This is a follow up story for Platypus Publishing. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 5 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

I’m Matt Rudnitsky, founder of Platypus Publishing – where I help turn aspiring authors into published, successful authors. My flagship product is The Punchy Books Accelerator (an online course), where I take people from vague ideas to finished product in about 90 days.

I made about $250k last year, and am looking to 10x that this year – by helping 2,500 authors write their books.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

My business has doubled since we last spoke, and I expect it to be 10x this year. I went from purely organic marketing to paid Facebook traffic, which took quite a bit of time to optimize, but now I’m off to the races.

Do things that don’t scale, but have a vision of how you’ll transition to something that does scale.

At first, I was selling a $27 mini-course and trying to get people on the phone for a $5,500 group coaching program. But I seemed to be attracting beginners, who understandably were unable to invest such a large sum. I was getting enough clients to hit about $10k/month in profit, but profits were inconsistent.

Last month, I switched to an evergreen webinar model, and a $997 self-guided course (more targeted at beginners). The results have been excellent. I am switching to evergreen this week, as the last two live webinars hit around a 300% ROAS.

I expect the show-up rate to double when we switch to an automated webinar, which means profits should increase significantly.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

The biggest mistake I made was outsourcing phone sales to an agency. I was told my representative was a “sales professional”, and maybe she was, but nobody can sell a personalized program using boilerplate scripts. High-ticket sales calls need to be personalized consultations, and that can only be conducted by someone who knows your business and customers inside and out.

My best decision was realizing that my prospects were mainly beginners, so dropping the price point significantly – while removing my personal coaching – but retaining most of the value, and switching from phone sales (hard to scale) to webinar sales (much easier).

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

This year: 10x the business, while keeping customer satisfaction and completion rate the same (or better).

Next 5 years: Sell the business for $5 million or more.

Have you read any good books in the last year?

This was a year of head down, less reading. I normally read 50 books a year … this year, I probably read five. And honestly, none stood out. It was a year of doing, which is healthy at times. But it’s time to read again.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

I have five tips:

1) Do things that don’t scale, but have a vision of how you’ll transition to something that does scale.

2) Stop doing things that don’t scale the second you’re making a comfortable living (have a specific number in mind).

3) Do 30-day experiments to set up a scalable funnel/system. If it doesn’t work after 30 days, try something wildly different.

4) Repeat until you have a repeatable, scalable system.

5) Then focus on removing yourself from the business.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

I’m not looking to hire anyone right now. If some magical COO were able to handle all of the operations (I hate operations), I’d be open to that. But they’d have to be super passionate about the business (helping people become authors), and be the absolute perfect fit. Serendipity is always welcome.

Where can we go to learn more?

Website (watch the webinar)

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!

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