Join me as I share the learnings, challenges and results I’ve had during February 2020.

I discuss how much I spent – and why – to attend a business retreat, what mindset challenges I’m working on, what my business has brought in this year so far and from what, plus where I’m investing my money. 

I want to share with you some transparency over some of my mindset issues and also some of my earnings, as well. This is something that I’ve really been tossing up about doing for a little while, in terms of sharing a little bit of how my business is going. But I know that my favourite podcasts, and the people who I love following and listening to, are pretty transparent. So along with sharing some tips and some strategies and that type of thing, they actually share what is going on in their business and also some of the results that they are having.

Now, the thing is that I know when sometimes we hear what other people are making or how they are going in their business, it can trigger us, and we can think, “Well, it’s great for her, but what about me and my business?”. Or we can even think some certain things about other people when we hear what they’re earning. I’ve been having a bit of a think if this is something I do want to put out there, and there are definitely pluses and negatives for both sides. But for me, when I look at people that have made a difference in my own journey, it’s really the people that have actually said, “hey, this is what I’ve achieved.” To me, it shows that it’s possible.

I put this on Instagram the other day that it’s hard to believe what we can’t see, and so my results and where I’m at, it’s tiny compared to other people. But to other people it’s like their dream of where they want to get to. I feel that it’s something that I can do, to actually, hopefully, make a bit of an impact maybe in some of you guys and for you to kind of think, “Well, hang on a minute, maybe I can make my goals bigger and maybe I can achieve that too.”

Now I want to start off with some of the things I invested in and some of the things that I did over February. The first one that I spent quite a big investment was to go to a business retreat. It was funny, I’d actually come off the back of running my own retreat that was in October 2019. Koden and I had flown up to Byron Bay for for a few days and I had seen that one of the people whose programs I’ve joined, Denise Duffield Thomas, who is money mentor was running a retreat. She put this up in her private group and when I first saw the price that was attached, I instantly was like, “Well, that’s just crazy. That’s a lot of money.” It was $8000, Australian dollars. And I just thought, “That’s so much money.”

Then I thought, well, hang on a minute. You would be paying that to basically be in Denise’s presence and to be in the presence of her husband too, Mark, who’s an absolute legend. They both are. They have different roles in the company. Obviously, Denise’s built it up. And I thought, “Well, hang on a minute. What would that be worth to me?”.

To actually get that access to Denise and to Mark, as well. What would that be worth to me to be in that space with a group of other women in business, to have those discussions that different people, perhaps a few levels ahead of me or around my level, about the things that they’re working on, the things that they’re finding challenging, what would that be worth to me?

And I realised, paying that amount is giving me access and I want to go straight to the top, and go to one of the most successful, incredible entrepreneurs that we have here in Australia, but also around the world, being Denise.

So I applied and I was accepted. I flew up to Newcastle (the retreat was held just near there) to spend a couple of days with Denise and the other amazing women that attended. Claire Wood, who’s one of my business friends, we actually met for the first time in person, which is really good. She was there too, and an incredible group of other women from across the world who had flown to be there.

It ended up costing around $10,000 when you add in GST and travel and accommodation and flights and all of that type of thing. And I’ve had a lot of people say to me, “Was it worth it?”. But I don’t think that you can say, “I spent this much and this is exactly what I’ve now got out of it, and this is a monetary value that I’ve got out of it.”

Because when we attend these types of events or when we invest in ourselves, the payoff is so long term, and the things that I took away are things that are going to be delivering back to me over the months and the years to come.

I wanted to share what some of those things were. It was one of my favourite exercises that we did, and it was called Negative Consequences.

Basically, what we looked at was what the next stage in our business was and what was stopping us from getting there. We were asked to write down five of the negative consequences that might come about from us moving to the next stage in business. I’m actually going to read you the ones that I wrote down because perhaps you can resonate with them too.

• People will judge me for having money.

• People might think that I’m greedy

• They might dislike me

• They might hate me if I have more money.

• I might get called out for being wrong, or for being discredited, or for not knowing stuff. Totally impostor syndrome there and fear of being called out.

• Making more money and even potentially sharing some of the results that I was getting, making other people feel uncomfortable and making my family feel uncomfortable and my friends feel uncomfortable around that.

• Another big one for me, a negative consequence, was growing my business and that meaning that I then had to work more.

For those of you that know me, know that I don’t really like being crazy busy. I’m not building my business to work all the time and it’s pretty important me that I can work when I want, the hours that I want to and that I’m not running a business that requires me to work 24/7. That’s super important to me.

For me, a fear around continuing to grow my business would be that I have to work harder and that I’m accountable to more people as I grow. These were some of the negative consequences that I wrote down, that I find quite scary.

It was interesting actually. I actually went and visited a psychologist in February because I was feeling a little bit of anxiety and definitely some resistance around continuing to grow my business.

I went in there and I had a bit of a chat to him, and I’ve had some mental health ups and downs, well mental health illnesses I guess you could say, in my past as well. I told him about that and I told him about how I’d been feeling a little bit anxious and he said to me, “Emily, it’s not something that’s wrong with you.” And he said that it’s partly your personality because you’re an empath and you feel a lot.

I know this isn’t just me, when we feel a lot and we feel what other people are feeling as well. I know that in my programs, I take a lot of that on. I spoke about this a little bit in last month’s review, in the January 2020 Review, so go back and listen to that one if you haven’t. But how I take on other people’s energies and emotions.

We discussed that and he said, “You know what? It’s a beautiful thing and it’s an amazing thing and it’s a powerful thing, and it’s nothing that’s wrong with you. But how you can use it to your advantage too, instead of trying to get rid of it”.

So, I think I’ll go back to him and have another chat actually about some of my fears and just the mindset shift that’s involved in growing as well. I actually chose this psychologist cause he’s a business owner too. He was great to speak with and it was really helpful.

Some of my results that I wanted to share with you was since the start of the year I’ve run one event, which was awesome – it was a 2020 Business Strategy Day. I’ve spoken at the Australian Gift and Homewares Association, Sydney Gift Fair and that was incredible and so much fun.

I launched a new program called Scalable, and I’m bloody passionate about memberships and running an online membership program because I find it so fulfilling. You can have such a profound impact with your students working on that ongoing way with them. I wanted to teach other people how to do that and I’ve been just running with an amazing group of students. Of course, I have my other membership, my existing membership, The Modern Marketing Collective, where I teach all things modern marketing. Specifically, how to show up online and really powerfully use Instagram.

So, those were my different offerings that I had. And since the start of the year, I’ve brought in almost $60,000 into my business. For me, that is pretty exciting. That’s pretty awesome. And like I said to other people, it’s like, “What? That’s nothing.” To other people, that’s also pretty exciting and pretty cool. And I just, like I said, I feel compelled to just share a little bit of these things, because for me, when I hear other people share some of their results, it shows me what’s possible and it makes me actually think so much bigger.

The other thing that I want to share around that is that’s not profit. I think a lot of people, and this is something that I don’t really like, is that they share “I made this much money” and when they take away all the expenses, all the payouts they had to pay to other people for promoting their program or to advertising costs or to staff, they’re left with a very little amount.

This goes the same for me as well, what’s important to me is the profit margin. That’s something that is pretty good in my business, which I’m really happy with. But I wanted to break down just a few of the costs that are involved in getting to this number that I’m now at. And by the way, most of that is recurring revenue because I have an online membership and the revenue is on an ongoing monthly basis.

So, my big expenses, Facebook and Instagram ads, that’s something that I invest in. I’m managing them myself right now and this is a variable cost. Basically, the more I spend, as long as I’m keeping an eye and doing this really strategically, the more I get from Facebook ads. I don’t do launches as a general rule, I don’t put in all this money into Facebook ads and then hope that people are going to buy my program. I’m more into keep scaling this every month in a really sustainable way that we can track everything every month, so we know the return we’re going to get. I keep putting more money in because I can get that return straight away, which is pretty powerful and takes risk away. I know that the variable cost of Facebook ads, the more I put in now, the more I’ll get back. However, having said that, I’m now actually chatting with a few different people around taking on my Facebook ads management so I can step into more of a leadership role, and I’m going to update you on that in the March review as well because I’ll hopefully have made a decision there around who I’m bringing on board.

So, Facebook, Instagram ads, that’s an expense. Also, subscriptions. You’d be surprised by how much these add up with different software and tools and apps and all that type of thing. So, that’s definitely a big one. These are pretty much a fixed cost, but when you get more email subscribers and you need more storage and that type of thing, you do go up in price a little bit on those. But on the whole, it’s kind of a fixed cost I would say there.

Then contractors, so my podcast editor, shout out to Brianna at Bambi Media. I have my VA, my assistant, designers, so obviously paying them.

And then professional development, as well. So, going to that retreat, and I’m in a couple of memberships myself, learning about business. So, that’s what I spend my money on too.

So, that’s my wrap from February 2020 and I hope you enjoy this style of sharing. I’d love to know, and I’m kind of excited to keep you guys updated as the months go on around how I’m building my business, what I’m focusing on, and what the results are that I’m having. Let me know below if you enjoyed this.

And be sure to go to emilyosmond.com/free to join my free Instagram training.

And connect with me on Instagram @emilyosmond.

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