Evolving My Business: A New Focus for the Year Ahead

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to the UCAN podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Jolly Drivers, and today we're going to be talking around business evolution and prioritising what matters.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 sort of entered into my yearly planning session expecting a nice, tidy, neat set of actions and next steps and milestones and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 And actually, it left me to start off with with an awful lot more questions than answers. And so I wanted to sort of share with you a little bit more on that because that's the point of this podcast.

Speaker 1 It's to share the sort of reality of business and the decisions that we make, sometimes in decisions that are easier than others. This was not an easier decision.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 an avenue that I want to explore a little bit more, and therefore I have to weigh up my pros and cons.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 You know, that's pretty standard, really.

Speaker 1 i often say to clients if you know if it was new year's eve um and which always sounds like i do something really exciting at news eve normally i'm at home um often i do actually see the new year in as in i i see watch the fireworks on the tv or whatever um but it's not like i'm i'm at parties and you know i'm i'm down in the champagne or anything but um

Speaker 1 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 sitting down and having a bit of reflection, which we do do, and I enjoy doing, where do you want to be?

Speaker 1 What do 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 areas where

Speaker 1 you've got the most

Speaker 1 results or anything like that.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so, 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.

Speaker 1 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 it 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

Speaker 1 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 um got an element of property involved with it and another one um which focuses in on supporting people um and supporting families who have children with special educational needs, 10 families.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 achievable

Speaker 1 for the majority of people. My sort of personal circumstances and my family commitments has made me reassess.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I'm also very, very lucky to be able to tick the box and go to those events,

Speaker 1 the sports days, the nativity plays, all those things. But it's not about the exciting days.
It's not about those exciting things.

Speaker 1 It's about showing up for the kids when they're struggling, when they're having challenges at school

Speaker 1 or with friends or whatever else, which they're not the momentous occasions. They're not the enjoyable nativity plays and sports day events.
They're the smaller little micro chat sort of situations.

Speaker 1 And 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.

Speaker 1 And 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.

Speaker 1 Over Christmas, well in the lead up to Christmas, I was in a position where things were quieter and people were

Speaker 1 there wasn't the activity, there wasn't the need for launches and things like that.

Speaker 1 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 be around for had I not volunteered to go and help.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I think if you look out for them, if you're willing to listen, even though they can see...

Speaker 1 seem quite scary and daunting and 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

Speaker 1 so what am i doing what am i what what is going on? Well, my plan is to not

Speaker 1 walk away from because I really enjoy supporting and mentoring.

Speaker 1 I love the clients that I've got at 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.

Speaker 1 And that first client,

Speaker 1 that first course that they've created, which means they've freed up time.

Speaker 1 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 programs.

Speaker 1 I have an amazing programme at the moment that

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's an amazing offer. It is amazing value, but it is really demanding.
To get those results, to help those people get those results takes a lot of hard work from both sides.

Speaker 1 And so although it's a done with you programme,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I have so many hours now of digital resources there that, you know, people can come to me with all sorts of problems.

Speaker 1 I had a lady that I've been working with since before Christmas who she wants to start her own podcast. She knows that she procrastinates.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's what I want to keep doing 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

Speaker 1 project. And that's what I'm wanting to do.

Speaker 1 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 ads agency.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, I can really see the benefit of them. The thing with ads is you're feeding a monster.
And so, you know, if you are spending...

Speaker 1 you know, eight to 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.
They are amazing for scaling.

Speaker 1 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 of activity that you have to go through

Speaker 1 and that's in addition to the delivery side of things so it was either look at scaling scaling it back or looking at giving away and giving up on one of these projects and the the biggest project that I want to sort of focus on the one that's kind of my baby is the the one for supporting send families I I'm fully aware of the need for support for those sorts of families.

Speaker 1 I am no expert, 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.

Speaker 1 There are still more out there that I want to get to know better and use for my own reference.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 that you know

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so I was really conscious of getting information that was from a reliable source. That goes for every single area.

Speaker 1 Whenever you get desperate, whenever you've got concerns, whenever it's emotionally charged,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 to know how to go about or the energy to go about figuring out you know these different opinions and what best to do and what not and so

Speaker 1 You know, having providing them with that reliable source of information and experts to hand, I think can make a massive difference because as a parent to a Seng child

Speaker 1 and the wife to

Speaker 1 an autistic person,

Speaker 1 people expect you overnight to become some sort of expert and that just is not the case. So I'm really keen to get into this area and to help support people and to make a difference.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 i'm not turning my back on it but i'm certainly scaling back my efforts so that i can use my efforts elsewhere and 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 myself those opportunities to absorb that information, I can better the situation for my own family.

Speaker 1 And that is something that I'm really eager to pursue.

Speaker 1 This is all evolution. I was talking to a client earlier today around it because there's been lots of questions.
People have been asking me if I'm pregnant and all sorts.

Speaker 1 I am definitely absolutely not.

Speaker 1 But, you know, there's been so many questions, people asking, what's the plan? What am I doing?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 This is absolutely not an end of story for mentoring. I want to continue with the podcast.
I want to continue with my group.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 as

Speaker 1 an audience to

Speaker 1 generate money from and to grow a 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.

Speaker 1 I'm there on Facebook, I'm on Instagram or you 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.

Speaker 1 Evolution is part of business growth and prioritizing 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.

Speaker 1 So thank you again for listening to the UCAN podcast. I am thoroughly enjoying talking to you each week and I will continue to do so.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Again, you can see the theme at the moment. So that's it for me, guys, from this week.
Bye for now.