Want to Grow Your Business by 620%? Here’s AutoGrow’s Journey Through 2019 and How We Made that Possible
“There’s no such thing as motivating people. Just motivated people.”
That’s the answer Matt, the founder of AutoGrow gave me when I asked him "How do you keep the team motivated?"
2019 was a critical year for the company. We went from making $5,400 in January to generating over $30,000 in December.
That’s right!
Moving the company from selling info products to launching a Done-For-You Sales Funnel Service powered by a full-stack marketing team was a challenge. We faced it and overcame some obstacles.
In this Growth Report, I’ll share with you how we did it. And I’ll reveal the lessons learned, wins, painful mistakes, and secrets from growing revenue by 620% in only 7 months.
So if you’re looking to grow your company in 2020, this article may inspire you to achieve that and more!
Now let’s review December’s growth and do a quick recap of 2019.
2019’s Recap
We ended 2019 by crossing the $30,000 mark. That means we’ve grown revenue 620% in the last 7 months and 14% growth from November. And the satisfaction that this achievement brought to the team has made us look back on the last year with different eyes.
We wanted to get to 23 clients by the end of 2019 but we got to 22. But that’s alright, because we almost got there. We actually had 23 clients but we had to pause one account due to payment issues. Plus, we’ve been pretty busy with 22 clients anyway.
So 2020’s goal is to 10X the business. We’ll be earning 10 times higher revenue than at the end of 2019. That means we’re planning to make $300,000 monthly for December 2020.
2019 was a critical year for AutoGrow and of course, for the whole team.
We faced a lot of challenges as a team, and obviously, as a company.
In the first two quarters of 2019, AutoGrow’s revenue was based on our info products.
Some months were good, and some others weren’t that great. The uncertainty of not having a recurring revenue each month made the first half of 2019 a bit cumbersome.
Although all of our training programs like the 6-Figure Sales Funnel, the Sales Funnel Diagram Pack, the Sales Funnel Blueprint, and our Proven Sales Conversion Pack were in high demand, we couldn’t predict how many of the products were going to be sold each month. And that made it impossible to know how much money the company would make the next month. Oh, not to mention the “Productized and RELAX” ebook & audiobook that Matt wrote on how to productize your business and exit the client roller coaster that sold a lot of copies!
Luckily, Matt, AutoGrow’s founder, decided to row the boat in a different direction. In May, he moved the business from being a productized agency to a Done-For-You Sales Funnel Service powered by a full-stack marketing team. And since then, we’ve kept building a scalable service to help busy business owners like you plan, create, and optimize your sales funnels on an ongoing basis. All without clients lifting a finger.
That’s right! Sounds pretty great, huh?
We’ve actually already seen one of our clients’ landing pages converting at a rate of 86%. This client is in the coaching business and we’ll probably be test niching and targeting coaches next month. This is because most of our clients are in that niche. And frankly, we’ve gotten pretty dang good at building these types of funnels.
We went from making $21,697 in info products in the first two quarters of 2019 to making more than $125,000 with our Done-For-You service.
We also went from a team of 2 (Matt and Belle) to 11 awesome team members all around the world—The Philippines, Australia, Ukraine, Latin America, and U.S.
Our full-stack marketing team has:
- Copywriters
- Ads Managers
- Project Managers
- Quality Assurance Specialists
- Web Developers
- Designers
And we’re still looking to fill the Funnel Strategist position. So, if you’re interested, just reach out to us and see if you’re a fit for the role!
I’ve told you in the past Growth Reports how hiring has been a bottleneck for us. But we’ve overcome those issues by hiring the right people. And we’re looking to keep growing the team as part of our 2020 goal.
System, Sales, & Software
There are 3 major areas we need to focus more on in 2020. System, sales, and software.
We’ve been working on those but we need to keep putting some extra effort towards that.
For instance, you know we’ve already launched the AutoGrow app.
We use it internally on a daily basis and it has helped us save tons of time. Because since we’re a virtual team, our office is Skype. And since we incorporated the app to our workflow, communication through Skype has been reduced.
If you’re looking to sign up for one of our monthly packages, you’ve got to try our app.
You know how our team does all the work for you, right? So, all we need to do is press a button and see the tasks we need to complete for our clients. We press another button and we submit those tasks as completed. It’s much quicker than assigning and accepting tasks through Skype.
And it also gives our clients greater transparency since they can see the progress of the work in real-time.
This gives our clients peace of mind because they can see what’s done and what isn’t.
The AutoGrow app keeps clients up to date. And we’ve also earned a great testimonial from a client who tried the app…
"The app seems to provide very good visibility into where we are. What’s being done now. ... That google docs visibility you currently have is pretty good but I’ve voiced some frustrations with it. Not always clear what’s done and what’s not done. The app seems like a simpler/cleaner approach. " - Brian Maiolo, Founder of Hardnut Advertising
So, if you’re a busy business owner, or an entrepreneur trying to grow his business or are looking for a landing page created from scratch, you just have to click a button.
Want to create a lead magnet? Click a button.
Need an email copy? Click a button.
Ad campaign? Click a button.
Need to record a demo video? We’ll write the script for you.
All that and more, our app will do for you.
Our software has saved the team, clients, and Matt an ocean of time. And that has given Matt some more free time to work on other areas of the company like finishing coding and polishing the AutoGrow app.
And while the team has grown and become less dependent on Matt, he’s been taking care of the sales process in the last month.
And with the weekly LIVE demo webinars that Matt’s been hosting every Wednesday at 11 am EST, sales have been easier. Because a lot of people have been attending the webinars and signing up for our Done-For-You service without getting on a consultation call. They just attend the webinars or watch the demo video on our website and sign up.
So, in case you want to know more about our service, check out AutoGrow’s LIVE Video Demo Webinars and...
- Understand how a sales funnel can automatically create leads for your business without you having to lift a finger.
- See what AutoGrow does differently from the competition to make building your funnel a snap.
- And find out who’s a good fit for our Done-For-You Service or on-demand packages.
And while sales got smoother, our traffic has also grown. We actually hit 44,000 visits in December and 33,000 unique visits. And all this because we’ve been publishing content consistently twice a week.
Our system is like a flywheel. You push it and it continues to spin carried by its own momentum. And then it goes faster and faster. It requires effort at first, sure, but it keeps going and going.
We’ve come to think of AutoGrow like a 3-legged stool. And the 3 legs are: 1) developing and finalizing the app, 2) polishing our hiring funnel and recruiting the right people, and 3) improving our sales funnel to figure out how to 10X our revenue.
Conclusion
Focusing on one area of the business will help us grow and help us engineer our sales funnel to get to our 2020 goal: 10X our revenue and make $300,000 monthly by December 2020.
Certainly, getting the right people for the right roles will help us get there.
We’ll test going niche with coaches and see the results. We’ll also keep publishing content twice per week and keep growing traffic.
Plus, we’ll also continue to do the weekly LIVE demo webinars and keep getting clients to sign up for our service.
And all this while we enjoy the work because enjoyment is actually one of our company’s 3 core values =) ...
I think it’s pretty great how we’ve been consistently growing, yet I’m not ready to predict the future because it’s a tough business model to scale this fast. But certainly, we’re all looking forward to achieving all of our goals and one day work remotely from AutoGrow’s private island =)
So, until the next Growth report, let’s keep AutoGrowing and enjoying the ride.
Leave a comment below and let me know what was your best takeaway from 2020.
Keep funnelin’, stay focused.
Mariana
