My Q1 2026 Business Debrief: Revenue, Growth, and What's Actually Working

If your revenue feels inconsistent or you’re questioning what’s actually working in your business, this episode is going to hit home. In this episode of The Real Truth About Business podcast, I’m pulling back the curtain on my Q1 2026 business debrief. I’m walking you through the real numbers, the decisions, and the strategy behind what’s driving sustainable revenue growth right now. This is for service-based entrepreneurs who are stuck in a revenue plateau and need to start making smarter, data-driven decisions in their business strategy.

I’m sharing what actually worked, what didn’t, and how I’m thinking about growth moving forward. Because after 9 years of experience, I can tell you this: surface-level metrics will keep you stuck. You need to go deeper. This episode will show you how to evaluate your pricing strategy, lead generation, and sales process so you can build a business that’s predictable, scalable, and actually aligned with where you want to go.

What You'll Learn:

• How to analyze your business data beyond surface-level revenue numbers
• What consistent revenue really looks like in a service-based business
• How to identify which lead generation strategies are actually driving clients
• Why in-person events can dramatically improve your sales process and ROI
• How to evaluate offers that aren’t converting and adjust your pricing strategy
• What to track in your business to break through a revenue plateau

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Introduction: Behind-the-scenes Q1 2026 business debrief

[05:30] Revenue breakdown and why consistency matters more than spikes

[12:45] Podcast growth, SEO strategy, and lead generation wins

[20:10] New client acquisition and where leads are actually coming from

[28:30] In-person event ROI and sales conversion insights

[36:50] Offer performance, cancellations, and strategic pivots

[45:00] Investments, lessons learned, and CEO decision-making

[52:30] Wrap-up and how to run your own business debrief

Key Takeaways:

Consistency Over Spikes Is the Real Goal

Here’s what I see constantly: business owners chasing high revenue months instead of building consistency. My revenue was down about 20% compared to last year, but my profit margin held steady at 50%. More importantly, my revenue became predictable. That’s what actually creates sustainable business growth.

When you’re building a service-based business, consistency gives you a baseline. And once you have a baseline, growth becomes a strategic decision instead of a gamble. This is a direct reflection of the Focused Visionary Framework, specifically your pipeline. Predictable revenue comes from a stable pipeline, not random cash injections.

The Data You’re Avoiding Has the Answers

After 9 years, I can confidently say this: the answers you want are in the data you’re not looking at. It’s easy to stop at revenue. But when I dug deeper, I saw why numbers shifted. Payment structures, past promotions, and one-time cash injections all impacted perception.

When you actually analyze your business strategy across pricing, pipeline, and sales, you stop reacting emotionally and start making strategic decisions. That’s how you break out of a revenue plateau.

What’s Actually Driving Clients Right Now

The biggest insight? Conversations convert. Every single client came from referrals, networking, in-person events, or the podcast. Not passive content alone. Not random marketing tactics.

In-person events alone produced a 931% ROI. That’s not a small win. That tells me exactly where to double down. If your lead generation isn’t converting, look at how close you are to real conversations. Your sales process improves dramatically when trust is built faster.

Strategy Requires Ownership and Adjustments

Not everything worked. Some offers didn’t sell. Some investments weren’t aligned. That’s part of being in CEO mindset. I take full responsibility for those decisions and use them to refine my strategy.

This is where most service-based entrepreneurs get stuck. They either ignore what’s not working or overcorrect emotionally. Instead, I look at the data, adjust the offer, refine positioning, and keep moving forward. That’s how real business growth happens.

Resources Mentioned

1. Book a CEO Strategy Call
2. Learn more about The Missing Piece Intensive
3. Learn more about The Focused Visionary Accelerator
4. Join Back Pocket Insights
5. Download the FREE Lead and Conversion Tracker
6. Subscribe to the Sunday Morning Brew Newsletter

About the Host:

Michelle DeNio is a business strategist based in Sarasota, Florida, specializing in helping service-based entrepreneurs break through revenue plateaus using her Focused Visionary Framework. With over 300 podcast episodes and 9 years running her consulting business, she helps coaches, consultants, and service providers scale sustainably through strategic planning, pricing optimization, and sales process development.

Connect with Michelle

1. Website
2. Threads
3. Instagram
4. LinkedIn
5. Facebook

Hey.

Hey.

All right, Today we are diving in, and I am giving you a peek behind the scenes.

I'm pulling back the curtain, and I am going to share with you my entire Q1 debrief.

The good, the bad.

I don't want to call it the ugly, the what didn't work, let's say it that way.

Looking at numbers, revenue, all the different things that I am looking at and analyzing and taking into consideration.

So celebrating wins all of the things.

And the goal here is that you spend some time doing the same.

Doing your own debrief, doing your own reflection, practicing the pause, and really looking at and seeing what is actually working, where your time and attention needs to go, what's shifting, what patterns, what trends are you seeing?

All of the things.

All right, so this one's gonna be a fun one.

I've got a full page of notes to go through, so hopefully my ADHD brain won't get me too bad on this.

But, yeah, I'm excited to dive in with this.

So let's do it.

Okay.

First and foremost, I want to preface this and say that, like, this literally sat and like, it took me a good couple of hours to work through and get and collect all of this information.

Information.

I don't want to use the word data because it's not all just data.

I mean, it is, but it's information.

Right.

And I also want you to shift your mindset a little bit around the word data.

Data is simply just information.

Okay.

And information is powerful.

Information allows us to make educated decisions.

Okay?

And that's what we're doing today.

So first and foremost, debrief.

Right?

Everybody always just looks at their profit or their revenue number.

Okay?

So be it.

That's fine.

Let's start with it.

Revenue is down.

20% Is approximately 20%.

However, my profit margin is remaining the same, right around 50%, which I am totally good with.

I think that that is, I feel good about having a 50% profit margin.

My taxes are feeling good with a 50% tax margin.

But here is the difference, because it's easy to look at and go, oh, my God, I can't believe my revenue is down.

You would hear a difference in my tone.

Like, I am feeling really good.

So to see a 20 decrease in revenue, I was kind of like, well, damn.

So I took a little bit deeper dive.

And this is again, there's over always more to the story.

And this is where you've got to look below the surface.

So many people live at surface level and make decisions from that surface level when really the information is like a couple layers deep.

That was a good percentage of reoccurring revenue.

Number two is I at the end of the year in 20.

And in February, I ran a special on FVA that was a pay in full special.

Pricing was much different then.

And so I had a couple people pay in full.

So again, that inflates revenue.

When you get a pay in full on paper, it doesn't mean that revenue was better overall.

Right.

Because it just meant that they paid in full for that time period when really that revenue needed to be split out over the course of six months.

Right.

I had a really high month in February and then March was like half the amount of January and February, like cut in half.

So it's not increasing a ton, it's not decreasing.

I'm not losing money, it's maintaining, it's creating sustainability, it's creating predictability, it's creating sustainability.

Right.

So the income level is maintaining, which I think is far better than having high months, low months, high months, low months.

Right.

I like seeing this consistent revenue every single month.

So that I'm actually totally happy about when I look at my revenue, is that I'm seeing a lot of consistent consistency with these incremental increases, which builds over time.

Right.

Because at this point, because a lot of the revenue coming in right now is all reoccurring revenue, there's not a.

There's a very slim chance that it's going to Decrease.

Right.

Like, I have hit baseline.

It can only increase from here because of the way my contracts are set up, because of the way the revenue is coming in.

It's very sustainable.

It's a baseline.

So that's a wonderful thing that, you know, we're on the way up and yeah, there's still going to be cash injection months and there's still going to be things that happen, different things.

But I'm feeling really, really good and positive about the consistency.

Okay, let's talk now about podcasting.

Okay.

So, you know, last year I brought on a BA Maybe you don't know, but last year I. I brought on a BA this podcast is five years old at this point.

I personally did not start taking it terribly seriously.

And I brought on an assistant, and her sole job at the time was to repurpose my podcast and to manage my podcast to get it more people.

And so we started doing that and I started networking in different communities.

I started mentioning it a lot more.

I started sharing it on social media.

I'm very active on threads, and when people click on your profile on threads, they can see your podcast right, like right underneath your profile.

Threads added that feature.

It's.

It's an amazing feature.

So podcast growth.

This is super.

I.

This is super exciting.

I'm thrilled about.

This is my average listeners, number of listeners or total number of listeners.

Not average.

So I tripled my.

Actually over.

Well, yeah, it's more than triple my listeners.

Okay.

So that is massive.

Also my downloads, which, again, we don't always compare downloads.

It's kind of one of these, like vanity metrics, but it's still a measure of growth.

Right.

So downloads have doubled and listeners have tripled.

This is a serious win.

That is incredible growth.

It is something I am tracking.

I am so freaking proud of it.

It tells me that what we are doing is working and we can capitalize even more on this.

Now let's look at and dive deeper again below the surface level.

What are the things that we have changed?

So, one, we know we've been promoting a Little bit more.

That's awesome.

But one of the other things that I started doing, getting much more strategic with my SEO and my titles of my podcast episodes so that they would become a little bit more searchable.

And I am pleased to say that I know of at least two people, one that has turned into a client and one that is a prospect that have booked or taken a next step directly from finding this podcast.

They are were cold leads, right?

Like they found the podcast through search or somehow it popped up in their Spotify something or they heard me on another podcast and they started listening to this podcast and from there they took an action, booked a call with me.

One of them joined Back Pocket Insights which then she jumped into fba.

So that is incredible.

I'm so freaking stoked about that because honestly, again, for five years I've had this podcast, I would say I, I don't want to say it's the first time.

It's the first, it's.

I first I started tracking this information because again, I wasn't really taking the podcast seriously as a sales and marketing tool.

It was a content tool for me.

It was not a sales and marketing tool.

So just shifting my perspective, shifting the positioning of the podcast, diving a little bit deeper into SEO and strategy behind the podcast has net result.

We are doubling down on that.

We are doing more SEO, we are doing more GEO for AI recommended search.

We're going.

We're doubling down on that.

We're doing.

We turned all of the episodes into blog posts.

So we're doing more with the blog to be found through SEO Geo.

There's just a lot going on behind this scenes that we put into this that have net results.

So super, super stoked about that.

Let's talk about new clients in Q1.

So I brought on eight new clients in FVA which was amazing.

I did that off of the back of it was mid February.

I did do a price increase.

So all of those clients came in pre price increase.

So again something to think about as I am working on shifting my positioning.

I'm going to talk about that a little bit more.

But eight new clients into fba.

Amazing.

So happy.

And that brings me to where they come from.

Right?

That's always the question of like where did they come from?

One of them came from referral, One of them came through the podcast, like I told you, four of them came from an event that I attended in January.

One of them had been in my world for quite a while.

We met through networking actually.

And then another one came through Referral So that's two that came from through referral, one that came through networking, four that came through an event that's seven and then one that came from the podcast.

So that's eight.

So again, all of these things, if you think about it and look at what's working, all in person networking, conversation driven.

The four, three out of the four that converted from the event converted from a actual conversion event.

So, you know, I love conversion events that converted extremely well.

Which brings me to my conversion rate on in person events.

This is something else that I wanted to start tracking because going to in person events is not, it's not cheap, right?

There's a lot that goes into it.

There's a lot of planning, scheduling, being away from home, dealing with all of the things that are at home, if you've got kids, pets, whatever, husband's schedules, just in general, like going and being at an event in person is.

It's work, right?

It's work and it's an expense.

And so I wanted to start tracking my ROI on that.

And the event I went to in January, I am currently sitting at a 931% return on investment.

Let me say that again.

I am currently sitting on currently nine return on my investment to the in person event I went to.

Okay, if that doesn't tell you something, it should in person events work.

Here's the other thing that that tells you when I take a look at it again, I'm giving you facts, I'm giving you all everything behind the scenes.

The one person that converted from networking that I said went into F E A, her and I have been talking for almost a year at this point, if not longer.

The people I met at that event, they converted within four weeks.

So in person event not only converts, but it converts fast because you can have real conversations, you can dive deep very quickly, you can share your expertise, you can be seen as an authority.

There is so much power in it.

So am I going to other events?

Well, you know, I'm speaking at Power Table Live, so I cannot freaking wait.

I already know that my return on investment from Power Table Live is going to be double that, if not more, in so many different ways.

And I'm definitely doing more events and events.

Because I'm telling you it works okay, that I'M so thrilled about.

I have a total of 18 clients inside of FBA.

I started with 22 or 21, but again some of that is.

One of them was somebody who went out on maternity leave and just didn't come back to business as far as I know.

Another one was a hybrid client.

She was a FAA and one to one client.

Her six month contract is up.

She's got a lot of medical just appointments and things coming up that she needs a break because she's not going to be able to work because of it.

Totally understand that.

And then actually the third one wasn't really was when I look at my numbers, it was a duplicate.

Really holding strong.

I feel really good about that.

Let's talk about Back Pocket Insights.

Back pocket insights, $11 a month currently.

More on that soon.

I had 14 people cancel into in the just the first quarter of the year, but I had nine new people.

So not a hundred percent, you know, but fairly close.

Right.

What are we looking at like 60, 70 ish percent?

I'd have to do the math.

I think it's like a 70%.

So I'm having like a 70% new to cancellation.

Like that's not terrible.

Yeah, 65%.

So it's about 65% of like cancellations compared to new so or new people.

So I'm having like 65% new compared to the cancellation.

Not bad.

So it's not a hundred percent.

Like there's always churn in any type of membership like that.

And if I look back at all of the people that canceled, nobody canceled because they were unhappy, right?

They canceled because they were too busy.

They were not utilizing it.

It just wasn't.

The WhatsApp group was too overwhelming for them.

I took in feedback and I took it very seriously.

I am going to shift and make some changes to that again.

More on that coming in a minute.

But yeah, I mean overall I was really pretty happy with Back Pocket Insights because it's easy to look at all of the cancellations because you see them come in, right?

People saying I want to cancel, I want to cancel, I want to cancel.

And so that's what you remember.

But I was like, I know I had new people come in, but I didn't think it was nine.

And so again, this is why it's so important to look at the information in your business.

Because I could have easily said like, oh my God, all I did was lose people in Back Pocket Insights when actually I didn't.

You know what I mean?

It was like a 30% loss.

When you look at, like the comparison, that's not bad.

Like, that's really not bad for a membership of that in that style.

Okay.

And then speaking of offers, the missing piece intensive that I was, that I had, I only sold two of, and I sold two of them at a discounted rate.

So I have not sold any full at full price.

More on that soon.

There's some changes coming to that as well because of this, looking at facts.

But also the two that I did, I learned a ton from one of them.

It was amazing.

Awesome.

We worked through it in two days.

We got through all of the content.

It was awesome.

Another one, we've had to extend it out because she has some medical, again, medical issues that made it so that the two day intensive was not a good fit for her.

So again, something to.

I learned from that.

I learned a lot from the experience.

I love the intensive offer.

However, I also know it's not for everybody.

And I am looking at different ways to position that, which I've got that figured out.

All right.

Which.

Okay, I'm not.

I'm not gonna go there yet.

I'm not gonna go there yet.

And now I want to talk about investments that I made that I'm not 100% happy with.

Okay?

So we all do this.

We all have investments.

Like, I look at, like, investments where I had great roi, things that I felt like, went really well.

So we talked about the event.

Even though I wasn't terribly, like, overly impressed with the event itself, the ROI was still fantastic.

Which is, again, I go because I want to meet people.

Right?

So again, you always go into an event with your intention, your expectation.

For me, it's always about who can I meet in this room?

And I met the most amazing people.

Okay.

However, with that being said, knowing that I was going to an event, knowing that I was going to meet new people, I hired somebody right before I went to that event.

And I wish I did not because I met somebody at the event that I would have loved to work with, that I think would have 100% captured what I wanted better.

But I made this decision.

It felt impulsive.

I've been much better about making impulsive decisions.

I've been much better about listening to my gut.

And this one, I didn't.

I didn't.

Because this person came to me as a referral from somebody I highly respect who has a wonderful working relationship with this person.

And I can honestly say, like, I don't know that me and this person have ever really, like, always clicked.

I've Known her for quite a few years now.

But I was like, maybe it's just me, you know, maybe it's just me.

And, you know, I don't know.

And so I said yes, and the work was done to the contract and that's it.

And so, yeah, it was an investment that I. I'm not thrilled with, but I learned a lot from it because one, I didn't listen to my gut too.

I wasn't necessarily ready to make this investment because I was kind of in the middle of this, like, identity shift, clarity, working through a lot of things I should not have purchased when I did.

That was on me.

Remember, we talk a lot about taking radical responsibility in our businesses.

I've been using that.

I've been saying, you know, my North Star is being my own best client.

I am not going to sit here and put the blame on said person.

I am going to take the responsibility for myself.

I should have never hired when I did.

I learned a lesson that like, you're going to meet people at an in person event.

So if you have one coming up, don't make any investments prior to it because you're probably going to meet somebody and wish that you maybe had the funds available to hire said person that you meet at an event and you don't because you're committed to something else.

So I learned and going into powertable Live, I'm not hiring anybody.

I already know that somebody in that room is going to be somebody I need and want to hire.

I don't know exactly what yet.

I have an idea, I have a thought, but I don't know.

And so I learned a lesson.

It was a good one.

I wouldn't do it again.

Right?

I'm going to listen to my gut a little bit more.

That is something I am continuing to learn.

I feel like I have gotten a lot better at it.

But then I'm like, I have these experiences and I'm like, damn it, Michelle.

You knew.

You kind of felt it, right?

You felt it and you chose to ignore it.

All right?

And this is where influence plays a role because I was influenced based off somebody else's opinion, based off somebody else's experience, not listening to my own gut.

That's on me.

Nobody else.

Me, okay?

I am taking radical responsibility for that.

And then I just want to wrap it up with this.

And saying Q1 for me overall was a massive behind the scenes up, leveling, shifting.

I came into the year feeling.

I came into the year like the only way I can describe it is like butterfly.

That was still in its cocoon, right?

Like, I knew something new was emerging.

I knew something was coming, and I could feel it.

We started moving.

We started going, and I kind of let that little piece of me that was in the cocoon just kind of.

I. I stopped giving her some attention.

And then March slowed way down.

As far as new business, March was a fairly slow month.

We had the kids here the first week of March.

I took a vacation, which kind of interrupted my momentum.

And anytime your momentum gets interrupted, you kind of just have this feeling of, like, trying to get back into it and whatever.

And I couldn't seem to get the momentum built back up, not quickly.

But what it did do is it allowed me to really sit and think.

Like, I knew that there was still this unsettled feeling that there was still this, like, new identity that was emerging.

There was a lot new.

And so I really had the time and space to kind of see what was ahead again.

The North Star of being my own best client is by far the best thing I've done for my business in nine freaking years.

Why it's taken me this long to do this again.

You always know when you're ready.

And probably if I had done it in previous years, I wouldn't have been ready for it, but I'm so freaking ready for it.

Like I said, I knew I was kind of on the edge of, like, this unsettled, like, something's gonna change.

Big changes are happening.

Things are gonna happen.

I will talk about this further in the next episode because it's.

I want to really talk about the changes in positioning, the changes in my offer ecosystem.

I had so much time and so much clarity.

I have some amazing, wonderful friendships, colleagues that we mastermind together.

We're like verbal processing buddies.

You know, that same that saying, every coach has a coach.

And, you know, I started thinking about it earlier today, and I was like, man, I don't really have a coach right now.

And then I was like, reframe, Reframe.

You absolutely have colleagues.

You are doing things.

I am investing into my business.

I am investing into people.

I have colleagues that I have conversations with on a regular.

Some that are ahead of me, some that are at the same point as me.

There's a lot going on.

So I am doing a lot of work behind the scenes.

I'm doing a lot of subconscious work.

So I am paying to work with subconscious reprogramming expert.

Oh, Those are the other two big things.

Holy shit.

What?

Two of the other amazing things that happened in Q1 is that I brought in two, two resident experts into FVA.

And I'm not talking guest experts, I'm talking resident experts, meaning they are showing up every other month like they alternate.

Holy.

Has it been amazing?

Freaking amazing.

And it's only been two months that they've been there.

We had a messaging expert, Chelsea Quint, and then I have a subconscious reprogramming Abby Acevedo.

Chef's kiss.

The best.

Results are going to be so fire.

So that's been amazing.

And see, here's my adhd.

The other thing I forgot to tell you is in Q1, because I had this space because I had the time, because I started getting this clarity, I'm coming back to where we were.

I started taking action on an idea that I have had for over a year.

An idea that I have wanted to execute and implement for over a year.

And I haven't done it because I asked people about it.

I talk to people about it.

I get a lot of feedback around it.

I've had a lot of like, if I were you, I would do this.

Do you.

Have you thought about this?

Have you thought about this?

And it has stopped me in my tracks and I finally just decided I'm going to freaking do this because I have the strategy in my mind.

It's going to work.

It's a collaborative idea.

It's a way that I can collaborate with other business owners that I freaking love in a way that is a low lift for all of us, but high impact.

I'm so excited about it.

I promise I will tell you about it.

You will likely hear about it in my email list.

We'll hear about it first.

So if you're not on the Sunday morning Brew newsletter list, jump in there.

The link is in the show notes.

I'm that they will hear it first too.

On the up leveling and the positioning changes, the offer, all of that.

So if you're not on my email list, please jump on there.

I promise I don't spam the shit out of you.

I send a really awesome newsletter on Sundays, which that has maintained.

If I look at Q1, that's been maintaining about a 50 to 60% open rate.

Wonderful email marketing is working actually close to clients by sending emails when I thought I wanted to quit.

So again, so many amazing things.

But again, I think one of the biggest Wins is that I had the time and the space and the people surrounding me and supporting me to work through this identity shift and positioning of who I am, what I bring to the table, the expertise, the authority, what I want to be known for.

Being pushed outside of my comfort zone, taking scary action, doing things and putting myself into rooms has been so fulfilling.

I can't even begin to describe it.

And I haven't even launched any of it out yet.

It's all still in this, like, ideation creation phase, but it's there and I'm not going backwards.

And I think that is what is so important and so valuable to me, is that I see the vision for it, I'm stepping into it, I'm executing it, and I'm not going backwards.

Even though the universe continues to send me these little tests, these little challenges that keep asking me, are you sure you want to do, do this?

Are you sure you're not going to go backwards?

Because it's easy to get pulled backwards.

It's very difficult to get pulled forward.

Okay.

And I'm not getting pulled backwards.

So there you have it.

I think I have everything covered.

That was on my notes.

Overall, Q1 was a fantastic.

I'm.

I'm thrilled with the way Q1 has started.

I'm excited to capitalize on this and double down on the things that are working.

And I've got my plan, I've got my North Star, I've got got ideas, I've got execution, all the things.

So if you have not taken the time to do a full Q1 or quarterly debrief, whenever you are listening to this, give yourself the time and space to do it.

But it's not like a quick half hour thing, right?

This is like sit and really look below the surface level.

Look at all of the things to give yourself the information.

Right?

As I always say, the answers that you are looking for is in the data you are not looking at.

I can't say it any other way.

I'm sorry if you don't like it.

The answers in the results that you are looking for are in the data you are not looking at.

Go look at your data and you will find the answers.

It is worth your time to do it.

Okay?

So if you love this episode, if you want to share this episode, I greatly appreciate anybody that shares it.

If you're thinking of somebody that you've been listening to is like somebody.

I've got this person in mind that needs to hear this.

I want you to stop this episode right now.

I want you to go share it with them.

I want you to post it to your IG Stories.

I want you to tag me in it.

I want you to send me a dm.

Send me an email.

Let me know you're listening.

Let me know what you thought of this.

Let me know what you loved, and I'll see you in the next episode.

All right?

So until then, I love you, I believe in you, and I will see you soon.