Year two consultant life — Lizzie Davidson

In which your correspondent hits her stride and cracks six figures

It feels kinda tone deaf to write this, but as all the world was going to hell, these last two years have been the best of my adult life. While Covid roars around the globe, the planet keeps on getting warmer, and arseholes keep getting arseholier, I’ve been holed up in my little grey cottage in the crater of an extinct volcano, writing my life better.

When I started my business back in March 2020, I promised to share the story, warts, wonders and all. It’s mainly a record for me, but other consultants have been kind enough to say that they find this transparency handy too. So, here’s what worked and what didn’t in year two of consultant life.

2021 in numbers

$120,326 revenue

before GST

20 websites

88% conversion rate

on sales enquiries

52% increase in revenue

year on year

45+ blog posts

178 LinkedIn posts

38 superb businesses

as clients

22 case studies

52 slices of cake

(at least)

Things to celebrate

It was a good year. It was a very good year. The achievements I’m most proud of are:
Hitting my financial target and exceeding six figures revenue.
Showing up consistently on LinkedIn, walking my talk and making my business a success with pure content marketing.
Growing my client base and mitigating my risk with more repeat clients. In 2020 I had only one regular client. Now I have nine frequent fliers and adore them all.
Hitting the right mark with my target market. I love working with consultants and coaches. When your personal brand is fundamental to your marketing, evolving core assets like your website and your content strategy is a rich, rewarding journey. It touches on your strengths, your mindset, and the stories you tell yourself. Examining these things can be transformational and it’s a massive privilege to do that work with consultants, coaches and freelancers.

2021work I’m most proud of

**John Rhind website copy**

Funeral directors support people at the most vulnerable time in their lives, when they’ve lost someone they love. Creating a resource for grieving families feels like some of the most meaningful and important work I’ve ever done.

**Accessible Queenstown website copy**

Creating a resource to help people with access needs experience all that the home of adventure has to offer. That’s the good mahi right there. Always grateful to the Destination Queenstown team for their trust in me.

**Abley website copy**

Really this was a 2020 job but seeing this site go live in early 2021 was a blast. My goal was to make the complex, technical work Abley does accessible and relatable. I’m going to toot my own horn and say I did a pretty good job.

**Michael Philpott course content**

Packaging Michael’s public speaking expertise was so much fun. As someone who struggles with public speaking myself, I know how valuable this resource will be. Plus, I discovered a new service that feels joyful and effortless.

**Baby Basics website copy**

At the other end of the consultancy spectrum to Abley, this tiny site for a consultant supporting new parents was a dream to do. Love helping consultants tell their story in a way that feels like them and resonates with their clients.

**Chameleon Creator blog content**

Enjoying the heck out of working with Chameleon to create content for learning and development professionals. These articles are living my content kaupapa, creating content with fresh takes on a topic I absolutely froth over.

I cocked up and learned from it

Of course, not everything went perfectly. And that’s ok.

I’m a big believer in playing to your strengths and celebrating the wins, rather than fixating on your flaws and fails. But I also know it’s important to look at what went wrong and understand why, so you don’t mindlessly repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

So here are my four major fails in 2021, and what I learned from them.

1.Failing to grow my coaching practice

I didn’t do anywhere near as much coaching as I planned to in my 2021 business plan. My goal was to generate 25% of my revenue from coaching. I tried to launch a course and failed (more on that below). That took the wind out of my sails. Plus, I got real busy with writing work.

I learned two things.

Creating learning content takes time and it’s hard to fit in when you’re busy on paid work. My mentor suggested I dedicate a chunk of my year to create learning content. While I love that idea, I can’t afford to do that yet. So, I’m going to buy myself time by being more disciplined about working on my first product in the evenings. My goal is to generate a month’s revenue from that product, so I can take January 2023 off to create my next product. Wish me luck.
I don’t want to grow my business by doing group coaching online or in person. I find group coaching in person really stressful. Products are far more my speed. But I accept that I may need to test products by doing group coaching first. And I also know that sometimes discomfort is necessary to grow.

2.The big course flop

My biggest snafu happened in April 2021 when I relaunched a website copywriting course for consultants, coaches, and freelancers.

It was an evolution of a two-day course I’d run before. It had been well received. People who did it used the things they learned and enjoyed the experience.

So, I figured, let’s do it again. Let’s build out the areas where people wanted to know more. And run it over six weeks instead of two days, because folks also said two days was too intense. Oh, and let’s put the price up a bit, because the first time I ran it was a test at a bargainous rate.

My mate Claire, a Facebook advertising adept, helped me put together a campaign that performed pretty darn fine at driving traffic to my sales page. Cannae remember my click through rate, but it was well above average. Plus, I did all the usual stuff, pimped it on the socials, sent emails, hit up people on my wait list, and asked mates to spread the word.

Page was getting alllllll the traffic. Did one single visitor convert? Did they hell. Two weeks before it was due to launch, I quietly took the page down and slunk off with my tail between my legs.

The product was tried and tested. The traffic to the page and the click through rate from the Facebook adverts showed the offer resonated. But the offer wasn’t converting. Was it too expensive? Was six weeks too long a period? Or was my landing page copy a hot mess (that’s a scary thought for a copywriter to entertain).

I learned that I shouldn’t mess too much with a successful format, and that I should check a proposition with my community before I take it to market.

Because after putting my big girl pants on (months later, but I got there) and asking people for feedback on the fail, their consensus was the new course was too long. People in DIY mode want faster results. I also got some terrific tips on ways to improve my sales page. Stuff that would have been hella handy BEFORE I launched the course.

3.Epic fail on creating my own content

Yes, I showed up regularly on LinkedIn. But when it came to creating my own blog posts, I sucked big time. My goal in 2021 was to produce a blog post every week. Mate … I didn’t even manage one post a month. I’m an embarrassment to the copywriting profession.

I learned not to overbake things. I started a series of consultant interviews in early 2021. SO much fun to do. Valuable learnings. Great feedback from readers. All the wins. But I was making them far too long and detailed, and they took forever to create, so I dropped the series five interviews in when I got busy. But consistency is key. And done is better than perfect. So, I’ll be making these a more manageable format and bringing this series back later in 2022.

I also learned that I really (really) need to follow my own good advice. I advise smart consultants to follow a content strategy, write long form copy first, then slice this up for LinkedIn and e-marketing. Does this work? Hell yes. Do I do it myself. Feck no. I’m not that smart.

4.Putting all my eggs in the same marketing basket

This isn’t so much a fail, as something I now need to address.

I believe and recommend that it’s fine to focus on one marketing channel for the first few years of a new business while you get established. If you’re a solopreneur spreading your content marketing efforts over a myriad of channels is setting yourself up for failure. Pick the platform that’s going to deliver the best results for you (i.e., the channel where your ideal clients are already hanging out) and make that bad boy your bitch.

But having one marketing channel isn’t a smart long-term play, especially if that marketing channel is a social media platform. It’s too risky. You don’t own your social media community. It’s lent to you by the digital gods, and they can take it away overnight. An algorithm change. A transgression that sees your account penalised or removed. A malicious hacker. These things all happen every day.

So, 2022’s the year that I get my e-marketing shit together. I’ve said it. I have to deliver now.

Things I found hard in year two

The honeymoon period is over. I love my business, the people I work with and the work that I do, but it’s work now. That fizzing excitement I had going back after my holidays in January 2021 isn’t there this year. But I know when I get stuck in, I’ll get my mojo back and my momentum going again.

Keeping work life boundaries clean. Work bled into my weekend all the time. And my excuse that I’m establishing my business is wearing thin. I don’t want to miss the last few years of my daughter’s childhood working six days a week. So, what am I going to do about this?

I’m going to:

Put my fees up. I’m a class act and I’m too cheap.
Get more disciplined about delivering work during my work hours, i.e., less faffing on social.
Create a damn product already so I get some passive income. I hate that term, because there’s no such thing, but you know what I mean.
Interrogate what success looks like, because maybe I don’t need to be earning six figures. Maybe other things are more important. Maybe that level of revenue is more about my ego and social pressure that my values. Don’t know the answer to that yet, but I’m going to keep asking that question and try to be honest.

The no work no pay dilemma of freelancing, ambitious financial targets, and under egging my fees, meant I didn’t take a break last year, and I ran hard to achieve my financial goals. That started to tell in the last few months of the year when I began to run out of steam.

Taking on work outside my comfort zone was enjoyable and rewarding but caused stress. This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take on things that challenge me, but I need to be aware it drains my energy working on high stress jobs, so they must have benefits other than financial reward.

How did I get to where I’m at?

If I had to identify the essential steps I’ve taken to grow my business, this is what I’d say.

Connection. This is essential for growth and inspiration. As a solopreneur you have to be careful you don’t become insular and stagnant. Get out and meet new people every week and connect with new people online.

Honing my craft. I write every day. I read every day. I study copywriting. The more I learn, the more I realise I have to learn.

Understanding the difference between business basics and brand. Being professional (i.e., delivering quality work and doing what you say you’ll do, on time and on budget) is the basic stuff you need to do if you want to run a lasting business. You can’t build a memorable brand or differentiate yourself by simply being professional. You build your brand on the stuff that makes you different, the extra value that your clients really dig. Know what that is.

Being unapologetically myself. I started my business with this batshit idea that if I show up in all my nerdy, sweary, enthusiastic yet cynical selfness, enough people will dig my vibe that I’ll be able to build a business. It’s going ok so far.

Creating a good enough website. Given website copy is the main service I sell, I figured my own website should do a half-arsed attempt at following the best practice I espouse to other consultants and coaches. Still don’t have any sodding case studies though.

Committing to content marketing. Showing up regularly on LinkedIn and investing in resources for others. As a result, I never have to cold call, or sell myself. All my business comes to me, and I have an 88% conversion rate on sales enquiries. I’ve invested hundreds of hours in creating content but it’s an investment that pays off and accumulates.

Being mindful of the energy I create. At the risk of sounding like an old hippy, the older I get, the more I realise the energy you create feeds or oppresses those around you. So, I try to make engaging with me and working with me energising and fun.

Taking care of myself first. 2021’s the year I began prioritizing my own wellbeing. More on that below.

The year I started to take self-care seriously

In January last year I went to the doctor because my energy levels were low, and I found myself forgetting things all the time. That visit made me stop taking my health for granted and get a bit more intentional about how I looked after myself.

I educated myself about nutrition, became more mindful about how I eat, and stepped up the exercise. But self-care isn’t just physical. 2021 was the year I committed to putting myself first, investing in my own health and wellbeing before I did anything else in the day. I run six days a week and I also meditate and journal. And every Saturday I take time for me, away from my family, to think, write, and sometimes read trashy novels if that’s what I need that week.

In case you think I’m irritatingly self-disciplined I’d like to confess that meditation and journaling slipped completely in August last year, and I’m about to start getting up at 5:00am again so I can get back on the wagon. I’m reminding myself it’s worth the momentary pain of hauling my protesting carcass out of bed at that hour. Towards the end of last year, I really started to notice the difference not doing those two things. Physical exercise is great, but it’s not enough.

The best cake in Christchurch

The other half of self-care is treating yourself real nice, and my personal love language is cake.

When I said I became more mindful about nutrition I didn’t mean I became a joyless treat vacuum. Screw that.

So, I’d like to end this meditation on year two of consultant life with an subjective guide to the best cake in Christchurch, which is probably the most valuable resource I’ll ever create.

Bon appetit. I hope you’ve found something tasty here to make your time well spent.