Annual Review 2022: Hiring, Rock Climbing, And Home Office Renovation
I made five hires this year. Four of them were amazing, and the fifth cost me $8,610.29.
But more on that later.
Welcome to my Annual Review. Each year I review my calendar, task list, Evernote, and camera roll. I look for the biggest wins and learnings of the past year. Then I set intentions for the coming one. The whole process takes 10+ hours.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I like to include both personal and professional stuff in my reviews. Since I don't use social media, these reviews are evidence that I'm a human being and not a robot.
Of course, that's what a robot would say to try and fool you.
Let's dive in.
What Went Well Last Year?
RENOVATED MY OFFICE
This was one of my intentions going into 2022. I hired my friend Raya to help with the redesign. And I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
Here it is before:
And here’s what it looks like now:
LAUNCHED A NEW PROGRAM
One thing that became clear this year was the gap in our offer suite. We had our DIY course, Coaching Business Bootcamp, for $997. And then we had my 1-1 program for $16k. I designed Bootcamp for beginners and like to work with advanced clients 1-1.
Problem is, the majority of the people we attract are somewhere between these two offers. They want more support than they can get in Bootcamp, but they aren’t at the stage to work with me 1-1 yet (and/or they can't afford me). We tightened up our application process this year and that helped. But long term, it doesn't scale for me to be doing all the coaching myself anyway.
A big focus in 2022 was addressing this gap. I worked hard to clarify my signature system, hire a support team, and clarify a new way of working with clients. At one point I was so overwhelmed that I had to talk to my team and apologize for my lack of decisiveness (thanks to former client Chase Damiano for encouraging this type of vulnerability). I decided to drop the whole thing for a bit so that I could come at it fresh.
Finally, I landed on a solution that I love. It's a monthly 1-1 program that combines my curriculum + the support of a dedicated coach (not me). It's called Full Client Roster. I designed it to help coaches create a consistent flow of clients and reach $5k, 10k, even $20k per month.
I created a short video and a wrote a few emails to promote it, then went kayaking in Baja for two weeks. When I got back, we had received over 20 applications. Then we invited the initial beta round of clients to kick off in January. I also got some new video equipment to film the training curriculum.
Here are some screenshots of the member's area:
Became OBSESSED WITH ROCK CLIMBING
In February, Emma and I visited Joshua Tree. Emma found a guide to take us climbing in the park. I've done some climbing in the past, but never out West.
We had a blast.
There's a climbing gym 5 mins from where we live in Vermont. When we got back home, we started bouldering in the mornings with our friends Lauren and Sam. I went from climbing V4s to V6s and 7s. I even did a competition in December. I was able to let go of my inner achiever and just enjoy the experience. I created a cheesy but effective mantra for myself: "Give it your best, and let go of the rest."
I competed in my first bouldering competition this year
MADE SOME GREAT HIRES
Two of them were team members and two of them were people I hired as executive coaches.
I hired my assistant Lena full time. She started working for me as an independent contractor in 2020. Over that time, her responsibilities have continued to grow. So in Q3 she became my first official employee and took on the expanded role of Chief Administrative Officer. Lena's been one of the best things to happen to my business and we've built a great relationship over the years. If you're curious, here's how to hire a virtual assistant that can grow with you.
I hired our first team coach, Alison. In Q2, I started looking for someone who could work with clients alongside me. We received 24 applications from lots of great candidates. We chose Alison Reeves. Alison is a colleague who I met as part of a marketing program. I reached out to her during the application process and said, "Do you know anyone who would be a good fit for this? I'm looking for your clone." She ended up applying herself. I'm so grateful that she did. My 1-1 clients love her. She'll be taking on her own batch of clients for our new program in January (Full Client Roster).
Job listing for our first official team coach, who we hired in Q2
I hired Marita to help me with my relationship to work. Early this year, I felt apathetic and unfulfilled. One of my colleagues introduced me to Marita Bolles and I ended up working with her 1-1 for about 4 months. Marita is the first "ontological" coach I've worked with. Usually, I hire more strategic business coaches and mentors. One thing we did together was draw the cycle I had been going through of being engaged/disengaged at work. She also helped me clarify my vision and stop trying to find shortcuts, which led to growth.
My coach Marita helped me sketch out my relationship to work (apologies for the handwriting)
I hired Charlie to help with business strategy. After finishing up with Marita, I took a break from working with a coach for a few months. That ended up being a mistake because I always feel and perform so much better with a coach. Towards the end of the year, I hired Charlie Gilkey to help me sort out my offers and business model. I worked with Charlie years ago and he brings such an awesome toolkit to his coaching. We talk about marketing, sales, Enneagram (I'm a type 3), leadership, team dynamics, and more. He does a great job helping me stay focused on what I want (which is to enjoy my business and life, not to make more money).
Sometimes it's hard to invest in support. But in my view, these four hires were responsible for us having our best year ever as a business. We made an extra $100k in revenue and $50k in profit this year compared to last. At the end of 2021, my CPA told me I ran too lean. So I spent more on people this year. To my surprise, I'm really enjoying the process of building a team.
READ SOME GOOD BOOKS
This year, I read 40 books. I went particularly deep into personal finance. Here were the books I gave a 5 star rating to on Goodreads:
What Didn’t Go As Well Last Year?
HAD A FEW CHALLENGING CLIENTS
The tricky thing about high end coaching is that it brings out old patterns. This is true for both the coach and the client. It can be easy to take things personally when one of your clients is having a tough time.
There were a couple of clients this year who asked for one thing when they actually wanted something else. For example, they'd ask for very tactical support when what they actually wanted was mindset or strategic help. Or they'd sign up for your program as is, then complain because it wasn't structured a different way. It's a good reminder that clients don't always know what they need and I can't take requests at face value.
Navigating relationships is part of running a service business. In an article I wrote this year about Coaching as a Career, one of the top cons that respondents mentioned was challenging clients.
Here's the good news: clients provide an opportunity for you to look at your own triggers and also improve your client experience. As my friend Toku McCree told me on a mastermind call:
“If you only work with clients who love you, you'll never grow as a coach.”
Here are some of my key learnings:
When a client expresses dissatisfaction, address it immediately. We put in place a feedback survey this year called NPS score. One thing I've learned is that most clients aren't comfortable sharing constructive criticism. When they do, it's a big deal. You should hop on a separate call (not wait until the next coaching session) to address it.
Client feedback isn't personal to you. At worst, it's a critique of the offer, agreement, or experience you've put together. But most of the time it has to do with their own stuff (otherwise you'd be hearing the same thing from every client). If you take every client breakdown personally, you won't last long as a coach.
Know which types of clients you enjoy most. My coach Charlie taught me that there are three types of clients. Nothing to something (e.g. helping a coach start their business), bad to good (e.g. helping someone make their struggling business successful), and good to great (helping winners win more). I learned that "bad to good" clients stress the crap out of me and I prefer working with "good to great" ones.
On the flip side, we had a record number of returning/retained clients. This is not a coincidence - we've been very focused on upgrading the client experience. I also got to meet up with one of our most successful clients, Grace Brodeur, in person this year. These long-term client relationships make everything worth it.
STARTED TO BURN OUT ON BLOGGING
Content creation is the backbone of my business. Historically, I've generated leads through SEO blogging. For the past two years, I doubled down on this strategy and it paid off.
The website generated over 84,000 visits this year and over 3,236 new emails subs. We started ranking for more keyword phrases, including life coach certification, pros and cons of being a coach, and coaching packages.
The hard part of SEO blogging is the time and effort it takes to create these posts. I had to rely a lot on discipline this year to keep up the writing habit. And I worry that I won't be able to keep it up much longer before I start to burn out.
So, it's time to find a more enjoyable way of creating content. I may get back into podcasting this year. Then repurposing that content on YouTube and on the blog.
HIRED AN SEO AGENCY, DIDN’T IMPROVE SEO
One area of SEO that I've neglected over the years is link building. This is when you conduct outreach, write guest blogs, etc. so that other reputable sites will link to you. When done correctly, this helps you rank higher in search results. It can be a time intensive process and I've prioritized creating epic content instead.
There are agencies that will help you with link building. They vary in price. I ended up hiring a more expensive one with the hope that they'd be able to get me backlinks from higher quality sites.
While the agency did deliver the number of links they promised, the quality and relevance of those backlinks was relatively low. And there was no measurable change in traffic or rankings on my site after the 6 month contract (Feb-Jul) was complete.
The number of backlinks to my site did increase this year…
But traffic to the site didn’t increase very significantly, especially compared to 2021.
In total, I spent $8,610.29 with that agency. I'm not losing sleep over it. Every "bad" investment that you make is tuition, teaching you how to make a better investment in the future. 8-9k isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. As intentional as I was in the hiring process, I could have trusted my gut more. The big reminder here: if an investment doesn't feel like a Hell Yes, it's a No.
What Am I Focused On This Year?
BEING A GOOD FOSTER PARENT
I could have put this in the "what went well" section but it happened so recently. About four weeks ago, we said yes to a foster placement for a teenage boy. We've fostered once before, but last time it was a 6 year old girl.
It's been awesome spending time with J*. Emma and I both feel very connected to him. He’s got some big milestones coming up this year: getting his driver's license, graduating high school, and applying to college. We’re excited to support him.
GOING TO LIVE EVENTS + RETREATS
Some of my best memories from the past year have been meeting up with friends in person. I went backcountry snowboarding with two of my high school friends, attended 6 (!) weddings, did a sunrise hike with local friends, and went kayaking in Baja.
But I didn’t go to any business or personal development events last year. This is something I did regularly pre-COVID. In 2023, I’d like to:
Attend a silent meditation retreat
Meet up with my mastermind buddies (Eric Zimmer and Toku McCree) in person
Attend a live business conference or workshop
LOOKING FORWARD TO THE WORK DAY
My client Andrew Capland (who put together an Annual Review of his own) often says: "If you're going to create a job for yourself, make sure you love it."
He got this advice when he first started his business. And it's a great reminder. Because you don't just create your job as an entrepreneur once. You have to re-create it again and again as you change (and as the market changes).
I've done a great job optimizing for financial and time freedom in my business. But I want to continue optimizing for creative freedom. One of the things I’ve started doing is giving each day a score between 1 and 5 when I finish work. Then I can look at what I was doing on the days I really enjoyed.
Here are some things that I think might help:
Enjoy optimizing Full Client Roster so the right people come in and never leave
Make sure any 1-1 clients I take on are superstars going from “good to great”
Experiment with podcasting and/or YouTube as primary content channels
That's all! Here are Annual Reviews from my previous 8 years in business:
