You're Booked. But Are You Profitable?
I just wrapped a conversation (video below) with Michelle Jacobik, entrepreneur, business strategist, and author of The Path to Profits, about how speakers can turn speaking opportunities into a profitable business without sacrificing the life they actually want to build.
Michelle has spent 37 years as an entrepreneur and grew her property insurance business from $600,000 to $12 million in annual revenue. Today, she helps entrepreneurs understand their finances, build sustainable business models, and create a clearer path to profitability. In this conversation, she shares why being booked and generating impressive revenue doesn't always mean you're making money, and how speakers can start looking at the numbers behind their speaking business.
If you've ever wondered whether your speaking fees are actually worth the time and expenses involved, how much revenue your business really needs to generate, or how to build a speaking career that supports the lifestyle you want, this is the conversation!
In this video you’ll learn:
* Why getting booked and getting profitable are two very different things, and how visibility can open doors to speaking opportunities while a solid business strategy determines whether those opportunities actually make financial sense.
* How to define what success really looks like before setting business goals, and why you need to start with the life you want to create rather than immediately focusing on revenue, speaking engagements, or business growth.
* How to use Michelle's three pillars of the Path to Profits framework: Vision, Flow, and Grow, and why understanding your vision, getting clear on your finances, and using that information to guide your growth should happen in that order.
* Why a $10,000 speaking engagement isn't necessarily worth $10,000, and how travel, lodging, production, marketing, preparation, and follow-up expenses can significantly reduce what you actually keep from a speaking gig.
* How to calculate the real revenue your business needs to generate, by looking at your personal lifestyle expenses, business overhead, and taxes instead of choosing an arbitrary revenue target. Michelle explains why this becomes your financial floor, the minimum amount your business needs to bring in to support your life and operating costs.
* Why you should put a financial number next to the life goals you're working toward, and how pricing out the experiences, travel, family time, and lifestyle you want helps you understand what your business actually needs to earn.
* Why you shouldn't build your speaking business around someone else's version of success, and how Michelle's own experience chasing a $500,000 speaking revenue goal led her to realize that a different business model could generate the same income with fewer speaking engagements.
* How to evaluate whether your speaking opportunities are leading to the right business results, by looking beyond the number of stages you get on and understanding how your workshops, partnerships, referrals, and client conversions contribute to revenue.
* Why financial avoidance can keep entrepreneurs from making better business decisions, and how looking at your numbers without guilt or shame allows you to understand what's happening, track revenue and profit, and make more intentional choices about your business.
* Why building a profitable business should also mean building a life you enjoy, and how aligning your financial goals with your personal values, relationships, family, community, and time for fun can help you grow without losing sight of what matters most.
