Episode 477: Are You Thinking of Starting Again?
In this episode you'll learn:
Evaluating business practices with fresh eyes.
Consistency in marketing and growth analysis.
Time and resource audit.
Key strategies and creating a priority list.
Connect and get in touch with My Daily Business:
Links mentioned:
Today, it's a quick tip episode, and actually this is the final episode, if you're listening in real time to 2024, the last episode of the year. And of course it's relevant any time of year, but particularly right now. So before we get stuck into that, I again just want to say a gigantic thank you for listening, for sharing, for commenting, reviewing, and just helping build this community around this podcast. It means so much, honestly, any time somebody reaches out, sends us a dm, sends an email, sends a review, you know, likes it, replies to things on Spotify, like all of that, it just adds up to just make all of this feel worth it.
So thank you, thank you, thank you.
And if you have listened all year, or maybe you've listened to a couple episodes or interviews this year, and thought they were helpful, I would love it so much if you could leave a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you usually listen, it just really helps other small business owners.
And maybe in 2025 and beyond, there'll be a bunch of people that really want to learn and grow and be able to do that in their own time while they're driving, while they're at the gym, while they're, you know, doing something else and be able to take in this information. So please, please don't be shy with a review. It just, again, means so much.
There's a lot of work and effort and time there that goes into this. And yeah, seeing reviews just makes it feel like it's worthwhile. And again, before we jump into today's quick tip, I want to of course acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands, which for me in North Warrenite is the Warwurng and Raundji people of the Kulin nation. And so I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated.
Alright, lets get into todays quick tip episode. It is interesting at the start of a new year or the end of an old year that you have this sort of novelty or this momentum to change things, to kind of see it as a fresh slate to try new things or maybe think about things like A Word of the Year or creating vision board, both of which I've done in the last week.
And I love that it has that energy around it. I know some people think it's kind of a whole load of whatever, but I do think that there's something lovely about just starting something fresh. One of my favourite quotes that I've mentioned a number of times is from the incredible book Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel that talks all about his experience with the horrendous holocaust of World War II. And one of the things he says in there is between stimulus and response, there is always a chance to pause. And I feel like New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, that whole thing, it kind of does give the world a bit of a chance to pause. And for small business owners, it definitely is that pausing station that doesn't really happen a lot of the time during the rest of the year.
But today I wanted to talk about that from a different sort of perspective in that instead of thinking about just your New Year's goals or you, your Vision Board or your Word of the year, thinking about if you were to start your business again, or if you were to give advice to somebody who's starting a very similar business to yours, what would you do differently? What would you say to them that they should, you know, really hone in on?
And I guess it's really about evaluating your current business practises with fresh eyes and thinking about stuff like looking at, I don't know, outdated processes or assumptions, or thinking like where in my business am I assuming that either something is getting done or that the system is still the best system, or even that the platform that we use is still the best platform, where are all these assumptions happening?
And if I was to look at this with fresh perspective, you know, if somebody else was to come into my business and look at everything, would they be like, well, why are you still paying for that subscription?
Or why do you have two staff who do similar things? Or why are you micromanaging on that part?
Really like thinking about if you are starting fresh, if you were absolutely starting from scratch again with your business, knowing everything that you know now because you've obviously been running the business, what would you do differently?
For me, I think there's loads of things I would do differently. But I think one of the things that I loved at the start of my business and I kept it up for years and then I sort of slowly dropped it off and I've talked about this previously on this podcast as well, is just a level of consistency with say social media marketing or other organic marketing. I mean, I'm very consistent with this podcast, I'm very consistent with my Sunday email.
So I'm not going to like bag out as if I don't do that at all.
But I definitely think there are areas of which I either got complacent or, you know, what's that thing that I've been seeing it everywhere on all these memes at the moment. Stick to your plan, not your mood.
And I've definitely had definitely periods of time where I've let them mood that them feelings I have around social media overshadow the plan that I had for marketing and showing up on social media.
So that is one thing that I would have loved to have stayed consistent with the whole time that I've had this business. But you know, I'm going toa forgive myself and everything else. But there's things like that, we all have them that if you were to look back at when you started and you had that really fresh, exciting, novel approach to your business that you maybe put effort into things that you don't do anymore.
But also what are some things maybe that you've been doing for years and you don't think that they're really necessarily moving the needle or helping you.
So that's the first thing really just looking at this sort of starting fresh perspective and thinking about it from that idea that if I was to start this again, what would be the things I absolutely would stop doing or what would be the things that I'd carry over if I was to tell somebody else how to do the exact same business, what would I really say and evaluate is working well and what would I say is not?
I guess the other thing is to think about kind of like a, mini, I don't know, growth analysis and thinking about which activities actually move the needle in your business. Like what are the most profitable initiatives that you have?
What clients or customers or projects or campaigns brought the most value from a perspective of, you know, maybe things like financial metrics, but also from a perspective of total values alignment. Like, I have incredible clients, I'm very, very lucky. And I feel like over the years they've become even more aligned in.
They and myself have become very aligned in, like, how we view things. Not that we have to all have the same ideas about the world, but that there are, overarching values that we have in common. And so really thinking about that stuff and then in terms of, say, customers or projects or clients, how did they come about?
Like, what was it that actually was the last kind of attributing factor for them?
Clicking and working with you or buying from you or, you know, bringing you onto a project? Really looking at kind of that growth analysis.
Things like, I don't know if one of your revenue streams is, I don't know, people collaborating with you or advertising with you, then where do the best ones come from and how did they find out about you? And kind of looking at that breadcrumb all the way back, another thing to think about is in this sort of starting fresh, doing a mini time and resource audit, really thinking about where am I wasting a lot of time?
You know, is it I'm looking for files in the same place all the time, or I can never find anything in my Dropbox or my Google Drive, or is it I'm having to repeat myself every time I hire a new freelancer, so I don't have good SOPs created, or I don't have one platform that is doing all this good stuff because maybe you've been using a platform for years and years and years and you actually need, need to just elevate from that platform to something else.
Or maybe that platform is really good, but you're not actually utilising it in the best way. And so it's like, okay, if I was to evaluate all the tools and all the subscriptions that I have, are they actually working for me or are they hindering the business? And then I guess like the fourth thing would really think about what are the key strategies that I need to work on moving forward. Moving forward.
God, I sound very corporate right now.
But if you think about what is the key focus area or areas for this business in the next 12 to 36 months, and in that, what are kind of any pitfalls or places that it's very easy to get sidetracked or distracted, and then for each of Those ideas. Is there an essential system that maybe you could have implemented earlier in your business? So again, if you're starting from scratch, you would implement this earlier on.
And then I guess from all of that, you want to then create some sort of priority list. And this is really where you could use, you know, a tool like Poppy. I know I have talked about them a lot, actually. They have been very kind and given me a discount code to use. So if you are interested in Poppy. I know a lot of people have given us a lot of feedback from that interview that I did recently with the Poppy founder. And I love Poppy AI. Really.
I'm using it every single day. But the discount code is FIONA.
We also have a link to my affiliate code. If you want to go through that way on our website at mydailybusiness.com podcast472 you can cheque it out that way. But if you sign up at Poppy AI and just use the discount code Fiona but any kind of AI tool like this could really, really help you in terms of creating a priority list. If you went through all of those things that I just mentioned and you're like, okay, I'm starting from scratch. The thing that I love about Poppy is that you could actually just voice note your answers to everything that I'm asking you and then just say, please help me create a priority list from this.
Or you could just, you know, work through it yourself and thinking about what are the key priorities. If I was to really look at this from really, really fresh perspective that I'm starting this business from scratch, these are the things I would focus on.
These are the things I would get rid of. These are the kind of growth activities that have worked well and that I should keep as a focus.
These are the things where I'm like, wasting time. And then out of all of that, these are kind of the strategic initiatives that I want to focus on for the next year. If you were to pull all of that together, you could easily then create something that means, let's say, if you were starting this business from scratch, you'd actually have a much greater chance of success and achievement with it.
Or if you were similarly giving advice to somebody who's about to start the same sort of business, that they're not going to fall into the same pitfalls that you had, or they're not going to have to go through as many mistakes and everything else.
And sometimes that new business owner, excitement and momentum is missing.
Sometimes when you've been in business for some time, you. I don't know, we all kind of get a little complacent about things or the excitement wears off and, you know, you've just got to do the work and show up.
And I guess this whole exercise, this whole episode is about thinking about what are you bringing into the new year. And if you were to start all of this from scratch, what would you tell yourself? Really?
What would you tell yourself? Because often we know a lot of the answers, we know what we need to do, but it's about really documenting that, getting clear and then setting yourself up with a priority list for 2025 and beyond. If you're listening to this at some other time, you can do this any time of year. It doesn't have to be around New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, etc.
But it is a really good time of year to do it because you naturally a lot of people will have that momentum and that idea of like, okay, fresh page, what do I want to do? And of course then you want to implement all of that. Which brings me to group coaching. So group coaching is open again for 2025.
We run this twice a year or we do an intake twice a year. And I'm super excited. We have people that are already signed up to the waitlist and they have got an email earlier than everyone else. So good on you if you signed up. But if you are keen, you can just go over to mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and apply.
It will officially kick off in early March, but we are doing interviews in January and February, so that runs for 12 months. And it's an incredible way to connect with like minded business owners. We meet every two weeks on Zoom, so anyone in the world can take part. And we've often had people from overseas take part in this. And as in people outside of Australia and we go through all the parts of business, we also have my own incredible experts that come in on all sorts of topics and themes.
People that I just love and they know their stuff and they are really good and they're not there to just, you know, sell you their latest course or anything else like that. Actually they don't do any selling.
They're just there to answer your questions in that time. We pay them for their time. We also have a bunch of other things.
You get access to all of our courses, you get one on one coaching with me. There's so much that goes into that. And in 2025 we're actually changing up the format a bit, so I'm really excited about that. It will give everyone more chance to connect and talk and grow with each other over the course of 12 months.
So if you are interested in that, please head on over to mydailybusiness.com group coaching to take part in that because we will be kicking it off in March but we'll do interviews on a first come first serve basis. So again it's just mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching and if you've got any questions you can always just reach out on DMs at mydailybusiness or hello@mydailybusiness.com.
Thank you again for listening. I hope you have an incredibly safe and wonderful new year and I'll be back in a couple of days with the next episode. So we are not taking a break over the period in terms of this podcast. It'll keep coming out twice a week every week. So yeah, enjoy it while you have your summer or your winter break or wherever you are in the world. Have a wonderful New Year and I'll talk to you next year.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Podcast for a range of tools to help you grow and start your business, including coaching programmes, courses and templates. Cheque out our shop at mydailybusiness.com and if you want to get in touch, you can do that by email at hello@mydailybusiness.com or you can hit us up on Instagram at mydailybusiness_. You can find us on TikTok at mydailybusiness or find me Fiona Killackey on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting.
