It's 2021, and we are diving into our profit reports. If you are new to this segment of the show, we really like to dive deep into what it takes to run an online business while avoiding comparison and not having to question your every move. So, instead of sharing dollars and cents, we share percentages, and we share strategies. We also dive into sharing behind-the-scenes thoughts and actions so you can see what makes sense for you without having to worry about whether you are in the right place and questioning where you’re at.

We have a good accompanying episode to this one, where we break down the strategies we are trying to tackle for this quarter, and more specifically, we break down the accompanying expenses to those strategies. So if you want to hear more about them, definitely listen to that episode too. Now, without further ado, let’s dive into today’s profit report.

Okay, we are finally here for the episode we have said we were going to give you. Today we are going to share a sneak peek behind the scenes of what we are doing and what we are focussing on for Q1, including not just big projects, but also some exciting shifts we’ve had in our team! If you have been following us for any length of time, you know we do a big planning dream-dump and break down our quarters into these “sexy chunks,” as we refer to them.

Historically speaking, Q1 has always been a time for us to reevaluate and to really clean up and optimize our existing systems. That’s worked for us because, in terms of outside obligations, we are home the most in Q1. We also have the least going on with others in our business and we can really focus on what’s going on internally. It’s a great time to hole in and not go anywhere, especially because it’s the worst part of winter. So when we have no choice but to be cooped up inside, we use it as an opportunity to perfect everything for the rest of their year so that when spring blooms, we can come out of our shells ready and prepared. Join us today and get the three-step blueprint to our 2021 Q1 masterplan.

2020 feels a bit like a lifetime ago, even though we are only a few weeks into January. Even though we projected and gave you some ideas of where we might land, we are still so surprised with how last year ended up going for us. For all of us, 2020 will be a standout year for good and bad reasons. For us, it was ridiculous how our business year ended up. When big things happen in the world, you don’t know how they’re going to impact you, your partner, your family, your business, the climate, and the people buying your product. Everything.

Being in charge of how you make money is sometimes scary when you can’t control all of those scenarios. So, we are so thankful that we had the time and space in January 2020 to set the expectations of what we wanted to do, and more importantly, what we didn’t want to do for the year. This really helped because when shit hit the fan (and continued to hit the fan throughout the year), we were really focused on securing our foundation. And, in December 2020, this is what caught us.

We get a million DMs from people saying they are ready to strike out on their own and telling us they will listen and start with services. If you have been listening for some time now, you will know just how much we believe in service-based businesses. But before you do anything, as always, we recommend you listen to our second episode, back in 2017, the year we launched the show, where we had Abagail on as a guest.

In that episode, Emylee interviewed her to find out how she replaced her corporate income after getting laid off. Since we reference that episode a billion times, we thought it would be fun to do a 2021 version, where we find out how Abagail would handle the same situation today. Some of the things might be similar, but what are the new strategies Abagail would leverage now? Technology and marketing have changed so much that there are sure to be a few new ways to bounce back quicker.

How are we able to talk about the end of 2020 already? We don’t know because this has been the fastest, craziest year in life and business for us in a while. For a while, it felt like we were having the longest months, and then things just seemed to speed up. We think a lot of people have had a similar experience. We don’t know if it was because people were home and things didn’t feel like they were changing and then suddenly it was fall and then winter. And now Christmas is around the corner! How are we at this point in the year already?

So today we want to talk about 2020 specifically and what happened in our businesses. If you look at all the goals we set for 2020, how did things ultimately shape up? We will tell you, we don’t know if there were guardian angels above us but there were a few things we did really differently in Q1 that ultimately set us up for huge success, and in today’s show you will hear all about it!

In today’s episode, we are going to talk a bit about reorganization and what it looks like to really get clear on the roles and responsibilities of your team members inside your business. We will talk about how you might do this as a way to clean up and get your head straight before you go through a hiring process.

We have probably made every mistake in the book when it comes to hiring and have learned a lot over the last few years as we have expanded our team. We have come from every end of the spectrum when it comes to hiring a team – having a big team, a small team, no team, contractors, and everything in between!