Kate Northrup

The truth about our launch numbers: it’s not how much you make. It’s how much you make per lead.

When we started tracking Earnings Per Lead (EPL), everything changed.

Our revenue grew 63%. Our EPL grew 31%. But our leads only grew by 26% – which was a good thing.

It led to more income without chasing more leads, building a bigger audience, or adding another launch to the calendar.

What actually moved the needle:

-Attracting the right clients, not just more of them
-Converting interest into income without the push
-Building a business model that runs on fewer, better decisions

If you want the full 5-part foundation for this, it’s all inside a free 3-part live workshop: The Business Breakthrough Experience.

I’ll be there myself — this is the methodology behind how we run our launches.

Comment BBE and I’ll DM you the link.

We thought we were playing with dolls.

My sister and I sewed clothes for ours from patterns we ordered out of the catalog. We acted out plays from scripts the company published. I subscribed to the magazine, mailed in a response to a reader question, and nearly lost my mind when it got published.

I even found a pen pal through that magazine. We’re still friends on Facebook today.

When I saw a photo of the original Pleasant Company catalog this weekend, I was instantly back on my couch — exactly like the girl on the cover — flipping pages and being transported into possibility.

And that’s when it hit me.

We weren’t just playing with dolls. An entire generation of girls was being told our lives mattered — not for who we’d become someday, but for who we already were, exactly as we were.

Now we’re the ones buying the dolls for our daughters. And crying in the store.

That’s what happens when one woman makes her values tangible through where she puts her time, energy, and money. The returns keep compounding in lives she’ll never know about.

If you were as fully ensconced in the world of American Girl Dolls as I was, tell me which doll you had below.

I write about this kind of wealth every Wednesday in Notes of Plenty. Comment NOTES and I’ll send it to you.

*Being a mother is by far my most important and beloved vocation and there’s nothing about this post that intends to devalue motherhood. But the role Pleasant played in giving a generation of girls something to spark their imagination that celebrated who they already were, not just as future mothers, cannot be underestimated.

The internet is obsessed with what’s working right now. That’s exactly why so many businesses aren’t.

In this conversation with , we’re unpacking what actually makes an online business sustainable, profitable, and resilient when the market changes.

James shares why he believes most entrepreneurs are focusing on the wrong things, why 80% of business success comes down to sales and messaging rather than tactics, and the most common way business owners bleed profit without realizing it.

What I loved most about this conversation is that James doesn’t tell the story most people expect.

Before the launches, the millions, and the audience, there were five years of building, nine different offers, less than $20K a year in revenue, and a night sitting in a bookstore reading books he couldn’t afford to buy because there was only $80 left in his account.

The thing that changed everything was his willingness to stop fighting the level he was on and fully commit to mastering it. We also talk about:

-Why so many entrepreneurs are addicted to shortcuts
-The real purpose of marketing
-The relationship between money, self-worth, and business growth
-Whether courses are actually dead
-What transformation businesses will always have that trend-based businesses never will

Because despite what the internet would have you believe, nobody is really in the course business.

We’re in the business of helping people solve meaningful problems and create meaningful results.

That business isn’t going anywhere.

Comment 162 and I’ll send the full episode straight to you.

This was the negotiation I made with myself to actually walk into that room:

I just had to show up. If I hated it, I could leave.

That’s the whole tactic: a permission slip to bail.

I ended up staying the whole time. Was I uncomfortable? You bet your bippy. Have I now expanded my capacity to put myself out there and go bigger? You’re darn tootin’ I did.

I’ve had plenty of moments in the past where I met an expansion opportunity with straight-up self-sabotage and just stayed small. Plenty. I’m telling on myself here.

Remember this: we don’t run out of chances. Opportunity isn’t a door that closes — it’s a revolving door. You can hop in any time. You can take breaks when you need them. Expansion is not a one-and-done.

The thing that makes it stick — that turns the new uncomfortable thing into something you can actually live inside — isn’t force. It’s compassion. The more you offer yourself at the edge, the more your body trusts you to come back.

Happy expanding, love.

xo, Kate

PS. Comment NOTES for Notes of Plenty — my weekly, honest letter about money, wealth, and real life.

My family lost a legend this week.

My Uncle Phil always had time to tell a story, lend a listening ear, give great advice, or share a laugh.

met Phil and his wife, my aunt (our oldest Penelope’s name sake), before Mike and and I had even met.

Without Penny and Phil there would be no Kate and Mike.

He and Penny mentored Mike and I in business and in marriage. We colored outside the lines because they modeled how beautiful marching to the beat of your own drum can be. Our devotion to health and freedom is because of Penny and Phil

Phil’s indelible mark is evident all over our life from Mike’s love of cappuccinos to our unconventional world views (and Penny’s continues to be.)

Phil was an amazing father of 3 incredible sons who I’m so grateful to have as cousins.

His love for Penny, my mom’s sister, was so deep and so constant. They had 53 incredible years together. Their love inspired our love.

Phil, I miss you so much already. I was setting the table outside for dinner on Monday and burst into tears realizing you’d never come visit us in our new home in TN.

But I know you’ll visit me in my heart anytime I call. Just like you’d pick up the phone anytime I’d call.

Sending buckets of love to Penny and my cousins, , , and , through whom Phil lives on.

Just a reminder to hold your people close and tell them you love them. Every moment is precious beyond measure.

Quote shared via in our family text thread because it so perfectly epitomizes who Phil Kirk was. ❤️🪽

Are online courses dead? Is our entire industry dissolving in front of us — algorithms, AI, all of it?

In February I sat in a mastermind with a room of multi-seven-figure business owners. Several of them were freaking out. I listened, and a few months later, we crossed $2 million in our launch.

We did it by doing a lot of things opposite to what everyone else is doing.

Here’s what I won’t do in this debrief: hand you the numbers and pretend the feelings underneath them don’t exist. Because every number has a feeling associated with it.

The conversion rate has a feeling, the ad spend has a feeling, the middle-of-the-night spin-out has a feeling.

This episode is the full behind-the-curtain breakdown of what we did, what worked, what surprised us, and what I’d change moving forward.

Told in numbers and feelings — the way money actually works.

Comment 161 and I’ll send you the episode 🩶