Annual Review for 2024 - The Year Of Intuition
Sometimes I fall off the wagon with my monthly reviews but I never skip my annual review. I have my entire business journey from 2018 to today documented and published on my blog, with the key highs and lows.
It's a simple structure that focuses on 3 core questions:
What went well and why?
What didn't go so well and what did I learn?
What am I working towards in 2025 and how will I make it happen?
This year is no different.
My word for 2024 was 'Trust'. When I chose it back in January, I didn't really know what it meant. Looking back now, it was the perfect word for a year that taught me so much about turning down the noise and trusting my intuition. This was the first year I didn't invest in any external support from a coach or mastermind and this, as it turns out, was exactly what I needed..
WHAT WENT WELL IN 2024?
Experimented with paid workshops
I'd been meaning to test paid workshops for ages. As part of my evergreen eco-system, I run a free monthly workshop which has always worked well for me. 70% of my clients have attended one of my monthly workshops or my signature 3 day workshop series before working with me. Many attend multiple times before committing.
I was curious to test a paid workshop and see how it affected commitment, show up rate and ultimately, people joining my paid programme Amplify.
January 2024 was a lower income (and therefore slightly stressful) month for me, which gave me the kick up the arse I needed to run my first paid workshop in Feb: How To Powerfully Run Group Coaching Calls.
First learning: you need a longer lead up time for a paid workshop. I marketed 10 days in advance and had countless emails saying they couldn't make the date. I decided to put on a second date in March which worked well. Price point was £95 + VAT. Across the two workshop dates, I had 57 sign ups, banking £5415 + VAT. I was pretty chuffed with this. I loved writing the content - I run group coaching calls every week so I was able to pour all my experience into a value-packed 90 minutes. The bonus was that I could then add this training to my group programme Amplify.
The second workshop I ran in September was called How To Strengthen Your Group Programme Niche, Promise & Message So You Hear Less ‘Not Right Now’ & More ‘When Can I Start?’
I wanted to test a different price point so did this one for £45 + VAT and had 70 sign ups. Problem is, it was hard to pull any real learning from this as I changed too much - different topic, price point and I ran it on one date instead of two. The content of this one was much harder to write and it made me rethink 'just running paid workshops from now on'. I had a last minute scramble to get it finished which always causes a bunch of stress.
All in all, I want to do more paid workshops in 2025. As well as the instant income boost, I found the workshops energising to run, had a great live attendance on both and went out to generate an additional 23K in revenue from clients buying other stuff.
I plan on repeating these two workshops and adding a third. I love delivering live stuff and feel much less energised at the idea of just selling them passively.
Ran a wonderful in-person event with Skye Barbour
Working with Skye was one of my 2023 highlights. She’s a total genius when it comes to all things people, teams, systems and leadership and I just love her energy. We continued working together in 2024 and decided to run an in-person event together called ‘Be The Creator’. It was all about redesigning your business to run itself, so you’re no longer the bottleneck and afternoons off become a weekly thing.
It was at this gorgeous, quirky house on Skye’s family farm. It was so much fun working together on this. It’s interesting to reflect on how much I loved working completely on my own in the first 4 years of my business, and how much I am now enjoying collaborations with others in this next phase.
I loved my peer mastermind
I ran an awesome mastermind in 2023 with some of my favourite clients. At the end of 2023, it came to a natural end but we decided to keep it going as a peer mastermind. We were upfront on the commitment required for it to work well and I honestly wasn't sure if we'd all keep it up, without any investment attached. But we have.
Highlights of the year included 2 nights in Norfolk, a speaking retreat in Oxford and an annual review meeting in London. These women have had my back all year and I'm so grateful to each of them. They are open, non-judgmental, ambitious and totally inspiring. I think my learning here is around the value of a peer group which isn't 'led'. It creates a wide open space of creativity and support without agenda. I also think it's hard to curate this kind of group, and I think it worked well coming naturally out a paid offer where the commitment had already been set.
Dinner after our annual review meet in London (a couple of us missing!)
Spoke on stage and at events
This has always been a quiet goal of mine (that I've done nothing about). In March 2024, I was invited to speak at a conference to 150 Speech & Language Therapist on boundaries. This seemed like a great opportunity to test out 'speaking on stage' to see if this was something I wanted to focus more on. I absolutely loved it and was kind of bowled over by the feedback. I had so many people come up to me afterwards and say how much they enjoyed the talk. My favourite comment, 'You should be a stand up comedian. I bet people tell you that all the time' (they don't). Off the back of this talk, I got invited to do two more, which felt like the best validation.
Tad Hargrave invited me to speak at his London workshop. I met a bunch of great folk here and got invited to a few podcasts off the back of it. Weirdly, I felt far more nervous as this workshop than speaking on a bigger stage, and knew I was talking wayyy too fast - definitely learning point there in presenting (I got a chance to hone my speaking skills at a TedX Speaking Retreat in November which was fab!).
Lessons from speaking at events: after delivering a few talks throughout the year, I noticed how hugely they impact my energy and workload. For in-person stuff, it's a whole day out when you include travel. And the one I did online took way more prep than I anticipated. Whilst my son is still little (he's just turned 8), my priority is maintaining my 25 hour work week, taking him to school every day and having enough energy to be fully present with him, especially as I only have him 50% of the time. It's not a no to speaking if the right aligned opportunity comes my way, but I'm not actively putting any focus here.
Launched Amplify Lite
I know there's people in my audience that want my help to launch or grow their group programme, but can't afford to work with me or really don't want to join a group programme. I didn't want to just sell Amplify as a passive course as:.
I know how woefully low completion rates are without any accountability and…
I know there's some key areas my feedback is crucial - particularly on niche and messaging.
I had this idea for a 'lite' version which included a monthly check-in and feedback on a few key areas.
Price: £1600 + VAT and there was a payment plan option too.
I whipped up a sales page, and scheduled 5 emails to my list of around 6,000 people for when I was on holiday in Spain.
Cash collected: £10,600 + VAT with another £7,650 + VAT in payment plans. I take August off and usually this is a lower income month for me. It felt like a huge win hitting my 20K target goal when I wasn’t actually working. I’ll definitely be selling Amplify Lite again in August 2025.
Went to Summer Camp
It seems to be my lifelong quest to find 'my people'. I hate small talk. I'm not 'business-like'. Fancy hotels and conferences are not my vibe. I'm hippy-ish, and love nature... but I'm not in the full on flower crew. At Tad Hargrave's workshop, we were chatting about this over lunch and he said, 'You need to go to Summer Camp'. After a quick google, I signed up.
The Happy Startup Summer Camp is the brainchild of co-founders Laurence McCahill and Carlos Saba. Their tagline is: "A 3 day off-grid gathering in the UK for purpose-driven entrepreneurs at all stages that want to make a positive dent in the world". 150 entrepreneurs camping, doing stuff like nature walks, wild swimming, breath work, yoga and workshops of all varieties. It was without a doubt the best business event I've attended. I mean, I did fuck all business stuff, but this was actually the magic of it. Creative space with like-minded folk. I've signed up to go again this year.
Refreshed my website
I remember the feeling when I had my first professionally designed website. Where you go from kind of embarrassed to tell people about it, to excitedly sharing the link. Well, 5 years later that feeling had dwindled. My niche had evolved and I'd not done the work to reflect this on my website. A friend recommend Hannah at Shiny Happy Digital.
I was a little apprehensive as Hannah's vibe is colourful, fun websites, which I wasn't sure is really me (not that I like to think of myself as dull and boring lol). But I liked Hannah and she assured me we could do it to my taste. I chose her 'website in a day' option to re-fresh the design and I'm soooo happy with the result. It gave me the accountability to update all my messaging so it all feels totally aligned and I love how flowy it all feels.
I also added, for the first time ever, a detailed sales page for my group programme. Before then. I'd just had some brief info and a link to book a call. The pros of the ‘no sales page’ approach is people have to book a call to find out more, and you're always going to enrol more clients on a sales call than via a sales page. This is the approach I recommend for my clients when they're first selling their group programme - just book more calls and learn how to sell it first. Then you can work out how to convey it in a compelling way in written form (which requires great copywriting).
But it felt like time (it’s my 4th year of running this programme) to just be totally transparent and have a more detailed sales page,. I was a bit apprehensive as I wasn't sure how it would affect my client numbers. Turns out it didn't at all. I continued to enrol 5 clients a month for the rest of the year.
Had some new brand photographs
I had my brand photos first done in 2019 and they felt woefully misaligned 5 years on. I’m so much more confident in my own skin now (I put this down to strength training and also just personal growth). However, having my photograph taken is my worst nightmare. When I saw Ally Berry’s group photoshoot offer at a stunning house in Nottingham, it felt like such a great way to tick this off my list. The day was fab - a laid back photoshoot full of laughs with a fab group around me.
Focussed on reducing my toxic load
I've been on a personal journey learning more about plastics and harmful chemicals that are in our clothes, food, beauty products and cooking utensils, to name a few. It's actually bonkers that this is the status quo. This stuff disrupts our hormones and can lead to a catalogue of health problems. You don't need a scientist to tell you we shouldn't eat pesticides which kill all living things, or that eating plastic isn’t sensible.
Years ago, I stopped using shampoos, soaps and moisturisers with toxic chemicals but when you try and do everything at once, it's totally overwhelming. This year, I've focussed on buying natural clothes, removing plastic and making more conscious organic food choices (download the Yuka app - it's great for scanning barcodes to see harmful additives). Next year, I plan to replace all kitchen stuff which has non-stick toxic coatings, as well as shift to natural cleaning products.
Made 86% of my revenue from one offer
This is my third year of business focussing mostly on one offer: Amplify. It's my signature group programme which helps you create and grow a group programme which you can fill monthly, without exhausting launches.
I absolutely love my business model - the simplicity of mostly focussing on one thing, with fun projects spiralling of it whenever I fancy. I refined my delivery model in January 2024 and moved from taking all the school holidays off to a more regular schedule: we now have three weeks of group calls and one implementation week each month. This allows me to still take the school holidays off with my son but have a more regular monthly rhythm than the stop-start nature of school holidays. I still take all of August off.
I’ve continued to hone my evergreen marketing strategy and consistently enrolled 4-5 clients every month. My marketing strategy is pretty light-touch and basically consists of evergreen ads, email marketing and regular workshops/3 day workshop series.
Click to join my next 3 day workshop series:
I also do some very half-arsed social media marketing and YouTube, which really needs attention lol.
Interestingly, 19% of my clients buy in the first 30 days of finding me, which is higher than I expected. 29% buy after 6+ months. The stats emphasise the importance of having a strong path for people to buy from you immediately (and one of the reasons I love the evergreen group programme model so much as I can enrol clients anytime) but also highlight the need to maintain long-term relationships.
This year, I added an earlier entry point to Amplify called Offer Lab. So many people approach me wanting to start an evergreen group programme, but are earlier on in their business journey or don’t have an audience. For a long time, I just said I couldn't help them. Offer Lab has allowed me to work with clients to beta test a group programme. Then they can continue on to the second phase (Amplify) if they want to make their group programme evergreen and implement longer term marketing and sales systems. This has worked well and I enrolled 26 clients into Offer Lab in 2025.
However, it also added a layer of complexity... clients are all in the same group container but buy different 'products' as it's a slightly different marketing message and pain points. I have two sales pages, two price points and no one really knowing the difference between them except me and maybe my assistant. I had the realisation over the Christmas break that it could really easily be one offer, with different phases within it. So in 2025, I’m merging the two offers and will have one price point.
I launched and filled my 2025 Mastermind: Quiet Ambition
I didn’t run a mastermind in 2024 and spent much of year ‘thinking about it’. I had a sour taste in my mouth after investing 20K in a mastermind which didn’t feel like a great fit or feel like a great experience. I wanted to bring together a group of established business owners to challenge and support each other and give that ongoing accountability… but without the 20K price tag. And thus, Quiet Ambition was born.
It’s a mix of online sessions and in-person meets with 10 experienced business owners for the whole year (with August off). The marketing of this offer felt very natural, I got a tonne of nice messages from people saying how much it resonated and I’m so excited about the group I’ve bought together. Plus, from a business model perspective, it’s great to have an offer that is set for the year.
CHALLENGES AND LEARNINGS
Neared burnout in September
I was keen to start September strong (having not always done this in previous years after taking August off). I had my paid workshop and a paid training for a company on boundaries in the first week. I planned my free signature 3 day workshop series for the second week. And in the third week, I had my photoshoot, an all day cricket match and Summer Camp in Brighton (a long long way away).
I always knew it was going to be full on. Then my dad became unwell and needed emergency surgery at the end of August and it all became totally unmanageable. I postponed the paid workshop to later in the month to take the pressure off and bumbled though. I felt totally wiped out all month and it took me ages to catch up with work again and feel vaguely on top of things. The lesson here is a simple one: don’t over-schedule yourself. Even fun stuff like a day out for an international cricket match or a retreat has a significant knock-on effect on your capacity.
England vs Australia One Day International at Trent Bridge
Hormones, anxiety and illness kicked my arse
I found out I may have PMDD - basically pretty bad depression, intense emotions and anxiety in the second half of my cycle. Some months I was fine. Other months, it was hard to remember what ''happy’ felt like. When these times hit, I feel pretty apathetic towards my business and life in general. I get frustrated when I feel like I am doing all the right things… supplements, nutrition, exercise, sleep - and still feel crappy. I’ve tried a bunch of different things and it’s still very much a work in progress.
In March 2024, I had keyhole surgery which plummeted me into a month long depression. On top of that, I got ill more times than I can count throughout the year which took me out of action for 2 weeks at a time.
All of this obviously makes it very hard to show up in business. I’ve learnt during these times just to double down on my protocol, go through the motions in business which are so familiar now and just stay consistent.
Some lessons:
Systems over willpower - I’ve built a business that can weather personal health challenges. I maintained my income even when I couldn’t show up 100%
A leveraged delivery model with 2 days with no client interaction is invaluable for managing energy
My 25 hour workweek isn't just about efficiency - it's a crucial buffer for managing ups and downs
‘Simple’ and ‘leveraged’ aren’t just business buzzwords - they’re essential for sustainability
I was less intentional in my personal life
In 2023, I did 52 things in 52 weeks. It gave me a huge amount of structure and motivation. Although I did a bunch of awesome things in 2024, I didn’t document them or focus on them in the same way. When I look back, it’s kind of a blur and it’s hard to remember what I did. For 2025, I want to bring back a simple fun challenge which has me focus on the right stuff: connection, personal development and adventure.
I’m thinking something like:
Climb 12 mountains
Read 12 books
Eat 12 cuisines
Go on 24 dates
Do 10 mins of Spanish everyday
Lower income months always trip my mindset
I use Profit First as a cash management system in my business and I love it. Basically everything I earn gets divided into different pots for my expenses, pay, tax and profit. It’s all based on percentages and it means when you have a great month, the pots get topped up. And if you have a lower income month, you can use the excess build up.
But, even knowing this, and even though I’ve consistently made multi-six figures for the past couple of years, my mindset plummets if I have a lower income month. It’s like I watch it happen in slow motion - lower income, motivation dwindles, confidence lessons, self-doubt creeps in.
I know this is a huge mindset piece as I ended 2024 with a good chunk of cash in reserve but felt throughout the year that ‘I wasn’t making enough’. There’s a disconnect between the rational and the emotional.
One thing that did help in 2024 was having a minimum revenue target and a max one, rather than a single goal. If I was below the minimum, it prompted some ‘above and beyond’ action, and it’s often these extra actions that lead to great unexpected results and opportunities. I also tried to not to do many knee jerk actions, as they all take up time and headspace. I’ve developed a ‘mindset protocol’ for when I notice my thought patterns and continue to practise this regularly. A work in progres.
Big projects didn’t move forward
I pretty much write this every year. I wanted to re-write my core programme curriculum, and although I started it (I watched through the whole thing and made notes on where I wanted to improve it), it felt like I barely scratched the surface.
My 25 hour work week basically leaves very little wiggle room. So if I take a day off or get ill, I end up using my ‘big project’ time to catch up. Plus, I realised (ironically as I run a programme called Weeks That Week that is all about designing your perfect repeatable week), that my weekly structure hasn’t been working for me.
Fridays are always reserved to move big projects forward, but I train in the morning and by 11am when I sit down to work I'm never very productive. I basically work a 4 day week but pretend it's 5 and then beat myself up when I don't do anything. I've observed this pattern for a while now, but hadn't done anything about it. When one of my masterminders suggested I re-structure my week, I initially had a tonne of resistance. My weekly structure has been the same for years with client days Tues-Thurs, and Monday and Fridays reserved for back office stuff. Then I realised I do fuck all on a Monday. I basically email my list, have a team meeting and clock off early for a PT session lol.
So I’ve redesigned my week for 2025. I’ve changed Monday to be entirely creative. This is my day for re-writing the Amplify content. No emails, no calls, nothing. Just creative space. I’m kind of pleased I didn’t re-write Amplify in 2024 as I’ve evolved the offer this year. Maybe deep down I knew it wasn’t quite time. Re-writing Amplify is my core focus for the first 6 months of 2025.
I’m also going to experiment with doing split day on Tuesday and Wednesday where I work for 2 1/2 hours in the morning, take a 2 hour break, then work for the a final 2 1/2 hours. At the moment, I end these days feeling completely wiped. I want a more balanced day with time to walk the dog, do a workout and nap if I need to.
I didn’t grow my YouTube Channel, or get off social media
This is kind of related to the one above. The learning curve with anything new is steep and I hate detail. I just haven’t committed the time to learning YouTube strategy and I haven’t been consistent with recording videos. I know I need to get someone in to support me with this and right now, it just feels a bit onerous. I’ve also been entirely half-arsed with my Facebook Group.
I guess what could be actually going on here is… I’ve enrolled consistent clients into my programme for years now, without doing this stuff. I’d like to grow my YouTube to diversify, but it’s not essential. And so it always gets pushed. I know I need to connect more deeply on why I want to grow my YouTube channel if my results are to change in 2025.
And in terms of getting off social media, I find it pretty useful being on there, even though I know my strategy isn’t that strong. I get leads and clients on there pretty regularly, even with my low-key strategy.
What I actually want to do is just remove the negative ‘shoulds’ around both of these platforms and do exactly what I want to do. Which is… continue to share my content on Facebook in a light-touch way, and to consistently publish a video a week onto YouTube (focussing first on consistency, before I even stress about strategy).
That’s what I’ll do.
Weeks That Work round 2 enrolment felt harder
Last year, I ran Weeks That Work with Greg Faxon for the first time. We enrolled 88 clients into our beta round at a $497 price point. We loved running it and got great feedback. This round, we wanted to improve stuff even further. We re-wrote the sales page, doubled the price, ran a webinar and went all in on marketing. But it felt slow and hard. The problem is… we changed too many things to really know what changed, and it might have been a bunch of factors.
The first time you launch something you always get higher numbers - I’ve seen this play out with all my offers and it’s something I warn my clients about. I call it The Super Fan False Validation - people who love you, buy whatever you put out and it’s not a true test of your sales message.
Greg and I always knew Weeks That Work is a harder sell than ‘marketing’. It’s all about creating a repeatable weekly structure which makes getting more clients and making more money inevitable - we cover stuff like structure, habits, productivity, systems and support. It’s the stuff that we know really makes a difference to our client - if you don’t have these fundamentals, the simple reality is you won’t do the work.
This round, we enrolled 22 clients at $997 (with some on payment plans for a bit more). So many learnings here. The main one: don’t change stuff that’s working, and make big changes one at a time!
WHAT AM I EXCITED FOR IN 2025?
Re-write Amplify. This is the big one. My week is re-structured. I feel so excited to update the curriculum. I know I’ll need my assistant’s help with project management, but I already can’t wait to get started.
Having fun in my marketing. Finding my groove with YouTube (come subscribe here). Playing with paid workshops. Staying open to collaborations. Doing what feels good and light and ignoring all the online bollocks. Continuing to trust myself and dial down the noise.
Combine Amplify and Offer Lab - so it’s one simple offer again. One sales page. One lead gen process. One price point. (I actually aim to do this in the next week before my next workshop series!)
Run a retreat. Watch this space!
Be super intentional in both business and personal life. What I say yes and no to. What I eat. How I spend my time. The relationships I foster.
THIS YEAR’S THEME
Trusting my intuition and turning down the noise worked well for me in 2024. My business felt lighter and more me.
My word of the year for 2025 builds on this: intention.
Being more intentional about how I rebuild Amplify in the first half of 2025 and integrate the two offers
Making deliberate choices about offers rather than creating from financial pressure
Thoughtful decisions about events and workshops (rather than saying yes and feeling drained)
Intentional planning around my cycle and PMDD patterns
Intentionally viewing lower months within the bigger picture
Mindful decisions about which projects truly deserve my attention
Here’s to an intentional 2025.
Read my other annual reviews here:
