Shownotes
Wow what a year it’s been! In this episode I’m going to walk you through how to review 2022 for your business and look at the things that actually matter and those that will help you have an even better 2023.
It’s always mixed emotions when I get to the end of a year. There’s the exhaustion, I’m sure you’re feeling it too. Everything seems to all come at you at once and the list of things you wanted to get done before the end of the year seems to get bigger while the days left to do it are disappearing quickly.
Then there’s the excitement for next year and all the possibilities, but somehow the excitement soon turns to overwhelm – I think because you realise you may not have gotten everything done that you wanted to this year.
So to start with how about we just give ourselves a break yeah? It’s been a big year and we tend to focus on all the wrong things at the end of the year. So if you’re focusing on all the things that didn’t go to plan, all the things you want to do better next year, all the things you haven’t gotten done I want you to take a moment to shift your focus.
What went well
I want you to write down 20 good things that happened this year. Once you get to 20, see if you can make it 30, then keep going and make a list as long as you can. See if you can get to 52 so there’s one for each week of the year.
It’s easy to focus on all the negatives and things that could be better but when we force ourselves to stop and reflect we can start to remember all the awesome things that happened this year. Now these don’t all have to be about your business. Maybe you were able to take a long weekend off and get away with the family, maybe you worked less this year, which is a win in itself.
Perhaps you were able to make your kids swimming carnival or assembly, maybe you and your significant other went on a date night! That’s one thing I want to do more of next year, but all the ones I got in this year are going on my list.
For your businesses think about what you did this year, did you launch a new product? Hire a staff member? Move premises? Outsource something? Post to social media more than last year? Build your email list? Send regular emails?
Put it all on your list.
Don’t forget the big things too, did you win an award? Have a record month? Or even a record year? I was talking to one of my ad clients last week and said congratulations on joining the 6 figure club as she’d done over $100,000 in her business for the year and she went “oh yeah” like she hadn’t actually noticed.
That’s the thing about goals, ambition, growth. We are always striving for the next thing and we forget to celebrate when we achieve what we set out to do, we’re too busy striving for the next thing. And there is nothing wrong with constantly increasing your goals and moving forward, but it’s important to stop and celebrate your milestones, all your little wins, otherwise you’re constantly striving and will feel as though you’re never getting anywhere.
So if you got your website live this year – congratulations! Celebrate!
If you made your first sale this year – Good on you – celebrate!
If you had your first $1,000 month, or your first $10,000 month – hell yeah – celebrate!
If you had your first 6 figure year – awesome – you guessed it, celebrate!
If you had your first 6 figure month, which some of our students did – AMAZING! Celebrate that like crazy! You’re on your way to a 7 figure business!
And if you hit the 7 figure mark this year – YES! Go you! High fives all around, I hope you stopped to celebrate and if you didn’t – do it now.
One day the things you will strive for today will become your new normal. A $10,000 month will be OK, whereas right now it may seem amazing. Then down the track you’ll feel the same way about a $100,000 month if you choose to grow that big.
I used to be the person who never celebrated but then it made that achievement seem so insignificant that I really didn’t have the purpose behind hitting my next goal. These days I set a reward for each goal I set.
Rewards can be anything you like – maybe you treat yourself to a nice piece of jewellery, or a date night at a nice restaurant, a massage or a weekend away. It can be anything – but it must be something you want. Something special.
Then when you’re setting your goals for your business in 2023 set a reward for each one. The bigger the goal, the more effort required, the bigger the reward.
So if you hit your monthly revenue goal you know exactly what you’re going to do to celebrate and it will help drive your motivation to get it done.
Years ago when I first hit 6 figures in my business I didn’t do anything, then I was in Melbourne with a girlfriend and we went past a Tiffany store (we don’t have those in Tassie) and I said stuff it I’m going to celebrate my 6 figure year and I went in and bought myself the only thing I could afford in the shop which was a $200 necklace. At the time that was huge for me to spend that kind of money on myself, especially on something like jewellery. But now every time I wear it I remember that I earned that necklace and that I bought it for myself.
So once you’ve finished celebrating all the amazing things you have done in 2022 please take a photo and share it with me on Instagram – or better still post it to your stories and tag me – that way you can share your wins with everyone and encourage others to do the same.
Before you start making your goals for 2023 I next want you to answer a few questions about this year.
What can you outsource?
Firstly let’s look at what you’re doing in your business, and perhaps what you could be getting others to do for you.
Write down all the things that you enjoy doing in your business – it may be that you like making the products, or taking the photos, or creating content. Write them all down.
Then write down all the things you don’t like doing in your business. ANything that makes you cringe when you think about having to do it – it may be the graphic design, your bookkeeping, posting to social media or packing orders.
There’s no right or wrong answers, it’s what you personally enjoy and don’t enjoy in your business.
Then take the list of things you don’t like doing and split them up into 2 columns. The first column is all the things you don’t like doing, but are good at. Then the next column is all the things you don’t like doing and you’re also not good at.
Now when you’re looking towards the new year your goals should include starting to outsource some of the things in the second column.
If you don’t like doing these tasks and you’re not good at them then you’re not doing you or your business any favours by doing them.
Once you’ve managed to outsource everything in that column then look at the first column to outsource things just because you don’t enjoy them, even though you’re good at them. Be sure to write a list of all the things you do enjoy as well. Again you can split this into things you are good at and things you aren’t. Those things you enjoy but aren’t necessarily good at – perhaps you can find some training on them in the new year so you can continue to do the things in your business that you enjoy, but ensure that you are helping your business grow by doing them well.
Reflect on your numbers
Take a look at your sales. How did they compare to previous years? Which month was your best? Which month was your slowest?
Which product sold the best? Which was the worst? What was your profit margin for the year? Which products made you the most profit? Which promotions worked well, which ones didn’t? Why?
What was your return on investment for all your marketing efforts this year? Take a look at how much revenue you made all year, then divide it by how much you spend on marketing – including all your paid advertising. You want to make sure that what you spend is less that the profit you make on the revenue to ensure you’re making money.
And the last financial question is how much did you pay yourself?
Now in Australia we’re only half way through the financial year so if you’re not happy with some of the answers there is still time to change them before the end of the financial year.
Deep dive your data
Look at your website traffic in Google Analytics. Where was your traffic coming from? Who were your audience? What gender are they, how old are they? Which audience converted the best? What was your overall conversion rate? What was your average order value?
Sometimes we think we know the answers to these questions so we don’t bother to check. But things can change, content you put out, photos or videos you use can attract an audience different to who you thought, so you need to check in every now and then and make sure you’re attracting the right audience.
If you’re a list lover, another list you can write is all the things you learned this year. My first year in business I was 24, and I lost so much money… But looking back I call it my uni degree as I learned so much. So even if things didn’t all go to plan this year, what did you learn? It’s important to take stock of all the learnings, that way it wasn’t a failure as you learned something. It may have been about you, about your customers or about your business. You may have learned which days not to send your emails, when the best time to have a promo is, which times to avoid, which promotions work for your audience, which don’t. You may have learned about a new product your customers would love to see from you, or something you thought would be a great idea and you learned it wasn’t. Anything at all, big or small, write it down.
Start to think about what you want your business to look like in 2023, when you write these lists this time next year, what do you want to be on there, what do you want to be different? Join me on the next episode as I help you plan your goals for 2023 and create a strategy to achieve them.
Have a very Merry Christmas and please give yourself some time off to rest and recover and celebrate everything you have achieved in 2022.
Thank you once again for supporting Unstoppable eCommerce in 2022. I can’t wait to help you become Unstoppable in 2023.
Episode Highlights
- Ask me anything [01:34]
- List down the good to shift focus [02:24]
- Celebrate the little things [05:04]
- Share your success stories with us [07:41]
- Strategy to imrpove the business and maximize time [08:18]
- Ways to track your data [12:06]
