12 Bold Business Moves You Can Make Before The End of The Year

Welcome to episode 22 of the Free and Fearless Podcast where you’ll hear me share 12 things you can do by the end of the year to move your business forward. There’s still plenty of time to focus on the revenue-generating activities, reach your annual income goals and even go beyond that, make a scary investment, or do something uncomfortable online that will change your whole life in the next years thanks to what it can lead to.

To get something out of this episode, I challenge you to pick at least 1 of the 12 ideas I’ll share and actually do it in the next months. Overcoming the resistance once will totally change your mindset regardless of what happens next, and you’ll actually enjoy business more and will be more willing to try other bold moves.

Tune into the episode below:

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Show Notes:

[06:03] How to know if you’re actually selling
[08:19] Do this to free up time so you can work on bigger things in your business
[10:10] How to know if it’s time to change direction
[11:06] 1 move to increasing customer lifetime value
[13:34] How to give your audience what they want and need
[15:29] A fun exercise to help you stretch your imagination and uncover limiting beliefs
[18:18] How to monetize your next offer before you create the content

Mentioned:

Transcript

1. Release an offer

Maybe you’ve never done it so far. You might be learning all you can about business, having many ideas, even an actual plan on what to launch and how. But is there an actual offer you’re inviting people to grab?

Like, is there a product? Is there a way they can work with you 1:1? Do you have a page about it on your website? Did you let your audience know? Did you send enough reminders to invite them, to help them decide if it’s the right thing for them, to get them to the sales page and check out what’s inside?

If not, you aren’t selling. And without that, chances are you aren’t getting any further.

Not only do you need to have at least 1 offer, but you need to be perfecting your messaging, updating the content inside, growing your audience and promoting that same offer to them in a way that speaks to your ideal client.

If you have an offer already, maybe it’s time for another one. Are you launching something at least once every 3 months? It’s easy to get stuck in a rut after one attempt and then just wait for things to happen. But your email list won’t just grow on its own, your sales page won’t just get traffic, and new people might not even know what you offer.

So there’s a lot you can be doing at any moment to grow your business and to sell and promote what you currently have or what you’re planning to release some time soon.

2. Raise your rates.

I talked about this in episode 20 so you can check it out.

It’s all about why most freelancers, bloggers, coaches and course creators underprice their work and what they can do about it to not just start charging what they are worth – which is the so-called value-based pricing model – but even double their income thanks to that.

If you’re ready to take this step right now though, it simply comes down to raising the price of your services, product, coaching package, or whatever else you offer.

With this, you take your power back. Because you don’t need to follow what others in your niche are doing or telling you to do and you can give yourself permission to raise your rate whenever you want because this is your business and you’re trying to create your dream version of it.

3. Hire someone to help you out.

Whether it’s an accountant, a VA that will just manage your email and complete some basic tasks, or one that you’ll outsource your podcast editing to, or maybe even hire a podcast manager for that, there are a million things you can outsource. But it takes some courage to actually look for a person, hire someone (even if it’s for a few hours a month), start paying them, and show them how you want things to be done.

Once you do that, though, you’re acting and thinking like a CEO. To be the best business owner you can be, your focus and time need to be invested in the 5% activities. The ones that are directly related to generating revenue, the ones only you can do, the ones you are passionate about, and those that are all about the vision of the business – meaning that you decide what’s next and how you’ll get there.

Freeing up even a few hours weekly by outsourcing something repetitive to a VA can allow you to create a new product, take a business course, grow your email list, master email marketing, have more coaching clients, start a podcast and many other great things that can help you quantum leap without even realizing.

4. Outline your first or next product

I’m not telling you to sit down and create a product in a day, although that’s also possible. For now, you just need to outline it. That’s a bold move too because you’re going from an idea to a plan and you can even break it down into actionable steps, then add these to your calendar and daily to-do list and start completing the steps in the next few weeks.

That’s how creating an outline this month might mean having a new income stream and maybe your best product ever before the end of the year.

5. Change your niche/business model/way of teaching/product suite if you’ve outgrown it and know it’s time for something new and bigger.

It’s possible that you’re bored with the work you’re currently doing. Maybe it’s the topics you cover. I see many new people in business that are trying hard to make it in one field or with a certain business model such as providing services or coaching, but it’s not their calling. It’s not what comes naturally to them, it’s not what makes them excited to wake up in the morning and open the laptop.

There is a niche, a business model, a type of teaching that only you can do and that’s where your power lies. Once you find it and start mastering it, business becomes way more fun and you see results quicker.

So maybe it’s time to give yourself permission to change directions in business, assuming you don’t do that often and have really given your current idea a chance.

6. Add an upsell to your existing offers.

Something quick you can do that can lead to boosting your income and testing how people buy from you is to add an upsell.

If you’re using a platform like Teachable or Kajabi to sell products and programs, that’s a feature they offer and you can set it up.

Upselling is one of the coolest sales strategies and it means encouraging people to buy a more expensive, premium version of the product they’re purchasing, or offer an additional one that will help them make the best of what they’re interested in. That could be anything as long as its value is bigger.

The goal is to make those who already want to buy from you, invest more. That increases your average order value from a customer sale as well as the lifetime value of a customer, and these 2 are key metrics in any business.

7. Start an email list if you haven’t already.

I see many new business owners trying to make sales on Instagram and wondering why it doesn’t work. If it does, it’s doesn’t seem to turn into recurring income for them, so it’s not that reliable unless your audience is highly engaged and loves what you teach.

If you take a closer look at every 6- or 7-figure entrepreneur that’s been in business for many years and is living a great life next to that, you’ll notice the real action is happening inside their community.

These are the people who subscribed to something they offered for free. Then they got a lot of value from it, probably received a few other automated emails that convinced them to stay on their list and learn more. Eventually, they heard about their offers and during a launch, they get even more value, open the emails and click the links and many of them buy.

The point is that it’s all happening behind the scenes. Not on someone’s website even if they are a blogger, not that much on social.

In fact, the goal is usually to get traffic from both of these places and turn website visitors and social media followers into email subscribers. Because that’s where people pay the most attention to you and that’s where you can sell directly.

So if you’ve been thinking about starting an email list but haven’t yet because maybe the technical side of it scares, there’s still chance to do it before the next year, after which you can focus on growing it.

There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to quickly set up an email list or switch from one email marketing tool to another. I use and recommend ConvertKit.

8. Ask your audience what they want.

Sounds easy but seriously, have you actually done it?

The biggest waste of time online is to create something great but which people simply don’t need and don’t want. Sometimes they might want it, but what if it’s not an actual problem that needs a solution they are willing to pay for?

That’s why you need to get answers from them. For example, I always encourage email subscribers to reply to my newsletters or even the automated emails I send when they first join my list. I ask them to tell me what they are struggling with, what questions they have or what they think about the content I just shared.

I also have feedback forms in all my programs and sometimes automated emails sent to students to just ask how they are doing after completing a course, what they are working on and a reminder to fill in the feedback form if they feel like.

On the podcast, at the very end of each episode, I invite you to share your biggest breakthrough with me and connect with me on Instagram. Speaking of which, it’s a great tool to get answers from your people in a casual way such as question stickers and quizzes on Stories, comments on posts and engaging with people in the DMs.

They are way more chatty on Instagram than they are on other platforms so make the most of that, without annoying them or wanting something from them but clearly showing your desire to serve them better.

9. Invest in a business program.

If there is a course or coaching program or membership you’ve been thinking about joining for a long time, why not just do it?

It might be a big investment, you might not be sure if it’s for you, and maybe you even doubt your ability to actually do the work it takes once you’re inside the program. But nothing will happen unless you actually make that payment and get to the content.

Also read: What I’ve Learned from Starting a Membership Site

10. Plan the next 5 years of your business.

That’s exciting for some and scary for others. If you’ve never done it, try this exercise now.

It doesn’t mean you’re deciding what future you’re going after. You can never know where your business takes you and that’s one of the best things about it. The goal here is to stretch your imagination, to dream bigger even if it’s just on paper, to see what income goals and business ideas make you feel uncomfortable and to analyze why that happens.

Many times when I’ve done that, interesting feelings and conclusions come up. At some point when I was aiming at a higher income, I found out that I actually wasn’t ready to make that kind of money and was sabotaging myself.

Then I got to the deeper reasons why I felt that way and it turns out I didn’t want too much attention online or in my life, I didn’t want to make other people in my life uncomfortable, and I just wasn’t sure if I was worthy of that amount of money.

But guess what? We all are.

So once I found these limiting beliefs, I knew that no sales strategy or new business idea or more work could get me to that income. Because I first had to do the even harder work – the mindset shift. That means I started not just removing these limiting beliefs but re-framing them and that takes a lot of time.

This was a simple example of why doing the 5-year exercise can help you in more ways that you realize. So sit down later today or this week and just write it all out. Go big. There are no limits when it comes to imagining where your business can go.

11. Stop doing 1 business activity that isn’t generating revenue, growing your audience or providing value.

We all do many of these but rarely stop to question if it’s necessary at all. So here’s your chance to do it and not waste any more time on it in 2022.

Maybe you’ve been blogging for years but are now also podcasting, like me. Well what I do now is publish my episodes on the blog with transcript, so it’s also an article and search engines can crawl and rank it.

Maybe you’ve been creating too much content for a social platform that simply never felt right, didn’t lead to any engagement and isn’t your place at all. Test another one. If you’re on too many though, chances are only 1 actually matters for your business and the rest is just a waste of time.

Another example could be doing your bookkeeping if you don’t find it interesting. This is your invitation to get a bookkeeper and with that you will be crossing 2 items off today’s list. You’ll be making 2 bold moves at the same time – letting go of an activity that you don’t need to do and hiring someone.

12. Plan your biggest and best offer for next year, create a waitlist and start inviting people to it.

That’s what I just did and it also took courage. You really need to believe in yourself and your future offer and to have a big vision for it to start getting people excited for it.

But it can help you stay accountable while working on the content and preparing all the other elements that will go into launching this new product. It’s also part of your launch actually as that waitlist is where the most interested potential buyers will be. So you already will have proof of demand for a product that is just an idea for now.

That’s how many people launch all the time – they monetize something before they even create it.

And these are the 12 bold business moves I wanted to share today. Now tell me, which one scares you the most, excites you the most, or just triggers you? In any case, I think that’s the move you need to make right away.

12 Bold Business Moves You Can Make Before The End of The Year