If I were to describe 2018 in a phrase it would be: holi schmizoli.
This year I experienced some very high highs and some very low lows. From three months of bedrest to giving birth to a healthy baby boy, from the best event I’ve ever put together to the worst event I’ve ever put together, from building my dream home to post-partum depression.
Yep, I experienced it all in 2018.
Overall this was a legendary year for my family and a stabilizing year for my business. Here’s what my team and I accomplished in 2018:
We made over a million in revenue. Our overall revenue will be about $150k more than it was last year. Not the epic amounts of year-over-year growth that I am used to but I am okay with it. I was focused on two things this year: my programs and my family. I spent most of the year investing heavily in my two programs, Million Dollar Badass and Glow Up. By contrast, I spent less than $4k on Facebook ads this year. I wanted to improve our client experience, deliver epic events, expand our coaching team, deliver killer training and get my clients amazing results. I also needed to have a baby and go on maternity leave. That meant that I wasn’t hyperfocused on growing our audience and increasing market share. In hindsight, it was a wise choice. We spent the year perfecting our methodologies, breaking things and learning how to fix them, building the team and systematizing like a mother. I also assembled a solid home team including a full-time nanny and personal assistant. Now we are ready for an epic growth year and it won’t be painful.
We served 300 badasses. We served 300 diverse women entrepreneurs this year. Considering that in the past I’ve served 300 clients in a single month, this is way less, and I am super proud. It means that we are going deep with fewer, more committed clients and the results have been pretty freaking amazing. Our clients have been doubling, tripling and 5x’ing their results. Several have scaled to a million in the last 12 months. Our clients have quit their jobs, stopped doing work they hated and started to do work they love. They have launched podcasts, sold out programs, hired all the help they need, learned to sell like a boss, gained confidence as businesswomen, become better CEOs and basically taken control of their lives and their bank accounts so that their reality is what they once only dreamed of. In other words, I have the best freaking job in the world and I couldn’t be more honored to do this work and serve these badasses!
We supported 30,000 women entrepreneurs. In addition to our clients, we supported a community of 30,000 women this year by sending 51 newsletters, posting over 300 daily lessons on Instagram, 50 Facebook Lives inside our private Facebook group, 6 podcast episodes, 3 webinars and 1 epic challenge. I love creating free training for our community and we already have some very badass content planned for 2019. Lots more step-by-step, specific advice articles and lots more podcast episodes. We are going to continue to deliver free lessons to help you grow your revenue whether you are a client or not.
We hosted six events! OMG. If you have ever hosted a live event then you know that hosting six events in the space of one year is huge. But I am going to be honest with you, hosting events is simultaneously one of my very favorite things as well as the bane of my existence. I absolutely, with-every-fiber-in-my-being love to be in a room full of badass women connecting, teaching, coaching, holding space and inspiring. Yes, yes, yes … this is my life’s work! And yet … what it takes to organize and plan so you can get to that room full of badass women has been so very painful this year. Part of it is that we needed to do some re-jiggering on the team to get the right people on the right tasks and part of it is that it’s just fucking hard to host six events in the space of a year when it’s your first year doing it (oh, and your pregnant). As painful as it was at times, we have learned so much about event planning and have (finally!) nailed down a system that works.
We hosted three Million Dollar Badass retreats this year and three Hello Seven Incubator events. Four of these events were live and in person. Two of these events were virtual due to unexpected mishaps. For the first HSI I was put on bedrest and had to host the event virtually from bed and for the last Million Dollar Badass retreat a hurricane required us to cancel last minute and swiftly move the event online. Like I said, it’s been a year! However, at every single one of these events businesses and lives were transformed, and for that reason, I will never not do events. There will be events next year but probably not as many, and they will be in accordance with a hard-won formula that we developed this year: intimate, luxurious, transformative.
I paid $100k in taxes and paid off $100k in debt. Paying taxes may not seem like much of an accomplishment but in the early years of my business I’ve had to do payment plans with the IRS because I had either planned poorly or despite my best planning, just did not have the cashflow to pay my taxes on time. So this year, it was exciting to be able to pay six-figures in taxes at one time. I literally cried after making that payment. It was such a testament to how far I’ve come. Who knew paying taxes could be so emotional? I was also able to write some other big checks this year to wipe out some old lingering debts. It’s amazing how powerful it is to clear away debt. It releases mental space that is being held hostage. I highly recommend it. That said, I have zero regrets about doing those smaller payments over time in the early years of my business. There’s a time to pay off debt and there’s a time to invest in your future, sometimes you can’t do both at the same time.
I built my dream home. Over these last 8+ years of entrepreneurship I have lived in New Jersey, California, Arizona, South Dakota and New Jersey (again). Two years ago, my husband and I moved our family and business to North Carolina to put down roots. Being the mom of four kids and the CEO of a business is intense enough, I wanted fresh air, lakes, farms and calm. It took us a while to find the right neighborhood and to raise the cash to build the house we really wanted. There was a lot of hard work and a lot of tears (plus two previous houses that fell through and cost us $10k). But today I am writing this newsletter from my custom couch in front of my beautiful fireplace in my big ass house in the country. I’ve got a lovely view of the woods and my children are upstairs having a blast in their playroom and I can tell you with certainty, it was worth it. #majorlifeupgrade
I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My son, Jett, was born in June. He is now six months and already trying to crawl. He has taught me so much and I am so grateful that I get to be his mama. Despite a tumultuous pregnancy that required me to have surgery and be on modified bedrest for 3 months, Jett was born a week late not a month early, it turns out. He was sunny side up and, Good God Almighty, that was the hardest labor I’ve had (and this was birth #3). As hard as it was, I am grateful for that experience because it let me know what I am capable of. Likewise with the heavy post-partum that lingered for about 3 months after giving birth. I’m grateful for therapy, my amazing husband and doing work that brings me true joy, all three were essential to getting me through. Challenges let you know that you are stronger than you think and that there really is no limit to what you can accomplish. And that is a good way to sum up this entire year.
2018 was tough as nails but there was so much magic, too. I am thankful for the lessons and looking forward to more grace and more ease and more women entrepreneurs to serve in 2019.
So what will I be working on in 2019? Welp, we will continue to guide women entrepreneurs to build scaleable businesses in my coaching programs, I am introducing profit-sharing for my team members which is really exciting, I will be hitting some big stages next year (stay tuned for news about that) and my book proposal is almost done so it will be Operation Let’s Get a Book Deal in Q1.
Thank you for being a part of my community. I look forward to watching you make major money moves in 2019!
xo,
R
PS: If you want to get your business to $10k in recurring revenue or more in the first quarter of 2019, we have a couple spots left for Glow Up Live which starts very soon. Learn more and secure your spot here.
