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Why your income feels unpredictable

Why your income feels unpredictable

by | Mar 31, 2026 | Business Growth, Business model, Conscious business, Strategy, Sustainability

Why your income feels unpredictable

One of the hardest phases of business I’ve been through is what I call feast and famine. That is where you know your business works, to an extent, but income is completely unpredictable. It often feels like a game of chance. Not knowing when the next client or sale will come and just hoping it comes soon.

It was during that time that I often felt like there was some secret other business owners knew about that I had yet to discover. It’s in this space that I see so many business owners fall prey to manipulative strategies that promise to let you in on the secret that will magically bring about 10K months.

If you’re on my list there’s a good chance you’ve already called bullshit on those promises, or like many of the people I work with, perhaps you’ve spent thousands only to figure it out the hard way.

So here’s the thing. There is no secret or magic bullet, but there is what I call your “X”.

That is the lever you pull or the strategy you implement that does bring about more business.

I remember many years ago realising that I’d figured out that when I do more of my X, I get more clients.

My X might not look the same as your X, but they will have one thing in common: connection.

Because here’s the thing that I think on some level we understand but also often overlook.

Revenue follows connection.

Take a moment to let that sink in and feel into what that might mean for you.

For me, things finally started to fall into place in my business when I got consistent with two things: authentic outreach, keeping in touch with my network and having meaningful conversations, and writing long-form content, sharing my ideas and point of view on a regular basis in my newsletter and on my blog. Connection.

But here’s the part most people don’t talk about: there is a lag between connection and revenue.

As you’ll no doubt know, it’s not like we publish a post on Instagram and immediately get a client. It might take months of posting before we start getting any traction at all.

I remember committing to posting weekly blogs and it took nearly a year before people started applying for my coaching and telling me they had found me on Google.

And this lag creates two really common patterns.

1. People give up on or switch connection activities when they don’t see immediate results.

Or

2. They do it long enough to get results, sign a client or two, and then get so focused on delivery that they stop connecting altogether.

Income isn’t random. It follows behaviour. It follows how consistently we connect, how visible we are, how often we reach out.

Because there’s a lag, it’s very easy to misinterpret what’s happening. We stop connecting and nothing changes immediately, so we assume it’s fine. Or we start connecting and nothing changes immediately, so we assume it’s not working. But both of those interpretations are usually wrong.

Stability isn’t built in the week you feel motivated. It’s built in the months you keep going when nothing obvious seems to be happening yet. That doesn’t mean pushing beyond your capacity. It means choosing a rhythm you can realistically hold.

And that’s the part that’s hard. But it’s also the part that changes everything.

If your income has felt unpredictable lately, it might be worth looking back three months instead of three days. Where did connection slow down? Where did it stop entirely?

Because revenue follows connection. It just doesn’t do it instantly.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

 

How to Get Your Business Ready for Summer

How to Get Your Business Ready for Summer

by | Aug 4, 2025 | Business model

How to Get Your Business Ready for Summer

How to Get Your Business Ready for Summer (Without Burning Out or Dropping Balls)

With summer upon is, it’s time to get your business ready for what is likely to be a different pace. Let’s face it, summer has a habit of impacting what’s possible in our day to day working life and as such, it might be time to embrace a different rhythm.

Why Summer Deserves a Different Rhythm

There are several reasons you might operate on a different rhythm during the Summer months.

  • Kids on Summer break.
  • Summer holidays planned.
  • The desire to spend more time outdoors and less time on the computer.
  • More socialising because that’s what sunshine does to people!
  • Friends and family visiting (when you live in Spain, this is a big one!).
  • Less sign ups and clients during the summer months because they too are dealing with much of the above.

The impact all of this can have on our focus, our motivation and our bottom line is undeniable.

Yet so many of us head into Summer with all of the same expectations of ourselves and our businesses, only to be sorely disappointed when we inevitably get derailed by the Summer months.

What do you want and need from Summer?

I don’t know about you but I kinda want it all. Steady income AND lots of time and space to enjoy the sunshine with my family. But if push comes to shove, I know I’d rather take a hit to the bottom line, to allow me to enjoy the Summer with my boys.

How about you? What are your priorities for the coming Summer months? Will you be travelling? Have children home from school? Be out socialising more?

Take a moment now to really tune into what you want and need from Summer and give yourself full permission to define Summer on your own terms.

I’ve built a business model that brings in revenue all year round via group programs and 1:1 subscriptions but I know that often applications for 1:1 coaching drop in the Summer and some clients even put pause on our work until Autumn/Fall.

To some extent, I’m okay with this as it gives me the flexibility to finish my days early and hang with my boys and also to do things I can’t do when work is really busy. I have a couple of big launches coming up later in the year, so the spaces I see in July and August feel super helpful to me to prepare for those launches.

Having said that, I’m all about brainstorming some easeful ways to top up my income so that I can have a fun-filled Summer and not have to pay too dearly for it.

Anticipating and preparing for seasonal shifts

I’ve learnt over the years that certain shifts are to be expected when Summer hits and here is how I’m preparing for them.

1. People don’t want to make big commitments in the Summer

Given a lot of people are on holidays or wanting to spend less time in Zoom calls, it’s inevitable that I get less 1:1 coaching applications during the summer months and a lot of existing clients like to put pause on our work and restart later in the year.

That combined with my own holidays and I do typically see a drop in income in August particularly. This year, I’ve been brainstorming some summer friendly offers to offset the drop in income from my 1:1 coaching subscription with some offers that (hopefully) people will be more inclined to invest in.

2. I feel less inspired and have less time to create content

With a downtick in client sessions, I usually have less in the moment inspiration to guide my content creation during the Summer. Normally I write what feels present to me in the moment, based on what is coming up in client and group program calls. But for the next few months, I’ll take some time now to plan topics ahead of time so that I don’t have to think too much about it over the Summer.

I’ll also identify a few pieces of content that could be easily repurposed into newsletters should I not manage to get my content created each week.

And if I’m feeling really on top of things I might try and batch create a few pieces that can be scheduled for times when I can’t write, like when I’m on my 2-week holiday in August.

3. I have more space in my calendar than usual

Even though I typically work fewer hours in the Summer because I want to make the most of my time with my boys, even within the hours I do work, there’s typically more space in my calendar than during the Spring, Autumn, and Winter seasons.

Rather than waste this opportunity, I’m starting to plan now for the activities I want to work on, that I typically don’t have time to work on when I’m busier. Here are just some of the things I am considering/planning to do:

  • Working on my new website (I don’t have an official launch date yet but I do have a brand new brand and website in the works!)
  • Working on my message and web copy for the new website.
  • Working on implementing better SEO on the more than 200 articles I have written.
  • Working on growing my list with some new generous freebies.

I doubt I’ll have time to do all of these things but in being really intentional about planning my down-time, I am now really clear on what time I have left over for some of these business growth activities.

Managing expectations

With change afoot managing expectations is a must. Not just your expectations of yourself but your clients expectations.

Here’s what I do on that front:

In terms of my expectations, by doing the thinking now about what I want from Summer and what I can reasonably manage in the time available to me, I’m aware that certain things might not get done as quickly as usual or at all and I’m good with that.

In terms of clients, I’m always upfront with clients about when I’m on holiday and my boundaries around that. I’m a firm believer in working when I’m working and being off when I’m off so you won’t ever hear me say that I’ll try and answer emails while I’m away. Before holidays, I send a note to my clients to let them know I’ll be away and unresponsive to email and I put my autoresponder on.

As a business coach, I want to model what it looks like to run a spacious, sustainable business implementing strong boundaries and protecting your down time at all costs!

What’s on your list?

Now that I’ve shared with you how I am preparing for the Summer, I’d like to invite you to take some time to consider the following questions:

  1. What do you want and need from your Summer?
  2. What seasonal shifts do you anticipate in your business this Summer?
  3. Is there anything you need to do to better prepare for those shifts?
  4. Is there anything you want to do less of or more of during Summer?
  5. What can you prep or automate now to take the burden off later?
  6. What boundaries will you put in place with your clients?

I’d love to invite you to take just one simple action to prepare your business for Summer this week. Feel free to let me know what it is in the comments.

 

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Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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Cohort vs. Evergreen: Why I Choose Cohorts

Cohort vs. Evergreen: Why I Choose Cohorts

by | Jun 25, 2025 | Business model

Cohort vs. Evergreen: Why I Choose Cohorts for My Group Programs

Cohort vs. Evergreen: Why I Choose Cohorts for My Group Programs

I’m going to discuss the cohort vs evergreen but first let me tell you my story. Back when I first started this business, I came across a business coach running a highly successful membership for entrepreneurs. She had thousands of members and was charging around £40 month bringing in six figure revenue each and every month. As you can imagine, I was inspired by this model.

Wanting to learn more, I joined the membership and witnessed first hand the weekly live calls and extensive resource library of classes and decided (rather naively) that I would create an ethical business membership along similar lines.

In 2017, the Female Business Academy was born. I built my own website, reached out to some amazing business owners to come and teach classes, had a beta launch where 20 women signed up and I was excited to grow it into something big and profitable.

I worked my butt off and created some really great classes with some really amazing teachers.

2 years later I shut my evergreen membership down because it simply wasn’t making enough money.

One year after that I launched my cohort business mastermind.

Cohort programs are a big part of my business model. I’m a huge fan of the format and I want to share with you why.

The downsides of evergreen

Evergreen groups usually mean something that people can join and leave anytime they want.

With this situation, there are two things you need to be paying constant attention to: the retention of existing members and the recruitment of new members.

If you don’t pay attention to these two things then existing members will eventually drop off and few new members will join. Meaning you’ll be doing the same amount of work for diminishing financial return.

This is pretty much what happened to my membership, resulting in a situation where I was working hard to create new content every month for a tiny number of people, who were paying just a couple of hundred euros a month between them.

This is why when clients come to me with dreams of running an evergreen group program, I usually recommend that they don’t. Here’s two reasons why.

It’s hard on your own

What I failed to take into account when creating my membership and hoping for the success I’d seen others have, was that I didn’t not have a marketing team and huge ad budget.

It was just me. Me creating the content, me doing the marketing, me delivering the content, me onboarding new members, me managing the community. And to top it off, zero budget for ads.

Those big successful memberships you’ve seen? I bet they’re all from established multi 6-figure business owners who spend a ton on ads and have a team to help with marketing, content creation and community support. They’ve likely been in business 10 years plus and have a goldmine of existing content they can repurpose and repackage without being on a constant treadmill of content creation

Can lack a sense of community

When you have a group that people can join at anytime, the group is constantly shifting. One of my favourite things about running group programs is the bond that develops between group members. The same set of people working on the same things at the same time.

If people are joining and leaving at different points the group never really gets a chance to bond and develop into something that feels truly safe and supportive.

The Shift to Cohorts

I made the shift to cohorts back in 2020 when I launched my first yearlong group mastermind. It meant a set start and end date with a big launch to fill it.

It definitely wasn’t all plain sailing, That first year, I charged way too little, gave way too much and only had 6 members sign up, which dropped down to 4 as two members dropped off part way through the year,

That first year was a slog and given the time I spent creating content and on live calls, it definitely wasn’t a profitable first year. But, I was determined to make it work so I launched again in 2021, this time I put the price up, offered less (I took out individual 1:1 sessions) and got 14 people signed up (which dropped to 12 as the year went on). Much better.

Since then it’s grown year on year, so much so that I now have two groups a year. And of course because I spent those first few years developing marketing materials, class content and structures and systems, what I have today is something I can roll out with ease, year on year.

Why Cohorts Work

There are several reasons I love the cohort model:

Marketing is contained to one launch

For some people the pressure to fill the group with a single launch is a reason to avoid cohorts but that’s what I love about them. Once the launch is over, I can focus on service delivery without worrying about getting more sign ups. Is the launch period intense? Sure, but I’d rather a contained period of intense marketing rather than needing to market all year round.

Strong sense of community

Because everyone starts together, it’s easier to cultivate a sense of trust between group members. For me the group dynamic that grows in my yearlong program is a huge part of the group’s magic.

Even in my shorter programs, strong relationships are built that often last longer than the program itself. It’s not uncommon for members of my group programs to go on meeting and co-working together long after the paid program ends.

Creates shared momentum

Because people are working on the same things at the same time and at roughly the same pace, I’ve found a much higher level of engagement and accountability. People don’t want to miss calls because they don’t want to fall behind and also because you get to know your fellow group members well you don’t want to let them down by no-showing on calls.

Clear boundaries

I like the fact that with cohorts, there are clear boundaries around when I’m marketing and when I’m not and also when I’m in service delivery and when I’m not. Because my Conscious Business Mastermind is yearlong, I don’t get to switch off from that one, but my shorter group programs are between 5–7 weeks which means they’re intense while they’re live and then I can switch off and focus elsewhere when they’re not.

Who Evergreen Is Good For

Is there ever a good time to build an evergreen group program? Yes, in my opinion when you have the following two things in place:

You are an established business owner with a sizeable audience that is growing all the time because of consistent marketing.

AND…

You already have content to share plus a budget/team for things like ads, community support and marketing.

Can you do evergreen without these things? For sure, but it will be harder. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong option for you.

Which model is right for you?

I’m not saying that cohorts are the right approach for everyone.

Or that one model is better than the other, but if you’ve been struggling to make evergreen work, you might find some of things I’ve shared helpful in understanding why.

I’m also not saying that I would never use an evergreen model for groups, in fact I have one currently in development but for now, the stage I am at in my business with the audience size I have, cohorts will usually be my go to for group programs.

How about you? Which model do you prefer or feel most drawn to? I’d love to hear about your experience with either cohorts or evergreen or your plans to start with one of those formats.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Stop Copying Other Business Owners

Stop Copying Other Business Owners

by | Sep 13, 2023 | Business model

“Whatever you do, be different — that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.”
~ Anita Roddick

As a business coach and more importantly, as a business owner, I’m pretty obsessed with the importance of having a sustainable business model.

I started out as a brand new coach over a decade ago and between then and now I’ve pretty much made all of the business model mistakes a business owner can make.

Copying other people’s models without knowing the full picture, undercharging and overgiving, overcharging and under delivering and many more besides.

From it all, the greatest lesson I’ve learned regarding business model is the importance of sustainability.

A business that not only sustains you financially but that fulfils you personally. A business that gives you energy, rather than drains you of it.

A business that you actually enjoy showing up for, week after week, month after month, year after year.

So what makes a sustainable business model?

Most newer business owners, trying to figure out how to make money, will jump straight to looking at what combination of products and services they will offer, asking themselves “what can I sell in order to start bringing money into my business?”

And with this question comes a tendency to look around at what others in our field (particularly those who are more successful) are offering and try to copy it even when what they are copying might be totally unsuitable for the individual business owner.

My alternative to this is to take time to consider the following elements in order to create a business model or offering that is unique to you.

What stage of business are you at?

If you are brand new in business, the types of offerings you want to be considering will be significantly different to those for a more established business owner. My recommendation to people early on their business journey is to focus on a simple but impactful 1:1 service (like my subscription model).

When you have a small audience, it’s far easier to get 1 person to sign up for coaching with you, than it is to get 5–10 people into a group program, even if the latter is cheaper for the customer. I’ve seen many newer business owners get burned by trying to do group offerings too soon.

Having said that, there are always exceptions to the rule so the important thing is that you consider your unique situation rather than follow blanket advice.

What would you enjoy to create and deliver?

When you seek to create a new offering, rather than copy what “seems” to be working for others in your field, it’s crucial that you take into account your own gifts and strengths, preferences and tendencies. Are you a gifted speaker, for example, who thrives when teaching a room full of people? Or do you come alive when working 1:1 and going deep with individuals? Are you introverted or extroverted? Does lots of contact with people drain you or sustain you? These and so much more are really important things to consider as you design your next product or service.

What your audience wants (and needs) and would be prepared to pay for?

As business owners we often assume we know best when it comes to what our clients “need” but this isn’t necessarily what they want or what they are willing to pay for. What is key here is doing some research with your people before you create something. Most business owners do little audience research before creating and launching a new offering and the effects of this are few if any sales.

What your audience would be able to bear in terms of marketing?

This comes into play when we consider the product or service we want to create and sell. With a small audience, getting a new 1:1 client a month may still be pretty achievable. A small or stagnant audience, won’t however bear a big group launch 2 or 3 times a year. Here you want to be taking into account not only your audience size but it’s rate of growth. How many new people are getting to know you each month?

What marketing the business owner can bear or afford to do?

This is the one that tripped me up in the early days of my business. I got all excited when I came across a business membership for female entrepreneurs. The founder had hundreds (if not thousands) of members all paying less than £40 a month and I thought it was genius.

I figured I could make a membership for ethical and conscious business owners and I wouldn’t need half the members they had and could even charge less. To begin it was great — I had nearly 20 members sign up from my tiny list but pretty soon I was completely burned out from creating content and trying to retain the members I had (most of whom had paid a super low beta rate). Plus I didn’t have the energy or the desire to do the marketing required to enrol new people. A year later I had to close it down as it wasn’t financially sustainable.

All products and services require different levels and types of marketing to be successful. Make sure you take this into consideration before copying someone else’s business model. If they’ve been in business a while, they may have a whole team and advertising budget to support them (like the business I was seeking to emulate!).

The problem with copying

When you are early on in the business journey, it can take a lot of courage to ditch conventional advice and forge your own path.

I remember myself when decided I wanted to move away from the classic 3 and 6 month coaching package and instead offer a coaching subscription, I was actually terrified, it took me a year and lots of testing behind the scenes with existing clients before I changed my business model and made my coaching subscription the only way people could work with me 1:1. My business took off from there.

Creating something unique

It can be hard to create a unique business model or offering when we see nearly everyone doing the same thing. So I wanted to share some examples of unique (and successful) offerings that demonstrate how it can be done.

My subscription model for 1:1 coaching. When I realised that my clients weren’t able to achieve results in an arbitrary 12 week timeframe, I ditched the traditional 3 month coaching package in favour of a lower priced ongoing subscription and the results have been amazing both for my business (more clients + more income) and for my clients. Because of the lower price point, they’re able to stay with me longer and therefore get better results.

My favourite ethical copywriter Lauren Van Mullem realised that she didn’t only want to do full service copywriting for people and wanted to find something less intensive for her and more affordable for her clients so she created Loom Reviews. Lauren also ditched convention with her freebie. Rather than a “5 ways to make your copy stand out” PDF, she created Craft and Copy hour. A way for her to make time for her love of crafts, a chance to meet Lauren, do some crafting with her and ask her any copy related ideas you have. Talk about unique!

Tad Hargrave found he didn’t want to spend so much time in front of a computer, he wanted a less
cluttered home but resented tidying AND that some of his people couldn’t afford his full 1:1 coaching rate of $300 an hour so he created puttering sessions — a unique solution to all of the above. Lower priced coaching sessions, because Tad will be puttering around his home tidying up while he talks to you! Genius.

All of the above, hopefully demonstrate what’s possible when you create something that is truly unique to you!

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

The Number One Business Question I Regularly Ask Myself

The Number One Business Question I Regularly Ask Myself

by | Feb 22, 2023 | Business model

After years of trial and error and navigating periods of burnout, I’m delighted to report that I have a business model that really works for me. Not only does it bring in regular and sustainable income but it does so in a way that allows me to take time off when I need to, not work crazy hours each day and still have an impact on my client’s lives and businesses.

This is not by accident, it’s by design and from keeping my focus firmly on one question and 3 variables.

How can I make the most amount of money, with the greatest amount of ease without sacrificing impact?

What I love about this question is that it’s answer leads me to a business model that is sustainable for me. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

You don’t need me to tell you how important income is. Without income, we don’t have a business (rather an expensive hobby). Without a steady and consistent flow of income that covers our expenses, we struggle. Often living month to month in a state of stress and worry, which then impacts how we show up to our work.

We might even repel would-be clients with a needy, desperate energy because we are so focused on getting the sale that we struggle to stay in a mode of generous service.

Or maybe you are making regular and consistent income and want to grow. You want to go beyond just covering expenses and want to be able to save for the future, travel, buy a home.

Whatever your situation, as a business owner, income is likely to be a priority for you.

If it’s the only priority, that’s when we run into trouble. That’s where we see businesses that prioritise profits before people and we all know how that goes.

As conscious business owners, only focusing on money isn’t enough of a driver for us, so it would be unsustainable over the long term if this was our only priority.

When we seriously consider how easy it is for us to do the work we do, we begin to work smarter instead of harder.

It’s a common mistake to think that if we are going to make a decent living, we must be working hard. I long ago stopped buying into the idea of hard work. Does that mean I slack off all day and do the bare minimum? Hell no!

What it means is that I consider each and every task and service I offer in my business and ask myself, how can I make this easier for me to do? How can I work smarter instead of harder?

Over the years that has looked like simplifying my services so that I still serve my people but without overstretching myself to do so. Why? Because overgiving and overextending ourselves is not sustainable in the long term.

For the conscious business owner, having a positive impact is a key driver in everything you do. It’s why you do the work you do, it’s what motivated you to start your own business in the first place.

When impact is focused on above all else, we start to see overgiving. We tell ourselves that in order to have a meaningful impact we must be doing all of the things for all of the people, all of the time.

When impact is prioritised over income, I hear business owners saying things like “the money isn’t important to me” and this is where I despair.

When we only focus on impact and ignore the importance of both income and ease, we deplete ourselves in the name of giving. We give everything to our clients and don’t get enough in return. We live in a state of unsustainable struggle and over time, this inevitably becomes unsustainable.

When making the most money in the easiest way possible becomes the goal, without any consideration of impact then the end user or client can suffer because the impact of the service is not being prioritised.

Maintaining a healthy balance between all three of these variables (income, ease and impact) is crucial and ultimately leads to the most sustainable way to do business.

What this looks like in practice

Allow me to give you an example of how this has played out in my own business.

When I first launched the Conscious Business Mastermind back in 2020, I had the price low — 100€ a month. I gave a lot for that. Weekly calls all year round, new classes every month and 1:1 sessions for every member, every quarter. The number of participants that first year was also low. The result being a yearlong group program that wasn’t profitable and that took an enormous amount of time to deliver. Low income, high impact, low ease. Not sustainable.

Over the years, asking myself the question, how can I make the most money, with the greatest amount of ease, without sacrificing impact? has led to many changes which have resulted in the Mastermind becoming a hugely important revenue generator in my business. It’s also where I see many of my clients really soar. Those changes have included: Putting the price up from 100€ to 135€ a month, removing the free 1:1 sessions and instead offering these at a discounted rate and focusing on getting the numbers of participants up. Given that I repeat much of the teaching, every year it gets easier to deliver.

I’m regularly told by participants that I could charge more for what’s on offer but I don’t because I think that on this service, I’ve got the balance of Income, Ease and Impact just right. But this didn’t happen by accident. It happened because I thought long and hard about these 3 variables and made sure that all were taken into account as I tweaked and redesigned my offer. High income, high impact and high ease = sustainable over the long-term which is why I’ve offered it for 4 years running.

So how about you? Is your business model working for you? Could you use some support. See below for details of a low-cost workshop I’m running on this very topic.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Celebrating Five Years Since I Launched This Business + 21 Lessons Learned

Celebrating Five Years Since I Launched This Business + 21 Lessons Learned

by | Jul 13, 2022 | Business model, Uncategorized

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
~ Winston Churchill

On Thursday 19th May 2022, I celebrated 5 years in business as a business coach, around 8 years in business total (I was a Life Coach before that) and around 10 years of working for myself. As such, I thought it would be a great opportunity to share some of what I’ve learned over the past 5–10 years.

The most exciting thing for me to be able to share after 5 years in business, is that it’s working.

I make a good living, working only 6 hours a day. Often working only 4 days a week, as I regularly take Fridays off. I love what I do and I’m having a positive impact on the lives and businesses of others (so I’m told!). What more could I ask for? In many ways, it feels like a dream come true.

Whilst I share this, I’m painfully aware that it hasn’t always been this way that there has been a lot of struggle and fear over the years as well as courage, blind faith and dogged determination. A lot of highs as well as a lot of lows. There have been months where I’ve made more money than I knew what to do with and months where I’ve not known how I was going to pay the rent (more of the latter than the former so far).

In this blog, I’m going to share just a few things I’ve learned along the way.

1. Your income doesn’t reflect your worth. Period.

2. The number of likes, shares and comments on your content doesn’t determine the value of what you have to say. Most people aren’t even seeing it.

3. There is no shame in getting part-time work to pay the bills while you’re waiting to get your business off the ground. Financial stability is a really good place to operate from.

4. Belief that you’ll succeed is key. I genuinely believe this is one of the most important factors of my own success. I never said “if my business works” I said “when” and I meant it.

5. In many ways your business is just like having a job. You have to show up for it and do the work or you’ll lose it.

6. It takes time for things to work. In my experience, it’s taken at least a year of consistent application of any given strategy before I’ve seen good results. Strategy switching kills your business.

7. Less is more. The more you do, the more exhausted you become and the more confused your audience gets. Pick a few things and do them well.

8. Keep it simple. Don’t try to be too clever in your business, try to be clear. Remember a confused mind says no.

9. Do what you love rather than what the mainstream marketers tell you you should be doing. You’ll be more consistent that way.

10. Support is essential. Over the years, I’ve worked with many coaches, taken a lot of courses and had several amazing mastermind partners. Even now, I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to a mentor if I’m feeling stuck or unsure about my next steps.

11. There’s no quick fix or magic bullet when it comes to building a successful and sustainable business. Those people on the internet who say that there is, are profiting off your desire to succeed. Be in it for the long haul and know that these things take time.

12. It takes about 4 years of consistently working on the right things to reach a level of sustainability in business. That’s been my experience and it’s the number I’ve heard shared by other experienced business coaches I respect.

14. The two most important strategies to implement to grow your business are: consistent content creation and practising authentic outreach (aka, talking to people!).

14. Strategy trumps tactics. It doesn’t matter if you are on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, writing long-form, making videos or doing reels. What matters is that you are showing up consistently and being of value. That’s strategy. The former is tactics.

15. It’s more important to challenge your clients than it is to please them. In my line of work anyway!

16. Generosity is a wonderful way to do business. But don’t over give as it doesn’t serve you or others.

17. Be mindful of what you consume. Unsubscribe from or unlike anyone whose advice feels toxic or makes you feel less than. Choose your mentors wisely, based on shared values.

18. You don’t need to worry about bothering people, if you are a business owner, then you must accept that people are in your audience and on your list because they expect to be sold to.

19. Ask for feedback as much as possible, but focus on what your ideal clients are telling you more than anyone else.

20. If you really want to master something in business, taking action trumps all the thinking, studying, reading and listening you can do.

21. Give more than you ask. Genuinely put people before the sale and interestingly you’ll make more sales.

There’s so much more I could say but for now, I’ll leave it there. I hope that in some small way, my lessons learned over the last 5–10 years, are useful to you on your journey. Now over to you, what’s your greatest lesson learned in business? I would so love to know.

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