Evolving My Business: A New Focus for the Year Ahead

Hello and welcome to the YouCan podcast. I'm your host Sarah Jolly Jarvis and today we're going to be talking around business evolution and prioritising what matters and this fits in really well with last week's episode where we were talking about your yearly plans and the fact that actually you know I shared with you during that that I had sort of entered into my yearly planning session expecting a nice tidy new set of actions and next steps and milestones and all that kind of stuff.
And actually, it left me to start off with an awful lot more questions and answers. And so I wanted to do sort of share with you a little bit more on that.
Because that's the point of this podcast, it's to share the sort of reality reality of business and the decisions that we make sometimes in decisions that are easier than others this was not an easy decision it definitely won't go into that category for some time and I don't know at this stage whether it's the right decision but it's a sort of a way a an avenue that I want to explore a little bit more and therefore I have to weigh up my pros and cons but let me just recap first on my own yearly planning and how I got to this point of getting clarity or facing up to the reality that I do need to sleep I do have other commitments outside of work and if I wanted to get projects done then things had to have a bit of a reshuffle so some of the questions that I asked myself you know where do I want to be a year from now you know that's pretty standard really I often say to clients if you know if it was New Year's Eve and which always sounds like I do something really exciting at New Year's Eve normally I'm at home I'm often I do actually see the New Year in as in I see watch the fireworks on the tv or whatever um but it's not like I'm at parties and you know I'm down in the champagne or anything but um you know a year from now at the end of the year at the end of this year where do you want to be you know when you're having that meal or you're sitting down and having a bit of reflection which we do do and I enjoy doing where do you want to be what you want to think you've achieved so what's working at the moment what's not working where's where are things progressing where are things stalling what's getting in the way what's giving you energy and what's draining your energy and i think the giving and the draining of energy is a really important one for me um sounds really like old but as i've got older um that's become more important to me. It hasn't just been about the financial returns or the areas where you've got the most results or anything like that.
It actually comes down much more to the emotion side of stuff, which has been something that I've worked on that hasn't come naturally, but actually has been really fulfilling and so my the sort of the answers that I came up with were an awful lot around projects that I wanted to take on and develop further projects that some of which are in their infancy some of which are a bit more established where I'm not just using my business skills to to sell my business skills if that makes sense. I think, you know, it's really easy when you are in that position, when you're imparting your knowledge and skills onto other people that you end up using those core skills purely to market yourself and those pure skills.
And actually those can be adapted to anything. You can be focusing them on to all sorts of different projects to do good and so there's a few projects that we've got going on at the moment um a couple that I can't really share with you and one that I am going to go into a little more detail with you today on so that was kind of really important to me when I looked at where do I want to be here a year from now it was actually about my sort of side projects one of which is a joint venture one of which is got an element of property involved with it and another one which focuses in on supporting people and supporting families who have children with special educational needs and families this has been something that has really come to the fore over the last sort of 12 18 months with the struggles that we've experienced as a family but also with the struggles that whenever you speak to anybody there is always a story to be shared over the struggles that are going on the challenges that people have faced it might not be them but it's somebody they know everybody knows somebody affected by the lack of support out there for families who have got children who've got special educational needs and I'm really passionate over supporting those families and giving them an opportunity to tap into and get the support they need at a price point that is is achievable for the majority of people my sort of personal circumstances and my family commitments has made me reassess.
I remember looking in the summer, I came back after summer and said to clients, you know what, this summer has not worked, I need to reassess this and look at this differently. And so looking at those commitments and what I want to do for my family, how I want to show up for my family means that there needed to be changes at the end of the day I am so very very fortunate that as a business owner I have that freedom to realign my work okay whenever I want I'm also very very lucky to be able to tick the box and go to those events the the you know the sports days the nativity plays all those things but it's not about the exciting days it's not about those exciting things it's about showing up for the kids when you know they're struggling when they're having challenges at school um or with friends or whatever else which you know they're not the momentous occasions they're not the the the enjoyable nativity plays and sports day events they're the smaller little micro sort of situations.
And, you know, being able to be there and be present for those two made me sort of reassess the way that I work, the amount of one-to-one or group scenarios that I'm working with, and also the amount of work that is going in at the moment into the promotional side of the business and where I want that to go in the long term. Over Christmas well in the lead up to Christmas I was in a position where things were quieter and people were there wasn't the activity there wasn't the the need for launches and things like that and I was in a position where I could go and help out at the school and be around my kids and see things that I just wouldn't have been able to to be around for had I not volunteered to go and help and that made a real difference to me and that got me sort of thinking and I do feel like all these things all these changes they do align I think if you look out for them if you're willing to listen even though they can seem quite scary and daunting.
These sort of different messages that you get, these different opportunities, they get you to start thinking and looking at things that little bit differently and not just carrying on with the sort of status quo. So what am I doing? What is going on? Well my plan is to not walk away from because I really enjoy supporting and mentoring I love the clients that I've got the moment and I thoroughly enjoy helping particularly women in business but business owners in general to take their business to the next level or start their business and that first client that first course that they've created, which means they've freed up time.

I love being a part of that and I don't want to lose that completely. What I do want to do though is I want to step back from the active promotion of those things, particularly with programmes.
I have an amazing programme at the moment that I've been running, that I'm sort of doing a last round of. and that is helping people set up and get the automations and the funnel and everything else in place for their own course and i love that it's it's an amazing offer um it is amazing value but it is really demanding um to get those results to help those people get those results takes a lot of hard work from both sides and so although it's a done with you um program it there is just so much of my time is put into that and i couldn't see that being scalable i couldn't see that being sustainable but i want to keep helping people and i have so many hours now of digital resources there that you know people can come to me with all sorts of problems i i had a lady that i've been working working with since before Christmas who she wants to start her own podcast she knows that she procrastinates she knows that 101 things always come up in the way and so I've helped her to get to the point where she's got those episodes recorded she's building up our audience and then they will be launched and that is amazing that's what I want to keep doing is is help people move beyond these blocks but the active promotion takes an awful lot of time and it's time that I could be putting into a completely additional um project and that's what I'm wanting to to do um now what I could have done here is I could have upped the ads focus and I could have gone more and more with ads and I love ads you know I part own an ad agency and so you know I can really see the benefit of them the thing with ads is it you're feeding a monster and so you know if you are spending you know eight ten grand a month on ads then you need to generate eight to ten grand you need to justify you need to have those workings there it they are amazing for scaling they are amazing for generating leads but then you have to do something with those leads and so then you've got that pressure you've got that kind of conveyor belt of activity that you have to go through um and that's in addition to the delivery side of things so it was either um look at scaling um scaling it back or looking at giving away uh giving up on one of these projects.
The biggest project that I want to sort of focus on, the one that's kind of my baby, is the one for supporting SEND families. I'm fully aware of the need for support for those sorts of families.
I am no expert, but I know so many people who are leaders in their field when it comes to supporting these families that I've been really fortunate to be able to get to know and to tap into there is still more out there that I want to get to know better and and use for my own reference and but I'd love to be able to make them more accessible to everybody as a whole and to provide that a support area be that a membership or a group or something where people can feel part of a community they can feel supported and they can have that knowledge there it was a little bit like when I was going through my pregnancies and complications with pregnancies that you would go on to websites and you would get all this these people with all these opinions and I was really aware as I have a pharmaceutical background um that you know and I've been around medics for so long that a lot of these people were giving advice that that wasn't very accurate wasn't very helpful and actually in a lot of cases wasn't very safe and so I was really conscious of getting information that was from a reliable source that goes for every single area whenever you get desperate whenever you've got concerns whenever it's emotionally charged you're getting people sharing anecdotal information and things that they've tried which you wouldn't necessarily recommend and so I'm really conscious of helping individuals people don't have time to siphon through and to figure it out they're not as aware they haven't had the background they haven't had the experience to know how to go about all the energy to go about figuring out you know these different opinions and and what best to do and whatnot and so you know having providing them with that reliable source of information and experts to hand i think can make a massive difference because um as a parent to a same child um and the wife to a um an autistic person uh people expect you overnight to become some sort of expert and that just is not the case so i'm really keen to to get into this area and and to help support people and and to make a difference um so you know if you are thinking you know what i've got this niggling idea i've got this thought that i want to work on, then try and see how you can make it happen. This has not been easy.
It's not been easy to walk away from a growing business and a business that I've enjoyed working with and press pause on the growth of that, on the development of that and really scale it back. You know, turning my back on it, but I'm certainly scaling back my efforts

so that I can use my efforts elsewhere

and to make a real difference to people,

people who are in a very, very similar situation to myself.

And I'm acutely aware that with being in that environment

and giving myself those opportunities

to absorb that information,

I can better the situation for my own family. And that is something that I'm really eager to pursue.
This is all evolution I was talking to a client earlier today around it and because there's been lots of questions people have been asking me if I'm pregnant and all sorts I am definitely absolutely not but you know there's been so many questions people asking what what's the plan what am I doing and I was you know talking to a client and they were saying about how their business has evolved and how you know, there's been so many questions, people asking, what's the plan? What am I doing? And I was, you know, talking to a client and they were saying about how their business has evolved and how, you know, it really is a joy to see things evolve, to see people try different things, to do different things, to focus their time and attention on this. This is absolutely not a end of story for mentoring.
I want to continue with with the podcast I want to continue with my group

I want to continue supporting people in business because I'm passionate about it I may no longer be using them as a source of income as a an audience to to generate money from and to to grow a business from but that doesn't mean that I don't want to help them I fundamentally want to help people and people in business families and so I will continue to do that I will not be actively promoting things to those individuals and but I will be there if people do need help and do want to work with me there will still be opportunities there but I'm just not going to be promoting them doing this will be so much more flexible around my family it will benefit my family and that is what's really really key to me right now if you ever find yourself in this situation if you ever feel yourself torn between different opportunities or different responsibilities then please do feel free to dm me I'm there on facebook I'm on instagram or can email me, Sarah, at youcan.online,

and I am more than happy to support you and give you my thought process on your best way to navigate through. Evolution is part of business growth and prioritising what matters to you at that moment in time is so much more impactful and fulfilling, and that's what's really, really key here so thank you again for listening to the you can podcast i am thoroughly enjoying talking to you each week and i will continue to do so please subscribe leave a review or share this episode or one of my other episodes any of them with someone who might need to hear these so that's it for me this week guys i look forward to speaking to you again next week where i'll be joined by the very lovely jen wilson and we're going to be talking about overwhelm and taking

on too much again you can see the theme at the moment so that's it for me guys from this week

bye for now