Welp, it's the end of another delightful year. I am feeling joyful, grateful and accomplished. And just booked my family a trip to Hawaii for Spring Break next year to celebrate a job well done. (Celebrating your success is important!) I also bought my whole team Away luggage and paid out our very first round of profit-sharing because I did not get here by myself.
I started the year as a “one woman show” with three contractors. And I am ending the year with a team of twelve (9 full-time employees, one part-time employee). So needless to say I've been on a hiring spree. I've worked hard to work myself out of a job which means that I am only doing the work I truly love to do—coaching my clients, creating great content, managing our leadership team, hosting the podcast, webinars, live events and speaking gigs, closing sexy deals (hello fabulous partnerships!) and writing my book. It also means that if something were to happen to me this business could keep going without me. That is an absolute dream come true to this hard-worn entrepreneur that is coming up on her tenth anniversary of entrepreneurship (that's like 1,000 years in business in internet years).
In short, I feel pretty damn good about what we’ve accomplished this year at Hello Seven:
We made a lot of money. Last year, we closed 2018 with an adjusted gross revenue of $1.1 million. That was after building a house, having a baby and dealing with bedrest and postpartum depression for several months. So I am still celebrating making $1m+ in 2018 with all of that life upheaval. At the beginning of 2019, I set a revenue goal of $1.5 million (slow and steady wins the race) but I secretly wanted to double my revenue and get closer to $3m. I focused on adding additional features and benefits to my mastermind, systematizing marketing and sales, testing new offers and building the team. We wound up reaching that $1.5 million revenue goal early in the third quarter of this year. After that point, we raised the goal for the team to two million. We are currently sitting at $1.9m for the year and will likely cross the $2m line in the next few days before the year is done. Two million ain't half bad and I am delighted.
I got a book deal. I closed out 2018 by sharing that my book proposal was in progress. Early in May, my book proposal was FINALIZED, submitted to agents, and snatched up by a BIG DEAL publisher before we even were ready to start shopping it around. HarperCollins Leadership will be publishing my book, We Should All Be Millionaires, in 2021. I am so excited to be working with them, they are the Harvard of publishing right now and I can't wait to share my message with the world on a bigger stage. I can't wait to see my book on the shelves of Barnes & Noble and have a full blow book tour. It's gonna be magical. But for now I am doing the totally unsexy part of sitting my ass in a chair and writing every day. Writing a book is an enormous amount of work but I just think about all the women currently sitting in cubicles or struggling with fledgling businesses who need to read this book and it keeps me going. I'm planning on doing a special training with what I learned about how to land a six-figure book deal with my mastermind some time this year. If, in addition to growing your business, you want to write a book and get paid well to do it, you should think about joining.
I grew my team (at home and work). At the beginning of 2019, I began negotiations with a few contractors to become full-time employees of Hello Seven. Since then I have hired an Operations Director, a Program Director, a Marketing Assistant, an Enrollment Coach, a Resident Coach, an Operations Assistant, a Designer and a Program Assistant. My team feels like my family. We have an insanely good time together and whenever we're together in person people start talking to us and asking us what are we doing. We are having that good of time together. Though most of my team has been with me less than a year, we all feel like we've known each other forever. My favorite thing about my team is that they all love their jobs, which is pretty great because when you love your job you do a great job. Plain and simple.
But of course, let's not forget that building a team isn't easy. The hiring process can be lengthy and sometimes people don't work out. I had to let a few people go this year because it was no longer the right fit. That's always a tough part of growing your business but it is a mandatory part so don't try to avoid it. My biggest lesson around hiring this year has been: employees who are a good fit for my team do not require a lot of management. When someone requires a ton of management to perform, that is a signal to me that they are likely no longer a fit for the team. It doesn't mean they suck or that they are bad people, it just means my company wasn't the right place for them. Firing people, as painful as it can be in the moment, is a gracious thing to do because you are releasing people to find the right fit where they will excel and be appreciated. (by the way: this goes for both employees and clients).
I also hired a new nanny, a new housekeeper, and a private chef to keep myself and my brood well fed and cared for. Hands down my amazing chef has been the best life upgrade of 2019. She is incredible and has changed my life for the better.
The amount of mental space I regained by hiring her and the other members of my home team is worth millions … literally.
I have been busy setting the foundation for a ten million dollar business this year. We're not at $10m yet but we will get there and it's the moves that I am making right now that are setting the stage.
I did lots of speaking. I grew my business in the early days with speaking gigs, but I took a hiatus from speaking, outside of my own programs, for a few years. With babies and a less than systematized business, I didn't want to be on the road and away from the everyday rhythm. Things look much different behind-the-scenes at Hello Seven these days, and having a solid team and systems in place allowed me to take on three speaking engagements this year: ConvertKit’s Craft+Commerce conference, the Be Golden Women’s Empowerment Conference, and SheLeads (with Dr. Jill Biden). While I thoroughly enjoyed these audiences and connecting with large communities of entrepreneurs, these three events helped me realize: I really love doing my own live events too. I will still happily do keynotes for aligned events (if you want to hire me to speak at your event, check out my new speaking page) like the ones I did this year—but I also plan to bring more of my own live events back on the road in 2020 (more on that below).
I launched and unlaunched things. Going into 2019, I had two programs: MDB, my year long mastermind, and Glow Up, my ten-week program. Over the course of the year, we determined that Glow Up was no longer aligned with our company goals and, quite honestly, was significantly underpriced for what we were delivering. But Glow Up was an incredible program that we didn’t want to completely kill. In true fashion of how I retire most programs, rather than close it (and never let it see the light of day again), Glow Up content is now included in my Million Dollar Badass mastermind program as the onboarding process, which is working quite well. I also created a brand new money mindset course called Worthy that will begin in February of 2020 (registration for Worthy is open now if you want to get in on it). And, lastly, we have a new program for entrepreneurs who want to grow their revenue but aren't ready for my Million Dollar Badass mastermind yet called Hello Seven Incubator. HSI begins on January 15th and we are currently accepting applications. I am delighted that it has attracted an incredible group of clients already including bestselling authors and influencers.
This commitment to trying new things, tweaking and repeating is required for growth. You must test, tweak, review, respond, and grow—strategically. I don't make moves just off of my feelings (feelings are important but they are only one point of data). I also regularly review my metrics and results because the numbers don't lie and there is money hidden in those spreadsheets. While I tried a lot of things this year (and also stopped offering a few of those things this year) do note that if you are not yet at $1m in revenue I don't recommend that you offer more than 1-2 offers (the fewer, the better). In fact, you can absolutely scale to $1m with a single offer. Keep it simple and reap the rewards.
My clients are fucking amazing. I am proud to have been a part of a lot of growth for my clients over the last year. My clients significantly increased their revenue, hired team members, scored fellowships, quit their jobs, exceeded $1m in revenue, had six-figure launches, realized that they no longer wanted to do the work that they were doing and transitioned, left their husbands, launched podcasts, scaled flagship offers, acquired five-figure clients, upgraded their homes, bought new cars, hosted massively successful live events, built membership programs, sent their kids to private schools, and more.
And you know what they all have in common? They all got their asses kicked along the way.
Building a business is not all fun and games. It's not the glossy Instagram photos. It's sitting your ass in the chair and taking risks that make you want to vomit every single day. And it's the glory of making it through another year, against all odds, and being the owner of a business that is surviving and thriving. I celebrate every badass woman that I got to work with this year. You all inspire me everyday to keep going when my own challenges make me want to vomit and quit. A standing ovation to each and every one of you! You are all fucking amazing!
So what’s up for 2020?
It’s time for me to say “yes” to my own personal next level. And for me that means being prolific. The word prolific means to be “profusely productive or fruitful.” That is my plan for 2020 to produce abundantly. I have so much to say and to teach. I have a book to finish writing. And I have a big message to share. So that is what I will be doing: sharing my genius (yes, genius, I own that fully) with every woman who will listen in the hopes of making us all a lot richer mentally and financially.
That means you'll have some exciting new ways to work with me and learn from me. One of those ways is my new pop-up event, Hello Seven Salon.
Hello Seven Salon is a business pop-up for women entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses in 2020. It will be a live event where you'll have the opportunity to experience curated networking, my brand new We Should All Be Millionaires keynote (completely retooled over the last few months) and a 90-minute workshop where I will assess the state of your business and help you discover your next million dollar idea. We'll also have fun and champagne! I'll be touring this pop-up event around the country with plans to hit up Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Austin and London. Stay tuned for all the details dropping in just a few weeks!
And if you are ready to work with my team and I to grow your money-making abilities significantly in 2020, check out my current offers:
Worthy: a 10-week course that teaches ambitious, professional women how to improve their money mindset so that they can take over the world. Literally. Registration is open until December 30th and you get our live New Year's Day Money Motivate workshop when you sign up! Get all the details about Worthy and register right here.
Hello Seven Incubator: my brand new nine-month coaching program for women entrepreneurs making $12k per month in recurring revenue or less. That means you have approximately $150k in annual revenue or less and/or you are relying on referrals, need more clients, need to put a reliable marketing and sales system in place, need legal, financial and customer service systems, need to develop the right offers that can grow your business long term and need support, coaching and a solid community to encourage you and keep you going when it gets hard (hint: it gets hard). We are currently accepting applications for this program that begins on January 15th and you get our live New Year's Day Money Motivate workshop when you sign up!
Million Dollar Badass: this my mastermind for advanced women entrepreneurs who want to scale to a million. This year we’re launching a brand new, gorgeous member site, heading to France for our May retreat, and continuing our focus on getting as many badasses to seven-figures as possible. Because the world needs more women millionaires. If you are making $100k or more and need community and coaching to scale to seven, apply right here.
To you and your big dreams! Happy New Year!
xo,
R
