How Kris Doubled Her Sales in One Year and Stayed Profitable. Episode 344
Nov 03, 2026
Every Friday I put up a post in the Inner Circle called Share Your Wins. It's one of my favorite parts of the week and I read every single answer.
A few weeks ago, Kris Heeter popped in to share that she'd hit her one-year mark as a member. Then she shared her numbers. I read it twice. Then I asked her to come on the podcast, because what she's done is exactly what I wish every new business owner would do.
There was no massive launch. No influencers. No viral TikTok video. Just a handful of smart, consistent choices that added up to a business that doubled in a year. A profitable one, too.
Let me walk you through it.
A Business Built for People Who Swear They Can't Draw
Kris runs B-Town Zentangle out of Bloomington, Indiana. (B-Town is the local nickname.) Zentangle is a method of creative drawing designed for people who don't think of themselves as artistic. Kris is one of those people. She spent her career in science. Art just wasn't her thing.
She stumbled onto Zentangle through a book she'd picked up for her niece. She flipped through it, decided there was no way she could do it, and got curious anyway. A couple of months later she was training to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher. She started teaching in January 2025 as a retirement project.
At first, everything was local. In-person classes at an art store. Nothing to buy except the class.
Why She Refused to Do Everything at Once
When Kris joined the Inner Circle, she was building her Shopify site from scratch at the same time. She'd originally joined for collaborations. But once she realized Shopify was going to take longer than expected, she made a call most people don't make. She put collaborations on the shelf until the foundation was in place.
She started with our new member training, the small group sessions with coaches. By her own admission, she's a sit-back-and-listen type. It took until her second session to feel confident enough to ask questions. But she kept showing up.
"I'm to the point in my life where I know better than to just try and do everything at once, 'cause that just doesn't work."
Can I tell you how much I love this? Overwhelm is the number one reason people leave the Inner Circle early. They come for a month, feel pressure to implement everything at once, and end up doing a lot of things badly. Then they quit.
Kris has listened to about two-thirds of the training. She hasn't implemented all of it. She picks one thing, gets it working, then moves on. A year later, she's still here, and her business has doubled.
The $5 Experiment That Turned Into 50 Products
Until last November, the only thing you could buy from Kris was a class. Then she heard an episode of this podcast where the owner of Crop-a-latte (a scrapbooking and card kit company) talked about her $5 Friday kits, a one-day-only offer that brought people into her world.
Kris didn't have any kits. So she made one. A little drawing kit, sent by snail mail. She made a deal with herself: if a couple of people bought it, she'd make a new one every Friday.
She kept that promise. She now has about 50 kits, and she's starting to bundle them.
Here's what surprised her. Most buyers weren't new people. They were her existing students. People who come to class every couple of months. People who don't live nearby. Snowbirds who head somewhere warmer and want something to do while they're away. The kits gave all of them a way to stay connected between classes.
That's the hidden power of a small, repeatable offer. It doesn't just attract strangers. It keeps your current customers warm.
Her Goal Wasn't Revenue (And That's Why Revenue Doubled)
Kris doesn't need this business to replace an income. So she set a goal that actually mattered to her. She looked at how many people she taught the year before and decided to double it, whether in person, online, or both.
"I figured if I doubled the number, then the business would grow by extension."
At the end of June she checked her numbers. She was on track to teach twice as many people. Sales were on track to double too.
She told me she loves that we push our members to focus on numbers, because it takes the emotion out of it. I say this all the time:
The Profit Lesson Most Founders Learn Too Late
This is the part that made me sit up and take notice. Kris's Share Your Wins post was clearly focused on profit. I almost never see that in an early-stage business.
So where did it come from? Two places.
First, her science career. Near the end of it, she oversaw a nonprofit DNA facility funded by grants. Budgeting was a huge part of her job. They didn't need to make money, but they absolutely had to break even.
Second, a fitness franchise. Right after grad school, a doctor warned her that if she didn't manage her stress, she wasn't going to make it very long. So she started teaching a fitness program, and when it was about to leave her area, she became a franchise owner. That franchise taught a percentage model, and she learned early that if you don't show a profit after a certain number of years, the IRS will say you're not a business.
She ended up as one of the company's top franchises. And she still felt she wasn't bringing in what she should be. That taught her to stop staring at gross revenue and look underneath it. Today she keeps a percentage in her head for what she spends on each thing, and she doesn't overspend unless she's deliberately in a growth phase.
"I approach this as within a year I should be showing a profit."
I'll be honest with you. I spent the first 20 years of my own business not focused on profit. I had cash flow crises and didn't know why. And when I sold that business, it was worth far less than it should have been. Kris learned this lesson decades before I did.
(Her digital products help, by the way. If you can add a digital product to your business, do it.)
Where 70% of Her Online Sales Actually Come From
Locally, Kris grows through word of mouth. For everyone else, she's run a few Meta ads (not many) and offered some free online classes. But the real engine is her email list.
"70% of the online sales are from focused email marketing."
She sends at least one email a week, often two or three. And she grows the list with our Inner Circle events, the bite-sized list-building plays you can rinse and repeat.
She tried two. The first was a kit tester event. It didn't land. Only one out of four testers sent back photos, and chasing feedback felt like a constant tug-of-war. So she set it aside. Next she tried a giveaway, followed the training to the letter, and has now run it three months in a row. Her list has grown significantly, and she's already landed at least one new customer from it.
That's the move. Try it, look honestly at what happened, and keep what works.
Never Write Off Your "Dead" Subscribers
Kris told me a story from her fitness days. She used to hand out free class cards. One day at a fair, a woman pulled a ragged card out of her wallet and asked, "I've had this for four years. Can I still use it?" Kris said sure. That woman signed up for classes and eventually became one of her instructors.
The same thing just happened with B-Town Zentangle. Someone who doesn't live locally took a free online class back in January. This week, she bought for the first time.
"Don't discount the person that's been on your email list for a long time."
We see this constantly at The Social Salesgirls. Plenty of people join quickly. Then someone who's been on our list for 575 days becomes a member. People buy when it works for them. Your job is to still be there when it does.
How does Kris stay there?
"Nurture that group and not just sell, but tell stories, share the work of others."
When people feel part of a community, they feel more confident taking the next step. Or some space opens up in their life, and because you kept them warm, you're the first one they think of.
The Gym-Floor Habit That Multiplied Her Reach
The last thing Kris does consistently is post on social media. She had to get past a mental block first. She assumed that once you posted something, you couldn't post it again. Nobody wants to see it twice, right?
Then Melissa, one of our coaches, kept telling her: they won't remember. They may not have even seen it the first time.
So Kris started scheduling and recycling posts. One a day at first, then more, as Melissa encouraged. Meta's feedback showed her that single-photo posts didn't go far, multiple photos went a little farther, and reels went much farther.
So every day, when her scheduled post goes live, she opens her phone at the gym, turns it into a reel, and adds music. Posting the reel on Instagram sends it to Facebook too. Two platforms, a few minutes, and a heck of a lot more reach.
She has a framework, so she never sits there wondering what to post today. That alone is half the battle.
What's Next for B-Town Zentangle
Kris loves making physical kits, but she knows there's a ceiling. Her parents are getting older, and there will be days she can't teach in person or even hop on Zoom. So her next step is scanning her kits and turning them into digital products. (I told her those would make an amazing subscription. It's in the back of her mind.)
She's also listed in our Collaboration Hub, which is how another Inner Circle member right there in Bloomington found her. Inner Circle members, take note. Her business would be a dream to collaborate with.
The Takeaways
Kris's advice for anyone starting out, especially later in life, is simple.
Be willing to learn. Don't do it alone. And block out real time for your business, because it's very easy to let the days slip by.
Here's what I want you to walk away with:
Consistency beats a big launch.
Do one thing at a time. Master it, then move on.
Watch your profit, not just your revenue.
Email every week, and never write off a long-time subscriber.
If you want the roadmap Kris followed, from the new member training to the list-building events to the social media framework, plus a room full of people cheering on your wins every Friday, come join us in the Inner Circle. I'd love to read your Share Your Wins post next.
