In this week’s podcast, I share my results on productivity for the year, what I accomplished and what I learned in hopes that it inspires others and helps them to take an honest look at what they accomplished, celebrate their wins, look at what they could improve, and get ready for the new year.

Resources mentioned

One Funnel Away Challenge http://ellenlikes.com/ofa

Bestseller Book-Title Secrets www.booktitlesecrets.com

15 One-On-One Half Hour Coaching Sessions Currently Available
with purchase

Articles on Why Some People Make Money and Others Don’t
Doing the Same Thing.

Part 1:

www.booksbusinessabundance.com/make-money-or-not

Part 2:
www.booksbusinessabundance.com/make-money-or-not-2

3 Key Points

It’s important to have clarity before jumping into the new year and getting into action.

Don’t compare yourself to others, you are on your own journey in this life.

Do what you can do and let go of judging yourself for what you can’t do and celebrate your wins.

Transcript

Hi it’s Ellen Violette here and this is the very last podcast of 2019.

We’ll be resuming on Monday, the 13^th of January, 2020.

But this week, I’m going to be sharing my numbers, taking inventory for the year and the lessons I learned.

I wanted to share this because there are so many “experts” out there who think they have the answers. And are always spewing platitudes that sometimes, frankly, drive me crazy.

I’ve been a book and business coach for 15 years and the one thing I’ve learned is that I’m always learning and readjusting my beliefs and my goals. And I do not have all the answers. But, this is my honest assessment of what I did and what I learned this year in hopes that by sharing it, it will help you look at yourself and your progress honestly, give yourself a pat on the back where you did well and forgive yourself for any shortcomings, then let ’s move on to a better 2020!

Here’s what I accomplished:

-I learned how to create funnels (There’s a lot more to it as it turns out than people think, but when you learn from the best, which I did,  Russell Brunson, you learn it ALL! So you really have to focused on  it.)

-I built two complete courses and launched them for the holidays (both are now tested and work.)

-I wrote 69 articles (as of the time that I’m recording this )

-I also created 37 podcasts and grew this podcast by four times what it was when I started (back) this year in June.

And I wanted to just tell you guys that if you ever do a podcast or if you have a podcast, my advice is to take the holidays off because listenership plummeted over the holidays.

-I published a book and published the print version of another book that was already out.

And I took my first client who wrote a book that was tied to the promotion of a movie to #1 along with all my other clients. I do have 100% success rate still taking people to #1 on Amazon, and I’ve been doing that since 2013.

-I doubled my one-on-one coaching prices (and expanded the value in my offers)

-I started rebranding; our new site will be booksopendoors.com

-And I still fell short of my goals.

Here’s what I learned:

In the One Funnel Away Challenge, where I was learning to make the funnels, Russell Brunson suggested that you publish 5-7 times a week, whether it’s an article or podcasting, however, you’re getting your content out there. So, I thought I would write an article 5 days a week. I did it one week and thought I’d collapse from exhaustion, I just couldn’t do that much, so I cut back.

I also thought that I would do 50 podcasts this year because I started my podcast in October of last year, I went through the holidays and then I took some time off-not through the holidays, but to the holidays. I took some time off and then I thought I would start again at the beginning of the year. But at the beginning of the year, I just realized that I lacked clarity and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And I had to get my head on straight before I started it up again. So I worked on myself, and before I knew it, it was June. And that’s when I started my podcast again. And the reason it took so long is that it’s challenging to run one, and it was also a lot more challenging to run it and I wanted to make sure that once I started it up again, that I would not falter, so that was important to me.)

I also thought I would have my funnel built by now, but it’s only partially built. The money flow is there, but it still needs some copy and design work done on it. So,  that is definitely my first project for the new year.

I thought I would gain more traction on Twitter, ( I have over 11,600 followers. I was hoping to get to 15,000) but I actually ended up losing followers the more I tweeted and the more I shared about myself, which I’m finding quite interesting-not sure if I’m going to stick with Twitter or not since I’m not really getting a whole lot out of it, but we’ll see.

But what I realized this year is that I really do have to go at my own pace. And it can sometimes be painful when you see other people saying, “I got my funnel up and running and making money in like a month,” and I worked on it for several months and that was hard, but you have to do what you have to do, and I have to run my business and work with clients and write my books, and other things that I do.

And I learned that  I had to trade the hustle and grind for wisdom and working smarter, and that has really been an ongoing process for me the last few years. But, I still want to admit that I pulled one all-nighter to meet a deadline I really wanted to meet. I had been working on my funnel for so long, I wanted to release it for Black Friday and it wasn’t going to be ready unless I did that (especially since) I had a lot of issues with my Internet the last couple of months; it was going down a lot and different things that I had to fix and deal with.

But, (overall)  I am learning that I can only do what I can do. When I started in this business, I used to work really long hours, like 14 hours a day 7 days a week, and then I cut back, and I stopped working on Sundays and then I stopped working after 6 o’clock. And I have to say this year working in my business and keeping the funnel going I did work more hours than I had been in the last few years. But, it was because I had goals I really wanted to meet.

I’ve also learned how to turn down opportunities that are not in alignment with what I want because I find as I get more well-known I am getting more offers and more people wanting me to do things for them and with them. I’m getting better and better at saying “No”. (It’s important to be able to say no when you have goals you want to meet and people are vying for your attention.)

I also learned that I do LOVE podcasting and connecting on a deeper level with my guests. I really enjoy hearing what people have to say, I love learning from them,  and I LOVE the connections that I make because it’s just better than posting and reading their posts and commenting on each other’s posts so that’s been great. And I love being able to repurpose the content. So, I’ve gotten smarter about what shows up in my newsletter and my podcast can also show up on Medium, on LinkedIn, on my blog so I’m not constantly creating new content. I am but not as much as if I were doing everything helter-skelter.

And then building passive income streams, which is something that’s been really important to me ‘cause when I started in this business I was doing my  (3 Days to eBook Cash) workshop, and that was my main source of income, and I would do it two or three times a year and it would be workshop…launch, workshop, recover, launch, workshop recover. It got to be exhausting after doing it for over a decade. So as you get older you find out that you really do want to have more passive income and the truth is that creating it is very time-consuming and it doesn’t pay until it does, and you have to be patient and not compare where you are to where other people are.

One of the things that was able to keep me on track with that was something Russell Brunson said which is that the time is going to pass and the truth is that people go to law school and it takes them seven years, they become a doctor it takes them maybe, I don’t know, twelve or fourteen years, and yet people get online and they try to do a funnel and if it’s not working in two months they want to quit. So once I made the commitment that I was not going to quit, I was going to see it through no matter what, then it was just a matter of making sure I worked on it as much as I could and just keep going until I get there.

So that’s why I say it just whether it’s paying or not, you just keep going, you just have to be patient. And yeah, it’s easy to look at other people and say, “Damn, they’re doing so well, and I’m not there yet, but you just do it anyway.

And there are a lot of people who look at it and go, “Oh my God, you did an amazing amount this year,” even though in my mind it wasn’t enough, so again, that’s where you really just have to go and deal with what’s in front of you.

I know that other people don’t have my wisdom and the results that I get and maybe they can’t charge as much as I do so maybe they can’t double their rates right now. It’s what you feel comfortable with; it’s what you think you have to offer, and sometimes I still get frustrated with what I haven’t accomplished. And I still compare my results to others but not as much as I used to.

And I did a series on why some people make money and other people don’t, and one of the things I talked about was that we all have different talents, skills, and passions. And we also all have different stories: what we were told as kids, what we’ve had to overcome and it’s a journey.

And each of us is on our own journey.  And that’s why you’ve got to learn as I am learning as I go to be kind to yourself.

I’m still learning and I hope that you are too because the more your able to learn and grow, the better you’re going to feel about yourself, the better you are going to feel about your business and the better it’s going to do.

So, that’s really it for this week’s podcast.

Before I go I want to let you go that right now when you purchase

My title-writing course, which is one of the new courses, Bestseller Book-Title Secrets, where I share all my strategies, tips and shortcuts to writing titles that sell! You’ll also get a Bestseller Book-Title Secrets Coaching Session with me, which is a $125 value; there are 15 of those available right now, plus the Secret Title Formula Checklist, 150 power words for title writing, Starter prompts and more! The total value of the course with all the bonuses is $429 and with the coaching session $554. And the actual price of it right now is just $97. So if you interested in that go to www.booktitlesecrets.com to register. Then you’ll get an email (with course details) and it will tell you what to do next.

Then I’ll be back here next year!

And if you’ve missed any of the episodes, this is a great time to catch up.

Till next time bye-bye.

THANKS FOR LISTENING!

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Until next time!