This is the time of the year that I often hear a common refrain.
“I didn’t get to my goal.”
But I always add the missing word…
YET.
I didn’t get to my goal...YET.
All of us (myself included) underestimate how long it will take to do projects or plant seeds.
We really underestimate how long it will take for those projects to bear full fruit.
And we overestimate how much capacity we have to get things done.
Why is that?
Well we are bombarded every day by “$100K in 6 months” messaging. Or inundated with “I did it, and you can too” messages that just make business building seem effortless.
It’s not sexy to be honest and transparent about how long it takes to build a sustainable book of business - because that doesn’t traditionally sell well. And it’s especially not a way to drive views and clicks to be honest about the effort it takes, if you're selling low-cost items that rely on volume. (If you want to know my own growth story, watch the vid).
It’s so easy to compare ourselves against the results of businesses who grew during a significantly less saturated market, like building on social media pre-2020. (Was it the power of someone’s ideas or really was it platform or market arbitrage?)
Most of the productivity advice in the zeitgeist is written by those without caregiving responsibilities or chronic health conditions. (And mostly by men, which I’m hoping to change in my career).
And this year has been particularly distracting and anxiety inducing with world and US events.
I want you to give yourself grace for the fact that business building is hard.
But I also want you to celebrate the true changes in your business that you’ve built, the roots you’ve strengthened and the seeds you’ve planted, that will transform your results given time and consistent tending.
Here are some of the changes you might see under the surface.
Your revenue might be the same… but the quality of your client roster has improved. You’re taking on more aligned clients, or more senior clients with the potential for expanded work.
You haven’t closed the business you wanted in Q4… but whereas last year you had zilch in the pipeline, this year you’re actively nurturing a number of proposals, cultivated ideal referral partners, and are starting to get more inbound inquiries.
Instead of avoiding your Quickbooks, you have a firm handle on the money in your business: the revenue coming in, the expenses going out, your money on hand, and your sales requirements to pay yourself and save for the future.
You compiled your metrics for the year, and understand where your clients originate from. Which means you can ditch or slow down on the so-called “proven marketing strategies” that are just costing you time, and you've leaned in to the methods that work for you.
Instead of launching offer after offer, you slowed down and did a holistic business model review: a customer research project, updated your messaging to match, and are piloting (and seeing signal!) some new ways to work together with a different customer segment.
You cleaned up your over-stuffed Notion or task database, so now know exactly what projects you’re working on, taking them on one at a time and freeing up mind-space.
You developed a framework for your ideas, so every piece of content you make next year can hang together and be a powerful driver of visibility and sales.
These are the changes that I want you to celebrate.
I’ll be honest - getting quick results is sometimes not something we can control.
Maybe your first client turns into a significant partner for ongoing projects, and sometimes it doesn’t. One of my earliest clients back in 2021 - where I sold a workshop for $1,200 - ended up turning into a fractional COO engagement resulting in tens of thousands of dollars and was my largest single revenue driver in 2022. We’re still working together in a limited capacity three years later.
Maybe you meet someone early on who is a great referral partner for you, just you happened to meet each other early.
Maybe you’re in the right community, with the right mentor, at the right time and blow up, or a post goes viral. (That’s really how some of the ‘big names’ got their start).
But we can’t control when that happens. We can simply expand our surface area of luck through ongoing actions, upleveling our skills, and repeatedly showing up with the aim of always deepening our foundations.
I’d like to know - what’s one “under the surface” positive change you’re seeing in your business this year? Let me celebrate with you.