Behind the Scenes | February 2022 - Business & Life Goals Review
Behind the Scenes | February 2022 - Business & Life Goals Review
February seemed like a bit of a ”Groundhog’s Day” from last year. Last year we all had COVID and spent the majority of the month on the couch. This year we managed to not get COVID again, which I’m very thankful for, but we all came down with a long drawn out cold eventually, but not all at the same time. First my youngest three were sick for nearly two weeks, so I spent that time trying to help them as much as I could. Then just when I thought the rest of us might just have escaped getting the cold and weren’t going to get sick, we did. Another two weeks were spent trying to get my oldest, husband, and myself better.
Needless to say, I did not reach all of my goals for February, but I still accomplished quite a bit and am excited to be here another month to keep at it. I started out in February writing a series on goals for your life and your business. You can read them here first if you’d like to have a bit more background for this post.
Goals Series Posts:
How to Set Goals for Your Life & Business
This post will update you on the progress I’ve made toward the goals I’ve set for myself and my business. Sometimes these goals have been very ambitious, perhaps too much for my part-time entrepreneurial journey. As my overarching theme for the year is MOVE, I want to keep moving in my business and figure out what works for me while keeping in mind the other aspects of my life including working part-time outside the home and homeschooling our oldest three children.
First, I’ll dive into my business goals.
Behind the Scenes | Business Goals Update
For my business goals, I’m using the same categories as last year. They are Financial, Systems, Marketing, Products, Tracking, and Personal Development.
Financial
Revenue Goal = 46k/60k/85k
Build 8/10/12 paid client sites = $32k/40k/48k
Build 1/2/3 volunteer site = 0k
Complete 12/18/24 VIP Days = $12k (12x1k) / $21k (12x1k + 6x1.5k) / $33k (12x1k + 6x1.5k + 6x2k)
Sell 10/20/30 Squarespace 7.1 Templates = 2.5k (20x$250) / 5k / 7.5k
For my financial goals, I set good/better/best goals for my business. One of my main goals is to focus on actually making sales and completing design projects. These are quite the stretch goals for me with working part-time outside the home and homeschooling our kids. At the end of the year, I will still feel successful if my business income combined with my work income equals these goals.
I did not earn any income in February, but I was not planning to either. I did get a credit for becoming a Certified Dubsado Expert, so my annual subscription renewal was nearly half this year!
At the very tail end of the month, I restarted a website design project I started last year just before we moved. I’m hopeful we can get that website ready to launch near the end of Q1!
I also worked on copy and emails in Dubsado for my VIP day offering and hope to be ready to test near the end of Q1 also. I’m not quite as far in this as I would like, but I have most of next month to finish and do a test run.
I’ve also started working on my template process and building out the sales and follow-up emails in Dubsado. When I reviewed my website stats, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my Squarespace Template Shop page was my third most popular page. Thus, trying to get the details all finalized so I can begin to sell templates is a top priority.
Systems:
Continue learning, mastering Dubsado-Workflows, Asana, Canva Pro, Flowdesk, Notion, Markup, Toggl
Finalize processes for Website Templates, Day Rate Offers, and Custom Brand & Website
Implement Dubsado Workflows
I’m doing a lot of work on my own Dubsado forms and processes in an effort to be ready to implement some automations by the end of Q1. I also have four courses I’m working on completing at the moment, so it feels like I’m continually updating and revisiting things and processes I thought I’d decided on. I imagine this is one of those things that I will always be reviewing throughout my business journey but am hoping to have some aspects clearly defined at the end of Q1.
I also went through several beginner modules for Notion and started to set up my business dashboard and started taking notes for all of my classes in Notion as well.
Marketing:
Long-Term:
Blog-1x/week
Email-Build list to 500, consistently email newsletters 1x/mo + 1x emails 1x/mo.
Increase referrals by adding a $ incentive
Authority- Get Featured 6x
Short-Term:
Cold email 5x/week
SM-Post consistently to Instagram 5-6x/wk, 1x/wk to Facebook, Pinterest, and Linked In
Research local in-person options
I am really pleased that even with being sick I was able to publish 6 blog posts. This is a huge win for me. Last year when I started blogging it was so hard to hit publish the first time. But I am here to tell you it does get easier every time. It was still difficult to publish the first one this time around but again it got easier each time. I’m encouraged to keep going.
I was also able to send out four newsletters and gained several new subscribers. I was a bit surprised when the first one happened and I received a little email in my inbox– ”You have a new subscriber!” It couldn’t have come at a better time, as at that moment I was questioning whether all the hours I spent writing and blogging this month would be worthwhile. It's great to have a little immediate gratification, no matter how small.
I did my first email list purge as my deliverability rates were low and I was concerned about that since my list is so small. I unsubscribed anyone who didn’t have any activity at all in 2020. The result is now my deliverability rate is 100%. With the help of my new subscribers, I’m already a few ahead of where I was at the beginning of the month before my purge.
I had also just started reworking my email welcome sequence because I realized I had not updated that yet with my rebrand. With new subscribers coming in this is also a really high priority item to complete in March.
I did not work on a referral program or getting featured yet and think that will be a focus in Q3.
For short-term marketing goals, I have not started cold emailing yet, but I have several templates to customize from and am excited to start that in earnest in Q2.
I did remain fairly consistent with IG although this tapered off a bit with being sick and not having spent focused time preparing enough content or photos to last the whole month. I posted 12 posts + my very first reel and gained 10 followers. For now, I’m happy with the slow growth and it feels like nearly one new subscriber per post is enough for now. I plan to learn more about reels in March and hope to be even more consistent in the months to come!
I did post on FB 1 time for each of my six blogs and invited a handful of people to like my page. I also posted once on my personal FB page to just give a quick life update and let my friends know about my business name change and relaunch. I was blown away that over sixty new people visited my site from that one post. I will be posting a few times a month in the future with new “updates”.
Finally, I reached out to a local friend who is hosting a Women in Agriculture Conference later this year to see how I could be involved. I am excited to see what happens with this opportunity in Q3.
Products & Services:
Design 3 SS-Templates for sale
Refine delivery & support options
Refine Day Rate Offers-Confident to increase the price
Refine Custom Design Offers
Continue to increase Squarespace Expertise
Learn CSS
Courses: Create 1 Mini-Course + 3 Day Challenge
Research & Consider FB Community
I did not make a lot of progress with my template process but I did begin to research it again, started building out my 2nd template, and revising my style kit template. The goal next month is to finalize how I will provide support and payment and delivery details.
My day rate offer is a bit open-ended at this point but I think it will take some trial and error to really get this dialed in. Next month, I will offer it to my previous clients and hopefully get to test it out!
I did not work on my mini-course or 3 Day Challenge this month.
I did sign up for a FB Community Challenge early next month so I will see what I learn from it!
Track: Business Metrics
Track Income + Expenses weekly
Track Website, Email, and SM metrics monthly
I spent an hour and fifteen minutes on tracking my website, email, and SM metrics. I think it took me a little extra time to remember what I wanted to look at as it had been several months since I looked at a lot of the data. I’m hoping to get this task done in under an hour this month. Do you think I can do it?
Income and expenses are pretty easy at this point and take only a few minutes a week. Currently, I’m just using a spreadsheet to store all my data.
Personal Development:
Read 6 Business Books
Complete Courses
Standout Squarespace
Day Rate Magic
Notion for Designers
Promplates
I decided on the next Business Book would be Atomic Habits and I brought it up to my workspace. Now all I have to do is remember to pull it out and read it for 10 minutes before starting work every day!
I attended one Q&A for each Day Rate Magic and Standout Squarespace and only made it through a few modules of Standout Squarespace.
I am happy with the progress I made toward all of my business goals this month but can’t wait to look back at the end of March to review after a full month of being well.
Behind the Scenes | Life Goals Review
In addition to reviewing all my business goals, I also wanted to continue to share how I’m doing with my life goals. I know I’m not working in a vacuum and my life has a great impact on my work and vice versa. So here’s a quick rundown of where I’m at with my life goals.
Spiritual:
Read Lincoln Devotional
Memorize Galatians
I read the Lincoln Devotional a few times this month. As we didn’t do school when we were sick, the move to put this book near my computer sabotaged my efforts a bit.
I made a plan to start memorizing Galatians but honestly haven’t started yet.
Physical:
Move Daily
Increase exercise intensity and duration from 10m moderate to 40m moderate-intense by the end of the year
52 walks
Eating cleaner. More whole foods. More vegetables.
Sorting out new doctors again and going to see them
Even being sick I still managed to work out or walk over 1 mile on 20 out of 28 days this month. I did yoga 8 times for 151 minutes, HITT 3 times for 30 minutes, and shoveled snow 1 time for 20 minutes. I walked over a mile 15 days for 135,996 steps total in February with an average of 4857 steps/day. I find exercising the hardest thing to get back into after being sick or having any other life disruptions. I am hopeful I can really get back to it in March.
I didn’t take any walks in February. Besides being sick we had a long stretch of a week or more of sub 0 temps.
I am still working on eating cleaner, more whole foods, and more vegetables. I think this will always be “in progress” and it’s better but not where I’d like to be yet.
I reached out to a few friends and got some suggestions and followed through and made an appointment for myself and the follow-up too.
Mental:
52 Paintings
Cook something new 2x/ week
Read 24 books
6 books on education or specific topics in preparation for school -
6 books about business
6 books to read aloud to my kids
6 books my children recommend
I didn’t get to paint this month, but I did buy a few packs of mini canvases!
I did cook several times, not exactly something new yet.
I started reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate which I am pre-reading for a possible school book or free-read. I missed out on my Charlotte Mason reading group while being sick and was already behind so not sure if I’ll be able to get caught up.
For my business book, I’m starting Atomic Habits in March.
I’ve started reading aloud many of the school books we just weren’t getting to right after lunch and so far that’s been working really well. It seemed like I would always finish eating first and get frustrated waiting for the kids to finish up. I’m thankful that I had a little spark of intuition to try to use this time when they are all captive for reading instead of getting frustrated. During the second week, for the first time, my toddler brought me a stack of books to read to him first, before the other kids’ school books!
For my kid’s choice, I finished The Ranger’s Apprentice Book 2 - The Burning Bridge and checked out the next book in the series.
Relationship:
12 dates with Ben
4 solo dates with each kid
Visit my parents 2x
Ben and I went to a movie by ourselves for the first time, I think since we’ve had kids. We saw Uncharted. It was fun and mostly relaxing compared to when we go with our whole family and I end up waiting in the car with the toddler. We also got to go on several trips to town by ourselves and had lunch twice with just the two of us while running errands or going to the doctor. We also celebrated our oldest turning 12 with another trip to town and Sushi for all!
I did not have any dates with kids yet, but my husband was able to take each one of our middle two this month.
My kids started asking about when we are going to see Grandma this year. I believe my parents will be coming here for a dance recital at the beginning of June. I’m not sure if I’ll try to fit in a trip in their direction before that. But it's always nice to visit because spring/summer comes quite a bit earlier to their neighborhood than ours.
Adventure:
Visit 12 places in Montana I haven’t been before
Summer Road Trip—Ohio, DC, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, or Calgary
Extended family camping trip in Idaho
I didn’t get any adventuring or planning done this month.
Homeschool:
Create a Notion Database to plan and track our CM inspired homeschool
Continue to refine, simplify, enhance our homeschool experience.
Sign up for and start using All in One Homeschool’s (AIO) membership for certain subjects
I made a bit of progress learning more about Notion but I’m not ready to try to apply it to my homeschool yet.
This term got started late due to sickness, and so far I’m just writing down what we are able to accomplish in a day. I’m hoping, for now, this relieves the burden of never feeling like we do enough but rather gives me a good look at the positive and all that we get done!
I did look into AIO further and have in mind the subjects that I’d like for my kids to do. Math on the days I can’t help them, Computer and Thinking.
Declutter:
Declutter one room and one digital area each month
Sort, organize and create a system for storing old homeschool information
Sort kids’ clothes and toys and take donations 1x/Quarter
I did go through about half of the kitchen. I purchased some drawer organizers and my chopsticks no longer slide through the ends of the previous slotted organizer!! I nearly had my downloads folder organized but getting sick left me feeling rushed and behind, so now I need to organize all the graphics and photos I made and edited in February.
I started organizing, labeling, and filing papers in folders! I emptied one basket and am starting to see small signs of progress! Only three more boxes to go!
We accomplished our first donation trip in February, I sorted through our linen shelves and took clothes that my younger two had outgrown. My husband also sorted out most of his closet and donated anything still in good repair.
Garden:
Determine the extent of and plan gardens in Q1, plant Q2, harvest Q3.
I didn’t consider this yet.
Home:
Finish building or hanging shelves in house and garage
Clean weekly, deep clean 1x/Quarter
We didn’t get to any shelving projects this February.
I did take a week off from cleaning while I was sick and had the kids do more of the chores I usually do on the second week of being sick. Once I was well, I deep cleaned two of our downstairs rooms.
Finances:
Pay off Credit Card Debt
Save for upgraded computer
Save for down payment on a rental property
Save toward a trailer or sailboat
We were able to save money towards our debt and chose to use some of it to buy a new computer this month when it was $500 off. Thank you, Costo! We didn’t save towards anything else yet.
Purchases:
Purchase Snowboard Passes for the upcoming year on their sale Mar 1
Lawnmower
Swim Team expenses including travel
Patio Table and Chair
Office Chairs
Hopefully, we will remember this sale day on March 1! We found a really nice used electric mower for a very good price so we were able to purchase this in February and now we are ready for the grass to grow! I think we will have to wait a few more weeks as it just started snowing again.
No luck on the patio table and chairs but I did find the rocking chairs I had wanted four years ago when we lived in Florida at Sam’s Club! I had given up on getting them, so I was super excited to find them in stock. I sat in a few office chairs but nothing worthy of bringing home yet!
That is a wrap for our February recap. I am working on staying positive about all my accomplishments and really savoring sweet moments of extra snuggles as we battled sickness. In the past, it has been quite easy for me to get discouraged as it always feels like we just get something started and then get derailed by sickness, moving, holidays, and guests. I really do like having a life that allows for these things and I am learning to take them all in stride, give myself grace, and get right back to my habits and routines as quickly as possible!
Setting Goals Series Posts:
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