Behind The Scenes Monthly Updates, Behind The Scenes Strategy

September 2021 Behind The Scenes Update

Welcome to an honest look behind the scenes of my business (including what I did, money & feelings) for the month of September 2021.

Welcome to My Behind-the-scenes Updates

This is where I get honest about what’s been going on, how I earned my money, and how I’ve been feeling about everything in my business for the past month. I just love reading these updates from others, like Ruth Ridgeway who inspired me to start, and I’ve been feeling “the nudge” to blog more lately, so here I am. This is a brand new feature for this month, so let me know what you think, ok?!

NOTE: I also semi-regularly go live in my Facebook group, The Inside, to give a completely honest look at what’s going on. Click here to join the group, as I’ll be going even deeper in there on some aspect of this post.

*Affiliate Disclosure: It’s highly likely that this post contains affiliate links, meaning I’ll be compensated if you go on to buy after clicking. I only ever recommend things I’ve personally used and stand by, and I’ll mark them with an asterisk.

What I Did & How I Felt In September

(1) I got booked out 3 months in advance

I started September knowing I was already fully booked. It took one of my finishing 1:1 clients asking about extending, however, to make me properly go through my calendar and I realised I was fully booked three months in advance. I was fully booked from last summer and, bar a couple of months at the start of the year when I took time off for personal reasons, I have been fully booked almost constantly since then. But realising I was booked until January felt like a new milestone – one that I really want to celebrate in public! Especially since I’m charging more than I’ve ever charged before (which, by the way, has been way easier to sell – I’ll talk about this more in next month’s update)

On the flip side, it took me a while to get here! I’ve now been working 1:1 with clients for 18 months, plus I had a decade of online business experience under my belt before I started coaching. I remember in the early days wondering just what it would take to become fully booked, and often feeling not good enough that I wasn’t there yet. In hindsight, it’s so much easier to be kind to myself.

And if you want my biggest advice for getting fully booked, it’s to keep showing up to sell your 1:1. Even when you think everyone’s heard about it already, even when you’ve raised your prices and are worried people won’t be interested, even when you’re worried you’ll look like “a fool” if you’re not fully booked yet. It will work.

(2) I felt more confident about my work than ever before

I don’t know how else to put it except to say I’m feeling really bloody good about my work, and my abilities as a coach right now. I believe in my clients so much, and I believe in my ability to support them (especially through the hard stuff). I think this is partly a result of a massive up-levelling I went through earlier in the year, with the launch of the REST & Rise group programme, really owning the scope of what I do, and massively wobbling when I first launched it all. (I won’t go into all that now, it’s a story for another day, but please believe me when I say I don’t always feel this confident!)

AND it’s a result of the experience I now have as a coach and mentor. I have worked with a lot of clients within the last 18 months, plus I also recently became certified in ALL the things via The Tabwoo*, making my practice even stronger:

  • Neurolinguistic Programming
  • Hypnotherapy
  • Emotional Freedom Techniques
  • TIME Techniques™
  • Life + Success Coaching
  • The Tabwoo Method™

I’ve been studying, practicing and mastering all of these since October 2020, and it’s a 350-hour certification, so it feels good to finally see the certificates (although I don’t believe everyone needs to be certified). While I am not planning to move into hypnotherapy or NLP etc as my main form of coaching and client support, I’m already using these tools to support my 1:1 and REST & Rise group clients, and they are loving it! I have just started running monthly mindset sessions for them all and here’s some of the feedback that came through after the first session:

“Omg that mindset session was totally amazing… Thank you Ruth this session was awe inspiring”

(3) I re-launched Cultivate & set my new free 5-day course in motion

Behind the scenes I’m setting up automated funnels for many of my programmes, including my email marketing course, Cultivate. I was recording a brand new webinar to use as a freebie, so I decided that I may as well do a public launch at the same time. It was low-key, no huge results (mid 4-figures), but it was incredibly easy, and launching this programme always helps me to grow my list.

Again, this is a point at which I really reflect on how far I’ve come in 2 years. Me from 2 years ago would have been thrilled at a mid 4-figure launch, and probably would have found the launch draining. Fast forward to now and I used completely recycled content from previous content, and I’m running a live round with ease. It gets easier and easier every time, I promise! AND I even made a passive income sale on that course this month, too 🎉 (after a lot of trial and error with the funnel behind the scenes)

And the great thing about the ease of that launch was that it freed up some time/ headspace for me to plan something new: a free 5-day live course, The 5 Pillars of Profit for Sensitive Business Owners. It’s starting Monday October 11th, with a very limited replay. Click here to sign up. I’ll share how it went in next month’s update!

(4) I almost had my best month

At the start of the month I was planning on re-opening REST & Rise, but I needed to give myself more time so I pushed it back to October (you can sign up to the free course I’m delivering as part of my launch here, I promise it’ll be valuable whether you go on to join R&R or not!) It was the right decision, but it made me a little nervous about money. Turns out, I almost had my best month! I did a quick sale a few days before the end of the month to hopefully make my best month happen, I didn’t quite make it, but I’m still pleased I went for it! (I’ll talk more about how it feels to put yourself out there like this – and then fail to actually meet the goal – when I deliver the Inside Scoop live in my Facebook group on Oct 8th)

How I Made My Money In September

Here were my main income streams for the month:

And here were the tools I used to help me make that money:
(Send me a message if you buy Thrivecart through my link and I’ll give you a bonus!)

  • ThriveCart* shopping cart & for client payment plans (I LOVE this!)
  • Podia* to deliver all my courses & “The Library” for 1:1 and group clients
  • ConvertKit* email marketing provider
  • Deadline Funnel* for my automated funnels with time limits
  • LeadPages* for my lovely looking landing pages
  • Paperform* for all my forms
  • The Tabwoo* not a tool but my amazing coaching certification

Content I Created In September

Behind the scenes: I was busy working on rebranding & relaunching my podcast, and editing my book (hoping for a Jan 2022 release)

In public:

Coming Up Next…

October is mostly about launching the REST & Rise group programme again before I raise the price permanently! Click here to join in with the free course. I am looking forward to welcoming 6 new humans into the group. Once that’s done, I’ll be raising lots of my other prices, and working behind the scenes on the content I deliver to my clients & students. Bigger picture wise I’m also making decisions about my book launch and the podcast rebrand – expect to hear more about those soon!

Ruth

uk • introvert & hsp • writer, podcaster, qualified coach & mentor • honouring feelings, strategy & REST • lover of honest conversations, 90s music, & plants

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *