Behind The Scenes - 2020 in Review: Behind the scenes about launching, scaling, pivoting … during a pandemic q

We’ve made it, we are officially at the end of 2020 - a year that for me personally was full of the highest high’s and the lowest lows … in literally the same hour.

Save to say that no-one could have ever seen coming what we’ve gone through. And yet- we are here and only a few days away from starting the new year. I hope you had a lovely Xmas, get some downtime and rest because the constant uncertainty, changes and new everything certainly has taken the toll on everyone.

Real talk- Initially I didn’t even want to do another episode at this time of the year because everyone is tired, want to switch off, not listening to a poddy but there I am- doing probably one of the longest solo’s so far. 

I hope you enjoyed the series of interviews with some incredible powerhouses over the last few weeks (and if you haven’t caught up on them yet- do it right after this episode).

But given this year has been quite a special one, I thought it deserves a proper review and deep dive, a reflection but also an acknowledgement of allll the learnings (and trust me - there were more than I can count).

December for me has been full of planning and reflecting of the year that was and getting ready for 2021  - yep- the once so unorganised and chaotic (some may still claim that’s the case but that’s another story), I’ve hands on heart - gotten so much better with pre-planning and looking around corners because I love the freedom I can get from it.

True story- I’ve finished all of my January content already in November (and heads up- there is some more throwback’s coming your way).

And going through that, has made me realise how far we’ve all come.

How many amazing connections we have been able to make through the pandemic.

How many pivots we have survived and how much we’ve grown from the curve balls that were thrown at us.

So here we go- a month-by month summary of the year that was

January

I just got back from a month in Europe with family - let’s just say: it was a little testing and looking back, it probably was the best bootcamp for the year that’s about to start. 

Seriously though- travelling over 5,500km, driving a mini van with family through snow, winds and ice, coupled with a lot of personalities, isn’t quite a walk in the park.

But anyhow. … coming back to Australia I had all the big plans for 2020 - you know, the year of the clear vision and all of that good stuff. And hey … on paper it sure was.

I started The360talent.Co, my B2B company to help leaders and their teams to future-proof themselves only early 2019, and had already a record year (which by far exceeded my expectations) in my first 12 months. My goal was to build up this arm and already had signed contracts (that were a spill over from the projects I delivered in 2019). 

At the same time, also impaCCCt saw already a massive increase in enquiries for 1:1 coaching (which hasn’t happened before. Jan has always been the quiet month for me but I this year, I actually enrolled my first European based client - which came from a catch up I had when I was in Europe). 

So clearly- I felt it’s off to a good start.

February

I got excited early because our US trip was just around the corner. I wanted to attend the social media marketing world for the last 6 years but timing was never on my side.

And since travelling is one of my fav things to do, I didn’t just go there for the conference but extended the trip to also see Las Vegas and doing a bit of a round trip.

March

Hands down- I’m so glad that I went to the SMMM world when I did because it’s cancelled for 2021 and to date- it has been the best conference I’ve ever attended in my life.

I’ve been able to chat with all the big guns in social media as if we were best buddies. I learnt a ton. I fell in love with San Diego and had honestly the trip of my life with my partner Don.

We got back 3 days before the lock down was announced which came as a massive surprise to us because despite travelling through the busiest airport, LAX like 4 times in 2 weeks, there were no signs of a pandemic.

So when the news hit, it hit me like a tonne of bricks.

Because not long after the announcement of the shut down, I got one call and email after the next about those already signed contracts …

And if you’ve worked with me before, you know that I always value relationships over $$, so of course, I didn’t go after any of those clients despite legal agreements.

Not going to lie- I did have a little pity party. I had to let one of my full time marketing staff go and quickly come up with Plan B.

Pivoting and reinventing is luckily my strong suit so I started listening and becoming curious as to what’s going on.

I had calls from candidates and clients who I worked with in the past about their lay offs, redundancies but also their want for using this time to pivot.

But where to start?

What to do?

And is it even possible to do at that time.

This was the most pivotal month in my business because I decided to bite the bullet and just do what I’ve wanted to do for a while: offering a digital product.

I came up with the term “Agile Career” and put it out to my MeetUp group and email list - that I had an idea about offering a course, that helps to pin point your point of difference and how you can commercialise it - basically teaching how to get ahead in the Future of Work. 

That kind of work had been exclusive to my 1:1 coaching clients but given the sheer amount of people panicking, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to create something that the market needs the most and will have a ripple effect, aka that makes an impaCCCt - sorry for the play on words, but I had to.

Let’s just say- when I put it out there I did not have a single page developed.

And in my true style- I put it out on a Tuesday mid day for a Thursday morning launch and bang- full house by Wednesday afternoon. I quickly got my gear together and developed the sessions week by week.

I got my enquiries and referrals, so I started another cohort, another one .. to then, 6 cohorts later I realised that we were onto something.

At the same time, I also got contacted from the Queensland Department for small business and training to run webinars through TAFE on how small businesses can pivot, build and commercialise a Brand and future-proof themselves. This contract was quite a big one and went on to the end of August.

The courses and webinars were the main focus and basically covered my April, May and June which brings us to July:

This was the time when some of the students asked me after finishing the course- what’s next?

Initially I didn’t have an answer as I was never intending to run any group programs. I love 1:1 coaching and as a massive introvert, facing a group regularly and ongoing isn’t quite the most energising activity for me.

Nevertheless, the people who were in the cohorts made it very easy for me to put another idea out there- the Future of Work Campus which is a monthly membership that connect academic learning with real world insights and hands on workshops.

It’s bridging theory with practise and covers the latest topics that not traditional education could jump on so quickly.

It’s one thing that I see as one of the biggest faults in the traditional education system - the lack of agility and speed and its very theoretical approach and content that’s usually outdated by the time it gets published.

Anyhow - one of the modules in the agile career course also touches on Linkedin as it has helped me to transition my career 3x and also has worked wonders for my 1:1 coaching clients.

It got so much interest that led me to my next idea: developing and launching the LinkedIn academy that goes deep and covers everything there is to know to make the platform work for you.

There was only so much we could cover in 1 module and it was only part of the bigger curriculum of a carer pivoting course, not the focus.

So again- I put the idea out there and had a full course at the launch. Ran another one which was also sold out quickly as I wanted to keep numbers low- more so to test the concept and content.

Luckily- because I live and breath LinkedIn- I got amazing feedback and saw incredible results from my student. 

This led me to developing the course in an on demand option which officially launched in November after a few hick ups - from re-designing the creative to re-recording the content twice, first because of the audio quality, then because of my OCD to make it perfect and easier for students to consume. Then because I transitioned online learning systems … oh the joys of getting into new territory …

Long story short- the LinkedIn Academy is now fully up and running and the process has taught me a lot.

July also marks another big milestone for me … I launched the Future of Work Podcast! 

Me- the one who failed nearly 4 years in a row in English, now speaking for a living and doing it even on a poddy. 

Funny how things have shifted and again- such a massive learning curve. 

From learning how to set it up in the first place (and yes0 the first episode didn’t launch when it was meant to because I missed a step in the backend), to learning how to structure episodes to the actual recording. 

Honestly- I re-recorded the first episodes at least 50x because it sounded very bumpy at the beginning, so then I scripted it and it sounded very - well, let’s just say, not me at all.

Super slick and professional with not a single bone of personality of me. 

It was on one of my early walks that I just talked into my voice recorder about exactly what I thought and the learning from it and boom- there was my first episode. Go back to it and let me know what you think :)  

In August I also got a call from one of my biggest and fav clients (I know you shouldn’t have favs but I just love these guys).

The brief was to run another offsite leadership retreat in September (which we did the years before but I never thought it would happen this year).

It was again in Noosa and boy- such a different delivery than the last year. Not blowing my own horn but even I could see a massive up-levelling in my facilitation skills. Clearly- running nearly 10 courses over 4 months with over 100 students, taught me a thing or two about teaching and facilitation.

Of course, I made a long weekend of it because developing a 2-days retreat is quite an intense process which took up most of the first part of September.

But not letting it go to waste and making the most of the little get away - we extended the stay after the retreat and had the best time with my partner who is honestly- such a massive support with everything. He keeps me in check and calm - which is a trait in itself as I can easily get in my own head and spiral from there.

So shout out to the most wonderful human beings who stand with us through the high’s and low’s because this is what really matters.

September, October and November are a bit of a blur to be honest because I was redoing the LinkedIn academy, started working on the redevelopment (and spoiler alert - we are relaunching and opening the doors again in March) for the agile career course, relaunched my website, redesigned my onboarding process for my 1:1 coaching clients because I had more enrolments  in the last few months than last year (which was a busy year already) 

But that wasn’t even it. The last few weeks have brought some other major highlights that I never could have predicted:

I’ve been signed to do my first internal keynote for a global conference, I got booked for trainings on LinkedIn and career development from various Unis, already enrolled corporate clients for LinkedIn training in 2021.

I even got contacted by a global company based in Austria who engaged me to work with their leadership team in Jan and Feb to help them build their Personal Brands, internally and externally which I’m super excited about.

Despite being from Austraia- I haven’t worked with an Austrian based company before and one of my intentions for next year is to spend more time in Europe as my parents also get older.

So I want to build up my client base to spend 3-4 months there every year.

And again- that sows the power of LinkedIn … just saying :) 

We are now in December and because I like to finish with a bang - I launched one more new offer and that has launched with a bang: In fact, I’m recording this episode just 1 day after I ran the first workshop ever which was a pilot project and will continue as a monthly series in 2021: and that is: a content creation workshop where we work on the content for the month ahead.

One of the biggest struggles from my LinkedIn academy students and also from my 1:1 clients is and always had been: ‘I have no ideas what to post on social media”.

So to make it easier and keep people accountable, I launched the Content Camp where in 1.5h we create content for the month ahead with themes, prompts, ideas and all the fun things.

If you want to join us, you can take advantage of the super early launch offer and enrol for the yearly subscription for only $500 which saved you nearly $1,200.

Or you want to test drive it first and join for 1 session only - next workshop is on the 19th Jan.

And that also brings me to what’s ahead!

January will bring a slight change to the Future of Work Campus structure:

I want to focus even more on the practical implementation of everything, so we will have monthly hands on workshops with experts rather than on demand content, run these content creation workshops and also have more live Q&A and group coaching sessions because it’s not that we need more knowledge - we need the implementing of it and keeping each other accountable.

We kick off the new year with Design Thinking for Career Planning & Development and are joined by Ale Wiecek.

She will run the first workshop for us on the 13th January and we will open it up to the public.

This truely will help you start the new year with a bang as we look into optimising all aspects of your life and how you can develop a career plan that is aligned with your values and lifestyle.

Looking back- it’s been a lot more than I thought it would be but that’s the beauty of revisions and reflections. Stopping for a sec and appreciate how far we’ve come. No matter how many hurdles we had to jump over.

I honestly can say that I’ve never been so excited about the future, what it holds for us and looking forward to sitting down and reflect on 2021.  

So thank you for sharing this journey with me, for supporting me through the high’s and low’s and for inspiring me to get up when I’m knocked down.

This is what it’s all about!