Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!
If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.
This is the series description:
You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.
Interview with Jeff Proctor from DollarSprout
It was my pleasure interviewing Jeff Proctor of DollarSprout, a popular personal finance blog that gets more than a million monthly visitors, primarily from SEO.
Check out what Jeff had to say to my questions!
1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?
The main reason I wanted to start my own online business is actually similar to a lot of other entrepreneurs: I didn’t like my 9 to 5.
I didn’t like not being able to call the shots, and I hated feeling like a means to an end for someone else’s business.
I wanted something more for myself.
2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?
It took a lot longer for us to earn revenue than most people.
In fact, we barely made any money at all during our first year in business!
We had our first $1,000 month 19 months after filing for our LLC (February 2015). Here’s what our progress looks like so far:
I would say January 2017 was the first time I remember feeling like this business model could actually work. We made over $7,000 that month, which was several times more than we had earned in any preceding month.
That being said, I’ve always done a pretty good job of staying level-headed during both the bad times and the good times. I try not to get too confident when things are going well and learned to not get too down on myself when things aren’t going well.
3. At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?
I’m still not quite there yet, but I’m satisfied with the work that I’m doing.
My source of satisfaction and happiness doesn’t come from any particular income level, but instead from the simple act of making progress.
As long as we continue to improve what we do—and those improvements are reflected in our KPIs (key performance indicators)—I’m happy.
Creating an online business has given me much more freedom than I would have otherwise had in the corporate world, which I am immensely grateful for.
So, in that sense, I was living the life I wanted to starting on the very first day I left my job 🙂
4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?
I always tell beginning bloggers and online business owners that you should only begin outsourcing once you have established a baseline competency level in the skills that you are outsourcing.
I think that starting off by outsourcing your weaknesses, at least in the early days of your business, is a mistake.
Here’s how I think you should instead think about outsourcing:
In the early days of running your own online business, there really isn’t a shortcut around knowing how to do everything in your business (and do it well). You need to fill in your skill gaps.
5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?
If your product/content is good, I believe you should view it as your moral obligation to get as many eyes on it as possible.
If people’s lives can be better because of what you are creating, you should use every means necessary to get it in front of them.
The reality is that paid advertising is one of the best ways to do that. If you choose to reduce the exposure of your products or content, you are choosing to not fulfill your potential impact on others, which is not good in my book.
6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?
I think most people are blissfully unaware of how much work goes into this.
And, not just the work that makes you feel like you are busy and productive, but the work that actually drives you towards your business goals.
I think people, in the beginning, put too much value on things that aren’t moving the needle for them. Things like Twitter, Facebook groups, posting to your IG story about how hard you’re working, etc.
Most people go to desperate measures to avoid doing the actual work.
7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?
We’ve certainly niched down, but not the extent that many experts recommend.
As of right now, we have 4 clearly established verticals within our blog (all under the umbrella of “personal finance”), and very rarely create content that deviates from those verticals.
8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?
I think our biggest strength so far has been the ability to constantly audit what’s working and what isn’t, and then making adjustments in strategy based on those assessments.
I’d like to think we have a good sense of when “doing more” is the solution vs. when “doing something different” is the solution.
Usually, when we’ve experienced roadblocks, we’ve been able to tell that the latter is the solution, not the former. I think it’s an easy distinction for many people to get wrong.
As far as reaching our next monetization goals ($2.5 million in revenue in 2019), I do think keeping this mindset will be very important.
Now that we have honed in on certain strategies that work well for us, it’s all about adding fuel to the fire. But if things don’t go according to plan, we need to maintain the ability to quickly shift course.
9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?
As we’ve grown to a team of roughly 15 people (3 employees (including me and Ben) and about a dozen contractors), we’ve begun using Asana to manage our editorial calendar and other important workflows.
We didn’t start using it until recently, but it’s been a tremendous help. I learned how to do it by taking a $25 course on Asana—you don’t need to spend a fortune on online courses!
As mentioned earlier, creating processes for new employees/contractors can help smoothly transfer over your knowledge to another person, which I’ve found is vital for scaling.
10. If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?
I would berate myself for being so naive and jumping into entrepreneurship full time with zero income coming in.
My gosh was that dumb!!
At the same time, I would rather have that reckless abandon instead of the alternative, which would be not being able to pull the trigger and go after my dreams.
And then I would tell myself to buckle up because the next 18+ months are going to suck until you figure out how this game works 🙂
About Jeff Proctor
My name is Jeff Proctor, I’m 29 years old, and I run the personal finance blog DollarSprout.com with my friend from college, Ben Huber. Our mission at DollarSprout is to bring some of the best personal finance experts and writers together to create content that helps people find new ways to make money, save money, and live healthier financial lives.
Conclusion
Thanks for participating in my series, Jeff!
As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.
Inspired by Jeff Proctor?
Now, it’s your turn!
I assembled the Scaling Blueprint to show you how to…
- Outsource Effectively
- Systemize Your Business
- Shatter Your Revenue Goals
After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.
Let me help you start scaling successfully.
Cheers to future success!
This is just what I have been looking for!
Glad you enjoy it, George!