March 2018 Review
Episode 202: Show Notes
Today on the podcast we are bringing you another monthly review session. This time around we will be taking a look at March 2018: everything that happened, everything that didn’t happen, why things happened and ultimately, what this all means! More specifically, we’ll be walking you through the nerve-wracking spending freeze that we had to place on the company this month, as well as the goal that changed course, how we quickly adapted and implemented the new goal which led to our exciting new course you see today – The Goal Crusher Club.
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We’ll also be sharing with you how we shifted to a new email service provider and the benefits of getting your systems in order, even when it draws you away from those money-making activities. We take a dig at the areas we want to improve on, like our personal internal leadership capabilities, our upcoming hotel spa strategy and why we need to have weekly check-ins with one another regarding our individual decision-making progress. In addition, we have some sexy new numbers to dazzle you with and will be sharing why our April affirmation is to realign. By the end of this episode, you will certainly have seen our flaws and be reminded that we, of course, are only human too. We know that you are coming up against these challenges in your own business and we are here to tell you that sometimes, you’ve just got to live and let be!
An Overview Of March 2018: What The Heck Happened!?
For those of you that listened to the episode on our January and February review, you will notice that we did that review really late! Because of that we did not set goals for March. Our master plan was to create a funnel for Trello. We hired a coach to help us and she basically told us to change our whole plan and do something else instead! Over the course of two months, we quickly shifted focus to setting up automations for our signature program, The Strategy Academy. In the last 30 days, we’ve been in a new transition phase into a new email service provider (which we’ll be dedicating a whole episode to, all in good time).
Our goals were pretty much to not run out of money! Which sounds ridiculous, but hey, life is expensive. We had a cash-flow issue in March in relation to launching and it actually made us put major breaks on our plans. We were doing ads for an affiliate webinar and then we immediately did ads for an automated webinar, called a hybrid evergreen live, which we had never done before. Our conversion rates / typical ROI did not match what we were anticipating. We don’t have the final numbers back but we were scared for the first time ever that we were going to spend more on ads than on the final launch. We don’t think that this is true, but we had taken so much money out of our business which made us nervous. We doubled our money but we had to wait 31 days for the payout! So, we’re technically fine but it was mind-blowingly nerve-wrecking because we put our entire company on a spending freeze. That’s a scary place to be and internally there was major panic happening. That drama being said, what did we actually accomplish in March?
What Did We Accomplish In March? The New Email Service Provider & The New Course
We officially re-decided on a new email service provider and have been organizing systems, moving things over, creating tabs, scheduling support etc, in order to get that transition process as smooth as possible. For the first time ever, we also compartmentalized stress. Abbie took on the stress of the finances and Emylee took on the stress of the email disaster.
A week into March, we were on a call with our coach, and the idea popped into our heads, much like a grand epiphany. We had to get off the call right away, so we could get to work and plan for the plan immediately! We got off the call, walked over to the whiteboard and began scribbling everything we had to do. It was like a high-focus brain dump, and afterwards we had assigned tasks, got on it and within four days of that phone call – our new program, The Goal Crusher Club, was ready to launch. We already have a group lovely babes signed up, and ya’ll are loving it! It was the best decision ever and the cool part is that this was the only time in TCC history where we were able to identify a need in our audience and provide a solution without burning ourselves out and having to create something new. It was one of those no-brainer add-ons that was going to provide such immense value to our community and not burn us out. So, that happened in March!
Areas We Want To Improve: Internal Leadership & The Spa Strategy Session
For the past couple of months we’ve talked about how we feel like we are really shitty leaders. Not shitty leaders for ya’ll, but for our internal team. When it comes to our team we have this weird lack of self confidence and direction. And a weird sense of we’re doing everything wrong and we don’t know what to expect. We attended a Mastermind just yesterday, which brought this thought even more to the forefront of our minds. This Mastermind discussion reiterated for us that we need to continue working on our internal leadership abilities. They called us out on our BS line, “We aren’t good leaders,” and instead said that we were just not providing the right tools for our team to help them succeed.
What we realized is that we have been focusing on doing things that didn’t really matter better, rather than on the things that could make a huge difference. We are really grateful for that reframe and that is what we really want to focus on improving this April. We will be talking at a summit in Chicago and we have taken a few days extra to find the best hotel room, put on our bathrobes and matching fuzzy slippers – and strategize the shit out of our lives! Another thing we need to improve on, is having regular check-ins to ensure that we don’t end up with our heads in the sand again. We are really good at leaving decision-making to the last minute, which means so much gets crammed into like three weeks! So we need to check-in on a weekly basis about our decisions making processes.
Our Quarterly Goal Check-In And Four Important Numbers
Since our plan changed... we have not yet made a new plan! So part of our quarterly goal check-in is to make the new plan (we have high hopes of this happening at our Strategy Spa Session BTW). For Abbie, her goals and her vision for TCC are quite short-sighted just because the long-term vision could go in any direction, and it’s difficult to see a sort of “end” result. This is something we have identified that needs to be worked on. We need to know where this train is headed in the next five years.
In other news however, we did reach over 4000 downloads per episode for the podcast. That’s almost 50,000 downloads a month. If you’re still listening, that’s because of you. So thank you! (Since we’re here, why don’t we have 4000 reviews?! If you have a moment, please open iTunes, find our podcast and please slip us a review and a comment).
We are not going to go over a ton of numbers today, but we have four important numbers that we want to take a quick look at: Trello, Teachable, Strategy Academy and our conversion rate from email list to paid students. Trello nearly doubled over the last month in sales, which makes us wonder, what the heck did we do in February? Our Teachable numbers are in and they are down over the last month but have doubled over the last year and we hit $23,729. So we are excited to see what the final numbers are once we’ve met with Parker and his team. For Strategy Academy in February we got a 60% revenue and our conversion rate from email list to paid students is 15.7%, which is gravy! Just gravy.
Why April’s Affirmation Is To Realign + A Goal Crusher Club Check-In
Our affirmation for April is to realign because our yearly goals say nothing about what we are actually doing! This is the plight of every business owner, right? When we actively made the decision to switch email service providers, for example – the main reason why people put those things off is because it takes time away from making money. We are still in the setting-it-all-up stage and this stage has lasted way longer than it should have. Finding the time to set these things up is really difficult and it might lower your revenue for a minute but we’re still in the camp that it’s going to be worth it. It gets harder before it gets easier, right?
So, after launching The Goal Crusher Club (in just six days) we are already up to 50 members! And we are so stoked. Having 50 members in there equates to having $1500 of revenue per month (if the members stay there!) With our goal to make a million dollars in revenue by the end of the year, this amounts to about 1% of what we need per month. But hey, every little bit counts. So, with that being said, we are real people too and even though we have goals, we don’t always hit them and they don’t always stay the same. At the end of the day, sometimes, you’ve got to just live and let be!
Quote This
For the first time ever, I was legitimately scared that this could all fall apart.
Highlights
An Overview Of March 2018: What The Heck Happened!? [0:02:00.1]
What Did We Accomplish In March? The New Email Service Provider & The New Course. [0:09:10.1]
Areas We Want To Improve: Internal Leadership & The Spa Strategy Session. [0:18:50.1]
Our Quarterly Goal Check-In And Four Important Numbers. [0:25:30.1]
Why April’s Affirmation Is To Realign + A Goal Crusher Club Check-In. [0:32:45.1]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
KEY TOPICS
Quarterly goal check-in, Goal Crusher Club, Email service provider, Facebook ads, Affirmation., Hybrid evergreen live, Automated webinar, Conversion rates, ROI
