My Monthly Review - December 2023
I have been publicly sharing my monthly business reviews since January 2022 (scroll to the bottom of this post to see my others).
This is a reset process I go through on the first of every month to review the month that has just been and to plan for the month ahead.
I highly encourage all of my clients and students to do a similar process each month as it helps keep you accountable and see what is working and isn’t working in your business.
If you want a free checklist to use you can grab that here:
If you aren’t regularly tracking what is happening in your business then it’s very difficult to assess what’s working, what isn’t working, what progress you are making (or not making!) and how you can improve.
My review process normally takes me about 20 minutes to complete each month and when I look back on my previous entries I’m so grateful that I have a record of what has been happening so I can look back on how far I have come!
A quick note before we start…
I share this information publicly because I’m a completely open book and want to encourage and inspire other women and mothers about what is possible with their businesses.
When I was starting my ow business I used to follow a few business owners who did something similar to this and I found it hugely inspiring and helpful as it showed me what was possible in my own business.
However, I’m aware that some people find the sharing of business results and revenue numbers triggering, so if that’s you then I suggest you skip this post and jump in to some of my other free content instead :)
Here’s my review from December 2023.
Looking back - review last month
Revenue
Revenue for December 2023 was $219,890
Expenses
Paid advertising: $41,941
Virtual Assistants: $4,704
Software Subscriptions: $960
Social Metrics
Total student enrolments across all online courses and templates: 27,898
Email/newsletter subscribers: 64,152
Instagram - TLDC: 135K
Instagram - CLR (not currently active): 11.2K
Instagram - SketchUp (not currently active): 11.8K
YouTube - CLR (not currently active): 12.1K
TLDC Facebook Page Follows: 29K
Facebook Group: 19.8K
Pinterest Follows: 12.12K
Pinterest monthly views: 895.6K
LinkedIn Follows Personal: 979
TLDC Website visits: 40K
TLDC Bounce Rate: 80.63%
TikTok (not currently active): 3168
Threads (not currently active): 11.7K
Twitter (not currently active): 193
Top 3 Wins Last Month
2024 planning
Downtime and holidays with my boys
Best ever December revenue month
Notes from Last Month
What went well, what didn’t go well…
This has been quite a low-key work month for me as I’ve been spending time with my family and enjoying our summer holidays, Xmas and all the other things we’ve had on.
Despite this it’s been a very strong revenue month (once again showing the power of putting in consistent work throughout the year and building a strong brand and community that then just works on autopilot to generate sales when you want to take a bit of downtime).
My idea of downtime, however, is probably quite different to most people. I NEVER take a holiday from work. Even when we were away in Byron this month I still did a few hours of work every day, to support my students, create some content and just keep on top of emails and DMs etc. I choose to work like this as I don’t want full-time staff in my business that I have to manage. The downside of my approach is that I have to work every day - which is a choice I make. I love working and I love what I do so I’m not at all phased by this at all. Getting a few hours of admin and content creation done, even when on holidays, isn’t an issue for me at all. I’m always up before my family anyway so I get all this done before they are awake and then we can enjoy the rest of the day together. My boys also understand that the work I do supports everything they have - e.g. the holiday they are on, the school they go to, their Xmas presents etc. - so they know that me working is what allows them to enjoy their life. I also explain to them that other parents normally work outside the home. Even though I do need to work every day, I can do this from my home and be interrupted by them whenever they need or want something from me. Sometimes Archie (11yo) just comes in and sits on my knee or the chair next to me while I am doing bits and pieces of work and will ask me questions about what I’m doing. How good is that for teaching young kids about growing a business and building a financial asset. We often talk about what it means to have amazing customer service, what sorts of sales tactics I’m using - he has lots of questions and I love answering them and teaching him bits and pieces about what I’m doing.
Anyway - I got side tracked!
So I think this month is going to be the last of my monthly reviews that I’m going to publish publicly.
I’ve now been doing this process for 2 years. I started publicly publishing my reviews in January 2022 and I’ve really enjoyed sharing these openly for the past few years.
These reviews have been a massive game changer for my business as each month as it’s a chance to:
be honest with myself about whether I’ve actually got the things done that I said I was going to do
review what’s worked well in my business and what hasn’t gone so well
give me a chance to document everything I’ve been working on in quite a lot of detail
share things openly with my community in the hope of them learning something they could take into their own business
inspiring others about what’s possible when you focus, provide value and work really hard on something for a long period of time.
I also now have a fantastic snapshot in Notion of all the months I’ve been tracking, which shows my consistency, discipline and business growth over time.
In a few days I’ll write my full 2023 business review, which I’ve also been doing for a few years and then after that I will be just continuing these reviews as a private record for myself, instead of publishing them openly.
The reason I’ve decided to do this is:
I am starting to feel a bit icky about sharing my numbers publicly. I wanted to always try and inspire others, but I think my back catalogue of 2 years worth of business reviews will be sufficient to show people what’s possible without having to continue with sharing all my numbers so openly
I am getting too many ‘copy cats’ these days. I love being open about what I’m working on - but by being so transparent I am also allowing the copy cats to get an inside look into my future plans and projects, which I’m no longer comfortable sharing quite so openly.
I hate looking like I’m trying to show off about how much money I’m making or how well my business is doing. A lot of people are finding it hard to grow their business and I would rather offer my support with strategies and tactics, than just showing data that perhaps makes me look like I’m just trying to show how amazing I am.
Sharing my numbers so publicly also puts a bit of a target on my back. I am continuing to grow a decent sized community and there are some weirdos out in the world. I don’t really need them knowing the ins and outs of my earnings. I also sometimes think about the safety of my boys in this regard as well.
So for all those reasons I have decided that after two full years of these reviews, this will be my last public one.
Here’s a bit about what happened in December to round off 2024.
BUSINESS:
December has historically been the lowest revenue month in my business. In 2021 we did about $60K revenue, in December 2022 we did $96K but this past December has been one of my higher revenue months with $219K.
In the past I have only ever run one sale per year (over Black Friday), but this year I decided that was a stupid business decision (because at the end of the day sales actually work - otherwise why would businesses do them all the time!).
So now I’ve decided to run three sales per year instead of just one - and one of these three sales is a short, one day sale over Boxing Day. This sale generated more than we made last December in just a couple of days, so it was worth doing that, and meant that some of my community could purchase at a discount and get things ready for their business in 2024.
So from now on we will keep running this sale in December to just boost things a little.
We have also spent a little more on advertising this month, which has likely contributed to the higher sales numbers as well.
Apart from that I didn’t do all that much in December as I’ve been enjoying summer holidays and downtime with my family. I just did enough work each day to keep things ticking over and make content to help my community (but not as much content as I would normally make).
I have been seriously considering finally launching my podcast, which is something I’ve been thinking about for YEARS now. Having removed some other things from my plate (which I talked more about in this post - https://www.thelittledesigncorner.com/blog/rethinking-my-business-2024) it has freed up some time for me to work on some other creative projects that I’ve been wanting to do but not had the headspace for. I asked my community on Instagram about their interest in this the other day and there was resoundingly positive feedback on me doing this - so perhaps 2024 will be the year!
PERSONAL:
After 5 years of training in the park with my old trainer I decided to make a change this month and left that training program to rejoin a traditional gym. So far I’m loving the change and the decision I made. I have written myself a strength training program and will be working for the next 12 weeks on progressive overload. My split currently looks like this (for anyone interested):
Monday - PUSH
Tuesday - PULL
Wednesday - LOWER
Thursday - HITT (e.g. run, Peloton)
Friday - UPPER
Saturday - LOWER
Sunday - Rest
Each day I also still do my 5.5km walk - which is more for mental health, a chance to learn something new (as I always listen to an audiobook or podcast) and also just to get my 10K steps in each day.
Nutrition wise I’m still focused on eating as much protein as I can - my goal is 150g per day (each person needs different requirements depending on their goals and weight etc. but that is working for me for my goal of gaining muscle and strength).
I’ve just bought an air fryer and a rice cooker as I have a goal in 2024 to make a different meal for my family each night. My family are all quite healthy and my 15 yo is also keen to gain muscle so we all eat pretty healthy and with high protein/card needs. I am looking forward to making lots of healthy meals for us all in 2024 🙂
Another goal for 2024 is to get my sleep under control. I’ve stopped getting up at 4am for the moment but my body clock just wakes at 5am anyway - so that’s when I get up. I have just bought a light blocking sleep mask, which I’m hoping will help the quality of my sleep (and perhaps allow me to sleep a little later than 5am). I am also going to start meditating at night before bed and get back to reading before bed instead of scrolling on my phone (always a constant battle I’m struggling with as I love my evening scrolling time!).
Our house build has made lots of progress this month - the flooring is in, the staircase went in, the bathrooms have had their underfloor heating and screed put down and tiling is starting in a few days. Can’t wait to move in around April or so this year!
Paul and I had a great night away for our 18 year weeding anniversary in early December at the new Capella hotel in Sydney city.
Our family also went for our annual week away in Byron, staying at Elements of Byron. This was our 4th year in a row doing the same holiday and I’ve already booked again to do it next year 🙂
In January I’m planning on taking my 11yo for a night away at Capella as well - some Mummy/Son time together. He wants to visit the new Lego store in the city and we can swim in the pool, have a nice dinner and go down to Circular Quay to have a walk around and get some Messina. He’s so excited about the chance to do something special together - so that will be fun. I need to work out something similar to do with my 15yo but I’m pretty sure he would have zero interest in doing a Mummy/Son night out with me these days 😭 Time flies past so quickly so I want to make the most of why my youngest son still wants to spend time with me 🥰
So another solid month of consistency, progress and plenty of family time.
January will be another slow business month as the boys will be on school holidays for another month - so I just get what I can done and don’t get too stressed about not really making progress on projects etc.
If you would like to follow my business journey you can read my other monthly reviews via the links at the bottom of this page.
And if you would like to download my free Notion template to conduct your own monthly business review you can do that here:
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
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Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
