This post is part of my year of alchemy, you can find the whole series here or subscribe for future updates here.
I so get why people quit.
This month I sold one of my courses, and within the refund period I got a request for refund. It hurt.
Now had I of sold 20 and got 1 refund then perhaps I wouldn’t have taken it so personally. But 100% refund rate is a killer.
The hardest part is the lack of feedback. Was it really that shit? Was it a personal thing? Was it always the plan to request the refund? I could see she accessed all the content. I can’t force people to give feedback so I guess I will never know.
This was a bit of a hit to the ego obviously. And I’d totally be lying if I didn’t seriously consider giving up and didn’t go into a downward spiral.
In fact it put everything on hold. And it’s why this post is late too as I am still pulling myself up from that spiral. My good friend Bec from Heart Coach started to lift me out with some really helpful strategies to get myself out of the rut.
Now I am back to looking at the bigger picture which is super helpful.
Stuck in the motion
Here we are again. I am stuck with the busy work at the moment, weekly emails, blog posts, podcasts, content for the membership… it hasn’t left much space for the bigger vision and I am guessing that is why things have fallen off track. I’ve been listening to a lot of James Wedmores content who encourages you to get a VA to help with the busy work and I am keen to get help in this regard but I need to get clear about what I actually need and also find the funds to do it. I’ve lost a lot of members this month so I am barely covering costs and daycare right now. I don’t plan on doing any major launches until February at this stage.
I’ve finished up the podcast episodes for the year to give myself some breathing room and figure out what is next. Work on the bigger picture which will hopefully give me the momentum to keep going.
Daycare transitions
Daycare has begun with 1 day a week. The kids HATE it. Like not just cry at drop off but ALL day they are miserable. The updates I get just make me feel so terrible so I go get them earlier than planned. The trauma begins before we even get dressed in the morning. They’ve been non stop sick since they started with colds, the seem to recover for the week and then one day back at daycare and BOOM they get sick again. I am hoping they settle in soon, but it’s been almost a month. The centre would prefer them to be in two days but right now we can’t swing it financially so one day it is.
I wish so bad that I could do work with them around, I tried. I tried so hard. I mean that’s the dream right? Have a job that allows you to stay at home with the kids when they are little. But not being present is really terrible for them, getting frustrated because they need you when you’re in the middle of something is not fair on them. Maybe if they slept at night I could actually do it while they slept.
Goodbyes to the web side
I let go of quite a few web clients this past month too. It’s felt bitter sweet. But I didn’t have the capacity to do a lot of the work that was needed and I needed to be honest about that to my clients and also myself. I am not sure what the future holds in this department.
Content styles and why it matters
I’ve been experimenting with more theory based content and I have noticed it’s not a winner. When I say theory I mean slideshows with me talking and showing pictures. The months I do more theory I get a bigger drop of members. There seems to be less engagement. For my particular demographic, people want hands on demonstrations, which does require a bit more effort from my part, but that’s what I’ll go back to.
Become more visible
This has been playing on my mind a bit more. I post a lot on instagram but I rarely show my face. I think this needs to change for people to get to know me a bit more and enter that know, like trust, phase before buying from me.
What’s up next?
I need to finish pulling myself up out of the rut. Then I’ll hopefully back on track
OCTOBER STATS
Members – 16 (-4)
MARKETING
- Email subscribers – 691(+39)
- Instagram followers –9515 (+532)
- Facebook followers – 834(+11)
- Average Monthly website hits – 3500 (+.07%)
DOLLARS
- Money earned – $205
- Money spent: $99.80
- Hosting $22.50
- Payment Fees $13
- Vimeo (video storage) $13.20
- Jetpack (spam/backup/security) $13.20
- Podcast Hosting $17.90
- Advertising $20
- Total profit this month: $105.20
- Total carried forward: profit of $468.75*
*Not paying myself OR putting money aside for tax
TIME
Hours spent on the project : Approx 24
MY COMMITMENT FOR NOVEMBER
Big Vision realignment
DECEMBER SNAPSHOT
Action for the big vision
Until next month, if you’re not on the list to get my regular updates on this project and are wanting to follow along you can sign up here.