Episode 118: The Recap: June 2018

After a rather trying May, the month of June was a breath of fresh air. Seriously! June ended up being an amazing month, and I’ve got lots of lessons to share with you as we dive into the June 2018 recap!

Okay, so if I were you, I’d be waiting for this update. I mean, May was a complete rollercoaster around here at Small Business Boss with Brittany’s departure.

Two months have elapsed since she decided to leave and from when I’m recording this, and I feel really good about how things have landed. Believe me, there were a few moments in early June where I was wondering what was gonna happen! June’s traditionally a weird month in the agency and SBB was in a bit of flux, so I set some goals that were reasonable and would require a push, but I didn’t want to stress out either.

Now, let’s talk quickly about the weirdness that is June. If there’s a month in the last two years that totally sucked revenue-wise, it was June. Two Junes ago, I think it was the worst month on record EVER for Scoop, and last year was only marginally better. Going into summer, it’s traditionally been hard to get people to commit to doing their work or generally do anything that would help move the business ahead.

So, this June was a total surprise! Let’s get into what happened and what lessons I learned along the way.

Scoop Studios

If May was focused on getting my ducks in a row with the revised structure and services of the agency, June was about new business. Unexpectedly.

At the beginning of the month, I had a goal to increase May’s billings by $3k, so basically to bring in one more new project. Based on the way June has been historically, that seemed like a reasonable goal that wouldn’t send me into stress-ville during a period of flux.

And then surprise! June was rockin’ and rollin’ as we signed on three new project clients and a new retainer client. That gave June a nice bump of about $7.5k overall — which means I definitely hit my goal and then some!

Now, here’s what’s super interesting about these new clients. One was a referral from an existing mastermind member, and then the others were all old clients. Something fascinating happened from the communication I was doing with Brittany’s departure — my old clients were CLEAR on what we offering.

The lesson here is that at least two of them were “not sure we were doing that anymore.” By focusing 100% on content, they knew now that the Scoop team could help.

So two things to take away here: being clear is always key so people can hire you. AND, being visible helps immensely.

The other big focus agency-wise for June was on setting goals for Q3. With the changes business-wise, I feel like we had a bit of a detour, so I wanted to spend some time on digging into what I wanted out of the next three months — knowing that it was a period for summer fun.

I set one big goal for the agency which is to add $10k a month in recurring revenue by the end of Q3. So that’s retainer-based revenue or projects with recurring payments. Truthfully, based on current client capacity and two sizeable contracts we’re close to signing on, I think this may be a bit nuts, but I want to make it happen and then figure out the rest as I go.

Stay tuned for what happens next…

Small Business Boss

The theme for Small Business Boss for June was on getting organized. Seriously, I had to do some real planning, and truthfully, some soul searching about what I wanted to be doing for the rest of 2018.

Right now, Small Business Boss is a fraction of the monthly revenue of the agency, and I want to do what I can to grow that in a sustainable way over time. I was going in circles on my strategy around this (and yes, I know I do this for other people) so I talked to a couple of my business friends, and then I did a Power Hour session with Hailey Dale from Your Content Empire.

While I plan this stuff all day long for my clients, I realized I needed help. Hailey knows my business pretty well as a member of the Double It Mastermind, so she was the perfect person to talk to. And guys, mind blown! She was so helpful and I’m so glad I got over myself and asked for help.

And thanks to our work together, I launched the Get It Done Toolkit — a free productivity toolkit to help you GET IT DONE. This is all my best productivity resources to help you not just focus on busy work but the type of work that makes you move the business ahead. The kind of work that’s profitable for your business. You can grab a copy over at smallbusinessboss.co/toolkit.

I had this other lightbulb moment in June around Small Business Boss too, and it was that I’m done with BS boundaries and trying to be fancy. I’m not, and why I do this is to connect and serve you. Now, I will say I don’t have a problem with boundaries. I do boundaries really well both personally and professionally, so I don’t think there’s any harm to letting them down a bit and just being, well, real and actually talking to you directly.

I tested that out with a question in one of my emails asking for your feedback. I personally replied to all of them, and you know what? I loved it. Then I hosted the first Boss Breakout in the Small Business Boss Squad, and I answered questions, and again, I freakin’ loved it.

The Boss Breakout for July will be on July 25th at 2:30 p.m. ET in the Small Business Boss Squad, and we’ll be talking productivity, with lots of time for Q&A, so be sure to join us. You can join us at smallbusinessboss.co/squad.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for letting me into your ears and sharing the behind-the-scenes of my boss empire. I’ll be back next week with an interview with Hailey Dale who I just raved about in this episode, so you’ll definitely want to listen in!