Investing in your own business feels scary, right?

You always have hope that it’s going to pay off and be worth it, but you rarely know with any certainty what the return on your investment is going to be.

This year as interest rates started to rise, the weekly grocery bill went bonkers, and the cost to fuel-up the car made me wonder whether I should ride a bike (bikes and I do not have a good relationship… so this was an alarming thought!)…. I began to second guess some very large investments I’d been making in my business.

Across the year I invested in:

• New branding
• Virtual Assistant
• Podcast Publicist
• Contract Copywriter
• Online Learning
• Bookkeeper
• An Accountability Coaching Group

Full disclosure: These investments exceeded $30K. While some I could consider “operational expenses”, the greatest investments by far fell into the category of “professional development”.

But here’s what I learnt. All of those investments paid off many times over because of the last item on that list: my Accountability Coaching Group.

Because of that one professional development investment, I’m rounding out the year in the best financial position my business has ever been in.

I’m guilty (like we all are) of always serving my clients before serving myself. My accountability group helped me change that. Every month this incredible group of women—from such a diverse background of businesses—would show up for one another. We’d learn from one another. And we’d hold ourselves—and each other—accountable for the goals we were wanting to achieve.

Here are the goals that I’d set throughout 2022 as part of my accountability group, and how accountable I managed to be to them. 

1. Give my brand a “glow-up” in alignment with my business growth. 

Thanks Luminous Lines! This did indeed happen and I LOVE it.

2. Have 3 days per week for client-facing work, and 1 day per week for my own business priorities.

I tried! And I definitely improved as the year went on. I’d say I managed this one week each month initially, but twice / month over the past few months.

3. Spend 2 days per month creating my own content.

I’m giving myself a “glass half full” because I managed 1 day / month. But that one day was enough to batch the majority of my marketing content each month, which was the goal. Next year I’m going for 2 days!

4. Hire a VA for all of my marketing scheduling.

Thank you Virtual Avenue! She is the reason that content batching day turned into scheduled content across 4 social media channels and an email newsletter every week since June 1.

5. Build brand awareness & be featured on 4 podcasts.

Brand awareness is a work in progress (need that extra day in my week to focus on my own business priorities!). But thanks to Publicity X Christina, I’ve been booked on 8 podcasts and will have recorded 4 of them by the end of this week. Another “glass half full” result that I’m proud of.

6. Spend 1 month in Bali.

It was really only 2.5 weeks, but I’m giving this intention a big TICK because it felt like the most wild, random, out-there intention when I verbalised it back in July. The fact that it became a reality just 3 months later is still something I’m processing, to be honest!

7. End the year with Q1 of 2023 mapped out.

Yes indeed! The calendar is planned and I know exactly how many bookings I can still take… and am trying to not over-schedule myself like I did this year!

8. Increase my revenue by 50%.

This one blows my mind, because the true answer is a revenue increase of 83% on last year.

I share this with you because I know it’s a big deal to invest in yourself when it comes to business. We seem to be able to justify “operational expenses” much more easily than we can professional development expenses.

But what if those professional development expenses were actually the ones that proved to provide the greatest return on investment…. 

What if 2023 was the year you made the biggest investment in yourself? What could that help you achieve for your business?