Courtney Forster-Donahue

Courtney Foster-Donahue is an Atlanta-based four-time entrepreneur as well as a business, branding, and social media strategist who specializes in video content creation and Facebook marketing and advertising.

She helps entrepreneurs of all kinds through a variety of online programs and content, including her acclaimed courses SEO in a WKND™, Visual Branding Basics, DIY Video Basics, OBS Success, and her signature program, FB Everything™.

Leveraging a 20 year career as a professional stage and screen actress and singer, Courtney also synthesizes her talents and skills as a performer to helps others build their brands using both strategy and storytelling.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Courtney’s success

Moving towards the money

Result if you follow the steps in Courtney’s session

More profitable business, more time and energy left over because you’re focusing on the right things

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

First thing you have to do is trim the fat and this might sound callous and I don’t mean for it to, but I do think you have to look at your staff. Look at the people you have. And, you know, I hope they’re all good hires and they’re wonderful people and blah, blah, blah, and that’s all good.

But I do strongly believe in this thing. And this is something we had to learn the hard way, my husband and I building for businesses.

If you look at someone who you have hired, who works for you, if you look at them on day 30 of their employment with you, and would not hire them again that day, then they probably need to go. And that’s hard.

You know, we don’t want to fire people just willy nilly. But I know, you know, I say that in the context of my husband, I hired someone because we thought it would work out. We thought they would fit into that role.

We thought we could train them enough and they just didn’t. And you know, on after six months of being with us, we looked at each other one day, and I said, would you hire him again today? Like if he came in and interviewed right now, knowing what you know? And he said, No.

And that was when we realized that was a bad hire. And the good thing there is that, you know, after we let him go, eventually, over time, he came back to us and said, the best thing we ever did for him was to let him go because he was able to do what he was supposed to do, right? So I think a bad hire is more expensive than a good hire.

Obviously, I think a bad hire at a lower hourly rate compared to a good hire at a higher hourly rate is, you know, ends up costing you more money.

Absolutely. Which is, again, kind of counterintuitive. But there’s a lot of work that goes into hiring people. And so I think first off, look at your staff, your employees, your contractors, and again, ask yourself, would I hire them again today?

If yes, awesome, you’ve got an investment that’s paid off. If not, consider reorganization. And maybe that means letting people go, but hiring the best people you can possibly hire.

Because any money you spend on them, it won’t be a gamble, it won’t be an expense, even it will be an investment. So I think that’s one piece of it. And I think looking at your systems is that kind of next step.

I see a lot of business owners who just send emails and that’s the extent of their email marketing. They don’t have a need for a CRM and they’ve got something like Ontraport or Infusionsoft, and they would be more than you know, 300 plus dollars a month, and they would be more than taking care of with something like Convert Kit which is, I don’t know, 30 bucks a month or something.

You know, things like that, there’s no sense in you having a system that is that robust when your business doesn’t have those needs. And CRM is just one example but I think lots of businesses have things like that.

They’ve got the shiny object because so and so said, Oh, this is like you know, the thing you need, this is the BMW of whatever’s and you know, you don’t you don’t need that you’re fine with like the Honda Civic version of that system or technology or software. Now, of course, that’s not the case with everything.

You know, some businesses need to spend that money and need to get that better thing. But often just look at what your needs are and then match those up with the thing that will accomplish that, not the you know, and then some, but the system, that piece of technology, the software that will do that job and doesn’t have to go you know, above and beyond and have extra bells and whistles that you don’t need.

I think that third thing there, you know, is to make sure that you’re looking at the goals that you set for your business, and make sure they are money making, that they are moving you towards the money, but they’re not just about audience building your list building, but they’re about getting those people there so that you can ultimately serve and sell them.