From 2010 to 2022 I founded and ran The Healthy Mummy (I then went onto sell the business in March 2022).
That is 12 years of my life that I literally dedicated every day to building a brand and business.
I gave it my everything and through hard work and a test and learn approach I managed to take it to a $20m+ business with a $4.5m EBITDA
I took a lot of risks to do it but more importantly I was consistent in working hard and placing the customer as number 1 – and I had a bucket load of passion
And what I 100% believe from 12 years of experience is that you must speculate to accumulate if you want to have a successful business
From day one back in 2010 I always had a very large focus on revenue. Back then I didn’t have a clue about finance, EBITDA and OPEX but I did fully understand that revenue and profit was king.
Without revenue you are running a charity. And that won’t pay your bills.
In the early days I used to have a piece of paper, stuck on my wall and next to my computer, that had a weekly revenue and sales target that I needed to achieve
And each Sunday night I would update this piece of paper and put a new target that I needed to achieve. It was my goal to reach and out reach this target and each week when I hit it I would set a new target and so on.
I would then work every day to figure out how to get to and exceed my target. I must admit I loved this as I love a target and a challenge and I love motivating myself to do better.
But of course the only way to achieve the target was a test and learn approach. I constantly tried new ideas, new ways to execute, new organic opportunities, new paid opportunities and some worked and some didn’t. But this approach has been the bedrock to how I grew the business.
And the point that I never had any issue with was speculating to accumulate. To launch The Healthy Mummy business I had sold my house (I was also 6 months pregnant) and went all in (you can read my story here).
I used the money to set up the website, bring on experts, create plans, create recipes, create fitness programs, make books and build a community.
But I knew that the money would run out and that I only had a relatively short runway on which to create meaningful revenue to pay the bills and put food on the table.
And revenue was king to this and more important profitability with that revenue.
So I regularly tested and learnt and carefully spent money to see what worked.
And I must say that the best thing I ever spent money and time on was social media and social media advertising.
I made myself an absolute expert in copy, creative, conversion and the Facebook (Meta) ad platform. So much so that up to me leaving the business in March 2022 I had spent approximately $20 million on FB ads – but this had been significant in brining in approximately $140 million in revenue for the business over the 12 years. So that’s an ROI of around 7 which is pretty good! I will write an article on this one another time!
I always found the Meta platform to be incredible – but it was and is hard work and needs a lot of nurturing optimising and monitoring.
And the big thing that anyone in business needs to be aware of is that to scale and really drive the revenue and profit in your business, you need to be able to master paid digital media.
If you can do this and keep your ROI healthy then, digitally speaking, the world is your oyster.
If you don’t master paid then you will have to rely solely on organic or email/SMS channels which are 100% critical for growth (and I am big fan of both) but they will only take you so far.
So don’t be scared to invest and spend money to achieve growth – just insure you spend it wisely and adopt a test and learn approach.
You can also check out my new business in the pet food industry called Healthy Active Pet here
And if you want me to consult with you on your business please email me on Rhian@rhianallen.com