230 - Becoming an Entrepreneur with Amy Porterfield
On today's episode of the podcast I sit down with online marketing educator, Amy Porterfield, to discuss her business - how it started, how it's going, her team, her finances, and more.
Before starting her business, Amy was in corporate and thought she would always be a corporate girl. She loved moving up the ladder, the accolades, bonuses and promotions. Working with Tony Robbins gave Amy the entrepreneurial bug and inspired her to give it a shot. Six and a half years into that job, Amy took the leap.
Her plan was to create online courses and teach people about digital marketing, however she hadn't saved up a lot of money to start her business and didn't know how to start an online course so she started by doing social media for clients and working one on one with people and hated the business she created.
Her first year in business on her own in 2010 she made a little over what she had made in corporate and thought it was all going well. In 2011, she made about $30,000 less than the year before after taking on too many clients and was maxed out and struggling to manage it all. She created a business she hated and let go of all her clients to create a course.
The first course was a "huge failure." Amy went into debt early on in her business and did not get her first bookkeeper until the end of 2011. One of the biggest mistakes she says she made was having the mindset about her finances that if I don't see it, it's going to be fine. She also found herself unprepared for tax season because she didn't know what estimated taxes were and hadn't put any money aside. Because of all this, Amy takes her finances very seriously now.
Near the end of 2011, Amy had her first successful course launch on her own and made $30,000 in that launch. Her first two attempts on her own she made $267 and a little bit more the second time around. To celebrate, Amy and her husband went on a staycation to a nice hotel.
It's important to Amy to celebrate hard work to break up projects before jumping into the next thing. Braden likes to set launch rewards to celebrate when hitting certain milestones.
Amy's first course was on Facebook ads. From there, she went on to become known for her education on creating courses after selling multiple successful courses on different topics. Her free content has always been about email list building.
As the business has grown, Amy's bookkeeping process has evolved to a process that is now dialed in, but that Amy says did not need to take as long as it did. Currently, Amy has a virtual CFO. The virtual CFO And his agency create a P&L that Amy reviews each month. Now that Amy is 13 years in she has a team made up of different departments and, beginning two years ago, each department develops their own budget for the year.
At first pass, each department submits their budget with everything they want and need. From there, the CFO takes all the budgets and all the revenue projections and comes back with revenue and profit margin information. Profit margin is a key metric that Amy has focused on for years. Her company is typically between 45 and 50% profit margin. If the calculated profit margin is less than 45% then the departments go back to look for where they can cut expenses or make more money.
In February 2023, Amy is launching a book, "Two Weeks Notice: How to Find the Courage to Quit Your Job and Start an Online Business," which she says may require a little wiggle room in going below the 45% profit margin as she promotes the book.
Get in Touch with Our Guest
Amy Porterfield
Listen to Amy's Podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy
Follow Amy on Instagram @amyporterfield
Stay tuned, coming in August, Amy will be doing her biggest annual promotion as she gears up for the launch of Digital Course Academy. Students of the Digital Course Academy who buy through Braden's affiliate link will receive special bonus resources.