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Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Breanne Benson's Journey to Financial Freedom · Built by Margin with Laurie Chen

• 0:04
  Welcome to Built by Margin, the podcast where strategy meets the spreadsheet. I'm your host, Laurie Chen, fractional CFO and tax strategist, here to help you make smarter financial decisions, build a profitable business, and keep more of what you earn. Let's dive into the numbers that actually move the needle. Hey guys, I'm on the Built by Margin podcast and I'm here with Bree, the Coupon Queen. I'm so excited to have her on this podcast. We love to talk more about how she's grown her business. Bree, can you introduce yourself and tell us more when you started, how Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. So my business is on social media and it's with doing affiliate marketing through social media and automations with Instagram, TikTok, I do Facebook page and YouTube. So I started back in 2019 with couponing. I absolutely fell in love with it and just ways to save more money to become more financially free. So then I realized I was super passionate about it and started my YouTube channel back in 2019. And from there, I just grew, added on more platforms, scaled my business to be able to then offer coaching to other people to help them on the side of learning how to coupon budget and be more financially free that way. And then now I've recently grown into coaching other women on how to monetize their social media like I do with affiliate marketing so that you don't even have to have or make your own products to Wow, that's really amazing. So you said that how big has your business grown? What would My highest point as far as revenue last year was $263,000. So I've grown that from my first year making like $6,700. So I've grown that in about the last five years, which has been really nice, just constantly adding more income streams, obviously doing research and just learning more things and more skills and ways to be able to reach the right audience with your content to make sure that you're converting viewers into That's great. So sell by chat. That's something that we both have learned to do more of with Dan Martell's elite coaching group. How has that changed your business So I'm recently getting back into sell-by-chat. I did sell-by-chat probably a year or two ago with my other coaching program, which was just for couponing, teaching people how to coupon, how to save money, all of that kind of stuff. I did sell-by-chat. And I really enjoyed it. It did take a lot of time. And I found myself not blocking off my calendar. And I was trying to stay in a conversation when the person was online to get the conversation from A to Z. But now realizing that it's okay to have some gaps of time in between when you're reaching out, because it just shows that like you're busy, like your business is growing, you've a bunch of things that you're doing, you have, you know, maybe a team that you're working with.
• 3:17
  So it's helped me in a bunch of ways, obviously bringing in new clients to my coaching programs, but also just kind of understanding more about sales behind the Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, sell by chat has really been a new strategy for me, at least on the Instagram game, right? I did a lot of DM through LinkedIn outreach and was able to talk to a lot of potential clients that way. But doing it through Instagram is completely new for me. And I'm still learning and growing through the sell by chat strategy, Well, since I started the program with Dan, it's only been like four months. But it's great because like for one, I'm able to meet more people that way and actually Yeah, so that's great. Okay, so when you started your business, what are some things that you wish you had known about financials or like the managing the financial aspects of I would say just, I wish I understood the whole aspect of taxes and the extent of just being super organized. Because when you're starting your own business, you're responsible for everything. So you're responsible for the finances and the taxes and spreadsheets and all of that. making sure that, and I teach this to my students, to separate out your income and your expenses from day one. Like either have a separate bank account and a separate credit card or do the business route, get the LLC and have the business bank account and the business credit card to make sure that it's very black and white, what's personal versus what's for the business. So that way tax season isn't a big nightmare for you like it was for me the first two years. I would literally like cry because it was just so bad and it took so long and I owed so much money and it was just, it was rough. So yeah, if I can save anyone from that pain and frustration, I Yeah, that's great advice. Definitely keeping your business and your personal bank account separate. I think that's a rookie mistake that a lot of people, they don't do when they start out. And yeah, you starting it out that way, that makes it clean. Any potential audits saves you a lot of headaches down the road. So do you use a bookkeeper or a I have an accountant that I use.
• 6:05
  We're in the process of getting a new accountant because it's hard to find. We do multiple things. So we have Airbnbs and rental properties. And then I have my business and then my husband's W2.
• 6:16
  So it's hard to find an accountant who specializes in both in understanding like all the ins and outs of being a full-time content creator, but then also understanding the tax breaks and cuts and stuff of Airbnbs and rental properties and real estate and stuff. So we're still looking for that right fit, but because we have so many kind of moving pieces and parts to it, we definitely went the accountant route, because I don't want to mess it up and trigger an audit and have to deal with all that. Or two, I also don't want to miss out on any like tax breaks or anything like that that we can use as benefits. because that's not my expertise. So I've learned to kind of delegate. You stay in your zone of genius. Someone else's zone of genius is taxes. Perfect. You handle the taxes Yeah, I think that's a good point you made in terms of finding the right accountant that has the right blend of real estate experience and like sole proprietorship entrepreneurship experience, right? Yeah. So yeah, those are kind of completely different fields. And so I think you're right in terms of, you know, trying to find that that right person that will be your trusted advisor for the next couple of years, or you know, the average accountant stays with you for six or seven years, you know? Yeah, you definitely want to like build that right relationship, find the person that has the expertise that you're looking for. Where Okay, nice. Nice. I love I love Orlando. I go to Disney World at least once or twice every year. Oh, yeah.
• 7:53
  So yeah, I'm very familiar with with the Orlando area. Love Yeah, it's great. We actually just got Disney passes like the annual passes. It's our first time. because we have our son is almost one. So we're like, okay, it's time to do the annual passes and stuff. And obviously, Disney is perfect for young kids and babies and everything. So we've gone probably five times in the last like two months. So it's something nearby that we can just head over there and walk around with him go see Mickey, whatever, and just something that's a little bit different get out of the regular routine. Yep.
• 8:30
  So in terms of forecasting your business or forecasting your financials, do you have like a strategic vision of where you want your business to be, whether that be in terms of client number of clients or in terms of revenue growth, key metrics that you might want to hit? What does that look like for you from a strategic So I recently worked on my vision. I've always done a vision board. I have it on as the background in my phone. Show you. No, you can't see it now. So I always have it as a screensaver in my phone of like where I want to be, places I want to go, where I want all my social media to be so that I look at it every single day. So I thought it was super clear and precise, but I just realized that it needs to be even more in depth. So my main focus moving forward is I really want to help women be able to be more financially free and financially independent because when you have money, you have more choices and Being able to monetize your social media, what I love about it is anyone can do it. It doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter where you live. You don't need a high school diploma. You don't need a college degree. It's something that literally anyone can do. You don't need any fancy equipment. You can just use your phone.
• 9:56
  So my focus moving forward is working with my goal is a thousand clients to help them monetize their social media and be able to start making $5,000 per month. So that's the goal. That's what I'm kind of laser focused on is just bringing more women into my world that way and creating that community of like-minded people who are all just motivated, ready to change their life, excited, and wanting to work towards our goals at the same time.
• 10:27
  Revenue goals, I would say I've always wanted a seven-figure business.
• 10:31
  I wanted a six-figure business. I reached that. So now I'm like, damn, have a seven-figure business. That would be so freaking cool. So that is my goal, is just doing what I can to reach back up and scale up to a seven-figure business. So I'm giving myself 12 months.
• 10:46
  So it's going to be a grind and crazy, but I know it's Yeah, absolutely. And I know that you're doing coaching with Dan. Are there any other coaches that you've I haven't signed up with any other coaches currently. Previous coaches I've had have always said pick one business coach at a time because otherwise they could have conflicting views, conflicting advice. And then it's like, you're paying two different people to tell you two different things. And then you're like, Who am I going to listen to? So just like being laser focused, like Dan talks about with focusing on one thing until successful, I feel like it's the same thing with the business coach, like you have to invest in trust in one coach, what they say what their vision is, what path they say that you should take to reach your goal, compared to others, like I have coaches in other areas, like a fitness trainer, So I hire coaches in other aspects, but as far as my business, I just choose one and kind of go with them until I feel like it's time to move on Okay, yeah, I that's really solid advice. I do agree that if you have multiple coaches, they could give you conflicting viewpoints, especially when it comes to marketing. Because, you know, marketing is an art. Right? And so yeah, I could definitely see there being a lot of conflict there between between coaches. What is what's the biggest takeaway that you've been able to implement in your business with I would say just delegating. So I previously had a couple employees when I was pregnant, and I wanted to make sure that I was kind of setting myself up for like a little maternity leave. I hired a salesperson, I had two VAs, I had a coach, and then I was also a coach to my clients. And I kind of prematurely did it. So then I had to wipe the slate clean because it just wasn't worth their time. I didn't have my sales funnels and everything set up for my salespeople. So then I kind of took everything back and I just kept my one VA. And then I realized through my current coach that you shouldn't be handling your emails. You shouldn't be handling, you know, certain administrative tasks need to be delegated off back to the VA. So I'm now in the process of kind of reorganizing my business, re redoing things as far as like what my VA should handle, giving her more hours, rebuilding up some income streams. And that way, it saves me a lot of time. So I can then focus on really helping my clients really making sure that I'm providing the absolute best value and being the best coach I can. And then learning new skills at the same time to bring to them to be able to just help them reach their goals as fast as possible, and then focus on sales, be able to welcome in more clients. So that's kind of a restructuring that I've been doing over the last like three weeks that I've learned from my current coach, which has been helping a lot. So I'm really happy But how long did it take you to hire that person? Like, because I imagine you're probably didn't have we're doing everything right doing all the emails calendar and all that by yourself for years. How long did it take you to hire that first To hire my first person, I would say probably, I can't even, I would say at least three years until I hired my first VA. And then I, so when I went through and let go of most of the team members that I had, I kept her. drastically minimize what she was doing because some programs I was doing and stuff, I just kind of cut ties with a lot of things that it was just all over the place. So now I'm still using that one VA, but I'm just increasing her workload back, giving her more hours and stuff to kind of take the time away. So that way I have more time to focus on sales, making sure that my program is the best that it can be, creating content, because that's something that I love. I love creating content, creating videos. I love doing lives. I love answering questions and helping people. So I want to stay in that zone of genius and let everything else be delegated off to other people who enjoy doing those types of tasks. So that's what I'm working Yeah, absolutely. I mean, certainly in my experience, I feel like creating content is like a full time job. Right.
• 15:17
  Because a lot a lot of thought goes into the planning, into the recording, into the editing. And so how long does it take you to create your content on It really doesn't take me long. I mean, I've been doing this for six years on social media, creating reels and TikToks and YouTube long form and short form. So I have the experience now to where I know how to do it quickly. So what I teach my students is spend, take one day, spend an hour or two doing your research. figure out what types of videos, what styles of videos are doing well in your specific niche, write down your content ideas that you're going to be producing for the next week. Then during your batch content day, have that be a separate day. You're going to sit down and create all of your content, just bam, record all of your content. That way it's all recorded, ready to go. So that way you're working ahead instead of falling into the trap of trying to come up with an idea, create the content, edit and post it day of, what happens if you're sick? What happens if life throws a curve ball at you? Then you're not able to do that and now your consistency goes to the wayside. So it takes me probably, like I have my calendar right here, it takes me, I spend most of Monday going to the stores, doing my deals, filming all my content. I just hired a video editor. I'm hiring a second one as well. One to edit all my long form videos for YouTube and one to edit all of my short form videos and reels and stuff. And then I just set up automations to schedule out the posts so they can post without me having to be tied to my phone. They cross post to all the other platforms as well to increase your reach. Instead of just posting it on Instagram, you may as well take that video, have it automatically post to my TikTok, my Facebook page, and my YouTube to increase a hundred times. Sometimes it's like 7,000% increase in views because a video may not pop off on Instagram, but it pops off on TikTok. So that's why batch creating your content helps you save so much time and you're not kind of fighting the rat race and then you get frustrated and stressed out and then you're Yeah, that's that's a really smart way to look at it. I use later.com for my posting and that that has been really helpful for me. Cause then I can schedule my posts to go on at a certain time so you can make it consistent, consistent based on when your posts are performing well. So I really like that having that feature through later. Yeah, what platforms are you posting on? I'm using Instagram right now. And then I used to do LinkedIn. I'm going to be going back to LinkedIn to do more posting on there. But since I've started working with Okay, awesome. I definitely recommend like setting up a Facebook page. because you can automatically you click a button on Instagram and when you schedule it to post on Instagram, it'll automatically post the exact same thing on your Facebook page. And I've seen a lot of views, a lot of growth because Facebook is obviously trying to compete with TikTok and Instagram and all these other platforms that I feel like are a lot more trendy. People don't really scroll on Facebook as much as they do on TikTok and Instagram. So they're putting an emphasis on showing those videos. So you wind up getting a lot more views and a lot more reach. So you're able to grow a platform a lot faster. And again, you're not using any extra energy.
• 19:07
  You're just clicking a button so it automatically posts for you forever. Like you click the button one time and you never have to worry about it.
• 19:14
  But now you're able to grow on two platforms at once and be able to get more views and eyes on your content and be able to listen to Yeah, yeah, that's good. So in financials, when we talk about financial metrics, right, we look at key performance indicators, you know, net margin, we look at return on investment. When you're looking at marketing metrics, So as far as like analytics on my videos, is that what you mean? So I look at two things. I look at comments because I have automation set up where Say I tell my audience, comment the color purple for this link. I have automation set up where they'll automatically get a DM with the exact link that they're looking for just to make it as convenient as possible for my audience to get what they're looking for instead of having to find the link in my bio and scroll through all these links. And that's kind of a pain in the butt. So the number of comments is really important because that shows me the exact number of people that were truly interested in that content and in that link. The other thing I look at, yes, views are great, but Unless views either translate to comments and sales, or unless views translate to follows, they're kind of like a useless thing, if that makes sense. So I also look at the number of follows, so that way I can make sure I'm tailoring my content to one of those two. So I'm making content that I know does well to get me follows and convert views into followers, and then I make specific content that does well with getting viewers to Wow, that's good. And then are you able to track this all just through Instagram or I just check it through Instagram as far as my analytics on the videos. And then I have my VA pull us on a spreadsheet, my top performing five videos from the previous week. She puts how many views it got on each platform. When I posted it, what my hook was for like three to five seconds, like what I said in the video, what my visual hook was to kind of capture my audience. And that way I can look at it, see what's working and Okay, great. And then so you mentioned that you work specifically with women, how did you come to that decision to to work with that niche? Is there any any specific experience that So kind of, I just, I really want to work with women, because growing up, I had some friends, parents, who like they weren't happy in their marriage, but they literally couldn't afford to get divorced. Like they couldn't even afford financially to make that decision because they couldn't afford to have two different places.
• 22:10
  So I've always wanted to work with women and help them just be able to have that choice and be able to make their own money and be financially independent. So they don't have to ask anybody like, Hey, can I buy this? Or can I do this? anything like that. And I was raised very independent. I'm a very independent person. I like to be able to buy what I want when I want and go somewhere when I want. And, you know, within reason, obviously, I'm not going to go spend 10 grand and not discuss it with my husband. But it's just really important to me to help other women be able to have those choices financially and be able to make those decisions without having the constraint of not being able to afford it. So Also too, becoming a new mom. To me, if you can be a mom and you can go through labor and you can go through having a baby, you can literally do anything in the entire world.
• 23:04
  So just helping women unlock that capacity as well and those capabilities is something that I'm really passionate about. So that's why I kind of cater my coaching programs and everything. Can a guy join it? Absolutely. But I just promote it to women because that's who I'm really passionate about Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, having having that like emotional connection to your purpose, your vision and your mission for your business, working specifically with women founders. I think that's a great place to be because you have you feel like there's a higher purpose to what you're doing. Like, obviously, you want to make make a But at the same time, you want to be helping the people that you feel like And just hearing the Like hearing the reviews and the positive feedback from my current students, one of my students, I know she doesn't want me to like share her name or anything, but one of my students, she said that when she joined the program, her husband wound up not being able to work for like four months. So they didn't have income from him.
• 24:10
  It was a single income family. didn't have that income for four months, the income that got them by was the income that she was able to generate from her social media. So just having that be able to like help carry her family through until he was able to start working again is so huge. And just realizing how big of an impact social media can be when you learn how to monetize it. That's what kind of fuels my fire and keeps me wanting to do more and reaching out to more women and adding more clients into my program because I know just how powerful that it can be when it's done the correct way.
• 24:47
  Yeah, absolutely. So I guess just one last piece of advice. What what would you tell aspiring women entrepreneurs or people that are building their own business? What would be one thing that you would tell them if they're just getting off the ground or trying to get to that 10k a month level or 50k a month level, whatever that next level is for them? What I would say, don't be worried to put yourself out there and worry about somebody else judging you or someone else thinking your content is silly. Social media can be such a powerful tool and it's free marketing for your business, for your product, your service, whatever your business is about. So a lot of people, when I talk to them, they say that there's, oh, I'm scared to get behind the camera. I'm scared to put myself out there. What if someone judges me? But the way you have to look at it is, is that random person online who you're never going to meet, are they responsible to pay your mortgage? Are they responsible to pay for the groceries for your kids? No. So if they're not responsible for your bills, their opinion doesn't matter. And at the end of the day, whether you put yourself out there on social media, or maybe you're at a corporate job right now, and you're kind of building your business, Even at your corporate job, do you think every single person in that organization loves you to death? Or are there some people that are probably not that fond of you? And that's OK. You're not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But if you have even one friend, social media is just exponentially growth of that. So now instead of having one person in your community, you're going to, you could have tens of thousands or millions of people in your community and like friends online because you're opening yourself out there and giving yourself that opportunity. So that's my biggest piece of advice. And that's the biggest hurdle that I have to help a lot of my students with is just don't be afraid to put yourself out there. The first time you do anything, you're going to be awkward. You're going to be shy. You're not going to know what you're doing. It's okay. Just like when you were riding a bike, the first time you got on a bike, you're like super scared. You're like, what if I fall off and hurt my head? You're shaky. But now after riding your bike for three months, you could do a marathon. Like you could go around your block a hundred times. So Creating your first video, it's going to be scary. You're going to be nervous. What if the people in the comments are mean to me? But until you create that first video, you're never going to get to that 100th video where your quality is so much better, and you've gotten so much knowledge, and you're posting a lot differently and showing up a lot differently than you did the first time. So that would be my biggest piece of Awesome. Yeah, I really like that. I think especially as women entrepreneurs, we have a lot of fears, fear of judgment, fear of failure. But I like what you said about really putting yourself out there and just ignoring the negative voices because they're always going to be there. Like if you're truly showing up as yourself, if you're truly being authentic, then you're going to be disliked. Anyways, right? Who cares Right, it doesn't matter what you do. Yeah, like there's going to be someone who loves you and there's going to be somebody who doesn't. And that's OK. You know, as long as you're doing it for a reason and you have a purpose behind it, then you're good Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for tuning in to Built By Margin. If you're ready to turn insights into income, subscribe and join me each week as we break down the numbers behind smart business growth. I'm