Success in business is determined by the way we look at money.

In this super powerful episode, we interviewed Monica Shah, founder of Revenue Breakthrough. She shares her inspiration behind motivating women to master their money. In this episode, Monica shares her 5 Steps to Make More Money in the next 12 to 18 months.

Listen to the Episode below:

In this episode, you'll hear about:

What better way to welcome the new year than with a power-packed episode on:

5 Steps to Make More Money in the next 12 to 18 months
Priming the Perfect Money Mindset
Goal-Setting Strategies that Works
90-day Revenue Generating Activities

If you're planning your business for the new year, this episode is a must-listen! Tune in now to get the best of Monica's sharing on money!

Links Mentioned:

+ FULL TRANSCRIPT

INTRO:

Welcome to Fempreneur Secrets Podcast where business secrets are revealed. My name is Huda and I'm the founder of Fempreneur Secrets, an online community for women to start and grow their business. I created this podcast to inspire women from all walks of life to get started in business. They're all meant to be step-by-step so you can take quick action into your life and business today. Let's get started with today's episode.

Huda: Right now today we have with us Monica Shah and she is a seven figure business coach who helps entrepreneurs build businesses that support their ideal lifestyles. So thank you so much Monica for being on the show.

Monica: I'm so excited to be here.

Huda: I'm so excited to have you. You're so inspirational.

Monica: Yeah, I love talking about money. So it's very exciting and fun.

Huda: So today Monica wants to talk about how to make more money in the next 12 to 18 months. And I think that's a really good tip for us to know all the woman entrepreneurs out there. You really need to know how to make money fast. And I think 12 to 18 months is a good gauge of making money. So maybe you can share with me how you got started to teach people on making more money.

Monica: When I first started, I had just started my MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and then I went and I worked for L'Oreal Paris as a brand manager. And I thought that I was hot, right? Like I thought I knew what I was doing, I had the letters behind my name. I have a great company and I was so excited.

Monica: And within 12 months of being in business, I was $25,000 in debt. It was crazy. I was upset. I was worried about where this was all going to come from. And I got to the point where I started doing anything I could to make money. So I started selling things on eBay. I started renting my apartment out. I started walking dogs and cat sitting and all kinds of craziness. I was just a mess. I was tired. I was ready to go home.

Monica: So I got on the subway and I got off the subway. For those of you that are from New York, it was a 63rd street, Q subway stop. I got off, I had three bags on this arm, three bags on this arm, a roller bag across my chest and then a bag across my chest and then I was carrying a roller bag. One of those roller bags with a handle.

Monica: And I started walking up the subway stairs. And as I was walking up the stairs, New Yorkers are like rushing by me and they're knocking bags off me and I'm getting more and more tired with every step because New Yorkers are the nicest people on the planet. And I can say that because I'm from New York.

Monica: And I got to the top of the staircase and I just took a deep breath. I looked to the left and the escalator was closed. And I had picked this stop because there was an escalator there. And I looked to the right and the elevator was closed. And I looked in front of me and there were three more flights of stairs to get to street level.

Monica: At that particular moment I just, I got really quiet, I got really desperate, and I got really sad. And I could feel the tears start to come down my face. And I put my bags on the floor of the subway. And then I did the unthinkable, which is that I sat down on the New York subway floor.

Monica: You know you've hit rock bottom if you sit down on a New York subway floor. And I finally got to the point where I said, "If I don't figure out how to make consistent, sustainable money in my business, I'm not going to do this business anymore. I can't do it anymore." I had watched the debt amount to more than $25,000. And it wasn't so much the debt that scared me because I think that is a tool for entrepreneurs. I don't think it needs to be scary as much as the fact that I didn't know how to pay it off.

Monica: I started to really make myself rules for what I needed to do next. And one of those rules was you've got 12 months to figure it out and if you don't figure it out, you're going to go back and get a job. So I did everything I could to figure it out. I hired business coaches, I hired marketing experts. I really moved forward as quickly as I possibly could. I realised that there were five steps to make money and I'll share these five steps with you guys today.

Monica: And what was interesting is that when I figured out the five steps, within 12 months I had paid off the $25,000 in the bank. And within another 12 months I had put, started saving. I'd put about $8,000 in the bank the next year. And then every year since then, I doubled or tripled my revenue, which led to me crossing seven figures in 2013. And I really attribute the fact that these five steps not only to me making that money and being able to sustain it, but now I literally have thousands of women in my tribe who are also making money.

Huda: I think it's really interesting about how you created an ultimatum for yourself at that point in time where you were stranded on that subway floor and you told yourself that 12 months down the road, I've got to make it. If not, then there's no point in me doing what I'm doing.

Monica: Yeah.

Huda: And I think a lot of women entrepreneurs forget to do the ultimate team and that's really important. So maybe you can share with me a little bit more about what you think is, why is it important to never say no when it comes to spending money?

Monica: Why it's important to never say no is that money all starts with the mindset of how you're looking at it. The first step that I really got is that most of us have issues with money. We just are not paying attention to it, and we have a lot of like... We have a relationship with money that needs work. What are the voices in your head saying about money? And I call that the money voice exercise. Getting really clear about what are they saying about money? Where do those voices come from? And then changing those voices and inputting new voices for yourself.

Monica: One of the new voices that I want you to instal right now is never say the words I can't afford it and instead say the words, how am I going to generate the money to buy it? The second step of is to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Monica: And what I mean by revenue-generating activities are things that are actually going to generate money in your business. And so then what they are not are things like editing your website, creating your free gifts, working on your sequences. Those are all really awesome things to get done, but they're not actually going to put money in your bank account. The only thing that puts money in your bank account as a sales conversation.

Monica: And then step three is track your numbers. Things like tracking revenue, tracking your conversion rates, tracking what's working in your marketing and what's not working in your marketing. And what you want to do is look at your numbers consistently so that you know what's working and not working in your business. And it'll allow you to spend time on the things that are most important.

Monica: And then the fourth step is to actually follow a dynamic plan and really being consistent with following your strategic plan. Step five is to rinse and repeat. And when I say rinse and repeat, I really mean attain mastery around that which you're doing and focus in on one business at a time.

Huda: Your five steps is really helpful.

Monica: I teach my clients, when I work with them privately, I teach them how to plan 60 days out, how to plan 90 days out, how to plan out their years. Now the reason for this is that everything that you're doing, I call it the 60 day rule. Everything that you're doing right now is probably not going to sprout or grow until 60 days from now.

Monica: So, if you haven't been doing something, like if you're experiencing a drought in your revenue, it's generally because 60 days ago you weren't doing enough to generate more revenue.

Huda: When you do 60 day planning, does it mean to focus only on one thing that is like the most focus during that 60 days or to go beyond?

Monica: So every 90 days, and most of us work on the quarters, but you can really start this at any time. You should have three major goals. The first goal I like to say is a revenue goal. So how much money are you going to generate in the next 90 days?

Monica: The second two goals could be project goals, so they could be things that you're trying to get done, like redo your website or hire someone or whatnot. Sometimes I like to separate out as the second goal, a programme or a client goal. And some people say, "Well, okay, my first goal is to generate $20,000 then getting five clients is a part of generating that $20,000."

Monica: And that's great. You could totally do it that way. Some people like to see it as a separate goal as like generate 20,000 is the first goal. The second goal is get five clients and the third goal is work on a particular project. So, during those 60 days you're focusing in on activities that generate sales conversations and then sales conversations themselves.

Huda: This is really interesting. This is something completely new to me. So I think if I can benefit from you, I'm sure the woman listening on Fempreneur Secrets podcast will totally benefit from it as well. So I have a very interesting question for you. It's about success. What is the definition of success to you?

Monica: One of the things that people always say is I want financial freedom. And from most people, that means having an unlimited amount of money and not ever having to worry about money again. But here's what's interesting, money is an energy just like everything else, it'll come and it'll go.

Monica: I know so many people who have reached that million dollar capacity and then gone bankrupt. That's not my definition of success or my definition of financial freedom. My definition of success and financial freedom is that no matter how much money I make and no matter what happens, then no matter how much money I lose or whatever happens to that money, I'm always going to be able to make it again. I never have to worry about being at the whim of my environment or the whim of the market or the whim of a particular individual or person because I know how to generate money. And that is the definition of success is never having to worry.

Huda: That is so powerful. Share with me like if anyone listening on Fempreneur Secrets podcast would like to work with you, how can they get in touch with you?

Monica: Awesome. The first place to start with me is to go pick up the moneymaking marketing calendar. It's a really beautiful checklist of all the revenue generating activities you need to be doing and then when you need to be doing them, how you need to be doing them. And it gives you a blind sheet for you to fill out on your own.

Monica: You can get that at revenuebreakthrough.com/marketing calendar. I have a Facebook group where I put two videos a week. And one on Mondays I do money healing videos to help you heal your money stories. And on Wednesdays I do the make more money series, which is a video on how to make more money. And you can join me there at revenuebreakthrough.com/fbgroup.

Monica: And then if you want to reach out to me directly to have a conversation about helping you with your business or about coaching, just email us at support@revenuebreakthrough.com. Please join us in our Facebook group because we've got thousands of members in there. They're all women who are really determined to grow their businesses.

Monica: So it's got a very committed vibe to it, which I know a lot of women feel very lonely because they don't have that level of commitment and accountability. But then there's also some lovingness and a spirituality to it all as well. So yeah.

Huda: Thank you Monica for being here and sharing with us a lot of your tips on how to make money in the next 12 to 18 months. And I really hope that you've enjoyed your time here, speaking to our woman entrepreneurs.

Monica: I have. It's been amazing thing. Thank you.

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