2022 was a year of self discovery and major growth - majority of it being personal and the impact overflowed into my business. I learnt a whole lot of lessons along the way, some of which were costly ones too. I took leaps & tried new things - all of which I now look back on with gratitude.
Behold, my 2022 year in review, part 1 - January to March.
January
#1. I allowed myself to enjoy the holidays. I took the first week off to enjoy being “on holiday break.” I didn’t commence coaching until a few months later. With no coaching calls on my radar this month, my focus was to get clear on my goals for the year and to set my business foundations up. I set aside time to dream about the business I wanted to create this year and to set personal goals as well- ones that were to do with my wellbeing and happiness. Lesson learnt: Give yourself allocated time to be on “break.” As an entrepreneur, it’s hard enough as it is to set boundaries for work and play. Giving myself the allocated time to be switched off and on holiday-mode allowed me to truly enjoy the holidays without feeling guilty or panicked about needing to tend to things in my business. Anytime I thought of anything I needed to do, I just wrote it down on a notepad and pinned it onto my corkboard in my office. That was it. It also allowed me to switch back on for work a lot easier as well. It didn’t feel like a drag to get back to work because I was almost anticipating and excited to get back into it!
#2. I lost all the momentum I built on socials because I decided to “take a break” from social media without planning for it. When I came back to my business, I learnt a very tough lesson about visibility and consistency. Over the summer holidays, I had taken a complete break from my business account and had not planned or prepared for us to have a consistent online presence while I was “off for the holidays.” My SMM and I had been working really hard for the past 4-5 months since I hired her to get momentum going on my profile (consistent traffic, engagement and visibility) and we had finally started gaining traction. When I decided to go on break, I also told my team they could go on “break,” without realizing the consequences it would have on the work we had done over the past few months and how it would affect us when we picked back up.
Lesson learnt: Prepare your business to keep moving, even when you’re on “break.” The key to making consistent sales is to always be selling. When your marketing is reliant on you being present, the selling stops when you do. It’s important that you build a well-oiled marketing strategy and business infrastructure that does not slow down or collapse when you take time off, or God-forbid anything unfortunate happens in your life that prevents you from being able to be fully present physically or energetically for your business.
#3. My VA quit unexpectedly with very short notice. I conducted interviews to hire a new VA with very short notice. So if you know my team, you’ll know that my EA (Monique aka Nikki) is soon to give birth and she’s basically my right-hand girl for all operations in my business. In early January, my VA at the time notified me that she would not be able to continue her role for personal reasons so we were left with a hole in the team to fill. It was especially concerning because I did not see it coming at all and Nikki was scheduled to go for maternity break in a few months time. Stress crept in but I knew I needed to just keep calm and trust my gut. The right person would come and the process would be easy. Surely enough, it was. I hired Keilah and she was more than willing to commence straight away! She is teachable, has incredible energy and passion for her work and she is a wonderful asset to my team. Safe to say, she truly is a blessing!
Lesson learnt: Trust your gut. When unexpected things happen in your business, you can expect your emotions to get in the way. The sooner you can get out of your emotions and just evaluate your next step, the quicker things get done. It’s not about not feeling emotions, it’s about learning to have them while still making sure your business bases are all covered. Also… give your team members or contractors guidelines for submitting notice if they plan to discontinue services so you aren’t left frantically trying to fill the role with little time.
February
#4. There was a point this month where I had to pay my team out of my own pocket. I had spent the entire month of December and January preparing to build out my new course and had taken the pedal off selling. I did not have any new consults booked other than the clients who wanted to re-up their coaching package with me. Because of this, the business made no income and we had to tap into our reserves. Soon enough, our finances were dry and I even got to a point where I had to pay a team member out of my own pocket.
Lesson learnt: I learnt the true cost of running my own business. I learnt that I had to count the highest cost for my dream and that some sacrifices still needed to be made on my part. But in experiencing this, as treacherous as it was to not know how I would pay my team or even pay my own rent (heck, I even found things in my home to sell on Facebook marketplace to pay for petrol), I learnt that I really did believe that building this business was worth it. To me, it was the moment I realised I was willing to do whatever it took to make it work.
#5. We completed the Coaches Accelerated course material & built an entire membership portal. The only priority I gave my team this month was to complete all assets for Coaches Accelerated. I spent day in & day out, recording trainings while my team put the learning materials, website and membership portal together. I actually re-recorded the first lot of trainings I filmed because I did them without thinking ahead or properly planning. I realized that because of that, I was rambling way too long and the videos were almost 45 minutes long each. So I prepared my material in advance and got to the point. It required discipline (I always want to say everything that comes to mind but at the end of the day, you don’t need to). Simple is always better. Your clients dont pay you for complicated information, they pay you for a simple & doable process. Completing the Coaches Accelerated course material & member portal was a huge accomplishment. I shed a tear and celebrated with Nikki because we did it in record time. We literally blew our own minds that two women could create a structure like this that would now house hundreds of coaches and their businesses.
Lesson learnt: Never before have I ever had to believe so deeply in the value of my own brain to create concepts, processes and teach things in simple ways. But this is benefit of being a coach- you create the pathway for people to get results, all you have to do is trust your own process.
#6. We officially opened the doors to Coaches Accelerated Launching this program was super exciting for me because I worked so hard to create it. I was very intentional and clear about its target market, the messaging & even the contents of the course. Its a course that I packed out with so much value and I knew that this course was here to stay for a long time.
Lesson learnt: Selling something is easy when you are clear on the product and its purpose. Although the delivery of the program is subject to change, the contents and the purpose of the program remains clear. It is easy for me to sell it at all times of the year because I have clarified the specific details and qualities of the program. If you want an evergreen program, build clear foundations for it so you dont wind up being vague or confused when you sell it. Check out what it's like inside the program with this student testimonial!
#7. We also began playing around with automated emails to streamline our onboarding processes. In the process of streamlining things, myself & Nikki created a bucketload of SOP’s to help with the handover of roles in future so if we needed to hire a new contractor or any team members needed to step out, their roles could be easily filled and business operations won’t fall apart in their absence. This was a CEO level move. I remember thinking at the time "we're spending so much time on this... I feel like we're wasting time." And then months later a new team member we onboarded said to me, "you have one of the most organised back-end I've ever seen." This was a huge compliment to me and was reassurance that we had spent out efforts on something that truly mattered in the long run.
Lesson learnt: Building standard operating procedures are tedious but are very helpful when it's time to scale or grow your team. If your business or the roles within it cannot easily be taught to somebody else, then it is simply not scalable. Take the time to build clean back end systems and to always be mindful of the future of your business. These days, when we need to train someone on a role, all the instructions are written & tutorials recorded. We took the time to document how tasks were done as we were doing them, so in the case a handover needed to happen, we had the structure to support us.
March
#8. I enrolled 3 new students into Coaches Accelerated and the sales were seamless. After really cleaning up my offer and genuinely falling in love with my program, the sales felt easier. The people I was attracting were a perfect fit and they were 99% sold before they even did the consult with me. These sales were a byproduct of the work I’d done late last year when I tore my previous offer apart to create this one. I worked so hard to create an offer that I genuinely loved and believed in and now selling it is easy.
#9. One of my key team members commenced her 5 months of maternity break. When this happened, it was very humbling because at first I was overwhelmed that I had “less help.” But I actually also found some relief in it. Having team members requires you to think for yourself and everyone on your team i.e. what tasks to give them, how your decisions affect their roles and workload, how they feel, if you’re leading them well enough. Having one less team member and being able to keep the business moving just fine also showed me I was very capable of doing it solo (At least at this point in my business). It reminded me that sometimes we just add a bunch of things and hire people in our businesses to feel like we’re making more progress and working hard… when actually it may not be the case!
Lesson learnt: Don’t depend on team members to grow your business. Whether or not you have them is not the difference between growth or not. The difference boils down to your vision, your willingness to problem solve your business and your commitment to your results! If you’re anywhere between $0-$10K months, you likely can run your business with minimal assistance!
#10. I hired a new Social Media Manager. This time, the difference was, the person I hired is quite new to the role but had a hunger to learn. I had this inkling that this would not be a good idea because I was going to be better off hiring an expert instead. For some reason, the gracious side of me wanted to give her a chance and I’m glad I did. 1 month later, my new SMM was nailing it and she was willing and open to expanding into managing my Podcast. Through rigorous and intentional training and support, I was able to work with my new SMM and get her up to speed on our Content Creation processes.
Lesson learnt: sometimes you’ve just gotta bet on people and believe in their potential rather than looking at their incompetencies. When we take the time to believe in people, we allow them to rise up and discover what they are capable of!
#11. We made a 10K month, easier and faster - selling ONE OFFER only. At the beginning of 2022, I closed my books to 1:1 clients. I focused on selling Coaches Accelerated only, and this was the first month I had been able to easily generate 6 figures selling that one offer. Mind you, this was done without launching or doing ANYTHING new or fancy. I simply kept talking about my program on my Instagram. That was it.
#12. I paid $2.5K in taxes in one go. This was a huge win for me. While $2.5k was a lot in one go, I had prepared for it and it didn’t feel like a huge hit. This was significantly different to the previous year when tax time was very stressful for me.
Lesson learnt: Become aware of your financial obligations, especially taxes and set yourself up ahead of time to be prepared for them. Future you will always thank you for it!
#13. I re-invested in hiring a 1:1 business coach. I had worked with business coaches in the past who taught me business foundations, mindset & had given me strategies that allowed me to get to this point. This next coach I hired was particularly skilled at ‘self-trust’ mastery. This was an investment to the inner work more than it was strategics. I learnt a lot more about myself, my subconscious money blocks and the underlying blocks that were affecting my business results. Looking back now, it was a worthy investment especially for the stage I was at in business! Around the ending of this coaching container, I decided I wanted to become a little more independent in my business and decided I would hold off hiring a new coach anytime soon so I could begin to build my business from self trust without the external influence of a mentor.
Lesson learnt: Having a mentor is not compulsory but it is a surefire way to create results faster. Some seasons i.e. the first few years in business, a coach is one of the best investments you can make over and over again (I've reinvested countless times in the first 3 years of business), after that, you can afford to become more independent of mentors & start investing in business infrastructure like upgrading your tech, platforms, subscriptions & even investing into your marketing more. In the beginning a lot of your investment has to go into self investment and learning both soft & hard skills i.e. sales, marketing, business fundamentals alongside money mindset, inner work, healing. Once youve invested in these and have your bearings, you have scalable skills which will benefit you for life!
That's all for now! I hope this helped you in some way!
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