Happy new year!!
Cheers to wrapping up 2022 and bringing on 2023!
I have learned many lessons this year in all areas of my life. I grew as a clinician and supervisor. I learned leadership lessons with my team. I evolved my marketing strategies for business. I supported our clients and became a better business coach. I leaned into the uncomfortable parts of my mental health to heal. I challenged myself to try things I have never done before. I became a stronger business owner and a better mom, wife, friend, daughter, and human.
Last year, December 2021, was really rough and kicked off the start of a hard 2022. I was 7 months postpartum, which is historically the time period in my postpartum “life” with previous children when postpartum depression and anxiety start. I was dealing with business stress and not enough support. I got covid in late December 2021 which kicked off a week of barely having enough energy to get out of bed. My word for 2022 was “margin” but this didn’t go according to my original “plan”. At a time when I was vulnerable and coupled with some life circumstances, burnout hit me hard.
BUT… 2021 was the company’s best revenue year ever. According to many, I was (inaccurately) doing “amazing”.
Fast forward, to December 2022, and my life is very different. My business has pivoted, and I am so excited about our revamped membership program Business School and the new offers that are coming from Pursuing Private Practice in 2023. My mental health is the best it’s ever been. In 2022, I spent a lot of time with my family and friends. I didn’t work as many nights and weekends and didn’t have nearly as many “emergencies” as I did in 2021. The backend of the company has been completely overhauled. My team is very different, both in business and in my personal life. My boundaries are stronger than ever. I love leading this company more than ever before.
BUT… we aren’t making close to the revenue that we made last year. According to many, we (inaccurately), aren’t doing as well as our previous year.
I tell this story to you because I want to demonstrate how diet culture shows up in business. So many business “experts” teach that revenue is the main goal in business. In my opinion, it’s very similar to the weight loss messages that our clients see all the time. Revenue is one piece of the puzzle in your business and you can’t determine the health of a business by the revenue it makes. Making money is a strong boundary of mine, but I refuse to sacrifice my self-care and boundaries to make more and more revenue. And… a good business coach will teach you how to make more profit, not just more revenue.
This time of year is perfect to review your business plans for the upcoming year. What do you want to do in business? How do you want to feel? What do you want to work on? I call this time “CEO Time”, where I have space to think about strategy and what’s next for the business.
If you want to take my process, I will outline it for you with some examples from Pursuing Private Practice and my group practice, Eat With Knowledge.
1. Write out all of your wins, celebrations, and moments that you’re proud of.
Our wins for Pursuing Private Practice: We pivoted a lot in 2022 with some major wins. We worked on our customer journey to create a better “flow” so that professionals get better results for their stage of business. We decided to revamp our Business School membership program to include our Beginner Basics course so that professionals can “start here” in their journey to business ownership and receive support and accountability with weekly calls and our Facebook group. We served 100 professionals in Business School, some just for a short time and others all year long. We experimented with group supervision and had 20 people join us for our first round in the fall of 2022. We had some awesome podcast interviews and showed up consistently with our emails and social media content. We also worked on our project management systems and have a much better process for operations.
Our wins for Eat With Knowledge: We served 80 clients this year! We had many new clients and some that have been with us for years. We also had a lot of clients graduate from our practice into eating disorder recovery, which is the best feeling in the world.
2. Write out all of the things you want to change or improve.
Our changes for Pursuing Private Practice: We need to improve our marketing efforts in order to reach more of our ideal clients. Marketing and visibility is our theme for 2023 and this will help strengthen our company to enroll more people in our programs, deliver an amazing experience, and create more buzz around working with us!! This will not only expand our business to make more impact, but will also make more revenue/profit for the company. We had team transitions and shifting of roles and responsibilities this year. We need a better process for hiring, onboarding, and offboarding team members. Finally, our market has shifted because not as many professionals are starting a business due to the recession. We need to call this out in our messaging and target those professionals who are ready to build their business because of the recession (and why that’s smart!).
Our changes for Eat With Knowledge: We are shifting away from only providing 1:1 nutrition counseling and expanding our services in 2023. Our nutrition counseling market has changed and we want to provide a resource to our clients that need support but cannot afford or commit to 1:1 counseling at this time. We are currently brainstorming a lot of options and will make some decisions by the spring.
3. Develop a plan of action that’s realistic and aligns with your values.
Our plan for Pursuing Private Practice: Now that we have built an operations and project management foundation, we’re ready to expand our visibility with more marketing projects. Save the date: we are hosting a free workshop on Thursday January 19th at 1:00pm all about building your business. This will open up Business School and we are planning to switch Business School to an “evergreen” open enrollment as an experiment. We are also so excited to start our official business coaching program in February. We’ll be assessing our organization in the spring and will hire more team members!
Our plan for Eat With Knowledge: Honestly, we’re still coasting as we brainstorm our next move. I share this because as a business owner you will always have “more work to do”. You won’t be able to get to it all at once! It’s okay to say “no” to some projects to focus on others.
Everything that we do as a company is to serve our clients and community. If you want to tell us about your “CEO Time”, we invite you to email us back! We are here to cheer you on and love hearing from you.
If you want to work with us in the new year, we have different programs depending on your stage of business. For those of you starting and growing your business, Business School will open very soon! Get on the waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment begins. If you want supervision support, our next group supervision cohort begins the week of January 16th. If you are interested in business coaching, applications will open up in February. Contact us if you’re interested and we’ll make sure to send you details when they are ready.
Cheers to an amazing 2023!