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5 Elements Your Freebie Needs To Be Successful

5 Elements Your Freebie Needs To Be Successful

by | Jul 9, 2024 | Ethical Marketing, Uncategorized

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.”
~ Bob Burg (The Go Giver)

I want to share with you my best advice on how to make your freebie a success.

Here’s the thing. Not all freebies are created equal. You’ve no doubt experienced the disappointing freebie. The pithy PDF that promised you all the answers to your greatest struggle, only to find it didn’t contain anything you didn’t already know. If you’re anything like me nothing has you reaching for the unsubscribe button quicker.

I gave up on freebies like these many years ago after handing over my email address countless times, only to feel disappointed at first and then deeply irritated after being bombarded with sales emails thereafter. Not cool.

As you might imagine, I offer a different approach.

What I recommend to my clients instead is what I call the “Generous Freebie”. Something that is blow your socks off useful for the people who sign up for it.

What follows, are the key elements I believe any freebie worth it’s weight should include plus some examples of the types of freebie that tick all of these boxes.

1. It’s actually free

If you are going to offer something free, please don’t make it a hidden sales pitch. Don’t offer a gift, only to bombard people with sales emails afterwards.

For years now I have even been offering freebies without making people sign up to my newsletter as a prerequisite because my thinking is that it’s not really free if people have to pay with their email address but I’m changing that.

I think as long as you are super clear up front that people will be added to a mailing list and given an easy way to unsubscribe afterwards if they want and you don’t then use this as a means to send lots of sales emails, then I don’t think it’s a biggie to add people to your list. The key is to be clear and transparent.

2. It offers real value

If you are going to offer a freebie, have it be something that really is of value to your people. That means taking time to create it. If you can whip up a freebie in 5 minutes, the chances are it’s not going to have an impact.

So my advice, don’t just throw something together and slap a big promise on it.

Put in the work to actually create something that will support the recipient to make progress on the very problem you help people with.

It’s my belief that when we can offer real value to a person before they’ve spent a penny with us, they trust that we’re not just after their money and we actually care about them and their journey, which begins a relationship that in many cases will result in future sales and it’s such a lovely way to do business too!

3. It demonstrates your expertise.

Find it hard to explain what you do to prospective clients? A good freebie will show them the impact of working with you. No convincing pitch necessary.

Think of your freebie as a place to really shine. What skills and expertise do your ideal clients need and how can you bring these to the fore in your freebie.

My whole approach to business is to focus on demonstrating expertise rather than trying to manipulate and cajole people into buying from us. What could you create or share that truly demonstrates your gifts?

4. It’s generous.

Yes the clue is in the title — given I call it the generous freebie, what I’m talking about here goes above and beyond the pithy PDF. We’re talking about something that has actually taken you time to create or takes you time to deliver, something that people won’t quite believe you’re offering for free.

I’ll get into examples later on.

5. It’s visible.

It doesn’t matter how generous or valuable your freebie is if nobody knows it exists, so if you are going to take the time to create a truly generous freebie, you must also invest the time to promote it.

If you are struggling to grow your audience, a good and well promoted freebie can draw people in who otherwise wouldn’t be ready to buy. It’s a great way to take people from not knowing us to getting a better sense of who we are, what we’re about and how we can help, leading them to stick around (join our list, lean in etc).

So, now that you know what it takes to create a generous freebie, you might be wondering how on earth you’re going to package all of that into one free offering. Don’t worry, I have some examples.

The free workshop — why not create a free workshop that really helps people in your niche? You could run it a few times a year for your audience and even offer it out to other people’s audience. I’ve been teaching free classes for other people’s groups for years and they’re always a heap of fun and I nearly always get a load of new subscribers and/or clients.

The free challenge — this is one of my favourites and I’ve run several over the years, including my Outreach Challenge, My Content Challenge, My Spring Clean Your Business Challenge and many more besides. They’ve proven time and time again to help me to expand my audience, nurture those already in it and give generously to my audience.

The free session — for years, my most generous freebie was a 60 minute coaching session and when I had far less clients, I gifted these regularly. These days, I rarely offer gift sessions simply due to constraints on my diary but when I feel really inspired to, I do. Not only have these been an amazing way for me to meet and get to know people in my audience but I’ve also got lots of new clients over the years from people who loved the session enough to want to continue working with me.

And now for some examples from people I love.

My own brand designer and former client, Nathalie of Utterly Create offers people a free lite review of their brand. Something that definitely ticks all of the boxes.

My favourite copywriter, Lauren Van Mullem hosts free Craft and Copy hours, where you can hang out with her and do crafts while getting your copy questions answered.

I’m not sure he does them anymore but Tad Hargrave of Marketing for Hippies used to offer 60 second niche reviews in his stories on Instagram. You can see the videos of these here.

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 Create Your Ideal Business Schedule

How To Create Your Ideal Business Schedule

by | Jun 26, 2024 | Productivity, Uncategorized

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
~ Annie Dillard

One of the very first things I ask all new clients about is their working schedule. More often than not, people readily admit that their schedule is all over the place and is something they know they need to work on. Even so, the vast majority of those will also admit that they feel some level of resistance when it comes to scheduling their day.

Rather than see having a schedule as liberating, they typically see it as something that will restrict their freedom and despite craving more structure, find themselves railing against having a schedule.

I totally get it. After well over a decade of working 9–5, I fully embraced not having a schedule when I first quit my career in pursuit of running my own business. For years I had to get up at 5.45am to catch a train at 7am in order to get to work for 9am, followed by feeling trapped in my place of work for the next 8 hours, only to repeat the same gruelling journey home again. I’ll admit, a schedule like that is enough to drive anyone to question their life choices, no matter how appealing the salary.

Despite this, I soon realised that having no schedule meant that I actually felt like I was either always working or never working and as a result doing very little to move my business forward. Having structure is what helped me to be able to really work when I’m working and rest when I’m resting.

The piece that people miss, however, when I bring up the topic of schedule, is the word IDEAL. Having a soul-sucking schedule is nobody’s idea of fun, but what if you could create a schedule that honours your passions and desired lifestyle and maximises your chances of creating a successful business doing work that helps you to change the world for the better? That’s what I’d like to show you how to do today.

Step 1 — identify when you don’t want to work

When designing your ideal schedule, given that life is more important than work (no matter how important your work is), I invite you to consider all of those times on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis that you DON’T want to work.

In my ideal schedule for example:

On a weekly basis, I don’t work on the weekend (Saturday and Sunday), this for me is FAMILY time. I also don’t work before 9.30am, this for me is MY time to exercise, shower and enjoy a slow and mindful breakfast.

On a daily basis, I don’t work over lunchtime, taking at least 1 hour for lunch on Mondays and Friday and on Tuesday — Thursday taking 2.5 hours as I have one or both of my sons home for lunch. I also don’t want to work beyond 6.30pm as my boys are home from school by then and that when we start family time.

I also have 2 x 30 minute breaks a day. One at 11–11.30am and one at 4.30–5.00pm.

In terms of annual holidays. I know that I want to take 2 weeks off in August for our family holiday as well as time at Christmas and Easter and I usually block these off for the year ahead. Most of the business owners I work with have never booked off their annual vacation time ahead of time. If that’s you, I highly recommend it. I typically take 7 weeks a year off.

On a monthly basis, I also usually take the 5th week of the month off on those months that have 5 weeks. This year, that’s March, May, August and November. I organise my 1:1 subscription and my group program so that I can take those off.

Now it’s your turn, when WON’T you work on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis? Once you’ve removed the times you don’t want to work, you should now have your working hours.

Mine for example are as follows:

Monday to Friday, 9.30am — 12.30pm and 3.30pm to 6.30pm.

That’s 6 hours a day, 5 days a week = 30 hours a week. 45 weeks a year.

I choose to work full-time because my boys are in school and I like bringing in a full-time income. I’ll share with you later how I bring flexibility into those full-time hours.

Step 2 — Identify what types of work you need to do

One of the most common questions I receive is what should I be doing to grow my business on a day to day basis? Of course, this will vary from business to business but I do believe there are some activities it’s important to incorporate into your weekly business schedule. These are:

  • Client hours — for me these are my 1:1 sessions and group program calls
  • Lead generation hours — these for me are my working together calls and times I am speaking or presenting to other people’s audiences. For many of my clients it might be when they are running gift sessions.
  • Admin — love it or hate it, we all have admin and inboxes to manage.
  • Content Marketing — this should include time to create, repurpose and promote your content.
  • Authentic outreach — if this isn’t something that you already do on the regular, I recommend scheduling time specifically for this activity.
  • CEO time — this is what I call the time I need to spend working “on” the business rather than “in” the business — it might be, for example, when I create the content for a new workshop or make changes to my website or create new systems or processes.

Step 3 — Identify when during your working hours you want to do each type of work

When we work on what is important. Many people will, for example, argue that the best time to do creative work is in the morning, when our brains our the freshest, but what works for one person may not work for another. Taking time to explore what feels ideal to you is key here.

To give you an example, here are some of the things I have found work best for me.

I don’t like doing video calls first thing. I like a slower start to my day so I don’t allow clients to book sessions before 11.30am.

I don’t like to do more than 4 video calls in any given day so the maximum slots you’ll ever find available on my schedule is 4 and on many days it’s far fewer than that.

I also like a slower start and end to the week so I only have one 5pm client call on a Monday and the rest of the day is dedicated to content creation (and my new art class!) and Friday’s are kept call-free and what I call my CEO day when I can catch up on client work, marketing and product and service creation.

The beauty of having Mondays and Fridays largely free of calls is that when friends or family come to visit or we want to go away for a long weekend, I can usually book these days off without too much hassle. It does mean I have a pretty intense Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but having a light Monday and Friday and the weekend off in between works well for me.

Step 4 — schedule these as recurring appointments in your calendar

It’s one thing to have your ideal schedule written down on a piece of paper and quite another to have it scheduled (and colour coded) in your online calendar. Personally, I recommend Google Calendar and here’s a screenshot of mine.

This image is my IDEAL schedule which I have as a seperate calendar inside Google calendar but my actual calendar looks pretty similar — I won’t share for confidentiality reasons.

If you are worried about having your days blocked off like this, know that you can mark appointments in Google calendar as busy or free so that you can have something showing in your calendar as for example “save for client session” but marked as free so it’s still bookable via a scheduler.

Also, your days don’t have to be as scheduled or as full as mine! Yours might look very different.

Having my schedule like this might look restrictive to some of you but actually the fact that I have a slow, leisurely start to my day, a long Spanish style lunch, morning and afternoon breaks and largely call free Mondays and Fridays is a dream for me after years of 9–5pm and hectic commutes through central London!

Step 5 — lean into your schedule with grace and compassion

Going from no schedule to following a full schedule is not something I would recommend. I’ve been working on my schedule for years and given much of my day is non-negotiable because it’s with paying clients, I have to stick to a schedule for the sake of my sanity.

If you have less client commitments right now, you’ll likely have more freedom to move things around and test and tweak your schedule to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s natural that it might take some time for you to fully lean into following your schedule so it’s important not to beat yourself up if you don’t follow it perfectly.

The most important thing is to give yourself grace and notice where you’ve scheduled to do something but consistently fail to follow through, looking at why that might be and making adjustments where necessary.

I often talk about building for growth. So even if you don’t need a schedule this defined right now, it’s easy to find yourself in a position down the line, where you’ve become a slave to your schedule. So why not design it to suit you now before you find yourself working evenings and weekends because you gave potential clients free reign to choose when worked best for them rather than you?

I’m curious, how does this land? Do you have a schedule already or has this piece given you food for thought? Feel free to hit reply and let me know.

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 5 Strategies I Use To Beat Procrastination

The 5 Strategies I Use To Beat Procrastination

by | Jun 5, 2024 | Productivity, Uncategorized

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
~ Spanish Proverb

The dictionary definition of procrastination is this:

The action of delaying or postponing something.

If you’re anything like most business owners I know, you’ve experienced procrastination.

Most likely when you attempt to do something that will move your business forward. Common tasks that you might find yourself procrastinating on include: marketing, writing copy, creating new products and services and/or doing your outreach (cultivating connections across your network).

When we delay or postpone taking action on the very activities that will help us move our business forward, we are, in essence, sabotaging our chances of success. Overcoming procrastination, therefore, becomes an important endeavour.

Whilst I do still procrastinate from time to time, over the years I’ve learned various ways to minimise and even prevent procrastination from derailing my best efforts.

1. Pay attention

Procrastination is one of most insidious companions to our attempts at productivity. It’s pretty common for procrastination to rear its ugly head the moment we try to do something productive or creative in our business.

If we’re not careful, procrastination becomes such an embedded feature of our day to day working lives, that we don’t always notice when we’re in its grips.

Raising awareness of the fact that we’ve slipped into procrastination mode and doing what we can to understand what lies beneath it is the first step to overcoming it.

When you notice that you’re procrastinating, try reflecting on what your procrastination is trying to tell you. Is there fear around the activity you are trying to undertake? Is there a reason you’re avoiding taking action.

Acknowledge the procrastination instead of giving into the habit of it is key.

Another line of enquiry you might take is to reflect on the importance of what you are trying to do, in essence, asking yourself, what are the consequences of allowing procrastination to win here?

The key is to not let procrastination become a habit. Notice the way it shows up for you and recognise when you’re dealing with procrastination to get better at overcoming it.

2. Block out time

When we’re not yet fully booked with clients, we often have a lot of time on our hands to work on our business. This should be a blessing but more often than not it becomes fertile ground for procrastination to bloom. I wrote about the consequences of too much freedom here.

My advice is to not give yourself hours to do something. Give yourself a deadline. No more than 90 minutes in one sitting — start shorter if you are not used to time-blocking.

For example, I block out most of Monday to work on content creation but I make sure I have regular breaks and clear actions for each chunk of time. Block #1 might be dedicated to drafting my newsletter, block #2 to getting it to a final draft and block #3, sourcing a picture quote, one last proofread and sending it out.

It’s far easier to avoid procrastination if I give myself 3 x 1 hour blocks with clear goals in each than to simply give myself all morning to write a newsletter.

3. Plan ahead

Don’t sit down at your desk to work unless you know what you are going to do or you’ll waste the time you’ve allocated trying to figure out what to work on.

This is especially important if you’ve got a lot of time each day to work on a high number of things (i.e. a long to do list!). I like to give myself no more than 3 tasks to complete per day and I plan these either the night before or first thing in the morning before I get into things.

Having a huge to do list plus countless hours ahead of you to work on things is a recipe for procrastination, so avoid it by doing the thinking before you sit down to do the working.

4. Work with others

Something that has helped me massively while working on my business is co-working. I find that if left to my own devices, it’s all too easy to get distracted and fall into a pattern of procrastination but when working with others, I get so much more done.

Co-working works especially well for me when I get to declare what I’m hoping to achieve (planning ahead) in the session (blocking out time) and when I have to report back at the end of the session how I got on (accountability).

Co-working can be done in person or online. My favourite online co-working tools are: The Cabin, Flown, LWS and Focusmate.

5. Take regular breaks

If you stack blocks of working time together without breaks, it’s as good as not blocking out time at all. The key is to have full breaks between your working sessions.

My mantra when it comes to being productive in my business is to “Work when you are working and rest when you are resting.”

Problems arise when we sit at our desk and engage in procrastination activities, like scrolling on social media or mindlessly searching the internet. We come to blur the line between working and procrastinating. If I catch myself doing this I immediately stop and take a break.

Taking a break for me means stepping away from my desk and going to do something completely unrelated to work. This might be watching something on TV, reading a book or taking a short walk to clear my head.

When we don’t do this the boundaries between work and breaks become blurred, impairing our ability to focus when we’re working and impairing our ability to really switch off from work when we’re on a break.

And there you have it, 5 things I do on the regular to stay productive, avoid procrastination and ultimately have a better work-life balance.

Did you find these helpful? I’d love to know which of these you might try. If you want to let me know simply comment and tell me!

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 5 Strategies I Use To Beat Procrastination

The 5 Strategies I Use To Beat Procrastination

by | May 8, 2024 | Productivity, Uncategorized

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
~ Spanish Proverb

The dictionary definition of procrastination is this:

The action of delaying or postponing something.

If you’re anything like most business owners I know, you’ve experienced procrastination.

Most likely when you attempt to do something that will move your business forward. Common tasks that you might find yourself procrastinating on include: marketing, writing copy, creating new products and services and/or doing your outreach (cultivating connections across your network).

When we delay or postpone taking action on the very activities that will help us move our business forward, we are, in essence, sabotaging our chances of success. Overcoming procrastination, therefore, becomes an important endeavour.

Whilst I do still procrastinate from time to time, over the years I’ve learned various ways to minimise and even prevent procrastination from derailing my best efforts.

 

1. Pay attention

Procrastination is one of most insidious companions to our attempts at productivity. It’s pretty common for procrastination to rear its ugly head the moment we try to do something productive or creative in our business.

If we’re not careful, procrastination becomes such an embedded feature of our day to day working lives, that we don’t always notice when we’re in its grips.

Raising awareness of the fact that we’ve slipped into procrastination mode and doing what we can to understand what lies beneath it is the first step to overcoming it.

When you notice that you’re procrastinating, try reflecting on what your procrastination is trying to tell you. Is there fear around the activity you are trying to undertake? Is there a reason you’re avoiding taking action.

Acknowledge the procrastination instead of giving into the habit of it is key.

Another line of enquiry you might take is to reflect on the importance of what you are trying to do, in essence, asking yourself, what are the consequences of allowing procrastination to win here?

The key is to not let procrastination become a habit. Notice the way it shows up for you and recognise when you’re dealing with procrastination to get better at overcoming it.

 

2. Block out time

When we’re not yet fully booked with clients, we often have a lot of time on our hands to work on our business. This should be a blessing but more often than not it becomes fertile ground for procrastination to bloom. I wrote about the consequences of too much freedom here.

My advice is to not give yourself hours to do something. Give yourself a deadline. No more than 90 minutes in one sitting — start shorter if you are not used to time-blocking.

For example, I block out most of Monday to work on content creation but I make sure I have regular breaks and clear actions for each chunk of time. Block #1 might be dedicated to drafting my newsletter, block #2 to getting it to a final draft and block #3, sourcing a picture quote, one last proofread and sending it out.

It’s far easier to avoid procrastination if I give myself 3 x 1 hour blocks with clear goals in each than to simply give myself all morning to write a newsletter.

 

3. Plan ahead

Don’t sit down at your desk to work unless you know what you are going to do or you’ll waste the time you’ve allocated trying to figure out what to work on.

This is especially important if you’ve got a lot of time each day to work on a high number of things (i.e. a long to do list!). I like to give myself no more than 3 tasks to complete per day and I plan these either the night before or first thing in the morning before I get into things.

Having a huge to do list plus countless hours ahead of you to work on things is a recipe for procrastination, so avoid it by doing the thinking before you sit down to do the working.

 

4. Work with others

Something that has helped me massively while working on my business is co-working. I find that if left to my own devices, it’s all too easy to get distracted and fall into a pattern of procrastination but when working with others, I get so much more done.

Co-working works especially well for me when I get to declare what I’m hoping to achieve (planning ahead) in the session (blocking out time) and when I have to report back at the end of the session how I got on (accountability).

Co-working can be done in person or online. My favourite online co-working tools are: The Cabin, Flown, LWS and Focusmate.

 

5. Take regular breaks

If you stack blocks of working time together without breaks, it’s as good as not blocking out time at all. The key is to have full breaks between your working sessions.

My mantra when it comes to being productive in my business is to “Work when you are working and rest when you are resting.”

Problems arise when we sit at our desk and engage in procrastination activities, like scrolling on social media or mindlessly searching the internet. We come to blur the line between working and procrastinating. If I catch myself doing this I immediately stop and take a break.

Taking a break for me means stepping away from my desk and going to do something completely unrelated to work. This might be watching something on TV, reading a book or taking a short walk to clear my head.

When we don’t do this the boundaries between work and breaks become blurred, impairing our ability to focus when we’re working and impairing our ability to really switch off from work when we’re on a break.

And there you have it, 5 things I do on the regular to stay productive, avoid procrastination and ultimately have a better work-life balance.

Did you find these helpful? I’d love to know which of these you might try. If you want to let me know simply comment and tell me!

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.

Is It Time to Consider the Big Picture of Your Life + Business?

Is It Time to Consider the Big Picture of Your Life + Business?

by | Sep 21, 2022 | Big picture

We are well into September and it’s precisely this time of year, as we near the end of quarter 3 and the start of 4, that I like to check in with my life and business to see if I’m on track to have the year I set out to have and more importantly to make sure that I am living the life, I want to live.

There are a few reasons I like to do this now. Firstly, the back-to-school vibe that’s in the air gives me renewed energy and excitement for the season ahead and also let’s be honest, trying to do our reviewing and planning in December (along with the holidays and all the stress that can bring) is sort of bonkers.

Instead, starting in September, I like to take my time and spend an hour here and there, looking at the big picture of my life and business with plenty of time before the holiday season hits. That way, when the year ends, writing up my goals and business plan for the year ahead is a pretty quick and simple task.

As I do this work, I thought it might be helpful to share with you what I’ve been up to.

Reviewing my offerings 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reviewing my business model and contemplating what, if any, new products and services I might want to birth in 2023. I also look at which products or services I may want to retire. 

I’ve already closed down my Back to Basics monthly subscription, to make space for new things I want to do next year. It’s always hard to let go of offerings you have created, especially when they’re bringing in money and have paying customers, but I learned many years ago that if I want to call in my true heart’s desires, I have to be willing to make space by letting go of that which no longer serves me. 

What has informed my thinking here is looking at my business model to figure out what makes most sense from a sustainability point of view. That means looking at my offerings from the point of view of how much time and effort they take versus the income they bring. If the former greatly exceeds the latter or I know that for the same amount of time, I could bring in more, I know that it’s time to make a change.

Tracking my finances

I track and review my finances on a monthly basis because I believe that, like anything, our finances thrive when we give them our loving attention and whither when we bury our head in the sand and pretend like they don’t exist.

Around this time of year, I can safely estimate what my end of year income and expenses will be. This helps me to set future financial goals that are rooted in reality rather than setting pie in the sky targets that I inevitably never reach.

Armed with this knowledge, I can do the maths to figure out what I want to make next year and how many of each of my products and services I would need to sell to make that happen.

Loosely thinking about my vision and goals for 2023 

I’ve also been giving myself permission to tap into my goals and dreams for 2023. Not just business but generally. Asking myself questions like: where do I see myself and my family next year? What are my priorities? What didn’t work this year that I would like to change? 

As I start to gently consider how I want my business to run next year, I can’t help but consider the life I want to live. That includes things like the number of hours I want to work each day and the number of days I want to work each week. How many holidays do I want to have a year and how much time do I need for my personal hobbies and fitness activities?

Given that I’ve been doing this kind of reflection for years, my business model is pretty well set up for having a healthy work life balance. However, it is very reliant on my 1:1 coaching practice, something that I’m giving more and more thought to is how to reduce my reliance on my 1:1 income and start bringing in more solid revenue from group offerings and digital products, thus allowing me to make more per hour of my time.  

Resistant to planning? 

I love doing this kind of thinking and nothing gets me more excited than a fresh page in a notebook and the intention to make new plans. I do know, however, that not everyone shares my same passion for planning.

With this in mind, if you are someone who typically avoids planning, I would encourage you at the very least to spend some time tapping into what isn’t working for you right now and what needs to change as well as what has worked well over the course of the year and how you can best make the most of that going forward.

Above all I would suggest that you give yourself permission to dream. I truly believe that we are all powerful creators and that when we put our minds to whatever it is that we want to create, magic happens.

Over the next few months I’ll be running several workshops on Creating a Sustainable Business model plus a 2-part Business Review and Planning Workshop. To receive dates and registration details, be sure to subscribe to my Soulful Strategies Weekly here.   

 

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