurial world. People are so focused on developing other entrepreneurial skills like copywriting, and mastering Facebook ads, and creating the perfect Instagram feed that they completely miss how vital sourcing new leads is for their overall success in entrepreneurship. So while we use terms in business like "leads'' to describe certain elements or aspects OF business, I want YOU to start replacing these labels with names as often as you can. 

You probably have an ideal client avatar, right? You’ve heard you need one. Maybe you’ve created one, maybe you haven’t. But you know what really gets me? The word avatar. I get why people call it this. It’s meant as a representation of your ideal client’s character or persona. What makes them them. But do you really care about helping an avatar? Or do you care about helping Stephanie. Or Mark. Or Diane. Or Brittany? Do you care about sourcing an audience full of avatars, or an audience full of people who need and want your help? 

You need leads. But what you need even more are people, and the entrepreneurial skill to connect with those people. Think about that: how does it feel just replacing the word leads with the word people? It humanizes it, doesn’t it? The more connected you can stay to your ideal client, your ideal PERSON who you can help, the more magnetic you’ll become and the more success in entrepreneurship you'll experience, because the more your people will be attracted to you. You know why? They’ll feel seen. They’ll feel heard. They’ll feel understood. 

Now, maybe 'connecting with people' seems like a counterintuitive revenue generating activity, but it's really an under-utilized entrepreneurial skill. if you aren’t out there connecting with PEOPLE, how do you expect anyone to know what you do, and how you can help them? If you’re spending all your time on other entrepreneurial skills like trying to nail your messaging and figure out your social media strategy and hiring experts to help you create your core values and mission statement as a company, when are you connecting with your ideal clients? In the time leftover? I don’t think so. You already know how that works. That’s like saying you’ll workout in the time you have left at the end of the day. There’s either a) never any time left or b) you’re so tired from working all day you skip it altogether or settle for a walk around the block and count it as a workout.

If you want to have real success in entrepreneurship, you have to focus on your clients first. What are you doing to capture their attention and invite them into your community? This is the first key revenue generating activity for a reason, and it's a critical entrepreneurial skill you must master, because in a moment you'll see how this directly impacts key revenue generating activity #2.

Even more importantly, how are you tracking the number of new people joining your community? Are you looking at your landing page views and tracking your conversions to your email list? Or are you obsessing over that follower count on Instagram, a vanity metric that has zero effect on the bottom line of your business? Do you care more about the podcast downloads you’re getting than you do about your email list growth? You don’t own your social media followers. You don’t own your podcast listeners. The platforms you use own those. Hundreds of thousands of instagram followers doesn't equal success in entrepreneurship. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank does.

This is the first key revenue generating activity, because if the people you’re spending all your time reaching and even spending money on ads to reach aren’t converting, they aren’t signing up for your free stuff and they aren’t opting into your email list, we have a problem. 

Without traffic, without PEOPLE...

a) you won’t be able to create the impact and influence you want

b) you'll have a difficult time achieving real success in entrepreneurship, and 

c) you'll have a hard time with key revenue generating activity #2 which is…

Key Revenue Generating Activity #2: How are you generating sales? 

Generating sales is among one of the most critical entrepreneurial skills every entrepreneur needs. And unless you have an automated mechanism in place for marketing, capturing, and converting those leads into sales (or as I prefer to say, those PEOPLE into CLIENTS) how do you plan to make money in your business?

I’m not saying that posting on social media, re-doing your website, learning how to write the best copy, figuring out how to run Facebook ads, doing podcast interviews, doing live videos isn’t important… what I’m saying it’s that these entrepreneurial skills are not AS important as generating sales in your business. 

As the saying goes, a business without customers is a hobby. How will you experience true success in entrepreneurship without sales... without making money... which again is a tool, a resource, that supports your bigger and greater endeavors?

Sure, the argument can be made that entrepreneurial skills like figuring out how to write the best email subject lines will help more people open your emails and see what it is you’re selling which will increase your likelihood of them buying… but will it really? At the end of the day, are they buying from you because you write good email subject lines, or because what you offer solves a problem in their life?

Remember this: Your customers aren’t buying your product or service because they want to take another course or have another planner to fill out every day. They're not buying because they think you have killer entrepreneurial skills like writing good marketing copy. They’re buying happiness. They’re buying what they feel will bring them that happiness, by solving a painful problem in their life. Your success in entrepreneurship hinges upon how happy you make your customers and clients.

When you really get that, you’ll stop worrying so much about how your IG feed looks and start focusing your attention on sales -- which will ultimately help YOU fulfill your mission to help more people. This is why making sales tops the list of revenue generating activities and entrepreneurial skills you need for success in entrepreneurship.

It’s a win-win: customers are the lifeblood of your business, because they create income for you, which allows YOU to achieve those bigger objectives you’re after: freedom and impact. 

Your product creates ultimate happiness for them by solving a problem, their purchase creates happiness for you by helping you get one step closer to your bigger vision of freedom and influence and success in entrepreneurship.

Chances are, I’m not telling you anything you haven’t heard before, but when you walk away from this episode today, you’re going to THINK about these revenue generating activities differently. It’s no longer just about leads and sales. It’s about helping the people you’re here to help, who in turn will help you. 

For many years in my business, I avoided the revenue generating activities I should have been spending the majority of my time on, and kept trying to perfect other, less important entrepreneurial skills thinking, “the money will come, the money will come.” And the money did come… but not until I started spending more time on these revenue generating activities. 

How many entrepreneurs out there are working hard and making no money? How many overworked, underpaid entrepreneurs out there are going out of business, because they can’t financially support their dream? They’re in debt? Their credit cards are maxed out? They can’t seem to figure out how to make ends meet? 

Don’t be fooled by those people who try and tell you that if you just keep working hard on your entrepreneurial skills, you’ll see the results and experience success in entrepreneurship. If you keep working hard on the wrong things -- on the wrong entrepreneurial skills and everything but these key revenue generating activities -- all you’ll experience is failure. I certainly don’t want that for you, and I’m pretty confident that you don’t, either. 

It’s not hard work that causes success in entrepreneurship. It’s working on the RIGHT revenue generating activities that causes success in entrepreneurship.

Can you think of a successful entrepreneur you look up to, who works less than you, and makes more money than you? It’s easy to think it’s because they’ve been at this longer than you have, or they have developed better entrepreneurial skills than you, or because they have a bigger team or more financial resources than you, but this isn’t the case at all. Sure, they may have those things now, but isn’t it also true they were in the exact same place as you are at one point in their business journey too? How do you think they achieved success in entrepreneurship? Overworking themselves until one day they got lucky and it all clicked? 

No. They disciplined themselves to focus on developing the entrepreneurial skills that matter, these key revenue generating activities, and ignored the shiny objects and vanity metrics that most entrepreneurs chase. They focused their time and attention on TRACKING these key revenue generating activities, and figuring out how to continually improve them over time, so they could create a business that supported their bigger dreams and achieve true success in entrepreneurship.

So the question here is, are you going to cultivate the same discipline? To commit to honing the right entrepreneurial skills by focusing on these key revenue generating activities, and ignoring all the other shiny objects that come your way? 

If your answer is yes, then listen closely, because there’s one more key revenue generating activity I’m going to give you that’s really critical to your entrepreneurial skill set. 

This one is completely different than the others I just gave you. And while the two we’ve covered are CRITICAL for your long-term success in entrepreneurship, this third entrepreneurial skill I’m going to give you here will determine how successful you are at revenue generating activities #1 and #2. Because revenue generating activity #3 is the very thing that will influence your ability TO make money. 

Ironically, it has nothing to do with money at all. Yet everything to do with it at the same time. 

Key Revenue Generating Activity #3: Be a master at managing your energy.

I don’t mean energy in the woo woo sense. I mean as the lifeblood of the human -- you -- who happens to be the driver of your business. If YOU aren’t operating at peak performance, how can you expect your business to operate at peak performance and achieve success in entrepreneurship? If you aren’t protecting your energy, who will? 

Your energy is the bedrock of your business. Think of it like soil. If your soil is fertile, rich, nourished, and well-watered… What kind of crop will that soil produce? But if your soil is dry, and parched, and drained of all nutrients, what kind of crop will it produce then? What will it cost your business in the long run, thinking out 6 months or even a year from now, if you drain yourself dry trying to grow your business? How can your business thrive, if you’re barely surviving? How can you have success in entrepreneurship, if you're not committed to developing the entrepreneurial skills you need to succeed?

The only thing overworking yourself accomplishes is you running yourself AND your business into the ground. It’s the opposite of what our ‘rise and grind’ culture teaches you need for success in entrepreneurship -- I get that. And it's not nearly as sexy of an entrepreneurial skill like writing slick sales pages, for example.

Yet mastering this entrepreneurial skill has also been critical to my success in entrepreneurship. I work less now and make more money now than I ever have before. I work about 20 hours a week on average. 

So fast forward 6 months from now and look back. What becomes possible for you when you’re a strong, healthier, more energized, well rested version of yourself? What becomes possible in your business? 

How are you able to show up differently? More importantly, how are you able to CONNECT with your ideal people differently than you are right now? And how does that impact your ability to grow an audience full of people who need and want your help? 

Do you see how it comes full circle? 

These 3 key revenue generating activities for ultimate success in entrepreneurship are: 

• Becoming a master manager of your energy
• Continually sourcing new leads by connecting with your ideal person 
• Continually generating sales by showing your ideal person how you can help them

All help you make more money in your business… which in turn helps you fulfill your bigger vision and create the lifestyle of freedom, impact, and influence that you value, so you can experience ultimate success in entrepreneurship.

Ready to learn how to cultivate these essential entrepreneurial skills and identify the right revenue generating activities in your business? Every business different, which is why inside of our masterclasses and programs we will help you hone your entrepreneurial skills and identify where your time, energy, and resources are best invested to help you experience success in entrepreneurship and customize a plan to help you focus on those revenue generating activities, so you can ignore the shiny objects that distract you from your higher purpose and calling.