Episode 110: The Recap: April 2018

We dubbed April “action-month,” and while we certainly took some serious action, there was a fair amount of intentional INaction… and we’re stoked about it. In this episode, we’re heading backstage in our business and shining a spotlight on all that was April 2018.

On the surface, April was a lot like March as far as revenue goes. We did hit our “good” goal for the month, and it felt “good” but not great. BUT the month itself was our favorite month of the year overall because of a couple key items:

• The first and best thing ever was we had our first 2018 Double It Mastermind Retreat in sunny Florida. And it. was. amazing.
• We had a few people unable to make it last-minute due to blizzards and other life stuff, but we ended up with a wonderful group of our mastermind participants.

The power of being together in person:

• Questions/discussions
• Enjoying time away from the every day and the power that can have in business
• Perspective
• Realizing we all face the same challenges as biz owners

As we typically do, we arrived a few days early and stayed a few days after so we can get a chance to have our own in-person time. And while we got things done, we were also incredibly proud of ourselves for not trying to jam-pack in 18 new initiatives and projects.

Which brings us to the 2nd key item that made April rock — intentional inaction.

I believe it all started with a random mid-afternoon Friday skype call and quickly moved from there.

• Questioning an upcoming launch we had planned and doing the math on it.
• We’ve been talking a lot about our personal visions and realized launching was not in line with our long-term vision for SBB.
• We *know* we could charge a lot more and offer a lot more under the SBB umbrella — and probably make a lot more money — but right now, as we’re in the build phase of the brand, it’s not aligned with us to launch constantly.
• We’ve done it for ourselves, for our clients, and when we think about what we truly want to accomplish with this brand, it’s not that.
• It’s showing up, being of service for freelancers, creatives, consultants — service business owners — and providing valuable content and insight.
• Basically, SBB is our legacy; this is our long-term plan, so we need to be patient.
• While we don’t plan on launching any type of course or group program under SBB, this is indeed a business, so we’ll definitely have the occasional offer from time to time. 😉
• So intentional inaction was put in place which made space for us to have a refreshing retreat in Florida — without having to try and add in a bunch of different things we had to get done.
• Not gonna lie… it’s hard. As much as I love the idea of simplicity and intentionality in theory, in actual practice, it’s harder than I thought. At least initially.

So the reason we can do all this AND run a successful company with employees and all is because we have our agency. Our agency allows us to take the pressure off of SBB to make all the money right now and allows it to truly be our legacy project. So you know, in case you needed another reason as to why services business rock 🙂

With the clarity around the intentional inaction on the SBB side, we did also tighten up some offerings on the agency side as well — particularly as it relates to external outreach and “cold” new client leads.

And just a mini update here (because we’ve talked about it the last couple of months) — the new Small Business Boss website will soon be LIIIIIIIIIVE. We’ll do a full debrief of it in June, but needless to say, we’re freaking thrilled.