Today on the show I’m going to give you an overview of how things went last year for the business.

We just had our best year yet. In 2021, we increased revenue by 30%, and increased profit by 25%.

I started doing this in January of 2004, which means we’re coming up on 8 years for our online business. So, it’s taken this long to have the kind of year we just had.

But I’m okay with that, because we’re on a journey here. As the saying goes, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.

With that said, I want to share some things I’ve learned over the past year. I want to talk about what worked well for us in 2021, and also talk about some things that did not work well for the business. I want you to maximize your successes, and learn from my mistakes.

I also want to share what our plans are for 2022.

Like I said, we’ve just had our best year ever, and I want you to do the same for your business. It’s a great episode, and a great starting point for making 2022 your most successful year yet.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The fastest way to scale your business
• How to promote your flagship offer
• Getting more results with less work
• The shift in how people are consuming content
• Should you be focussing on list-building?
• A huge mistake I made in a recent hiring decision
• How to streamline your content creation and scheduling

Links & Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

• 10XPRO
• ConvertKit
• Erica Courdae
• India Jackson
• The Community
• Stephanie Judice
• Jacquette Timmons
• Mel Abraham
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips
• The Art of Online Business website
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

Got A Question You Want Answered On the Podcast?

Ask your questions or let me know if there is a topic or guest you’d like to hear from in the comments below or click here to visit my contact page and submit your question there for a chance to be featured on one of my upcoming Q&A episodes.

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Right-click here to download this episode

Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

How to Create a More Inclusive Business with Erica Courdae

Thinking Differently About Your Marketing Efforts, with India Jackson

A New Way of Thinking/Setting Goals for 2022, with Neill Williams

[00:00:00] Rick:
What’s up, my friends. Welcome back to the show. Thank you, as always, for tuning in today. Super appreciate you.

We have made it to the end of another year; 2021 is coming to an end. So, I hope your holidays are going amazingly well. Happy early New Year. If you’re listening to this in March of 2022, I hope you’re having an amazing Q1 of 2022.

[00:00:54]
At this time of year I always like to do a couple of different types of episodes. We’ve got today’s episode, and then what I’m going to share with you on Friday’s episode, which is the next episode coming up.

Today, I want to give you an overview, or a year in review, of our business here. We had a very, very good year in the business.

[00:01:16]
In fact, we had the best year that I’ve ever had in my business, and coming up in just a few weeks, I think it’s January 14th, is going to be eight years having my online business, because I started January of 2004.

So, yeah, it’s taken this long, if you will, to have the kind of year that we had.

[00:01:45]
But I’m okay with that. This is a journey. We have to remember that we’re on a journey here. I was actually talking to somebody yesterday on Facebook Messenger, and they were inquiring about our Accelerator coaching program. They were talking about other programs they’ve tried, their poor experiences, and their business and so forth.

[00:02:06]
And they said, “You know, it’s just been such an up and down journey.” And I was like, “It’s a great reminder that we’re on this journey.” It’s the whole cliche, “It’s about the journey, not the end destination,” or whatever you’re trying to reach.

[00:02:22]
That’s pretty darn good, too. Right? But it really is about becoming the type of CEO that you need to become in order to achieve whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve—your version of success for your business.

So, with that said, I wanted to share with you what worked this year for me and our business, and also what did not work as well as I had hoped—areas for improvement.

[00:02:51]
I also want to share with you what our plans are for the new year for 2022.

So, we increased revenue in 2021, by 30%. So excited about that. And while revenue is great, as I’m always talking about here on the podcast and what we help our Accelerator coaching members do is, the first pillar within Accelerator is more profit, right?

[00:03:25]
Top line revenue is great, but it’s really about how much money is actually going in your pocket—actually going in your bank account.

So, we were able to increase profit this year by 25%. I would say I’m most excited about that number, right? Because again, top line revenue is all well and good, but it’s not great if only 15 to 20% of that is your profit, right?

[00:03:57]
So we increase our profit margin by 25. And it’s just been a really, really good year. And so I want to start off sharing with you what worked, right. So what contributed to our increasing our profit, our increasing our revenue, I should say by 30% and then increasing our profit by 25%. And it really comes down to one thing that we did.

[00:04:22]
And again, I’m always talking about this here in the show and. The thing that we did was I decided in February, so two months into 2021, I decided to focus solely on one offer, which is our Accelerator coaching program. We, I launched offer to optimized, in November of 22. It was extremely successful, really successful, really happy with it.

[00:04:58]
We launched it again. I think it was like the first week. No, like the end of January, I think we wrapped up like the first couple of days of February. And again, it was another really successful launch. And just in stepping back from the business, The later, that month after that launch and looking at how, how well it went, I just looked at what part of the business made the most sense on as far as going all in on a specific offer because when we have multiple offers, so I have a small.

[00:05:41]
Right. And I want it, I want it that way. I’ll talk more about that here in a few minutes. So I have a small team and so the fastest way to scale your business is through singularity of focus. So I looked at that and said, how can we increase revenue this year? How can we increase simplicity this year? How can we just make the business as simple as possible?

[00:06:07]
And then how can we increase profit margin? And so the hypothesis that I made was, Hey, let’s go all in on Accelerator. And so, I am much, much more, so if you want, one-on-one. access and coaching and so forth from me you’ll get that as part of Accelerator and Accelerator is for established online course creators, and, or, coaches, right?

[00:06:33]
Who, who are looking to scale the business, common characteristics of people coming in to Accelerator? they’re overwhelmed. They’re not really sure what next steps to be taking. They’re doing all the things. They got to build a team and they’re really not sure what to be doing.

[00:06:47]
Maybe they have a small team and they’re still not sure what they’re doing with the team. and so we help increase. Increase impact with less hustle. So by working fewer hours. And so, and when I say established, by the way, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re making a hundred K a year from their online business minimum.

[00:07:11]
And so that’s what we do. And I was really nervous at first, to be honest with you, I was like, oh, this is going all in, on, on focusing on this one offer. And when I say focusing on it, it doesn’t mean that, you know, we weren’t, we weren’t serving our offered optimized customers. Quite the contrary, we were providing amazing coaching because it’s a.

[00:07:34]
Coaching element, it’s unlike any program that I’ve seen and what, and that’s why we created at the end of last year. So the fulfillment of that program, the coaching of the members, none of that changed. So when I say focusing on one offer, what I mean is really like, what we were saying.

[00:07:53]
Okay. So what our offer was not fulfillment. And so going all in and to focusing on one offer Accelerator was the key it’s that alone increased revenue and increased our profit margin. And I’ll explain more why and how that happened in just a second. The other thing that we’re. In the business was working towards simplifying the backend, just like, you know, like so many of us.

[00:08:27]
And I’m going to do an episode coming up here on the show about simplifying your tech. you know, like so many of us, we’ve had kind of a spider web of different programs that we, that we use and. I w I just, I hate that. Right? I want to simplify as much as possible because the simpler your business, the easier it is going to be to scale.

[00:08:52]
So we moved everything. on the backend from a where our training is housed, our order forms, our funnels, creating landing pages, all of that into 10XPro.io. And. I absolutely love it. It is so simple. It’s, it’s our all in one solution basically, and it connects with your email CRM. So we use convert kit and that’s it from all doing all.

[00:09:25]
And it has an affiliate center in there as well, which is very hard to find a tool that can do all these types of things. That is good at all. That’s because so many tools try to be good at one thing. They’re good. They get good at it. And then they start adding all these other things and then they lose the effectiveness if you will, of that thing that got them to where they are.

[00:09:48]
And so we’ve gone all in on 10XPro.io. Absolutely love it. I started using them, I think the end of Q1 in 2021. And it was like a dollar trial for 30 days or something. And it was recommended to a very trusted, good friend of mine. And yeah, I love it. If you wanna check it, I’m an affiliate for it. I don’t have any other, you know, stake in the company or anything like that.

[00:10:14]
If you want to check it out, just go to Rick mulready.com forward slash 10 X. so that was the second thing we worked towards simplifying the backend. So what that accomplished was we’re able to cut a bunch of other expenses in, you know, other expensive tools. And again, simplify it down into one tool.

[00:10:34]
The third thing going back to Accelerator was, and this is going to sound so obvious, right. But when I made the decision to focus on one offer, which, you know, again, Accelerator. I made that decision to talk about Accelerator here on the podcast. a lot more almost in every episode. And the reason that I do that is because, you know, for those of you with podcasts, especially when we’re batching, right.

[00:11:04]
And we’re promoting something, it can feel like, oh, like I’m, I’m promoting that again. Or I’m talking about that again. But that’s what the assumption that people are listening to every single episode. Like back to back to back to back. Right. And that’s simply not always the case. You’re sure. In some cases it is, but certainly not, not always.

[00:11:24]
And so we looked at when our it’s application only. So when our applications really increased. I was looking at, I was like, holy cow, our applications have gone way up. we say no to more people than we say yes to, because we’re very protective of the Accelerator group. The people that are, that are in there.

[00:11:44]
You know, we want to make sure number one, that you qualify for it, but also like, are you a good fit for the other members and are the other members good fit for you? and so we looked at it, we were like, holy cow, our applications have gone away. What’s happening, right? Like, why is that? Why, why is that the case?

[00:12:03]
And, you know, we track what we, what we promote, if you will talk about here on the podcast and boom, March 1st, 2021. That’s when I made it very intentional to be talking about. Accelerator. And that is when we noticed the, hockey stick, essential growth in number of applications that we got for Accelerator.

[00:12:29]
And, and it’s ongoing, right? So I was talking to somebody yesterday. It’s like, well, when does it open again? Well, it’s open, for you. It’s not like a cohort style. So if you’re interested, just go to Rick mulready.com forward slash Accelerator and, You can apply there and learn more and hear from current and past members and so forth.

[00:12:49]
So that was another thing. it’s the simple things that often have the biggest impact, right? So frankly, just being more intentional about talking about and promoting our one offer that we had decided to focus on. So that was the third thing. The fourth thing that worked extremely well. That was quite challenging for me.

[00:13:15]
And I’ve talked about it here in the podcast before, and I mean, challenging because it pushed me, but in such a good way. And I am so. Indebted and thankful and grateful to these amazing women. and I still am, and I still continue to talk to them, but Erica and India Jackson, they are, especially Erica and I’ve had both of them here on the podcast.

[00:13:42]
So they were my diversity equality and inclusion consultants, and started working with Erica. At the end of Q1, 2021 or mid Q1, 2021. And we started doing some trainings together. So we did, team workshops. And then, I, it was a retainer also, arrangement where I was chatting with her almost every day, if not every few days, every single week where we just talking through different things and so forth.

[00:14:18]
And so, You know, I made it a very intentional and conscious decision to do better, and I think we still have a ways to go there, but I think we’ve made some really, really good strides this year, with the help of Erica and India. So that worked extremely well. And I. You know, I say worked and it’s still like that work continues to be ongoing.

[00:14:50]
That is not going to change. And, you know, just as a side note, it was also really tough because I made some hard decisions around, you know, what and who I was going to support relationships, et cetera. And. I don’t think I would have done that if I’m being completely honest, like the types of those types of decisions.

[00:15:13]
I mean, as far as you know, who and what I’m supporting relationships, et cetera, I don’t think I would have you know, as easily as I did, even though it wasn’t super easy, but it, it was, it would’ve been a lot harder if I’m just being completely honest and like the. Year or two of my business.

[00:15:33]
But I could not be more thankful that Erika and India came into my life and in our business, and helped me and continue to help me on a personal level as well. And so. check out. I’ll put the episodes that I had with Erica, in the show notes for today’s episode, also with India. Also, I have another episode with both of them coming up, talking about, memberships, because they, they have a really great membership called the community.

[00:16:05]
So my diversity equality, inclusion, trainings, and coaching. All of that, was, and continues to be, something that really really worked in 2021. The last thing I’ll talk about that works really, really well. And I’d say last thing, there’s a whole bunch of things, right. actually I’ll do two more. The other thing was the shift in this podcast here.

[00:16:32]
What I mean by that is we have expat and I talked about it recently here on the show. We’ve expanded to include video in addition to the audio.

[00:16:44]
And I did. I’ve done that for a number of reasons. Number one, the video consumption of podcasts. So watching a podcast, the consumption of video podcasts has gone way, way up. A lot of people are now going to YouTube to consume podcasts. Also, I’ll talk about that more here coming up, but YouTube is getting into the podcasting game, in w you know, what we’re thinking is the new year I’ve heard grumblings from talking to friends and colleagues and just, you know, just saw something else yesterday.

[00:17:21]
I think it was, kind of confirming this it’s happening right now. Again, I’ll talk more about it here. Just a minute. I want to be ahead of the curve there. And so we’ve put a lot more. focus on including a video version of the podcast. So yeah, you have the audio here, just like if you’re listening or if you’re watching this on the art of online business, a YouTube channel.

[00:17:49]
So we have a full episodes channel and then we also take. Short highlight clips from each of these episodes. And we have an art of online business, a podcasts clips channel on YouTube as well. So if you’ve not yet subscribed to. Those channels, make sure that you do so that you don’t miss any of the episodes that come out and also please make sure to subscribe on whatever podcasting platform that you’re listening, if you’re listening to it.

[00:18:19]
And so that was a big shift for us. And frankly, when I’m recording this, we’re only about two weeks into it and it’s gone really, really well. We’re I’m working with a team who is helping me. put all this content together, repurposing content. We’re doing a lot more on social media in terms of video, which I’ll talk more about that in Friday’s episode.

[00:18:41]
On I’m sharing 14 thoughts that I have around, what’s coming for 2020. And then the final thing and certainly not last for sure. is my small team, led by Gretchen she’s my right hand person. And the business cannot function without her. she, she sails the ship. She makes everything go smooth.

[00:19:08]
And so again, I have a very small team, that I’ve like, I enjoy that as I’m going to be talking about here, coming up, I’m adding a few people, so I’m going to be hiring, if you want to join my team. so the team has worked extremely well. And I’ll talk about. What something that didn’t go very well, coming up here about, hiring, but the team has done extremely well, considering the size and considering the size of the business.

[00:19:41]
Okay. So those are the things that, that worked really well. I would say the biggest thing out of that is the decision to focus on one, offer our Accelerator coaching program. that was the biggest thing because how that increases going back to it, how, how that increases revenue, how that increases profit is we’re all focused on that program.

[00:20:05]
Again, I’m not talking about. Not talking about fulfillment and coaching, because certainly we have been over-delivering for our, our offer to offer, to optimize people. but I’m talking in terms of promotion marketing, Right. And that right there, when we had that singularity of focus, that makes all of the difference.

[00:20:30]
Okay. So I want, I’d love for that to be a lesson for you, but you take out of today and looking at your own business and looking at where can you have singularity of focus in your business that can then obviously. Hopefully do what we’re talking about here. Increase revenue, increase profit, because you have that focus on, your one offer.

[00:20:53]
Okay. So here are the things that did not work, and there’s quite a few here. so number one, I did a T and this is where I get super authentic and transparent with you. you know, by now you’ve been listening for a while, you know, that. I am an open book. Like I’m sharing all this stuff with you.

[00:21:10]
So, number one, I did not focus on list building this year. Didn’t focus on it. That is absolutely something that should have been different. and I’ll tell you the reason why is because we have, because of our singularity of focus on Accelerator, we just had an amazing number of applications. Come in throughout the year.

[00:21:37]
And they were coming from this here podcast. Right. Which makes sense. And I’m going to be doing an episode coming up in Q1 here in of 2022. If you have a higher ticket program, there is. Nothing better. I think to be quote unquote, selling that program than developing a relationship with people over time, where they get to put you in their earbuds, if you will, or in their ears and listen to you, you know, give them value.

[00:22:13]
They get to so, so you right now, listening to me, if you’ve been listening for a while, You get to hear kind of like, you know, my personality, my, even though I’m like a lot goofier, I think, than I am here in the show, I think I can let my goofiness out a little bit more, to be honest. you get to, you know, understand what my values are.

[00:22:32]
Right family, absolutely. First and foremost, for example, and then get value of how I’m able to, coach you and help you, give you strategies and tactics and all that, and then bring you amazing guests, right? So you can learn from them as well. So I have a lot of people, for example, that, you know, applied this year, they’re like I’ve been listening to the podcast for X amount of, you know, either years or months or whatever.

[00:23:00]
And here I am. And so because of that, because of the success of the show and that translating into applications, I didn’t really, and this is not, it’s honestly not a good reason. And I’ll talk about what we’re going to be doing here in 2022, but we just didn’t focus on list-building and that was something that I should have done differently.

[00:23:23]
And that will be. so that was the first thing. Okay. The. Second thing is I didn’t do enough hiring because again, going back to just a couple of minutes ago, talking about, the size of the team, it’s a little bit like, I love the small team and I do not want a big team, but it’s a little bit too small for the.

[00:23:49]
Scope of an, the level of the business. And that’s unfair to the people that I do have on the team. Now, granted, I have a whole bunch of contractors. Right. But I’m talking more so like day to day full-time people. and that’s not fair to the existing team members that, you know, that do work, in the business.

[00:24:09]
Right. And so we had, you know, we did have. some attempts there, which we’ll talk about here in a second, that did not go very well. but you know, I just, frankly, didn’t do enough hiring and that will be changing. So that’s something that did not go as well as I wanted it to. but again, this is all we’re always learning from these experiences, right?

[00:24:34]
Something else that didn’t work out that didn’t work this year, Affiliate partnerships, affiliate launches that I did, where not what at all, what I was hoping for. I thought they’d be a lot bigger than they were, and it was completely not the case. And there’s a variety of reasons for that.

[00:24:51]
I understand what they were, you know, shortly after the promotions ended, you know, looked at it and like, okay, makes sense. I understand where, you know, but I also wasn’t super into it, honestly. So my energy wasn’t there. And so that has a lot to do with the success or. unsuccessful, promotion, whether it’s your own or promoting something else.

[00:25:16]
So going all in on and focusing on one offer in Accelerator, I decided not to do any other, you know, affiliate partnerships, the remainder of, 20, 21 now. That will be changing a little bit next year, but I’ll explain what I mean by that coming up here shortly. So that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.

[00:25:39]
Another thing that didn’t work was I worked with an agency that just did not pan out. You know, I thought that it was going to be one thing as it turned out, it was not. And so that caused a lot of. just unnecessary, you know, operational changes and sort of like catching up and making shifts and all this other stuff that was really frankly, a big pain in the butt.

[00:26:06]
But, you know, you learn these things and it was, fairly expensive lessons. but I learned a lot from it. And, what did I learn from it? I learned of those initial conversations before agreeing to work with, you know, either someone or the agency or whatever. just being, just thinking through different scenarios that could happen and really.

[00:26:38]
Making sure that we’re all on the same page before agreeing to any kind of contract or anything like that. And so, it didn’t work out. That’s cool. Everything’s fixed now after a few, not so fun months trying to fix everything, and shifting things around. But, you know, people really stepped up to help out with that.

[00:27:02]
And everything’s good now, but again, learning less. Expensive learning lesson, but, that, that did not work as well as I’d hoped. Okay. One of the, I would say probably the biggest thing that did not, did not work, this year was I hired the wrong person for a big role. And I say wrong with like capital letters.

[00:27:28]
So you might be like, well, Rick, that’s not a big deal. It happens all the time. Well, sure. I think most importantly, what I want you to get out of this lesson here, if you will, that did not work. was the, the error in judgment that I made, before hiring this person. So basically somebody, you know, I trusted somebody’s recommendation, which I do trust this person, but I trusted their recommendation on this person.

[00:28:03]
And I interviewed this person based on my gut feeling at that time. And also the recommendation of, of this other person I made an offer and it, again, this was, you know, a sizeable offer and a very big role in the business. here’s where I went. I strayed from our normal hiring practice.

[00:28:34]
The normal hiring practice does not begin with me. It begins with my team. My team is putting everything together. As far as job description, you know, where are we going to be looking for this person? How are we going to be hiring? Then they do the initial, you know, going through applications and, whittling down and doing initial interviews, et cetera.

[00:28:54]
Then they’re presenting to me, you know, the finalist and then from there, then I speak to them. None of that happened. It started with me. I did the initial interview first because I was going off of, you know, trusting somebody’s recommendation. I had a good gut feeling at that time. And it turned out to be a very big mistake.

[00:29:18]
So what I did wrong was I didn’t have my current team talk to her. And I also didn’t probe the person who referred this person to me more because as I learned. And this person lasted like three weeks and we knew it might make my team knew pretty much in the first week. They’re like, this is not a good fit.

[00:29:45]
And so, you know, I was coaching them and, you know, we were trying to make this, you know, giving it time, right. Only been a little while. I mean right away within the first few weeks, like this is not, this is not the right fit. And so I made the change and it was doing that as never, never easy. Right. So we had to redefine the relationship.

[00:30:09]
As I learned after that happened, from the person that referred this person to me, they didn’t know this person to the level I thought they did. and so that’s on me, a hundred percent responsible. you know, I was about all, I’m a hundred percent responsible for the business, right. Because it’s my business.

[00:30:34]
But I should have done deeper vetting, deeper digging, if you will, with the person that referred this person to me. So big. Big lesson. and again, with everything, when these things happen, we learn it’s a, it’s a pain in the butt, right. When it’s happening and having to deal with it and letting somebody go is never easy.

[00:30:58]
It’s never fun. Like we’re dealing with people after all. And, but it’s really what we’ve learned from it that helps us going forward. Right. So that was a huge learning experience for me. And for that reason, I’m so glad that it happened. Okay. Two more things that did not work very well. I didn’t do anywhere near as many podcast interviews on other shows like guest podcasting that I wanted to, I love going on other shows and, you know, adding value to their audiences in whatever way that I’m able to do that.

[00:31:36]
The reason as I really thought more about why that didn’t happen was my messaging really went through a big shift at the end of 2020, and the first part of 2021, actually the first half of this year. And so. I really want it to have that messaging down since there was a ton of shift going on in the business before I went on other shows and because I didn’t want to go into their shows and be kind of like wishy-washy on my messaging and how I was talking about things and so forth.

[00:32:16]
And so, you know, when I talk about messaging going, going through a big shift, Not only was it who I was talking to in my business. Meaning you hear on the podcast, are you watching this video right now? It was also the values. That I did with Erica in India, for example, you know, the diversity quality inclusion work that I was doing and still doing.

[00:32:47]
And so I didn’t want to go on other shows until I had a ton more clarity and direction. And so now that I have a I’m in a much. Different place than I was earlier this year in 2021 and so much better place. Now in 2022, that’s one thing that’s going to change. I’m going to be on a lot more shows because I love connecting with other people.

[00:33:17]
And I love just adding value to other people’s audiences whenever possible. And whenever it makes sense, as long as they align with my values, right. And I align with theirs that’s first and foremost. That was another thing that I did not, that did not work for me, but there was a big reason for it. the last thing was batching.

[00:33:39]
I did a terrible job of batching my content and it really wasn’t until literally, so I’m recording this episode right now on December 1st. And it really wasn’t until the last 30 days that, I was really doing a much better job of batching. However, I just, and for those of you who create a lot of content, whether it’s a podcast or videos or what have you on YouTube or whatever, I felt like I was always trying to play catch up and get ahead.

[00:34:12]
You know, we did it, we did a pretty good job. We did a good job of, you know, scheduling interview days where I would interview people for this show or recording days, but it’s still. Because when you’re working with teams to produce your show, you know, it’s not like, Hey, it’s Wednesday, I’m going to record Friday’s episode.

[00:34:31]
Although my poor podcast producer that I was working with previously, who is amazing by the way, Stephanie Judy’s, it’s Stephanie at Stephanie, judy.com, J U D I C e.com. She’s an amazing podcast. editor and producer. She’s got a great team. So if you want to reach out to her, just let her know. I sent you, Anyway.

[00:34:55]
So like there were several times I’m so thankful for her and her team when I was working with them, that it was super last minute, but that’s unfair. Right. And so, you know, my goal now is to be at least a month ahead right now, as I’m recording, I’m trying to get two months ahead. and so I just did not do a very good job of that this year batching and why I think that.

[00:35:22]
If I’m being honest with myself, I think I just allowed myself to become a little bit too scattered with, you know, the things that were going on in the business. And that’s not an excuse. I’m just kind of being honest about if I’m being, if I’m looking at it and saying, you know, why didn’t I do a better job batch?

[00:35:40]
Because it’s so helpful. Right. And I’m always talking about doing that here in the show. I can certainly be doing a better job and I’ve already started to do that. And so batching is probably the, the last biggest thing that did not work, in the business.

[00:35:57]
So with that. There’s what worked, what didn’t work and that re all these things resulted in. And I’m going to talk about what I have planned for 2022 coming up here in a minute. So all of that resulted in an increased profit by 30% by 25%. Excuse me, increase revenue by 30%. And we also had the best year I’ve ever had on this podcast.

[00:36:27]
So we are at, I’d have to look at the numbers. we are at over 8 million downloads of the show since I started this back in July of 2015. So. That’s not a long, not a long time to have over 8 million downloads in Q4 here alone. We five X, five X, our monthly downloads for each month, October, November, and December.

[00:37:03]
So we find that our monthly downloads here in Q4. And so for all of you, new listeners, for all of you, who’ve been listening to the show. For a long time. I cannot thank you enough for those of you who are watching this video. thank you so much for the support. I do hope I have so much great stuff coming your way.

[00:37:24]
And so I’m just super grateful for you. And then finally, the other thing that was huge success was, again, our Accelerator members. We had more meaningful successes this year. And by meaningful, I’m saying, yeah, not only did we help increase people’s profits and their impact, but time and time again, throughout this year, I’ve heard how much we’ve helped them work so much less and have a healthier personal life.

[00:38:02]
Repairing relationships repairing, you know, their emotional health or physical health, because remember we’re building our business around our life, not the other way around. And so when I look at the success of Accelerator, our members. Increasing their profit check. Are they increasing their impact check impact is very personal to each individual member because there’s different definitions of that.

[00:38:33]
And then is that resulting? Are you doing it? I should say by working fewer hours. And is it resulting in not only a healthier business? But a healthier you, right. I know that sounds a little cliche and stuff, but that’s what this is all about. And so we had way more meaningful successes this year than ever, in terms of those things.

[00:38:58]
And so I’m super, super proud of that. so, okay. Let’s talk about 2022 plans for 22 at 22, because coming up in the next episode, I’m going to share 14 things that I see ahead for 2022. I don’t like prediction, so they’re not predictions. This is what I see. I’m going to be critical piece of, you know, for established online course creators and coaches scaling their business.

[00:39:29]
And I’m sure that in the next episode right now, I want to share with you a whole bunch of different things. What I’m planning for the bit for our business in 2022, number one, I am going to be taking more time off. As is my team. So, and with that, I’m going to continue working no more than 25 hours per week.

[00:39:54]
My daughter at the time recording this turns three in, two weeks. And, you know, I mean, again, that’s prayer. My family’s priority and I’m building this business continue to build around the life around my life, not the other way around. And so plan for 20, 22 more time off and continue working no more than 25 hours per week.

[00:40:22]
The next thing is growing the team we are going to be hiring. I’m definitely going to be hiring a couple of, more. People to help out in coaching capacity for our Accelerator coaching program. this is not a program and I’ve heard this from so many people, that have been accelerated that they appreciate it.

[00:40:47]
It’s not a case where you come in. Join the program and then you get shuffled off to somebody and never see me quite. It’s quite the contrary actually. and so we are going to be hiring, but also in other areas of the business, as well, if you’re interested, we’re going to be posting. I don’t know if we’re going to have the, the jobs post.

[00:41:09]
On the site by the time this episode comes out, check the site. If you don’t see it, shoot us email support@theartofonlinebusiness.com and let us know if you’d like to join the team and how can you help us let us know. so that’s the second thing we’re hiring. Number three, we are going to continue to be, focusing all in on Accelerator.

[00:41:34]
Been talking about that a lot. That’s going to continue before thing, YouTube channel. I’ve been talking about this for a long time and I’m really, really excited about it. And so when I say YouTube channel, we are going to. Continue to have video versions of this show on the art of online business, full episodes, YouTube channel.

[00:42:00]
And then also we have the clips, you know, highlights, channel, art of online business clips channel. Those are two separate channels, but then. My, my base channel, if you, my foundational channel, if you will, is Rick Mulready and I’m going to be creating YouTube specific videos. I am hopeful by the time this episode comes out that I have at least one video up there.

[00:42:25]
But that is going to be incorporated into our strategy, going into the new year and, I’m going in on that. And I’m really excited about it, really excited about it. because as I’ll be talking about next episode, YouTube is just experiencing so much growth, video consumption and the need for more organic channels.

[00:42:52]
Especially with all the stuff that’s going on with tracking and stuff like that this year never been more important. And again, this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years now, but just has been moved down the priority list because of other stuff going on. so there’s that YouTube? If you go there and they’re all a couple older videos, check back, make sure you subscribe because I got a lot of videos coming your way.

[00:43:18]
And I’m going to be having so much fun and being goofy on there. while adding a ton of ton of value. we talked about the video podcasts on YouTube, partnership. So, this is something that I started to get into, and started adding to my business here, a little bit in Q4, but going to be doing it more in 2022, meaning I will partner with businesses and it’ll just be a, small profit percentage share of the business for the type of.

[00:43:55]
Work, or I should say for the level of work and how I could plug you into this podcast, for example, YouTube channel, email, us and everything, you know, the environment and the business that we’ve built. it’s actually quite small. And so I actually meaning like the, the partnership.

[00:44:17]
Percentage. so that’s something I’m really excited about doing, and a lot of people that, I’ve told about that are really excited about it and talking to me about it. So if that’s something that you’re interested in, shoot us an email support@theartofonlinebusiness.com. Again, I’ll link it up in the show notes for today’s episode, but partnerships.

[00:44:35]
Another thing is diversifying wealth building. So. We’ve talked about it here on the podcast a little bit. for example, we talked about it a little bit earlier. I’ve had, my buddy, Mel Abraham from Mel abraham.com. I’ve had Mel talked to our Accelerator members earlier this year. and recently had.

[00:44:59]
Jacquette Timmins here on the podcast, talking about wealth building. That’s something that I’m going to be taking, a lot more, putting a lot more focus on myself for our family. And again, the business I want you to be thinking about your business, funding, your other areas that you want to build in your life.

[00:45:18]
So that, and really diversifying wealth building is going to be another. And I can talk more, but if you want to hear more about that, you know, shoot me a DM on Instagram or something at Rick Mulready and let me know, happy to talk more about that. another thing it’s going to be a big plan. As I talked about that we didn’t do a good job of was email lists growing the email list, but not just growing it.

[00:45:42]
Personalized segmentation really? It’s about having the right conversation, the right person at the right time, the, you know, age old adage of like, Hey, be talking to the right person with the right message for when they need that kind of help. Right. Gone are the days of having one broad conversation with everyone.

[00:46:08]
So, yes, focus on growing the email list, but focusing on it from a quality standpoint and building it with the right people and really focusing on segmentation. So one thing I like to, when it comes up anyway, they joke around with people is. guess the size of my email list. I have a very small email list and, gone are the days of like the ego base, like, oh man, like I am a failure if I don’t have a hundred thousand people on my email list.

[00:46:46]
So I’m going to do an episode about this. At the time I am recording this and we’re going to, we have to do a list clean out again. I have a very small email list. My friend, my, as of right now time recording is December, 2021. The email list is about 9,000 people. And when we clean it out, probably cut, I don’t know, 3000 people or so down to about 6,000.

[00:47:15]
Now, some of you be like, holy cow, like that’s it. And you’re right, that’s it. And we have a. Very healthy seven figure business. So it’s not about the size of the list of my friends. It is about the quality of the list. And so when, as we focus on list building, it’s about list-building with the right people and segmenting that list building.

[00:47:41]
So we can have the right conversation for where people are in their business, right? So established online course creators and coaches and helping them for where. and with that, having a far better email marketing strategy. So that for example, is something that I am very, very much considering bringing on to the.

[00:48:05]
Somebody who can handle, the email marketing. so we can work together on that, but just, and I say email marketing, just like email sequences, and so forth for our established online course creators and coaches leading to eventually if they want Accelerator, if they don’t. That’s cool too. and then finally, as are, as earlier I talked about affiliate partnerships, so.

[00:48:34]
I will be doing affiliate, you know, partnership. In 20, 22, but it will be some with some very strategic partners. And probably, probably I don’t, you know, never say never, but probably not people probably tools. Right. So, as I’ve talked about today, like 10XPro.io, I just love it. And it’s like, holy cow, if I can do it, my friend, if I can go in there and set something up, anybody can do it because I am not a techie person.

[00:49:08]
It’s just, it’s great. So like that’s an example, right? I am very, very happy and proud to be, you know, talking about that tool because I know how well it works and I’ve had Accelerators jump in there and like, holy cow, this makes it so much easier. I can just aggregate everything in here and it just makes it so much easier.

[00:49:26]
So stuff like that. and I don’t plan on doing a ton, but. Frankly, that is one of the goals of the YouTube channel right down the road. Like not, you know, way down the road, like affiliate income and in sponsorships, et cetera, if it makes sense. So I’ll be doing more of that in 2022. And so by the way, on 10 X pro Rick mulready.com forward slash 10 X pro, I think, I think they’re still doing like the dollar for 30 days or something it’s ridiculously cheap.

[00:49:58]
Those are the things that we are going to be focusing on in 2022; continuing the success and momentum that we have been enjoying this year. And frankly, just doubling down. I’m always talking about doing more of what works well. That’s exactly what we’re going to be doing in the new year, and always looking for ways to simplify, simplify, simplify.

[00:50:24]
So, there you have it, my friend. What works, what didn’t work, and maybe why it didn’t work, and plans for 2022.

Best year we’ve ever had in the business. I hope that you’re able to take away some lessons that I’ve talked about, both from a “what worked” and “what didn’t work” for your business, so that I can be the Guinea pig for you and make the mistakes, so that you…

[00:50:53]
Can avoid them. So that you don’t have to do it; you don’t have to make those costly mistakes, and save money, time, and energy.

So, again, coming up in the next episode, I’m going to be talking about 14 thoughts that I have about 2022.

Again, I don’t like prediction episodes…

[00:51:16]
Because everything changes. As we’ve see in the past couple of years, things can change overnight, literally. So, it’s not predictions. These are things that I’ve been seeing this year that we’ve been doing in our business, but also what I really think are going to be super important for you to be focusing on in 2022, that will not only help you grow your established…

[00:51:45]
Online course creator, slash online coaching business, or maybe you’re selling stuff on TPT, or whatever. But really set you apart from everybody else, all the noise.

So, as always my friend, thank you so much for listening or for watching. I appreciate you. Thanks for listening to this episode here. Happy New Year…

[00:52:04]
I will talk to you very soon.