Lessons I Never Expected to Learn in my business in 2023 (+ what they taught me)

I'm going to be real. 2023 has been the worst business year for me yet. But I'm really glad it happened because there were so many lessons learned through this entire year. While hard, that has totally changed my perspective on business and allowed me to get super clear on what I want to do in 2024. So I wanted to share with you today exactly what went wrong in my business and give you a little sneak peek at what's coming up for 2024. Hey there. I'm Trina. If this is the first video that you're ca coaching of mine, I wanted to make this super casual in my living room as we wrap up the year. Kind of give you a business recap. I focus on helping course creators and coaches use YouTube as a traffic source to their offers and also help them optimize their offers so they can make more sales in their business. I wrote down, I went through my calendar and wrote down everything that we did this year and what was super crazy was when I went back and looked at my calendar for the last year, I couldn't even believe how much we did because I couldn't even remember some of the things we did. It was that busy of a year. So to share a little bit of context, for the last seven years in my business, I have grown my business exponentially. I have left every year with plenty of money in the bank and it seemed to go fairly well. This year has not happened like that. So let me walk you through everything we did this year and then explain how this kind of came into the worst year yet. So I'm going to start with January. And we came out of January like a rock and created a brand new low ticket offer called Going Video. Maybe some of you have it. And throughout the year we did end up selling over 500 going video courses. This is a $37 offer. We also had a bump that was $17 and an OTO that was $97. I think our average cart value on that Funnel was around $57. So we had a lot of people not just get the course but add a bump or an oto. But the goal program was to get people into my coaching program, 10k replay, and it did not. This became really clear. Going Video wasn't working how we wanted it to around the end of February when we weren't having any new applications for 10K on replay. Coming from Going Video, I had actually planned to keep February pretty low key. I was going to continue promoting and running ads to Going Video, anticipating ascension into 10 cam replay. So I actually had a conference in New Orleans at the beginning of February, and I also helped promote a online summit that my coach was hosting. And I did make a couple thousand dollars from that online summit, but our revenue wasn't matching our expenses that we had because I was promoting this $37 offer so much that I wasn't bringing in higher ticket purchases like Video Strategy academy. That was 997 and I wasn't getting people to 10 count replay. Once we saw we weren't making those sales goals, my marketing manager, Eric and I decided we were going a Virtual Summit in April. And I say it that way because we had no idea how much work this Virtual Summit was going to actually be. We had about nine speakers. I went and interviewed all of them. We had an entirely new funnel built for this. I paid for McKinsey Matter to build this for us. And I am in love with it. I hope I can use this branding again sometime. And between the interviews, the actual teaching that I did during the live summit, all the customer service requests, the setting up of just everything, it was a whole lot of work. The good news about all of that work though was we had over 120 people attend that virtual summit. And we did get 10 brand new clients into my coaching program, which brought us to about a 60k launch from that Virtual Summit, which definitely gave us some breathing room. But we were still lacking the sales from earlier in that quarter. The 10K Con the virtual summit happened the very first week in April. Then I immediately left and went to Arizona to attend a conference with some of my great friends. I definitely needed that break, but that was a whole week that I wasn't really working on anything in my business or helping get sales in my business. I actually had another trip planned in April as well to California. And I'm on the east coast, so these are long flights to and from. And things just got kind of overwhelming again. Our sales goals weren't being hit, our expenses were outweighing our profit. And so I ended up canceling that trip because it became too much. Also in April, we started to take the first steps of closing down our YouTube production agency. I had thought about this a lot. In fact, I was still thinking about it at the beginning of 2023. In fact, I talked to somebody at the conference that I went to in February about what my options were. Was it possible if I could sell this and make some money on it? And when it came down to it, after talking with my team and really thinking about it myself, one, it wasn't worth the money for me to put the time into it that I needed to to make it sellable. And two, it wasn't where my real joy was. The clients that I was working with in my coaching program was where I love to be and I wanted more of my time to be focused on them. But the agency was our number one revenue generator and it's what was keeping our lights on at this point in time. It's just I knew I wasn't going to be happy in the agency and when I spoke with my team, they really wanted to be working in the coaching side of the business as well. So by April we started to make this adjustment, the shift really in closing out the agency. So by the time May came around, we only had one agency client. And also in May was when I have my twice a year mastermind in Connecticut. I had also tacked on a few days to that trip to go to New York City with the same friends I saw in May. And so I was really busy traveling during this time. We were also planning a launch for Video Strategy Academy in May. I hadn't done a launch of Video Strategy Academy all year and that was generally how we had cash injections in my business was doing Video Strategy Academy launches. The only thing that I was selling actively up until May was my $37 low ticket offer, the ticket to the 10K Con virtual summit, and then the around 12 clients that we had got into my coaching program at this point in time. And May was also the first month where we weren't getting those checks, so to speak, from our agency clients. Things started to dry up really fast in May and it took a little bit of time for me to catch on to this. I knew it mentally, but I didn't want to accept it because there was so much going on in May between my trip, my birthday, the kids finishing school, all that end of year stuff, school stuff that was going on, also a launch. It just wasn't completely setting in yet. So by the time we rolled into June, this is when I go on vacation for two weeks. We get a beach house two weeks every year. I just, my mind was already in vacation mode. I was ready for a break. It had already been five grueling months of creating content, putting offers out, creating content, building a new funnel, creating content, trying to make something work. And I will say I was getting incredibly exhausted and my mood was starting to go down and the motivation and excitement in my business was starting to lessen as well because we were spending more money than we were making because the agency side of the business allowed us to have quite a few contractors and employees because it was such a cash cow. And as that cash cow really dried up and we weren't balancing it out with coaching clients, every time that monthly P L came in from my accountant, it just added more bricks to my shoulders and I just kind of, it's that fight or flight mode. I just kind of shut down at this point in time. I was like, I'm gonna get go to the beach, I'm just gonna chill now while I was on vacation because I am great at coming up at ideas while I'm trying not to work. My coach was going to be hosting a three workshop series challenge. So basically she was going to be sharing how to host a three week workshop series and giving us all the templates, all the funnels and everything to do it. And I thought this is going to be a great idea. I'm going to get a cash injection this way as well. So I decided we were going to follow it. We put it in our project manager to start creating those assets that we needed. Also during this time, my marketing manager, who is also my cousin, her son had to go into the hospital for a procedure and they ended up not getting out of the hospital for about, about two months. So we were down a full time employee for two months and she did a lot of the funnel, set up a lot of the marketing. And not having her there was a lot for myself and the team to really also do as well. So as soon as I got home vacation, I was hitting the ground running doing two jobs, which is understandable. As the owner of the business, you gotta pick that up where you need to. But I didn't take time to rest after vacation. And spoiler alert, I haven't since July, taken time to pause until a few weeks ago and I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But as I came back from vacation and we prepared this workshop series, I also attended her course Chemist Accelerator, which was her condensed version of how to build a complete course that gets results with your clients. And so I decided I was going to use that to update my video Strategy Academy course. And really how we were were using our strategy and our agency to teach it to our students. So that was the whole second week in July I was in this like virtual workshop learning how to build out my framework for my course. While rolling into this three week workshop series where I was creating all brand new content for that too. The slide decks, managing the onboarding of people who were signing up for it, the Facebook group that we had as well. Once I finished that week of updating how I wanted video strategy to look like, I decided I wanted to test it out to make sure it was really good. One of the lessons I learned about my course in the past is I just filmed it and uploaded it how I thought it made sense. And I realized I wanted to do it differently this time and get feedback from people going through it, see where they're getting stuck, see where I wasn't clear. I've been in this niche for so long, so sometimes I have these blinders on and I'm not seeing everything that's going on. So I realized I wanted to do this whole course creation live with students. And so I decided to do a mini Mastermind called the YouTube coaching experience. I was going to take the whole outline that I developed during course chemist and implement it live with clients. So this ended up being my second coaching program that I had in my kind of back pocket and that actually ended up doing well. When I pitched it at the end of my workshop series that I did that summer without doing like a real full blown launch for that YouTube coaching experience, we were able to get 11 brand new clients. That was almost a 40k launch. And the information and the feedback and the questions that I had from those clients as I went through the course curriculum live were invaluable. So if we're thinking about it so far, in 2023, I launched a new product. I did an online summit affiliate launch, I did a virtual summit launch, I did a typical course launch and I also did a three week workshop series as well as creating brand new curriculum inside of my video strategy academy course. That is six things that should be all that you may be doing an entire year. And I had done that up through August with four more months in a year to go. But by the end of August, mentally, physically, emotionally, I was wiped, exhausted again. The agency had run up dry. Now for the last three months. We still had one client that we kept. The money wasn't coming in like it did with the agency. And just so you know, I wasn't in the hole at all because I had known in the back of my mind that this was going to be a pivot my business was always going to have. And I have a business savings account. I'm just that type of person that I'm paranoid. And I have over six months of reserve cash in that bank account that has allowed me to carry us through kind of this harder year. I mean, we're still making money in the business, but we are also at this point in time spending more than we're making. So I've been dipping into this business, that savings account up to this point. So we were still good, we were still fine. But by September it was time to make some very hard decisions because I wanted to be able to keep my full time employees intact. I have such an amazing team and we have worked together so well for so long. I wanted to do everything that I could to keep them. So this meant really just going through my contractor list and kind of cleaning house. Unfortunately, there were some contractors that I hated to see go that I'm hoping that by 2024, middle of the year, I can out to them and work with them again. But we had to rolling into September and thinking about Q4, really cut costs as many places as we could. One of the other things that I was doing earlier in the year as well, well, for the whole year up until then was playing around with Facebook ads. I was paying an agency fee for somebody to run my ads and then the money on top of the ads and we just weren't seeing results. Things just weren't happening. The ads just weren't working for us. And so I cut that out as well. There was an additional expense that happened in August that I hadn't prepared for. One of my Mastermind colleagues, Katie White, she is amazing and she is like the star or the light that got me through kind of this half of the year. She was opening a Mastermind, her first one ever. And the way she had structured her business model was how I was working towards. And she didn't want to even reach out to me to tell me about the Mastermind because she knew I was going through a hard time and wasn't even sure if I could afford afford it. But I knew I needed to be in a space with her because I knew I wanted to do what she was doing. So I joined her Mastermind in August as well. So that's two masterminds I am a part of. They serve two different purposes in my business. But I honestly believe you need to have community of a mastermind and also that support of a coach to help you basically see the back of your head. You know, like you can't see the back of your hair. You need to have somebody do that for you and to just like shake you when you're just getting into your own head about things. And both of my coaches, Julie and, and Katie, do this differently for me. And even though they're an investment they are worth every stinking penny that I put into them because without a coach, I would not probably be sitting here today. I would have probably wrapped up my business, honestly, years ago. And if it wouldn't have been for Katie, probably would have wrapped up my business before now as well. But working with Katie, we decided to set up one particular coach lead in to my funnel and one particular offer. And this was just, oh, yes, duh, this makes so much sense. If I'm constantly putting offers out there, y' all don't know what it is that I actually offer. And so you're gonna get confused on which one that you need and you're not gonna be interested in buying because you have no idea. And so rolling into September, we decided to set up our paid workshop funnel, which is profit purview, and run it every two weeks and pitch my new YouTube coaching experience program. And this was the light at the end of the tunnel. Our very first one that we did in September, actually on my wedding anniversary, September 19th, we had over 70 people enroll. Our show up rate was gangbusters. It was like over 50%. And from that paid workshop, we were able to get 5 new clients. That was 15k launch by doing a paid workshop. And then I just repeated that same sales page, that same workshop again and again four more times through September, October and November. Through that funnel, through September, October, November, we were able to bring in another 12 clients into the coaching program as well. So we were starting to dig out of this hole. When I was getting my profit and loss statement and having my meeting with my accountant, we were starting to see the negative numbers get less and less and less and I was finally feeling room to breathe. It really came to a breaking point too in November when I went to Miami to my mastermind. And being around other business owners that told me they're struggling the same way. It has not been a great year for them as either. And I look at them as successful business owners and I assume that they were doing great. But I share this with you so that you know, like, it can be common to have a tough year, 100%. And if you had a tough year this year, you were in some good company company. And so by the end of that first week in November in Miami, I had officially made this shift in my mindset that this was gonna work, that I am digging out of this and I can actually do this. I did do another cash injection in November where I did what my coach calls a bolt on offer. I offered this one time service of this YouTube intensive for $800 and for that offer alone we made over five figures in that as well. So we were really starting to get that cash injection. We were starting to lessen our expenses. So at the end of December here, I'm hoping we're gonna see our first profit month. But it, it's not been easy. It's been planned for, so to speak. It's not like I wasn't making money. We are still going to make over a half a million dollars in the business this year. It was just our expenses were ridiculous. I do have three full time employees and I love them and I want as much as possible and I did some projects and paid for some projects at the beginning of the year that I probably should have held off on. But I had been so accustomed to making money every single month and not being in this situation of negative month, negative month, negative month. So where we stand today and then I'm going to share with you some of my biggest takeaways is I just wrapped up my CEO planning day, which is one of my favorite events to host. And from that we've already got a few, few clients and we are six clients away from our January 2024 goal right now. And to say that to know we're already going into the new year that close to our first month's goal. We were initially setting a goal of 15 new clients in January, but we've already filled up our December clients and we are allowing a few people to come in that we were expecting in January. And to be six clients away from the the first month of the year next year feels amazing. I would love to actually open this up and ask you, how do you feel about your business this year? Were you exhausted? Were you frustrated? Did you have a great year? I would love to hear from you. So many of you comment consistently here. I feel like we have a relationship. So I want to know how did this year go for you? Let me know down in the comments. Really the biggest takeaway that I have for you as you're thinking about going into 2024, first up, is to get support. I know it's scary to hire a coach, to find a good coach, to find a mastermind. But that is what pulled me out of the downward spiral that I was in this year. Having my coach to have my back to help me figure out what's working, what's not. To offer this idea of a bolt ton offer to inject some more cash into my business to give me that push to keep going. And also Katie, to have my back as well to tell me, you got this, you can do this. Let's figure this out. Also for her to keep pounding on my head. Let's focus on one thing. Focus on one thing. Focus on one thing. Which is another key takeaway that I've had from this year as well. As you're looking at 2024, if you've struggled this year, I would highly encourage you to focus on one core offer. Like I said earlier, I talk about all these different things that I do and you may be confused that what do I actually need from you? And so when you can focus on one particular offer, you're going to be able to build brand equity around it. You're going to be able to build that visibility around the name of that program so that people can associate you with that program and they can start to aspire to be a part of that program. And that's really what we're looking to do in 2024. I'm going to be offering one coaching program. I've actually decided to combine my 10 count replay business coaching program with my YouTube coaching experience coaching program as well. And I'm now offering that as one program. We've developed specialized plans depending on what you want to focus on. We have a plan specific for you to build and optimize your funnels. We have a plan built for you if you want to work on your YouTube strategy and grow your YouTube strategy. And we have a plan built for those of you that want to do both at the same time, but to not overwhelm you and to know going into the new year, all I'm going to be focused on is filling that program and once we filled it, because I'm not taking everybody. We have a max of 75 clients. That is a max. After running my numbers and knowing my numbers and knowing what I want to spend in 2024, 75 clients is all I need to really be where I want at my business. This allows me to have space for my mental health, for my physical health. This allows me to be able to pay my employees and keep them on board. And this allows allows me to focus on the people I really enjoy working with. I will say if you are interested in finding a coach and maybe working with me, you can apply at treanalittle.com forward/apply. I will tell you this isn't some ridiculously priced mastermind. I will tell you my two masterminds are really expensive. This isn't at that price point. This is for those of you that are just getting started and wanting to finally start to see consistent revenue in your business. Wanting to really start to hone in in on your offer and make sure it's irresistible. Make sure that you are understanding the metrics to continue to drive more sales to your business. So don't worry about the price. It is not 20k but is also an investment because you will have first hand feedback and accountability and touch points with me. So it is more than a thousand dollar course as you're looking to make your plans for 2024 or you're trying to figure out where you want to go in 2024. 24. I've said this before in my business and I always tend to get away from it and just forget. I think I really need to staple this like on my hand or on my forehead really is less is more. I know cliche, I've said it before. But when you are offering less you're going to actually make more. And it's not been more tour for me in the last three months we've been able to make make more in our coaching combo offer than I've been able to make all year with all of my other products combined. So when I tell you less is more, this is coming from an experience that I do totally mean it. Now my next video I'm going to share with you how to design your 2024 so that one you know you're going to be making consistent money each month and 2 what to anticipate to pay for and I also want to talk about when to launch and also what kind of offers that you should have kind of in your business back pocket to get to consistent revenue months. Please drop me any questions in the comments that you may have about planning your 2024 and I'll see you next week.