November 2018 AutoGrowth Report
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- AutoGrowth Report November 2018
- Focus on building an email funnel that gives the audience a more personalized experience
- Takeaways from November Growth Report: Build a stronger foundation, stick to what works and optimize personal productivity system
Matt: Hey, everybody.
Mariana: Hi, guys. We're here with Matt from AutoGrow, and we're gonna talk about November.
Matt: This is the growth report for November 2018. And we thought we'd share some of the holiday spirit with you guys. We got all of our decorations up here for Christmas. Either you celebrate or not, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday season, and a Happy New Year. So I guess let's get into it.
Mariana: Yeah. Let's start talking about how was November.
Matt: November was a lot better than October. So October was one of the worst months in terms of revenue. We actually grow revenue by 260% from October to November, 2.6 times. And that's pretty much because in October, we were trying out a new funnel. We were trying to go really more niche, more focused on which is one product and it didn't work out. And I was stressing out like crazy because I just wanted it to work and I was doing everything that I could.
I mean, the last two months, three months, two and a half months, whatever it's been, it's been just really, really stressful for me, in general, and I'm glad to feel like we're finally getting beyond that now. And, you know, the growth is just another sign of the progress and I feel good about that.
We haven't been publishing new content because I decided in November as well that other than getting back to the original funnel and the products that were selling really well for us that it was time to revamp our whole survey funnel which is... it's what I call kind of the infinity gauntlet for building an email funnel that engages with people and just gives them a more personalized experience.
So what I've been doing for that, there's like six different buckets or needs that we put people into. We put them into one bucket versus another based on what they tell us the biggest need is. Like, "Oh, I need to grow my traffic," or, "My biggest need is understanding how do I build the sales funnel top to bottom?" Or, "How do I start a startup online whether you're selling services or products?"
So I've been coming up with these different video lessons typically between five to nine lessons, was the most recent one, talking about email list building. Already, they seem to like it. We have hundreds of people opting in to each individual bucket and that's helped to really reactivate revenue that was not previously in the funnel in terms of people just coming in, seeing these instructional videos. They're very personal. They're not scripted. And I just teach people in about 10 to 15 minutes or rather 5 to 10 minutes. Some videos are a little longer than others, how to get result, how to get one step further towards solving whatever they say their biggest problem or need is.
So that's going pretty well. It's going pretty well, and there's just two buckets left. We're currently about a little more than halfway through December at the time that this video is being recorded right now. My goal is to finish the remaining two this month.
Now, here's the traffic. I mean, everyone probably knows about traffic, right? So as I said, we haven't been publishing content because I've been focused on building the bottom part of our funnel much more in terms of just building the relationship with people in as personalized way as possible when they come in to our email list. So we haven't been publishing new content.
And we started off this year with a nice big kind of treasure chest of cash in the bank. And that was on purpose from the six-figure sales funnel that we built up in 2017. So it was that money that was in the bank that allowed me and the team and the company in general to just take this risk.
I think that in August and October, whether September and October, moving away from the core products was a mistake. Another mistake that I felt that we made this year rather that I should have just doubled down a lot sooner was just cutting costs. Because I was like, "Hey, we have this big pile of money in the bank and I expect that we're not gonna be profitable right away when we become a products business because we're basically a startup now."
But as that money has gone down... because we moved into profitable territory back in July and June. But then I stopped doing what was working. And again, part of that is because we were traveling. We were living in Columbia for six months. A big part of 2017, we're also traveling, and two, running the business. And that was a great experience. But coming back to New York, having to find a new place to live, there's been... I'll just tilt it down so that they can see you, okay?
You know, just finding a place to live, dealing with family problems and other personal stuff that I'm just not gonna get into, it's just been like hyper, hyper stressful. And it does remind me of when I started the company back in 2010 when we were completely bootstrapped and we just really had to grow sales. The heat was on. But I feel like I'm getting to a better place mentally with just kind of dealing with it, accepting it, and seeing the progress was really helpful, too. We'll see how this month of December goes, but I feel really, really good about the path that we're on.
Finishing these videos is gonna be really, I think, a game-changer for us. And I don't expect that December necessarily is gonna be another month of growth for us, unfortunately. But I think that's because we're just getting the pieces all organized and because I'm really not focused on traffic. So getting back to the original point, traffic for November went down by about 17%. And that happened for two reasons. Number one, the focus on the email funnel. Number two was that we moved to a brand new server finally, and we're working on getting into this new server for over five months.
And we finally made the move because this is a super scalable server. It's able to take a lot of traffic and it's gonna come in handy when we eventually launch our app in 2019 and we move beyond selling just info products but we pair that with tools to help you guys. So long story short... I lost my train of thought.
Long story short, traffic went down because the focus has gone elsewhere and it just hasn't been the focus in terms of putting out new content right now. We're just kind of laying a stronger foundation, and then in 2019, we're gonna pour some gasoline on an already burning fire and get to a 100,000 visitors and beyond.
Mariana: So you wanna say that if you follow a formula that has worked in the past, you're more likely to see the results?
Matt: Yeah. You just need to double down and do what is working. I've made this mistake when we were a service business, when we were an agency in the past. And it's just one of those things that sometimes, you have to relearn multiple times to really internalize it and get smart. Don't make huge massive changes to business that threaten something that's working well because you really need to ask yourself like it would be nice to only be selling one product because we can optimize the whole business around that and just having one really good product.
But on the other hand, if we stop selling these products, are we turning off that revenue or maybe just our audience... those are just the price points and the needs that they're comfortable with and the way that it's divided up because it's working. So always do what works and don't stray from that. And just build on top of it. Build on top of what works.
Mariana: What about the biggest wins and the mistakes and the lessons learned from this past month?
Matt: I think that the biggest win has just been establishing a good routine and just optimizing the schedule. So I feel like recording these videos and building that habit has been really helpful. Gym in the morning, I feel like I have more energy... just tilt it down a little bit... and getting a better sleep. So everything is just going in the right direction now. So I think just on a personal level which translates to the professional, just having a very consistent routine.
When I was a kid, I used to think that the idea of routine was something to rebel against. But as I've gotten older and I have these goals and this vision for where I want to take the company, routine is really how you get there. Routine is how you accomplish it because it's not just about the goal. The goal is the thing off in the distance that you're running towards but getting up and running five miles every day to get there is the system for getting there. So I think just having that personal system of productivity and optimizing it on a weekly basis is... and it's not perfect but it's gotten a lot better this past month.
Mariana: And what about next month? Are you planning something for next month? A different strategy? What's coming up?
Matt: You know, I'll do another quick recap for December once the numbers are finalized for that. As I mentioned, we're in December right now. But it looks like revenue will be down a little bit from November mostly because of the holidays and because we haven't been focused on content at all. But I think coming up in 2019, we're gonna really double down on content now that I feel that our funnel is a lot better.
I think another great win for November was launching a new homepage, a new articles page just to give us like more of a personal feel to the brand so there's like a picture of me in the homepage now. I think we took like 500 pictures just to get that one picture literally. We spent all day on it. That's pretty awesome picture. So that picture and those new pages are definitely going into… I think they make us look more established and credible which we are.
Mariana: Do you wanna share something else from this past month, maybe an important lesson learned, something that you wanna share with people that are watching this video?
Matt: Yeah. I was thinking about this in preparation for this video which is that we were in the car driving, driving back to the apartment here. And I was just thinking I'm doing it the hard way. I'm doing it the hard way in terms of the construction of our funnel. I'm building the survey funnel to meet the needs of a broader market segment. And I'm doing that because I know that the content strategy that I'm going to be pursuing is gonna bring in a broad array of traffic as our current content already does.
We have people coming in for lead generation, for client leads. We have people who are in the startup realm who are coming in for that. We have people who just wanna build an email list and want strategies for that, people who want to build a sales funnel. They wanna understand what that is. So there are all these different needs, people at all different points of the journey in their business. And so the survey funnel is like the little robot Matt if you will that's designed to engage with them and give them a solution or at least get them a few steps towards the complete solution to their problem.
It's a lot of work. I think by the time this is done, it's gonna be like 70 different videos, which takes a lot of time to prepare for. So anyway, long story short, why is this relevant to you? I'm doing it the hard way. I recommend to our students and to our clients, choose a niche and... you know, the rich is in the niche. That's a cliché saying for a reason. I'm doing it the hard way because I have a certain vision that we're going after, like I wanna build a legacy. I wanna build a big business and all this and I know what's coming next in terms of our strategy. So don't do it the hard way like what I'm doing. It's pretty tiring.
The only reason I'm able to even do it this way is because I'm 100% focused on selling our info products right now. We are not an agency and I made that decision back at the end of 2017 for this reason because I knew that this is just a whole another level that we're getting into. So 2018 is coming to a close and in the next growth report, I guess we'll wrap up with some more broad arches of what was learned and what was accomplished and revenue and all that good stuff.
Mariana: Do you wanna stay something else? Do you wanna add something else?
Matt: You always ask me this, baby. Because it makes me think like, "What am I forgetting that I wanna add that I'm gonna think of later that I should've added?" Let's see.
Mariana: It's just a little moment for you to see if you left something out or...
Matt: Right. So the other thing that I wanted to say was about the construction of our funnel and doing it the hard way. So something else that I started in December which I'll talk more about in the next growth report is the fact that in addition to having these unique buckets, what I found is that many people know us and come into our funnel and buy from us because we have sales funnel-related things and that's our bread and butter. We have the Sales Funnel Diagram Pack. We have the Sales Funnel Blueprint. Every three months, we open up the doors for the Six-Figure Sales Funnel which is the more advanced, more comprehensive training. The Sales Funnel Blueprint is better for startups and beginners.
So what we're going to be working on since we have these different buckets and I'm making the experience so personalized is we're going to come out with personalized products to those individual needs that are not or may not be as directly met as they are currently met by the existing products that we have. So once these videos are finished, we're gonna start launching new products and that's very exciting because we have it all planned out, and they're gonna be awesome.
Mariana: Good. Thank you, Matt.
Matt: Do you have anything you'd like to add, Mariana?
Mariana: No.
Matt: All right.
Mariana: Just Merry Christmas.
Matt: Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy Holidays. Keep hustling, stay focused. I'll see you in the next growth report. Take care.
Mariana: Bye.
Matt: See you in 2019.
