Episode 74 Transcript
Heather (00:02.722)
Guys, welcome to episode 74 and welcome to 2024. My gosh, we're back. Yes, I have unplugged completely for three weeks. I was overseas, I was in the States, listened to my previous solo ep. What was that? What would that be? 40 or 70, 72? Something like that, 72. If you wanna know what I got up to over the holidays, that's the one to listen to.
But yeah, I was overseas and unplugged completely. And now I'm back and I'm looking at how I will accomplish my plans for this year, both personally and professionally. Have you ever heard of a quote? This quote. Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Hmm.
Now I feel I am guilty of that. I am always trying to stuff so much into a year. Then I'm left feeling a little jaded. And it's just simply because I cannot accomplish everything that I set out to accomplish at the start of each year. As business owners though, we are a very special breed, right? We do our best to look on the bright side, tackle problems that are not always our own. That's why we went into business in the first place, take on a huge responsibility.
for supporting and growing a team. We have to stay on top of trends and technology. We have to pay our taxes and understand our finances, et cetera, et cetera. You totally get it. Now I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but to help with all the chaos and dreaming really, really big, I basically try and focus on one core project each year, like one big project. And in 2023, it was this podcast that you're listening to or watching, if you're watching on YouTube.
right now. This was the big one to get this off the ground, to get the systems and team in place, to make it happen. And for 2024, it's going to be live events because we're out of COVID. We're back on, you know, with people wanting to hang out in person again. And I would love to do live events. Now, it's all part of my overarching theme of growing my own community.
Heather (02:22.302)
really building and nurturing one. Because now I have you guys that are listeners of this podcast. I obviously have my clients of website love, which I've been running that business for years now, I have my team, I have my friends, I have these little beautiful communities and I really want to focus on continuing to grow that. So I was thinking live events would be a best next step. So.
I want to dive a little deeper into what I mean by nurturing my community and focusing on live events and what else I'll be focusing on outside of live events for my business. And then I'll end this episode with what I'm focusing on for myself personally. Now I've pretty much consolidated this into seven core points for my business and for me personally that I'm going to be focusing on, but with that in mind, live events and the community are my overarching theme. All right.
So I'd love to share those with you guys and just to kind of get a feel for what I guess who I am, what I'm up to the year ahead and because you're listening to these podcasts, you'll be along for the ride and you'll hear a lot of this as it unfolds throughout the year ahead. So let's start with my business first website love, which is a reminder to you guys, we build websites, we do social media marketing, advertising, email marketing, basically digital marketing, right? We're an agency. So with that, number one, the first thing that I'm going to focus on for the year ahead.
As I said, I'll be looking at live events and training more of that this year. I wanted to launch a live event last year in Melbourne and Sydney. Um, but I just bit off way too much. Like, like I said earlier, we're a special breed, aren't we? I mean, we tend to get really excited and really optimistic about things. And, and then we're like, Oh, I didn't accomplish it. So I did want to do that last year. I just didn't, couldn't do it. I just didn't have the team and resources and time to make it happen. So that's my big theme for this year.
I've also done webinars in the past online for years and years and years, but not without a huge amount of structure. I would just sort of have a topic and teach it. So I'm going to focus on that too. So here's my plan. I'm going to do a quarterly online webinar so people can join all over the world where I'm going to teach what's working now with online marketing from websites to branding to AI. So this is the stuff that we do in my business. I'm going to be sharing this in these webinars every quarter. That's the plan.
Heather (04:45.962)
I'm gonna do two live events at a minimum starting in Australia. Now, ultimately I do wanna bring these to the States and somewhere over in the UK or Europe. But this year, just two, that's my commitment to myself and my team in Australia. So it's basically a two day event that's designed to rework your business. So it becomes the vehicle for the lifestyle that you want. That includes coming up with unique offers, essentially how you package what you sell and the systems to promote them.
So you're actually simplifying in order to grow, in order to get what you want out of your business. Now, all the incredible interviews I've done so far in the Hustle Rebellion podcast, I also have learned a lot from the experts. I'll be bringing a lot of that to the table in these events as well. So that'll be coming up. So quarterly webinars and two live events minimum in Australia. Number two for my business, I will be introducing coaching. Yes. So, so many of my clients need help as they grow there.
business, they need to step up into their role as a leader, as their business grows, as a result of the work that we do with them oftentimes. So with a new website and marketing, they get leads, they start to grow their business. One of my clients, she's having to hire new people like right now because she's getting so many leads. Another one is like, stop with the leads, I can't handle it. So as a part of that, they need to upgrade their mindset because suddenly you're...
growing and you are out there and you have to manage teams and, you know, you're becoming more of the face of the business and a lot of stuff that goes into it. So my head of sales and the business mentor to some of our clients, Adam and I are starting the unicorn collective. And basically we're going to be kicking as our option for online coaching and it's going to be available to my clients and also just business owners in general.
And as we say, the Unicorn Collective is a support system and coaching for business owners who do things differently. So yes, we are doing a soft launch for that very, very soon. So stay tuned for that. If you're on our email list, we'll let you know about it. If you're not on the email list, get on it. You just go to website, love.com.au, go to free resources. There's loads, choose one. You'll get on the email list and we'll tell you about it. But we're going to do soft launch because we want to have
Heather (07:08.83)
systems and support around that. And obviously that's going to be introduced to our clients first, as well as just some of the people that are on my database. But yeah, that's the Unicorn Collective. So that's going to be a very unique way of doing business coaching, sort of to really upgrade yourself as a business owner. That is launching. Number three, AI. Yes, the buzzword AI, which has been crazy popular over the last year. Now I'm working with our amazing head of copywriting,
crew to discuss how we can use AI more for ourselves and our clients. So we're definitely using it a bit in our contact creation, a little bit for clients. But basically what I want to do is look at our copywriting packages and our systems, everything in between and looking at how we're going to use AI within our copywriting packages, within the systems that we work within our clients and even potentially help train AI in the voice of our clients.
So it's a big focus for this year. Not really sure how that's gonna unfold yet, but AI right now, really I'm upskilling myself on that. My team's upskilling, we're testing lots of tools and systems and it will be definitely part of simplifying our business and helping our clients too. Number four, content creation packages. This is gonna be another thing that our business is gonna really focus on offering for the year ahead. So years ago with my other business, which was called Autopilot Your Business,
By the way, we had a podcast, Autopilot Your Business, which we started, I want to say 2013. It was fun, it was a good one. And so with that business, Autopilot Your Business, we used to actually produce podcasts for people and businesses. We used to film content for their online courses, film client testimonials. We had camera guys that would go out to their offices, all that sort of stuff. And I'm looking at bringing pieces of this back as a service. Some of our clients are, who are already booked in,
with this package, they basically booked in a day of filming for social media videos, for TikTok and Instagram, like Reels, that sort of stuff, where we're essentially mapping out a content plan. So there are marketing objectives and initiatives for the year, and we're going to be filming a day of content on smartphones. Not fancy, but smartphones, right? Like iPhones, to basically get content that's going to look native to social. And then we're going to edit.
Heather (09:32.582)
all that content into like a huge library of social media worthy clips and particularly great content for ads. Cause that's something that I do in my business. We do social media ads and Google ads, but videos are keen when it comes to social media these days. And that is one of our huge, huge things to focus on is supporting our clients with that. So that is something we're looking at. Oh, plus you guys, my friend, Ian Garlic.
has an agency in the States and films customer case studies. Or he calls them case stories actually. They're like testimonials, right? So he's actually on the podcast before. You should go listen to it. It's episode 57, amazing. He talks a lot about video and the importance of customer case studies or stories. Anyway, I was talking to him about bringing his unique formula to Australia. And the videos he captures for his clients are like literally one of their main sales tools.
with many of these videos closing sales before the prospect actually gets on the sales call. And many, many multimillion dollar deals have come from these very specific way of filming customer testimonials. So basically what I'm doing is I'm talking to him about bringing his formula to Australia and offering it over here.
So not only will we be focusing on filming content for social media, but we'll also be looking at doing this unique formula of customer case studies, which is either filmed on Zoom or filmed in person with camera crews. So I'll be looking at rekindling my relationships with the camera guys that I used to work for in the past and photographers to offer these shoots that will be amazing because like literally video sells, it does stories, it is so important these days to really leverage your business and your time.
and you can keep using it over and over. And then of course, customer testimonials, you can use everywhere from your website to your about page to your email marketing to your ads. It's just so valuable. I'm just thinking like, why am I not offering this? Because this is the stuff that sells or helps businesses to sell. So that is the next thing we're focusing on. Then we have the next thing, which is number five. I'm gonna create a VIP group from this podcast. To start with, it's gonna be the people that I've interviewed.
Heather (11:50.506)
I've emailed or I have emailed, I've interviewed so many amazing people with this podcast so far. And I really don't wanna let that go to waste. So I'm gonna be forming a special group of past guests and perhaps I'll be having quarterly calls with them, maybe live events, not really sure how it looks, but it is in the works. And part of this sort of VIP group will be to nurture a community of referral partners as well. So we can refer business back and forth.
I'll be looking at also extending this to somehow maybe listeners of the podcast too, but I want to do something more with the community, the podcast community that I'm creating. So that's the next thing. Number six, we're really going to work on refining our niche. Yeah, I've been in business for website love has been around. I want to say we've gone on six years now and it is I should know that, right? Anyway, I still don't have like the perfect niche that we all know we're meant to do.
Up until now, I've mostly just said we focus on service businesses. And instead of focusing on demographics, I'm going to be looking more at, you know, what I really want to attract going ahead, not necessarily like a woman between the age of, you know, 30 and 40. Not that. But I want to look more for value based types of businesses to attract and a huge value for me. And our business is kindness. It's huge.
So no doubt will this play a huge part in the types of people that we want to work with as people that are kind to themselves, their team, us and each other. Right. So whatever that niche looks like, it's, it's going to be refined further because we're growing and I need to make sure that we really just find the right people that we're going to get the most mind blowing results for, and that is going to be really important for us moving ahead.
And number seven is my team is gonna be a huge focus, my team. So we are growing, as I just said, as a business and I will be meticulously looking at who wants to come along on this ride with us. My main focus for now will be to hire more ads managers, designers, I need another new project manager. I have an amazing project manager. I need another one for the growth we're having. Obviously the video piece is gonna be important. And then those on my team, I know could use some extra help. So I need to...
Heather (14:09.066)
really focus on filling in the gaps. And so, you know, they can really excel at what they're doing. Plus this will allow me to take better care of my clients too, of course. I really wanna look at surprising and delighting my clients even more in the year ahead. And a big part of that, I mean, I can't do that alone. It's my team who helps me with that. So I need to have the right team. So those are the seven core things I'm focusing on this year for website love. To repeat, it's gonna be live events.
It's going to be launching coaching. It's going to be using AI within the packages for my clients as well as internally in my business more. It's going to be content creation packages where you can hire us to get those client case stories happening for your marketing and your sales team to create those videos for social media and ads. The next one is to really...
utilize the amazing group that's happening around this podcast. So have some sort of VIP group that started up with my guests and maybe you guys as listeners, number six is refining our niche and who we really want to work with in the business. And number seven is a focus, strong focus on my team. So that's website love, but let's move on to my personal ones next. By the way, you guys, this feels like really crazy that I'm telling you all this. There are listeners now in 25.
Countries of this podcast 25 and in some way I feel like just saying this out loud You're gonna hold me accountable that and also I'm meeting with a core team member later today to go through this with them as well So I'm gonna be ultra held accountable in all the ways now for me personally Here's what I'm gonna focus on for the year ahead so it can really work side by side with what I have planned for the business Number one be a better leader be a better leader
So as I mentioned, I am working on growing an incredible team and I need to keep letting go of tasks that I'm doing in my business. Um, so I'm no longer a bottleneck and I know I am with my team because I'm so pulled in many, many directions and working with clients and it gets hectic. Uh, so I need to look at how that I'm not a bottleneck and I want my business to be really amazing place to work.
Heather (16:25.366)
So this means that this year I'll be really looking at ways to step into the role as more of a leader where I'm not so much a doer, but I'm managing leading an amazing team as we grow and forge ahead with all these amazing goals. Number two, I'm gonna up my game as a speaker. So now I speak and teach a lot throughout the year. And this year I'm looking at ways to even push myself even further out of my comfort zone.
So like on webinars, I'll be looking at how do I use technology better to make them more interesting. I teach two courses currently at the University of Sydney's Center for Continuing Education. That's like an up-skilling center for businesses that wanna learn marketing essentially. So they send people in the business to come and learn marketing from me. Now, the uni asked me to teach another three courses. So that means I have to build a curriculum for these new courses, like really well thought through.
which in itself is a huge feat. And of course I have to teach them. Plus I'm starting to get asked to do corporate gigs through the uni. So the other day Panasonic reached out to have a custom training from me to go in and train their team. Big, big company, right? And I'm more normally used to playing in the game of SMEs, small businesses. And now moving into more of that corporate training is gonna be a big challenge for me. So.
It's upping my game as a speaker. It's how do I dress? How do I look? How do I come across? Um, yeah. And then that fits hand in hand with leadership, right? Number three, increase my fitness. Yes. Just so you guys know, I wonder if probably some of you can relate to this, but I have scoliosis in my back. So I have a bit of a curvature on the right-hand side of my body. And as a result over time, it's created arthritis in my left side of my neck. How fun is that? So in order to not.
or prolong the inevitable, as they say, of probably having neck surgery sometime in the future, I make it a point to stay very, very healthy. So I go to Pilates four times a week, and I do my best to eat good, good solid food. I'm a pescatarian, I'm a veggo with fish, and do my best to just not eat inflammation foods. So with all that, I've been very consistent for years.
Heather (18:43.542)
but I have reached a plateau for sure. I've just kind of been going to keep myself feeling good. So this year I wanna build more muscle and I wanna increase my cardio. And ultimately you guys, I wanna go into my 50s in a few years, a couple of years actually, with really fit arms. I'm thinking, yeah, I want a really good fit arm going into my 50s and more of course. I mean, I just, I wanna stay fit, it's really important. So.
that something that's non-negotiable for me is my Pilates classes and how am I gonna up that? We will see. Number four, I want to travel more with purpose. So for example, my first trip this year will be to the Philippines, overseas, at least at this point that I had planned, for a conference and a little bit of downtime. And it got me thinking that for each place that I want to go to in the future, I want to both relax
I want to also learn and I want to leave an impact in some way too. In other words, what can I do in each country that I'm going to that is beyond just having fun? And is there some way to leave it better than when I got there? Like even if that means just helping one person that lives there with advice or something or connection. I used to do a lot of that with the billionaire adventure club, which I've spoken about before in this podcast where I took entrepreneurs.
all over the world to developing countries and we did social entrepreneurial work. And now with this, I'm thinking, you know, I want to, I just want to have more purpose in my travel and really have good intent about what I'm doing when I'm getting on the airplane and going somewhere. So that is number four. Number five, potentially moving house. Perhaps now is the year. So I have two step sons.
One is 21, one is 23. So the 21 year old has a one way ticket to New Zealand in June to go and teach snowboarding. So he's going over there to teach snowboarding roughly five months and then he's thinking he might head off to Canada or Japan or somewhere in the States next to continue to teach snowboarding. So at this point, he might be gone from the house.
Heather (20:55.138)
The other one graduated uni a year ago. He's kind of been sort of in a gap year after uni working almost full time. And now he needs to focus on what he's gonna do next as well. So I feel like now is the time for change, big change. And to be honest, I'm getting a little tired of living in the burbs in Australia. Like I like to be in and amongst it in villages and I like to walk out the door, which is why I love going to London so much and you know, certain cities I've...
I love just walking out the door and being in amongst it. So I'm thinking maybe there's a move in the future, maybe this year, because there's a lot of shifting with the Stepsons and if they're not gonna be here, I don't need the space, I don't need to be in the burbs. So that's that. Number six, I'm starting to think of my next chapter or what's gonna happen as I get a little bit older. Now I recently interviewed an incredible guy named Jackson Milan.
who's known as the wealth mentor. Now that's coming up soon in a few weeks. You definitely wanna make sure and catch that episode. He mentioned how he started an animal rescue in this episode. Now I love animals, you guys. I've always been the person that is walking down the street and there'll be a baby and there'll be a dog. And I'll always look at the dog before the baby. Just always been who I am. So I know it's very far fetched.
But if somehow I could have some sort of dog and cat rescue center, I would be pretty happy. I wanted to be a vet when I was a little kid. That was like my dream. So yeah, I'm sort of thinking about it a little bit. And Jackson got me thinking and there's another woman, Molly Pittman. She has a podcast, Smart Marketer. And I think it's probably a couple of years ago. She mentioned she was opening or starting an animal rescue. I have no idea if she's done it because I only happened to catch that episode.
But I was like, it's been floating around in my brain. So over the Christmas holidays, I was visiting my family in the States and I was hanging out with one of my sisters and she said, oh my gosh, I would love to have a cat cafe and a cat hotel where people can come and rescue a cat via the cafe and they can board their cat via the hotel. And I was just sort of going, okay, right. There's more and more of this coming out and I'm starting to think about it. So...
Heather (23:17.194)
I've always believed in the reticular activating system. It's something where basically what you start to think about, you know, what you want and what you're focusing on helps to make your thoughts into a reality. Cause you're starting to see things more. It's like that, that theory of, Oh, I want to buy a blue Mazda. And suddenly you see it everywhere. It's cause you're, you put that in your brain and now your brain's looking out for that particular thing.
So I'm just saying it out loud as a starting point. Look, I don't know. And perhaps after I move house and live more in the city, I might wanna do this in the English countryside because my partner's from England. So, hey, you never know. So I'm always sort of thinking like where to next, right? And maybe this is slowly what I'm gonna start to research. And the last one, number seven is be kinder. So this is twofold for me, probably more.
the first one, which is be kinder to myself, but also definitely to others. We can absolutely be our own worst enemy, at least I can with self-talk. That is something that I really wanna work on this year. To not constantly beat myself up, you know, in question. Like, why didn't I get more accomplished? Like I said at the start of this episode, like, why didn't I get more accomplished for the year? You know, constantly beating myself up. Why am I not getting more done in a day? Blah, blah, blah. All that hustling stuff that is deeply ingrained in us.
So I wanna work on not beating myself up as much and to be way more grateful with what I have. That's big focus. And for others, I wanna continue to look at how can I help more people and pay it forward as much as I can, because I can become a little bit scattered sometimes and not as present as I hope. And even just going out to the shop, being present in that moment and smiling at somebody or thanking somebody or complimenting somebody. I feel that, I think that stuff's really, really important to do.
So guys, those are my seven personals. To recap on that, be a better leader. Number two, up my game as a speaker. Number three, increase my fitness. Number four, travel with purpose. Number five, potentially move house. I've been here for five years. I'm ready for a change. Number six, thinking of my next chapter. Think, you know, maybe animal rescue, maybe not, but I'm just starting to percolate.
Heather (25:41.17)
I guess my next set of dreams. Number seven, be kinder. So those are my plans, business, professional. That's the same, business, personal. And by the way, I did not give this much thought. I literally was thinking, I should just do this as an episode and I just stuck a paper and pen out in front of me and just wrote. And these are the first things that just came out. I feel like sometimes if you get hung up on it too much, you overthink it. So now I have a list.
I have the list to get going on to get started on for the year ahead. I'm going to be sharing stuff with you guys. Definitely my solo episodes of what I'm working on, what's starting to happen as a result of this incredible list. And thank you so much for listening. As always, I'm really hoping that this brought some inspiration for you, for your plans ahead as well. Um, maybe it just got you to know me a little bit more, especially if you're newer to the podcast now, you get to know a little bit more about who I am and my focus.
Maybe I'll see you online as well. One of my upcoming webinars or maybe in person at a live event. Who knows, but thank you as always for listening. Let me know what you think of the show so far by leaving me a review. That's would be, I'd be very grateful. It helps to get the show out to more people. And I'm really excited to be, uh, hanging out with you in the year ahead. I have so many cool guests that I cannot wait to share with you. I've already, um, recorded about 10 new episodes coming out soon. Amazing. You guys, it's just getting better and better. This is just the beginning. Happy 2024. And I'll be talking to you soon. Thanks, bye.
