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Skip the Black Friday Sale: 5 Ways to Generate Revenue Before Year-End · Growing a Deeply Rooted Business: Launches, Funnels & Email Marketing with Intention

• 0:00
  Rachel: You do not have to run a Black Friday sale in order to make money in the next six weeks.
• 0:05
  Rachel: And I wanna say this before you hear anything else, because right now, we're out of that launch prep window.
• 0:13
  Rachel: People are still talking about launching, 'cause that season has yet to pass us, but they're also talking about preparing for that Black Friday window.
• 0:23
  Rachel: This truly is the time to be thinking about it.
• 0:27
  Rachel: And gonna start feeling that FOMO of like, "I should be doing this," or, "I shouldn't be doing this."
• 0:32
  Rachel: And we wanna make sure that what you're not doing is just kind of doing things in order to make the ends meet.
• 0:38
  Rachel: So, what we're doing today is we're gonna be breaking down five alternatives that still help you make money or set you up to make money, which don't require participating in Black Friday, don't require discount code, a countdown timer
• 0:53
  Rachel: or any fancy pantsy launch.
• 0:55
  Rachel: We're gonna split them into two different tracks for you, because everybody's in kind of different spaces depending on how their first half of the year, shook out.
• 1:02
  Rachel: So, either you need to make revenue before December 31st or you've kind of been on track, you really want to optimize and take november and December off, and you really wanna make sure that you're prepped for Q1.
• 1:16
  Rachel: Both of them are real opportunities right now, and neither one of them should fall into just doing a Black Friday sale.
• 1:24
  Jessica: But before we get into it, welcome back to another episode of Growing a Deeply Rooted Business podcast, the podcast where intentional strategy meets sustainable systems.
• 1:32
  Jessica: I'm Jess, your systems architect and notion-based obsessed strategist, who believes that systems are self-care.
• 1:39
  Jessica: and I'm here with Rachel, our marketing ecosystem cultivator to make sure that we are focused on the numbers instead of feelings of FOMO.
• 1:49
  Jessica: But before we get into it, I want you to do a quick energy check because Black Friday is something that the online space will give you a lot of fear or fear of missing out or kind of pressure
• 2:01
  Jessica: to participate in, and it's one of those spaces where we need to really take a deep breath in really assess whether this is the right move for our business.
• 2:11
  Jessica: Most people who are trying to tell you to do a Black Friday sale are probably trying to sell you some sort of execution for said Black Friday.
• 2:19
  Jessica: Execution sale does not necessarily mean it is the right move for your business, and not participating does not make you lazy.
• 2:26
  Jessica: I promise you are not missing out on millions of dollars.
• 2:29
  Jessica: I would argue in the case that actually by moving your sale away from Black Friday, you're probably gonna make it easier for yourself.
• 2:36
  Jessica: You're gonna be competing against some big boys if you go in Black Friday, especially if you are running ads.
• 2:42
  Jessica: So it may not be the best case for you, but we want you to do what's right for your business, and that always means taking a deep breath in, looking within, and assessing what your actual reality looks like.
• 2:52
  Jessica: So let's talk about track one, Rachel, where you still need to make money this year.
• 2:57
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 2:57
  Rachel: So the very first thing that we wanna do is kind of get a clear action plan of attack.
• 3:05
  Rachel: So we wanna audit our lead sources and then double down on the ones that are actually working right now.
• 3:12
  Rachel: And this doesn't mean abandon all of your compounding efforts.
• 3:16
  Rachel: This just means, "Hey, we need to, you know, put 70% of our capacity towards these areas because we got some goals to meet."
• 3:24
  Rachel: So this isn't saying don't invest in a new marketing channel, but this is saying the ones that are already producing, we really think that that's the play here.
• 3:35
  Rachel: So the fastest revenue to get up until December is not gonna come from a new audience.
• 3:41
  Rachel: It's gonna come from the platform that's already been working for you and maybe, you can just give a little bit more attention from.
• 3:48
  Rachel: So the way that we love to do a lead source audit is pulling out all of your conversions over the last four months, five months, I would say, and find what those averages are.
• 3:59
  Rachel: And I will put a distinction here.
• 4:01
  Rachel: This isn't just necessarily leads.
• 4:03
  Rachel: These are people that have converted, 'cause we want that behavior, and we wanna target that specific behavior.
• 4:10
  Rachel: So we wanna write down where they came from, what platform, was it a referral, all of those things and kinda just get a rough assessment so we can start seeing all these different trends.
• 4:23
  Rachel: Look at what did they buy from you and what product did they purchase in the distinction of saying, "Oh, Instagram had 10 conversions for my lowest ticket offer versus also having visibility on my $600 strategy sessions came from
• 4:41
  Rachel: this particular source."
• 4:42
  Rachel: So we wanna stack and rank them in that particular way so then you can have a really great visual of saying, "Okay, I know I can sell these things in this space, and it's gonna be received," and really
• 4:55
  Rachel: understanding where you can spend the majority of your time.
• 4:59
  Rachel: Because you may be looking at it from 10, 15 conversions come from Instagram, but if your low ticket offer is only $47, then that's not really gonna give you much of that boost and that oomph that you need
• 5:13
  Rachel: compared to the six conversions that came with your $600 strategy sessions.
• 5:18
  Jessica: Absolutely agree.
• 5:19
  Jessica: All right, so play two is really focused on strengthening your connections, not necessarily like all your funnel conversions.
• 5:28
  Jessica: So this is where we recommend booking some casual catch-up calls or coffee dates, with people who have either work adjacent to you or have sent you clients in the past.
• 5:41
  Jessica: And we really want you to pick from three buckets.
• 5:44
  Jessica: People who have sent you business before, people who serve your client, with a different service either before or after what you offer, or people that you could potentially white label for, so agencies that have a bunch of clients,
• 5:56
  Jessica: and they're maybe looking for a specific component that you help execute for.
• 6:01
  Jessica: A lot of times I have talked to a Facebook ad strategist, if we're trying to book quiz funnels or maybe people that help implement some of the things like landing page designers for quiz strategies or launch strategies.
• 6:13
  Jessica: Make sure you're just coming with a specific ask for them.
• 6:15
  Jessica: Let them know, where you are in your business, what service you're really excited about, what service that they could potentially pitch for you, if there's any referral kickback for them, if that's allowed in the niche that you're in.
• 6:27
  Jessica: And your ideal client who you're looking for, and then get that same information from them so it's a win-win situation
• 6:34
  Rachel: Yeah, and I love reframing this in the sense of you always get those really icky ones that you can tell people are just trying to not genuinely connect, and they're like, "Hey, how's it going?
• 6:44
  Rachel: How's business?
• 6:44
  Rachel: Blah, blah, blah."
• 6:45
  Rachel: But, you genuinely lean into the relationships and the network and being authentic about it, you care about their business, you care about, how they're actually doing, it's gonna be received significantly better.
• 6:59
  Rachel: This isn't saying, send a mass email out to your connections.
• 7:03
  Rachel: This is saying, maybe put down and follow up on what they've been doing.
• 7:07
  Rachel: "Hey, I saw you launched a podcast.
• 7:09
  Rachel: How's that going?"
• 7:10
  Rachel: Or, "I was following along with your launch.
• 7:12
  Rachel: It looked like it went really well."
• 7:14
  Rachel: You know, things along those ends so that it feels a little bit more personal.
• 7:18
  Rachel: You wanna just make sure that It comes from a place of genuine desire to connect versus ick, 'cause That gets around as well.
• 7:25
  Rachel: So that is play number two.
• 7:28
  Rachel: Moving into the third kind of play that you can, tactic you can lean on is following up with past clients for end-of-year maintenance.
• 7:37
  Rachel: This is something that I recommend you just have a set cadence to do regardless.
• 7:43
  Rachel: From a marketing perspective, you always hear that it's easier to sell something to somebody who's already bought from you.
• 7:48
  Rachel: This is literally the warmest list you will literally ever have, and it's not necessarily that you're selling anything that's public-facing, like a brand-new retainer or something like that.
• 7:58
  Rachel: But, in the times where you need to rack up some sales, you can easily say, "Oh, I'm a web designer.
• 8:05
  Rachel: I can do a SEO refresh on your website," or something like that, or, "Oh, do you need any new pages created?
• 8:11
  Rachel: Do you have an upcoming launch happening in Q1?"
• 8:14
  Rachel: Coming at it from a proactive standpoint to support them is always gonna be way more received versus trying to find a new audience in order to sell new retainers too.
• 8:25
  Rachel: I mean, I'm sure this is pretty consistent across the board, but a lot of my clients, November, December, it's crickets.
• 8:31
  Rachel: And I know that they would love to have somebody just being in there and, fine-tuning the things that they didn't necessarily get the chance to do, but also don't want to do themselves because they're enjoying time with their
• 8:43
  Rachel: family.
• 8:43
  Rachel: If you're a bookkeeper, you can do an end-of-year cleanup.
• 8:46
  Rachel: You know, help them get their books tidy before tax season starts.
• 8:50
  Rachel: If you're a photographer, which we're booking all of this stuff now for our family photos, you know Christmas photos are being shot in early September.
• 8:58
  Rachel: Things like these things that you can say, "Hey, do you need some new brand shoots?
• 9:02
  Rachel: Do you need a new headshot for your program launching in January?"
• 9:06
  Rachel: All of these elements are really important, and the people that know your business and your quality will one thousand percent be like, "Oh, I'm so happy you reached out.
• 9:14
  Rachel: I was thinking about this.
• 9:15
  Rachel: It's been on my list."
• 9:17
  Rachel: Lowest hanging fruit, I would for sure say.
• 9:20
  Jessica: for sure.
• 9:20
  Jessica: All right, so then track two is you're building a business bigger for Q1.
• 9:25
  Jessica: Maybe you're good with your income level for this year.
• 9:29
  Jessica: You don't wanna add too much into the last quarter, but you do wanna make sure that you're setting yourself up for success.
• 9:36
  Jessica: This is where we kinda recommend we have that Rooted in Reality business planner, where you can kinda go through and start really taking the time rather than doing it in one day.
• 9:44
  Jessica: Maybe we're doing it in little pieces.
• 9:46
  Jessica: So one of those is run that full marketing audit, which in that Rooted in Reality planner, we kinda go through all of the different channels that you're looking at and all the different ways you're looking at your data.
• 9:57
  Jessica: So you're identifying, what are your top offers?
• 9:59
  Jessica: What are your top channels that you have?
• 10:01
  Jessica: You know, looking at every single funnel you have and seeing where the conversion is dropping off, and identifying where the biggest lever that you can pull is, whether it bringing more traffic or refining follow-up sequences and really kinda
• 10:14
  Jessica: getting a clear view on what's working and what's not and what needs to get tweaked for the following year, so you can start kinda working on that now and getting ahead and planning.
• 10:24
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Rachel: This part is super important when it comes to setting yourself up for Q1.
• 10:30
  Rachel: I think that this is an October activity, not a December activity.
• 10:35
  Rachel: People typically in business try to do a spring cleanup in December kind of thing.
• 10:40
  Rachel: But my brain's never online.
• 10:42
  Rachel: I'm like, "I wanna be with my family.
• 10:45
  Rachel: I wanna be offline as much as possible."
• 10:47
  Rachel: And I think that, as much as you can start being proactive and doing a lot of the heavier lifting now so that when you maybe are refreshed and you get that burst of, like, "I wanna just do something,"
• 10:59
  Rachel: you're working off of data and not off of assumption of what possibly worked this past year.
• 11:06
  Jessica: The next step would be giving yourself an operational reset.
• 11:10
  Jessica: So what this looks like is going through all of your folders or your desktop, cleaning out any files that you're not using anymore.
• 11:17
  Jessica: With AI, I don't know about y'all, I have so many more files on my computer than I used to have.
• 11:22
  Jessica: So making sure that you're going through that, cleaning out everything that you need.
• 11:25
  Jessica: There is a software that I love, that I actually recommended to Rachel, called CleanMyMac, where it'll go through and help you identify any duplicates, large files you haven't accessed during a while.
• 11:34
  Jessica: So you can clean that out.
• 11:35
  Jessica: Also resetting your project management tool.
• 11:38
  Jessica: Just looking at, how you're using it, where are the friction points, where can things be smoothing out.
• 11:43
  Jessica: What's in there that can be deleted and making sure that cleaning that guy out.
• 11:47
  Jessica: I love doing a tech audit.
• 11:48
  Jessica: I try to do these quarterly because I love to sign up for a software subscription, but going through your credit card statement and making sure that you are canceling any subscriptions that you're not using.
• 11:57
  Jessica: Maybe you're identifying where you're doubling up in some places or where you can consolidate tech.
• 12:02
  Jessica: That all usually requires a process to get rid of the old software and get everything migrated into the new.
• 12:08
  Jessica: But, the end of the year is a great way to do that.
• 12:10
  Jessica: And then making sure that you're cleaning up your client-facing documents.
• 12:13
  Jessica: So going through your contracts to make sure that those are updated for the next year.
• 12:17
  Jessica: Going through invoices, proposals, kind of seeing if there's anything as far as the client experience side that you could clean up.
• 12:24
  Jessica: And then starting to document those SOPs or maybe identifying tasks that you would love to outsource in 2027 and start to build some documentation and processes around that, so when you're ready and the money's there, you can have
• 12:37
  Jessica: it all ready for them to go.
• 12:39
  Rachel: Yeah, I think that one's a really fun one too, because in my brain, and I'm sure Jess will laugh as soon as I say this, in my brain you just move into the next year.
• 12:47
  Rachel: But now that you say all that out loud, I'm like, "No, there's a lot of things that you can refine," right?
• 12:51
  Rachel: Like templates that make your life easier inside of your project management tool.
• 12:56
  Rachel: There's a lot of structures, and if you run things based off of a campaign structure or a type of project structure, it's so much easier to just clean all that up.
• 13:04
  Rachel: But my brain's like, "No, you just, December 31st turns to January and you move forward."
• 13:10
  Jessica: Yeah, no.
• 13:10
  Jessica: One of these things from a micro level too, I've been doing it recently, so this is why I wanna share it here.
• 13:15
  Jessica: I feel like it's fits here.
• 13:16
  Jessica: At the end of the week, I've been reviewing the goals I set for myself that week.
• 13:21
  Jessica: For example, my, one of my goals is walk my dogs every morning.
• 13:24
  Jessica: Looking at the past week, I did three out of five mornings.
• 13:28
  Jessica: The mornings that I didn't do it, why was it?
• 13:30
  Jessica: There was a friction point.
• 13:31
  Jessica: And usually it's something silly, like I couldn't find socks to wear, or maybe I stayed up too late the night before.
• 13:38
  Jessica: So then that informs next week, what is a system that I can put in place to make it easier for me to find socks?
• 13:44
  Jessica: This is how my ADHD work.
• 13:46
  Jessica: So this weekend, I literally went to the dollar store, and I had identified that one of my friction points was just getting the clothes on that I need to go walk the dog.
• 13:54
  Jessica: So I went to the dollar store, and they have these seven divider accordion things.
• 13:58
  Jessica: So now I have all my leggings in one accordion, and then all my tops that go with that leggings, I can just pick it out, and then my socks are right there too.
• 14:07
  Jessica: So that hopefully I'm setting myself up for success better to this week to walk the dogs in the morning, and that's how you have to go through each different process or goal you're trying to achieve.
• 14:18
  Jessica: If I didn't do it, where were the friction points of why didn't, what can I do for future Jess to help make this easier for her?
• 14:25
  Rachel: That's super smart.
• 14:26
  Rachel: Okay, and then moving into something that I would say kind of falls in both tracks is that a reminder that rest is super strategic.
• 14:36
  Rachel: So just even if you have to, be cranking out stuff until end of November, remind yourself that rest is not something that you earn after you've made the sale.
• 14:47
  Rachel: It's almost directly involved with how you make the the sale.
• 14:52
  Rachel: So all of your revenue, all of your impact that you're making with your marketing comes louder with the rest that comes with it.
• 15:01
  Rachel: So just making sure that you don't go into January completely depleted and I'll give a little like woo-woo note, despite it not actually being a true reset.
• 15:11
  Rachel: We're still in the dead of winter in January.
• 15:13
  Rachel: Spring is truly that start of the new season kind of thing.
• 15:18
  Rachel: But you don't wanna show up exhausted into the new year, so take the time to rest where you can.
• 15:26
  Rachel: Really understand that it is going to help you in the long run
• 15:30
  Jessica: All right, so if this one hit home, make sure you send it to a business bestie.
• 15:34
  Jessica: You know, the one that thinks she might wanna run a Black Friday sale this year.
• 15:38
  Jessica: Just remind her that she would rather spend Turkey Day eating turkey with her family and not stressing out if automation's triggered right.
• 15:45
  Jessica: So make sure you send this to her.
• 15:47
  Jessica: And we wanna hear from you, which kind of track are you on or what play are you picking?
• 15:51
  Jessica: Let us know on Instagram or TikTok at Deeply Rooted Business.
• 15:56
  Jessica: And if you want some help, planning out 2027, we know it's only August, but I guarantee you it is going to fly by.
• 16:04
  Jessica: We have a Rooted in Reality business planner, which is pretty comprehensive.
• 16:08
  Jessica: It would be actually amazing if you could say October I'm gonna work through the assess, and then November I'm gonna work through the align.
• 16:16
  Jessica: And then December you can actually start putting your plans into action.
• 16:20
  Jessica: That way when January does come, if you want to hit that ground running, you can hit that ground running.
• 16:25
  Jessica: That feels good for me because I feel in January everybody's doing stuff and I'm like, "I feel so behind.
• 16:30
  Jessica: I feel so behind."
• 16:31
  Jessica: I feel like I'm gonna try to stick to the schedule for myself so that I am able to hit said ground running in January.
• 16:38
  Jessica: But until next week, we are rooting for you.