206: Are You Busy or Profitable? How to Tell the Difference
Have you ever found yourself excited about a new platform, collaboration opportunity, or marketing strategy only to realize weeks later that it didn't actually bring in any revenue? You're definitely not alone!
In this week's episode of the Creators MBA Podcast, I'm tackling the question that every business owner needs to ask themselves: Are the activities filling your calendar actually making you money, or are they just keeping you busy?
I'll be honest I recently caught myself getting swept up in some opportunities that, after closer examination, wouldn't have moved the needle in my business.
In this episode, I share:
My personal "Revenue Reality Check" framework for evaluating every opportunity that comes your way
The exact activities that consistently drive revenue in my business (and how to identify yours)
A practical method for saying "no" to opportunities that don't align with your revenue goals
How to run small experiments before committing to major initiatives
The critical questions to ask before diving into any new business activity
If you've ever felt overwhelmed by all the things you "should" be doing in your business, or if you're working hard but not seeing the financial results you want, this episode is for you.
Episode Highlights:
[00:03:00] The Revenue Reality Check: Three key questions to ask before diving into any new initiative to determine if it will actually generate revenue.
[00:04:00] Needle-moving activities: Destiny reveals her top revenue drivers - optimizing her email list and growing it through paid ads and strategic partnerships.
[00:07:00] The Opportunity Cost Framework: A practical method for evaluating every opportunity based on time investment, financial cost, energy required, and potential alternatives.
[00:10:00] How to identify your own needle-movers: Steps to analyze your revenue sources and align your time allocation with activities that actually generate money.
[00:13:00] Saying no strategically: Why declining opportunities that don't directly serve your revenue goals is essential for business growth.
Getting Laser-Focused: How to Identify and Prioritize Activities That Actually Move the Needle in Your Business
In the world of digital entrepreneurship, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of new platforms, collaboration opportunities, and innovative marketing strategies. We've all been there – that moment when you discover a shiny new approach that feels like it could be the game-changer for your business. But how many of these exciting opportunities actually translate to revenue?
As a business owner myself, I've recently faced this exact dilemma. Today, I want to share my framework for cutting through the noise and identifying the activities that truly move the needle in your business. Because at the end of the day, business success isn't about doing more things – it's about doing the right things.
The Revenue Reality Check: A Framework for Decision-Making
Before diving headfirst into any new initiative, we need to pause and run what I call a "Revenue Reality Check." This simple yet powerful framework has saved me countless hours and resources by helping me evaluate opportunities through the lens of actual revenue potential.
Here are the three essential questions to ask:
Will this directly generate revenue? And if so, how much and how soon? Be brutally honest with yourself here. Many activities might feel productive but won't actually contribute to your bottom line.
Will it indirectly lead to revenue or reduce costs? Some initiatives have a less direct path to profitability. If that's the case, map out the specific conversion path and timeline.
Is the potential return worth the investment of time, energy, and resources? Even if there is potential revenue, you need to weigh that against what you're putting in.
Let me share a recent personal example. I was excited about launching my Newsletter Profit Club app on Product Hunt. After researching what a successful launch would require – assembling a launch team, recording podcast episodes for visibility, potentially running paid ads – I asked myself the million-dollar question: how much revenue would this actually generate? The honest answer was, "I don't know." That uncertainty was enough for me to put it on the back burner.
Similarly, after attending the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin, I considered hosting my own virtual summit featuring big names in the newsletter space. It sounded fun and potentially valuable, but when I analyzed the likely revenue outcome versus the effort required, the math didn't add up. So that idea went on the back burner too.
This doesn't mean you should only pursue activities with immediate financial returns. Some initiatives build long-term value. The key is being crystal clear about your expectations and realistic about the outcomes.
What Actually Moves the Needle: Identifying Your Revenue Drivers
After analyzing my own business, I've discovered that two primary activities consistently drive revenue for me:
Optimizing My Existing Email List
Nothing beats optimizing what already works. My email list is my moneymaker – almost all of my revenue comes from it. Activities that improve its performance include:
Refining my newsletter content to better engage subscribers
Creating effective flash sale emails that convert
Optimizing promotional sequences to get offers in front of new subscribers sooner
When I invest time in these areas, I see direct returns. The key insight here? If something is already working in your business, double down on it rather than constantly searching for new strategies.
Growing My Email List Strategically
The bigger the email list, the greater the potential for revenue. I've found that newer subscribers are often more likely to buy sooner, making list growth critically important. The channels that work best for me include:
Paid ads that introduce my brand to new audiences
Participating in summits (which I find more effective than bundles because they allow me to showcase my expertise through workshops and presentations)
Strategic newsletter advertising in publications that reach my ideal customers
Once someone joins my list, converting them to paid offers becomes the priority. Live trainings have been particularly effective, as have targeted email sequences with appealing bonuses.
The Opportunity Cost Framework: Evaluating Every Decision
Beyond the Revenue Reality Check, I use what I call the "Opportunity Cost Framework" to evaluate decisions. This helps me look beyond the potential benefits of any activity to consider what I might be giving up by pursuing it.
Here's how it works:
Time Investment: How many hours will this require? (Be honest and usually double your initial estimate!)
Financial Investment: What direct costs are involved?
Energy Investment: How much mental and emotional bandwidth will this consume?
The Alternative: What else could I be doing with these resources? For example, if I'm promoting someone else's summit to my email list, that's taking up promotional calendar space I could use for my own offers.
Revenue Projection: What's the realistic revenue expectation?
Timeline to Results: How long before I see returns?
This framework helps me make decisions that align with my revenue goals rather than just following what seems exciting in the moment.
Finding Your Own Needle-Movers: A Step-by-Step Approach
Ready to identify what truly moves the needle in your business? Here's my step-by-step approach:
1. Know Your Revenue Sources
Do a deep dive into your finances. Where exactly is your money coming from? The 80/20 rule often applies here – 80% of your revenue likely comes from 20% of your activities. Identifying those key 20% activities is crucial.
2. Analyze Your Time Allocation
Track how you spend your working hours for at least two weeks, then compare this with your revenue sources. Are you spending most of your time on activities that generate little to no revenue? If so, that's a red flag.
3. Run Small Experiments
Before committing to major initiatives, test their potential with smaller versions. For instance, instead of organizing a full newsletter summit, I might invite potential speakers to be guests on my podcast. This satisfies my interest in connecting with these experts while requiring substantially less investment.
4. Establish Clear Success Metrics
For every activity, define what success looks like in concrete terms. "Building brand awareness" is too vague, but "generating 500 new email subscribers with a 5% conversion rate to my product" is specific and measurable.
5. Schedule Regular Revenue Reviews
I recommend monthly revenue reviews, though quarterly at minimum. Look at where your money is coming from and double down on those areas. These reviews help you stay focused and make adjustments as needed.
The Art of Saying No: Protecting Your Most Valuable Resources
Perhaps the hardest part of staying focused is saying no to opportunities that don't align with your revenue goals. I'll be honest – I still find this challenging. I say no every single day, and it pains me every time.
I've had to decline podcast interviews, speaking engagements, and collaboration opportunities that wouldn't directly serve my revenue goals. It's never easy, but I've learned that every time I say yes to something that doesn't move my needle, I'm saying no to something that could.
Remember, your most precious resources as an entrepreneur are your time and attention. Being intentional about where you direct these resources is the difference between a business that thrives and one that merely survives.
Final Thoughts: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Getting laser-focused on what moves the needle isn't about working harder – it's about working smarter by directing your energy to what truly matters in your business.
I challenge you to take an honest look at your business activities. What is actually moving the needle for you, and what's just keeping you busy? The answers might surprise you, and they'll definitely transform your business.
Success isn't about doing more things. It's about doing the right things. So, what activities are moving the needle in your business? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Creators MBA podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks, constantly live launching.
or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today.
Hi there, Destini here. Today I want to talk about getting laser focused on activities that truly move the needle in your business. Maybe you see a new platform that has launched and you're maybe I should go check that out.
Or somebody contacts you to participate in their bundle and you're thinking, Okay. Maybe this is something I should do. Or you get inspired by somebody else's success story. And start thinking, Okay, maybe I should start
[00:01:00] doing this.
And I'm going to be totally transparent with you. I have been here recently, and I was super excited about launching the Newsletter Profit Club app on Product Hunt. And to be honest with you, I still am interested in doing that. But after I started really digging into this and, looking at people who have done this before, I was like, okay, I know what's required.
For it to be successful, to have a successful product hunt launch. I knew what was going to be required here. It would require me to do a launch team for my email list. I'd probably have to go out and do some podcast episodes to get some visibility there. I might even have to run some paid ads to get, visibility to the app and just to the launch in general. Very
[00:02:00] similar to what I had to do when I launched my book. Getting together that book launch team. Was a lot of work then I asked myself The million dollar question, how much revenue would this actually generate? The honest answer was, I don't know.
That uncertainty was enough for me to put it on the back burner. Another example. As some of you know, I recently attended the Newsletter Marketing Summit. It was a live event. I went down to Austin, Texas. It was a great event. I was really excited about it. And I came back and I thought, you know what?
It would be really cool for me to do my own virtual summit featuring some of those big names in the newsletter space. I would love to interview them. I'd probably learn a lot through the process, but again, how much money would it make? And the people I'd
[00:03:00] interview. Probably wouldn't share it with their audience.
So it wouldn't be a lead generator for me unless I ran ads to it. So I was like, you know what? I'm probably not going to make a lot of money. It's really just. To be fun on my part to do it. So I put it on the back burner. So here's the revenue Reality check and here's what I've learned every business decision You make needs to pass the revenue reality check So before diving in to any new initiative ask yourself.
Will this directly? generate revenue And if so, how much and how soon? Will it indirectly lead to revenue or reducing cost? What's that conversion path? What's the timeline there? And is the potential return worth the investment of time, energy,
[00:04:00] and resources? This doesn't mean that you should only pursue activities with immediate financial returns.
We know that some things out there are going to build long term value, but you need to be crystal clear about your expectations and realistic about these outcomes. Let's talk about what actually moves the needle in my business and what I have decided to focus on. For me, the revenue drivers are very clear.
The first is my email list. Nothing beats optimizing what already works. If you have something that's working in your business double down on it. For me, my email list is my moneymaker. It's where Almost all of my revenue come from, comes from. So anything that I can do to move the needle there
[00:05:00] is going to pay off this might be refining my newsletters, creating effective flash sale emails, and optimizing promotional sequences. When somebody gets onto my email list, getting my offers in front of them sooner and more often.
When I invest time here I definitely see direct returns. The other place is growing my email list. The bigger the email list, the bigger potential for revenue. And I will say that the newer people coming on to my email list, I have found that they are more likely to buy sooner.
So the email list growth is very important and Converting them or putting offers in front of them sooner has definitely worked for me. So a couple of areas that has been working for me are paid ads. So getting people
[00:06:00] who may not have known about me getting the visibility and getting them on my email list and getting my offers in front of them definitely has worked.
Participating in summits is still working for me. Actually like summits more so than bundles because I feel like the leads I'm getting. From a summit are more likely to convert when I'm in a summit, I'm doing a workshop, some type of training, some type of presentation.
So they're seeing that they're getting to know me better. And when they sign up for my email list they have that connection the other thing that has been working. Not as much as Facebook ads, but it's definitely been working is strategic newsletter advertising and people who have an email list that has my ideal customer on it.
Now, once somebody joins my email list, converting them to my paid
[00:07:00] offers is critical. So, I'm going to put more emphasis on this going forward in 2025. Live trainings outperform almost everything else that I'm doing. But, I don't necessarily need them for somebody to convert into my
main offer. Getting targeted email sequences with bonuses that appeal to my ideal customer are definitely helping also direct response ads can work too. Somebody sees my ad. And almost immediately signs up for one of my offers. That's definitely something I'm going to be focusing on.
And I know that all of that is going to convert into revenue very, very quickly. So when evaluating all the opportunities that come across my desk I use what I call this
[00:08:00] Opportunity cost framework. So the first question I asked myself, what is the time investment?
How many hours were this required? Because a lot of events, maybe somebody contacts me for a summit, and depending on what they're asking, I'm going to have to invest some time in that, especially if it's creating a new presentation or if they're asking for something, special so I always have to kind of think about how many hours will this require me?
Also, the financial investment, you know, what is the direct cost? To participate in something like this, and then the energy investment, how much mental and emotional bandwidth will this require of me? The alternative, what else could I be doing with these resources? If I invest into something, maybe if I, invest into speaking at this event or participating
[00:09:00] in this event, What else could I be doing?
When you're participating in a bundle or summit, there's going to be things that you have to do, which is promoting to your MLS. So that's taking up valuable real estate in your promotional calendar. Should you want to promote that or would you rather be promoting one of your own offers?
So that's what I always ask myself. And then the revenue projection. What is the realistic revenue expectation coming out of that particular activity and then the timelines to results. So how long before I see returns from this investment? And I think that's very important too.
If it's going to take a year for you to actually see returns from that, it might not be worth your time. This opportunity cost framework helps me make decisions that align with my revenue goals rather than just following what Seems
[00:10:00] exciting or something I would love to do, but I don't necessarily have time to do like the newsletter virtual summit.
I would love to do something like that. But I just don't know that I'm actually going to get revenue from it. So let's talk about some steps to find what I call these needle movers in your business. So here's what you can identify what truly moves the needle in your business. Number one, you need to know your revenue sources.
Do a deep dive into your finances. Where exactly is your money coming from? A lot of times, the 80 20 rule is going to apply here, meaning 80 percent of your revenue comes from 20 percent of your activities. And then I want you to analyze your time allocation. So track how you spend your working hours.
For at least two weeks
[00:11:00] and then I want you to compare this with your revenue sources Are you spending most of your time on activities that generate little to no? Revenue then that's something you might want to address And then run some small experiments.
So before committing to major initiatives, run a small test to really figure out their potential can you do a mini version of that summit? I was thinking about, with that newsletter marketing summit, maybe what I do is just ask some of them to be On my Creators MBA podcast.
That might be, a way to get my itch out of there. That might be a way to learn a little bit more. It would benefit my audience. And that would be a way to test and see
the next thing you would want to do before committing to a major initiative is run a small experience. So
[00:12:00] going back to my example with that newsletter virtual summit that I was talking about earlier, maybe what I could do there would be just to invite some of them to be on my Creators MBA podcast.
That way I could. Bring them on, learn a little bit more. It would be valuable for my audience. So I'd have that content too. And that would be a way for me to do those interviews without doing a full blown virtual summit and then really establish some clear success metrics. So for every activity, for every marketing campaign that you work on to find what success.
looks like. For example, for me, let's say that I am doing a live kind of webinar or live training. One way to define success there would be, I want to get
[00:13:00] 30 new members from this training. Building brand awareness is just too vague, right? But if you want to go a little bit deeper, generating 500 new email subscribers.
With a 5 percent conversion rate to my product. or sign up for my membership. That is specific and it's measurable. The other thing you can do is schedule regular revenue reviews. I like to do these monthly, definitely do them at least quarterly, but look monthly if you can and figure out, okay, this is moving the needle for me.
This is where my revenue's coming from and that's where you can double down and put more of your effort in that area. I feel your pain. It's hard to say no. I say no every single day and it pains me every time but that's. Something we have to do.
[00:14:00] Remember that every time you say yes to something that doesn't move your needle, you are saying no to something that could.
I have had to decline podcast interviews. speaking engagements, collaboration opportunities that wouldn't necessarily directly serve my revenue goals. It is not easy, but I had to stay laser focused on my plan and what I needed to focus on. So here's some of my final thoughts .
Getting laser focused On what moves the needle isn't about working harder. It is about working smarter. You're directing your energy to what truly matters in your business. It's also about being intentional with your most precious resources, which are your time and
[00:15:00] attention. I want to challenge you to take an honest look.
At your business activities, what is actually moving the needle for you or what's just keeping you busy? The answers might surprise you and they're definitely going to transform your business. And I just want you to know that success isn't about doing more things. It's about doing. the right things. So what activities are moving the needle in your business?
If you found this valuable, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur who might need this reminder until next time. Bye for now.
Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.