Hard Fun: my brutally honest 2025 business review

Transcript

Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life. I’m your host Brook McCarthy and I’m a business coach, trainer and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Camaragal people here in Sydney, Australia. In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love and money, magnifying your impact and doing work you feel born to do. We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work, and the meanings we derive from work.

Are you a nosy person? Like I am, absolutely no shame. I am professionally nosy. I love asking questions. There is no question that I won’t ask, especially if you’re paying me. So this episode is especially for the nosy people. It is especially for those who like the details. So if you’re a bit of a geek, and you love geeking out on details, then grab a pen, grab a pencil, open up the notes app on your phone because this is the one for the geeks. Yes, let’s get stuck in. I’m going to try and keep it useful and not get too granular so that it becomes too dry. But I want to do a proper debrief of 2025, the good, the bad and the ugly. This was not an easy year.

When I was trying to land on a kind of a pithy summary of what 2025 was in retrospect, I landed on this phrase, hard fun, which is actually a work in progress article, has been hard to revision number five. It’s a hard article to write for some reason. Hard fun is hard to write. So I had 73 days of holiday in 2025.

It was a great year for holidays, starting off in January, 2025. We had two little breaks with friends and family. We went on two road trips, both of them North. went to Byron Bay area for the first time in God knows how many years. Oh, such a beautiful part of Australia. And it’s such a, such a great nostalgic place too. spent a lot of time there when I was a young hippie.

But I hadn’t actually been visiting for years. So I hope to go back in 2026. I will, I will go back. Uh, I also had a little family and friends holiday in Anna Bay. Shout out again to Port Stephens. Another shout out, Byron Bay, Port Stephens, beautiful areas. Anna Bay is part of Port Stephens. are.

Bays and beaches. It’s just, it’s so gorgeous. And I think Sydney side is a spoil and they do not appreciate that area. So I started pretty cruisy in January and then in February, I really got stuck into work and no body was buying. Nobody was buying. And I was doing a big tap dance. was trying my hardest to sell and promote and nothing was happening.

And I swear to God, it is not in my imagination, but when there was a kind of a tension in there, cause I think I’m pretty good at reading the cultural zeitgeist. I don’t read the news religiously every day, but I do kind of keep up generally. like, feel like I’ve got a handle on the cultural zeitgeist of the moment. And it seemed like everybody was holding their breath until finally March 28th.

when the Australian elections were called for May. And then it seemed like almost overnight, almost, you know, the snap of a fingers, people started to buy and I did a big exhale because that first quarter of the year was really, really hard. I had a little trip. I marched in Mardi Gras in March, which was so fun. It was a bucket list item. I’m very, very happy and I’d love to do it again.

Uh, I had some fun at a storytelling night, just a kind of a creative thing. I went up to barrel for a night to see a fabulous gig, fat boy, slim, full of middle-aged people, just like me, partying the heads of dancing like a nutcases. I had three nights in Melbourne with a business buddy. Shout out to Alyssa from flourish online. And what else? I went and had another holiday in April. So that was a great.

uh April’s a great time to go holidaying because there’s so much, you know, public holidays, school holidays, so many things going on. So 13 nights away. And then July, I had 18 nights overseas in Bali, which was my first time to Bali. Two nights in Canberra for a creative writing masterclass. I say that because I’m going to come back to that story later. So hold onto your hats.

Uh, I went to Melbourne and Geelong in August again with business buddies again for a business conference. And then, um, there were four nights away in September, one to the country for a family reunion and one to the Gold Coast in Queensland. I went to Gold Coast as well as no, that was the September in October. I went to Sri Lanka. Um, I’ll come back to that again later.

And then I had my mom’s 70th in November and then three nights away over Christmas in Thorol, Thorol, Thorol for my sister’s Christmas she hosted. So that was fun because for once I didn’t have to host. Yay. It had been so many years of hosting, which is heaps fun, but very, very exhausting. So to kind of give you bit of a summary.

Actually, before I go into the summary, I want to go into what I sold because this is business after all. January, I sold a $39 private podcast. We’re going to be talking about audio events and private podcasts. It was called Payrise. I sold 19 of them at $39. I made $624 and you might be thinking, so what? Well, one, at least one of those people that bought that

$39 thing, that was the first time she’d ever purchased from me before. And she is now in my year long Momentum Mastermind. So the people most likely to buy are the people that have already bought. I’m going to talk a little bit more about low cost products, low cost events and what they mean for business and especially for my business in 2025.

So in February, I did the Life’s a Pitch Party. was my ninth, I believe, my ninth free content event. It had a little upsell in it, which is the mentoring circle. And that was seven sales at $200. So not a huge volume of sales, but again, swirling people closer, swirling people in. That was designed in this instance to sell.

the Hustle and Hurt program. Now, the Hustle and Hurt program I have been launching for 10 years. It’s been my flagship program and I was pretty sure in 2024 that I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to be doing this for that much longer. I was just kind of starting to feel it, you And in January 2025, I had a

planning session with a couple of uh lovely people, Kate and Faith, who worked for me. And we sat around my pool and we were talking things through and I was kind of, you know, asking them questions and we were brainstorming ideas and bouncing things around. And Kate, who’s worked with me and known me for many, many, many, many, many, many years, said to me, why, you know, I think hustle and heart is not a thing anymore. Like I don’t think it’s bringing you joy.

And I’m like, I decided that I was going to go ahead with this last launch and it was the worst launch that I’ve ever had of the hustle and heart program. And this is after 10 years. Now I’ve had all kinds of different launches. I’ve done all kinds of different things to promote it. I’ve tried lots of different kinds of launch events, lots of different ways of doing it.

And I have sold quite successfully for many, many years using pretty much only email, only email. So only promoting it to my email list, maybe some social media posts, but not much, you know, all the way through to when I put the program on autopilot for 2020, cause I was so busy in 2020 and I just did not have the mental capacity for launching. So I engaged a Facebook ads consultant.

Shout out to Nat Alamo and she helped me with Facebook ads. She did my Facebook ads and we put money in one end and out the other end came $3,000. It was $3,000 at the time. $3,000 sales people would purchase through Facebook and Instagram ads. So that was great, but I’ve done all kinds of different things. So you think I’d know what I’m doing, right? You think I would know a few things.

But this is the nature of 2025. was very, very unpredictable, very unpredictable. Case in point, the other thing that I did in February 2025 is I ran a face-to-face event called Catalyst. Now I ran Catalyst for the first time the prior November. So November we sold out. The room was full. It was awesome. Loved it very much.

great group of people and the moment I do something, the moment I do something new, I cannot wait to do it a second time. I’m like running to do it a second time because I know that it’s going to be, you know, 87 % better. That’s a totally made up step. So I’m like, okay, sold out in November. I’ll wait till February when people are well and truly back at work, well and truly back at school. When I’ve got a little bit of breathing room after life’s a pitch. I think it was after life’s a pitch.

And I’ll do it again. Well, I struggled. I really struggled to sell spots. And yes, I sold spots and yes, I ran it. And yes, it was a lovely group of people, of course, but it was hard. It was hard to sell. So again, that kind of speaks to the unpredictability of 2025. In fact, it really felt like everybody was holding their breath in Australia.

Because I think I’m pretty good at the cultural zeitgeist, right? Everybody’s holding their breath and waiting and waiting and waiting until the election. So what else did I sell in February? I had a gig with Sydney university. did a guest lecturing spot. I lectured on pricing strategy and biopsychology to the MBA students, which was awesome. It was also where I went to uni.

In March, I sold Reputation Revolution. This is a two day thing, $147. Didn’t sell well, didn’t hardly sell at all. I did have two paid people, which was, you know, pretty strange considering I thought it was a great topic and I thought the price was pretty good as well. So what else? I sold Ignite in May. Now Ignite was

Initially going to sell in March. So my plan was promote February stuff, know, finish the hustle and heart launch, finish catalyst, finish lobster pitch, and then turn left and start promoting Ignite. And I had an interest list. I think there were about 10 or 20 people on that interest. It’s not a huge interest list, but still I thought, you know, this is a goer, this is what’s happening. And it didn’t work.

So I had an early bird price. And now this is a really, really easy strategy that I’ve employed for many, many years now. It’s straightforward to do. And it massively reduces your risk when it comes to selling. So if you’re nervous about selling, if the idea of like, oh my God, is this financially viable or not? Firstly, when I was doing a lot more face-to-face stuff where I was flying myself around and it was financially risky.

I always ran an early bird price discount. here’s a couple of quick tips, cause these are the two most common mistakes that people make. First, they put the early bird discount expiry way too close to the start date, which kind of undermines the whole early bird point. And secondly, they don’t make the discount significant enough to actually motivate people to buy now and not buy later.

So when the early bird expired for Ignite and I had no sales, I was like, okay, this ain’t working. What am I going to do? And what I did is I just rescheduled the date and I doubled down on marketing, specifically social media marketing, but also of course, email. And I got those spots filled. So that was a success. May Ignite was a success and I was very happy about that.

But one of the things that I did to promote it is I had an audio event, which was six days called expert to influence. ran it through WhatsApp. think it was WhatsApp. Um, it might’ve been telegram, but I’m pretty sure it was WhatsApp. All right. So that was May, June, June. did, uh, a. uh

masterclass, did a free audio content event and I launched a brand new Momentum Mastermind. So this was a really interesting thing because this was my third iteration. I find this interesting. I hope you find this interesting. It was my third iteration of

pretty much the same idea. And it’s obviously an idea that’s been refined, but ostensibly I had this idea eight or so years ago and this is iteration number three. So God knows, let’s say eight years ago, I don’t know exactly when, about eight years ago, I decided what I wanted to do is I wanted to get people together in a room every quarter. I wanted to get the same group of people, same group of business owners.

And so I flew myself to Melbourne every quarter and I ran it in Sydney as well. And I got groups into a meeting room. got business owners together and we would plan out our next 90 days because when I first heard about sprint planning, when I first heard about these quarterly 90 day planning things, I was thrilled. Thrilled I tell you, because I have never been somebody that looks that

far in the distance. I’m not somebody that has ever, ever, ever had a five or 10 year plan. You know, I don’t see the point of going into great granular detail and I’ve worked with enough business owners by now to see where planning can tip into procrastinating planning. Like yes, absolutely planning makes sense. Yes, absolutely. We need to plan ahead. No, we’re not going to get much done if we don’t. And

Any more than 90 days really is kind of a bit of a fool’s errand. Like it tips into procrastination. It tips into a waste of time. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the big things like you’re planning an overseas trip. Sure. You might need longer than 90 days. Absolutely. You want to plan out a book? Yep. Absolutely. You’re going to need perhaps longer than 90 days, but you don’t have to be going into granular detail on things for longer than 90 days. So I love this idea.

And I love the idea of accountability. I do really well with accountability. My clients do well with accountability. Everybody needs accountability except for those weird intrinsically motivated type A people. Good luck to them. They are dominating, you know, the media and bossing us around, but most of us are slobs. Most of us need accountability. We need external accountability.

Which is why Momentum has an accountability coach and I’ve got a different accountability coach in Audacious. Shout out to Claire, shout out to Kate. So I decided I was going to launch this thing in June, but I had a holiday book for July. And one thing that I had been seeing over and over and over and over again in the first half of 2025 was that people were

dragging their heels, they were buying, yes, but they seem to need a hell of a lot more touch points, a hell of a lot more marketing, a hell of a lot more time. They needed a lot more time than they have done in the past. And so the experiment that I was thinking to run with Momentum is can I give people a really big heads up? Can I have an extra long launch campaign? Now keeping in mind.

That most launch campaigns that I’ve run over the last, I don’t know, 10 or so years, sometimes they’ve been as little as five days. Like they’ve been super, super short or maybe as long as, you know, two weeks or maybe three in the olden days, maybe three, but you know, certainly nothing like this. But I was like, okay, well, it ain’t working to give people these kind of short.

Uh, didn’t feel like it was working, you know, evidence was suggesting it wasn’t. So how can I switch things up? How can I make it so that people have got plenty of time to consider whether or not they’re going to purchase? So June, I ran another audio event, scalable stackable recurring revenue.

ah I have got this now available for instant downloads. So if you want this private podcast, I turned it into a private podcast. You can check that out on my website or make sure that I link it up in the show notes. And then at the end of that audio event, and it was a three day audio event, a few days later, I ran a masterclass webinar called create massive momentum with scalable stackable recurring revenue.

And I launched, the doors were open. The doors were officially open folks. had a sales page, Bob’s your uncle, off we go. had four sales. I think all of those four were for people that already knew me. Yes. The first 10 people that purchased and joined us inside Momentum Mastermind were people that I had worked with before. Bar one. So everybody who bought Momentum Mastermind, first 10.

had already worked with me in the past. The one person who hadn’t had purchased, not purchased, she had participated in many things. She’d done Life’s a Pitch, the Life’s a Pitch party a couple of times. You know, she downloaded various lead magnets. She knew people that I knew. She’d had conversations with other people about me and they’d said nice things, which all

You know, to show that there was a very, there was a lot of mistrust in 2025. People needed a shit ton more time and more trust before they took the plunge in something, which is all well and wonderful. You know, if you’ve been in business for 17 years, 18 years in February, like I have, but it’s, you know, it makes it a hell of a lot harder when your business is brand new. Right.

So I did those promotions. A lot of those early people, those first four people paid in full, which gave me a great kind of confidence. And then in July off, I went to Bali for 18 nights. I had 150th birthday party. were three women turning 50. We flew in from England, Australia, and New Zealand. And I’m sorry to say folks that we were.

The barley bogans. Yes, we were the barley bogans.

Had so much fun, such a funny group, such a funny trip, really good fun. Anyways, I also went to Canberra for a creative writing masterclass for two nights. Um, like I said, I will come back to that later. I’ll mention that again. All right. So I get back, uh, it’s now August and I’m like, right, let’s fill this thing. I want this thing filled. I’ve got four sales. I want another six. I want 10 people. That was my goal. I wanted 10 people.

So I did the first thing, which was set some dates, set some timelines, set some deadlines. And one of those natural deadlines in August was early bird price was expiring and we were getting together on August 20. So momentum mastermind includes one quarterly face-to-face get together much like we used to do way back when in Sydney and Melbourne. We now do it in Sydney only and online. I had about.

Do we have, I’m trying to remember. think we had about four people joined us online and there was about six people in the room in Sydney on August 20. So it was a nice little group and we did our quarterly sprint planning and then I had 10 people. So I hit the target, I hit the goal of 10 people. Now again, with the trust recession, I was saying,

2025, know, some smart person coined this phrase, the trust recession. What does that mean? Well, it means that, you know, because there’s so much AI now and there’s so many dodgy things going on in the world of business and also, you know, consumers are sophisticated. We’re sophisticated. We’ve probably purchased a few courses or programs or worked with a few coaches that have

promises the world and failed to even light a spark. So we’ve probably accrued some bad experiences and we’re cautious. We’re a lot more cautious. So the face-to-face get-togethers once a quarter are super, super useful for that purpose, right? And because people are committing for a whole year, it has a few different things. The first thing it does is it means that everybody can relax a little.

If I’m selling a short program like Ignite is a six week program, we meet twice weekly. You know, there can be a different energy when you’re doing these kind of short, sharp kind of programs because people are like, oh my God, oh my God, I need to get return on investment. need to show up. need to pay attention. I need to do my homework. need to get, you know, there can be a bit kind of a bit wired. whilst, you know, I think that’s a uh much better attitude to have than somebody that just purchases and then ghosts.

It’s also really nice to just kind of exhale and go, you know what? I’m locked in for a year. know what I’m doing. I know where I’ve got to be. I’ve got access. I don’t have to panic. I don’t have to think that my ass is on fire. Um, and I’ve got these four get togethers, you know, to look forward to. So we had drinks and dinner afterwards. Um, you know, we had a lot of fun. So.

September, September, I ran a collaboration. was called Reputation to Revenue. No doubt you would have heard about it on a prior episode. can’t remember which one, but we talked about, or we spent a lot of time talking about reputation and how to turn that into uh offerings ecosystem. So that’s, that was my part. I taught the offerings ecosystem, which is part of Momentum. Now to promote.

Everything in September, I had the new consumer rising webinar because I can’t help myself. uh love creating names, good names, hopefully good names. And I also did the life’s a pitch party again. Um, I had the upsell again. had the, um, mentor circle. And this time life’s a pitch was promoting two different things because I’m quite, um, keen on experimenting. You might’ve noticed.

And I also like to change things up. If something’s working like life’s a pitch, I’m going to keep doing it. You know, one of the things that I, I recommend and I teach people to do inside Momentum is to switch up the things that you’re promoting. So you can, you can run content events. call these content events. They used to be called challenges. Uh, you could call a webinar, a content event. You know, a content event is something that is kind of happening live.

probably online and it involves content. So my audio events are also content events, but you can swap the thing that you’re promoting at the end. So rather than kind of trying to reverse engineer your, you know, take your offering and reverse engineer it into the perfect lead magnet that’s going to lead people into the offering that it’s designed to promote. You can just take the pressure off, can’t you? And you can take, you can do the fun creative thing.

And you can just swap out what you’re promoting. So the laughter pitch party, I’ve done about nine times and I promoted different things at the end of it. And I promoted hustle and heart program. I promoted uh Audacious. I promoted Momentum and I promoted Ignite. So in September I did both. had one page about Ignite and one page about Audacious. The next thing that happened is we ran Ignite in October.

So I got somebody new inside from Life’s a Pitch who came into Audacious knowing that accessing Audacious means that she also accesses Momentum and she also accesses Ignite because Audacious, sorry Audacious is my higher level mastermind. It’s more expensive than Momentum. It gives you access to my entire back catalog of trainings.

including any live training such as Ignite and access to the Momentum Mastermind as well. So some people go from Momentum into Audacious because they want that one-to-one coaching with me. And some people finish Audacious and go down into Momentum. It’s all good. So I sold Ignite in October.

um I was promoting it in the lead up to October. I was promoting it in September, of course. Again, I had the wait list. I had the interest list, but I also went overseas in the middle of that. So I went to Sri Lanka ah with one night in Singapore on the way there. And then I got back to Sydney and literally 24 hours later, or maybe it was more like 40 hours later, less than two days anyway.

I was speaking at the own conference, out to OneRoof. They are awesome. You should join. Best membership, great farm. And I was speaking on the topic of pricing, communicating value and pricing. So I was straight back into it. Late October, I returned and I was straight back into it. I ran design your 2026 offerings ecosystem for 400K.

For the very first time, was a two-hour master class or rather workshop, because it’s really quite hands-on. um It’s less learning, more doing. And I’ve expanded it to two and a half hours. I’m running it again, February 11. I expanded it to two and a half hours just to give us a little bit more breathing space, a little bit more opportunity to kind of discuss things, talk, consider, brainstorm.

You know, do, cause we use a tool, we use a pretty big sophisticated tool that I’ve developed to actually create our own offerings ecosystem and to start plotting our profit plan as well. So I did another Momentum launch and I got another 10 people into Momentum Mastermind in November. We got together November 28 in Sydney. So I had two lead-ins. had the.

Design Your 2026 Offerings Ecosystem, which is online. And I had the face-to-face get together November. We had five people that came November 28, just to Sydney. And then four of those joined Momentum Mastermind. So they came along just to see, you know, is this what I want? Do I like this? Is this person legit? Do I like these people? And then they went on and purchased.

and joined us committed for the year, which was awesome. And that’s the whole point of selling it separately because I appreciate that. You know, it might be a large investment for some people, although I think it’s excellent value and it’s not just that it’s a whole year, right? So you want to get it, do a vibe check. You want to make sure these are your people. You don’t want to end up in any weird cult situation. ah

You know, do you due diligence, come along. I’m doing this again. February 20, are coily, co-dearly invited. This is your invitation. I will ensure that the link is in the show notes. So that’ll be February 20, 2026. And then I had December and December, you know, was busy. felt busy. had a VIP day booked. That’s two days rather, VIP strategy session book with a.

client who had come from Momentum and she has since upgraded to Audacious. Shout out to Crystal from Child Support Consultants. She’s awesome. She actually did the Life’s a Pitch challenge, the free challenge many, many years ago. think it was four years ago, something like that. And she pitched and got her very first client and opened her business through Life’s a Pitch. So that is cool.

is very cool. I love that a lot. It’s so fun when the first person says yes and you realize, oh my God, I believe I’ve just started a business. How fun is that? I think I’ve done everything that I sold in 2025. highlights, let’s go. Momentum, mastermind, hands down was the highlight, especially up to the first half of the year, because as you heard,

As you heard, the first half of the year really felt like I was dragging my ass, you know, and tap dancing and doing jazz hands and trying and trying and trying and just was not cracking through. Weirdly enough, and again, it’s not really weird if you think about it, the trust recession, absolutely definitely evidenced in the amount of sales calls.

that I did. So 2023, 37 sales calls, weirdly 2024 also 37 sales calls, 2025, 21 sales calls and my conversion rate dropped. So a lot of those people who booked sales calls in 2025 with me and look, if you want to spend multiple thousands with me, I’m always happy.

get on a sales call, like if you’re sending me emails or DMs or you know, seriously flirting with the sales page, then come on, like let’s have a call. I’m not going to be weird. I’m certainly not going to appear differently to than how I do on podcasts or social media or email. Like this is me. I’m not, you know, I’m not some weird imposter, but it was almost impossible to get people to book. And the people that did book, the reason why the conversion rate was lower.

was that they were kind of randos who came through Google or chat GPT. And they didn’t sign up to an aim to a lead magnet. And that would be definitely something I would recommend you do. If you are seriously considering investing with somebody like to actually buy something low cost or to.

sign up for a lead magnet because you can get a real sense of people there. Like the amount of lead magnets I’ve signed up for where I’m like, wow, this is a whole bunch of nothing. And obviously I’m not going to go on and buy from that person, right? I’m going to unsubscribe. But these people weren’t on my list. They were just kind of kicking the tires and in most cases they ghosted, which is always fun. What a mature thing to do as an adult. Ghost people, great.

So anyway, I was talking about highlights and I got sidetracked into talking about tire kickers and ghosting. Highlights, momentum, yes, way fun. Travel, so much fun. It was a lot of fun being creative. I have not been holding back so much. If I have an idea and I’m, you know, loving myself sick because of this great idea, I’m just bloody doing it.

And I am not an idiot about these things. I do realize I’m making more work. I do realize I’m making more complications, which is why I have the momentum effect system. And I use Asana, but we also have the momentum effect system in Notion. So some people have the system installed in Notion for them, you know, on, install that on their behalf or we install Asana. So I’ve done this so many times now. I just go through the box.

go through the list and I go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, I delegate some pieces to my assistant, but otherwise, you know, it’s pretty straightforward. I know how to do it quickly. know how to do it well. I’ve got things automated. I’ve got the tech set up is all pretty smooth. So I can focus on the fun part and the valuable part, which is creativity, the fun things, right? So 2025.

As always, I did a lot of introductions. love introducing people to other people. I’m slowing down on doing that to people that I don’t work with. I used to be really generous and I used to introduce anyone to anyone, but it’s burnt me a few times and I have, you know, had a few experiences where I have not been thanked. have been ghosted and that, you know, like it, I’m just, I’m a bit over it.

So I’m not doing that. But if you’re working with me, 100%, there’s nobody that I wouldn’t introduce you to if I thought they were gonna be a great fit for you. So it was a joy watching people develop friendships, develop collaborations. Momentum has become its own ecosystem of business where people are hiring people and like getting business from each other inside Momentum. So fun, so fun, so satisfying.

And everything that I have been aiming for and attempting to do over many, many years.

All right. Disappointments. I’ve already, I’ve already blathered on about sales calls. I mean, a sales call is an absolute joy. Don’t get me wrong. A good sales call is an absolute joy, but don’t go to people. That’s rude. That’s rude. That’s rude and immature. Disappointments. Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was emotional and I’m not going to tell you the full story because it’s none of your business, quite frankly. Um, but.

Let’s just say I had a massive misadventure in 2000, sorry, yeah, 2000. 25 years ago, I had a massive misadventure in Sri Lanka, the kind of misadventure that requires intervention by the Australian consulate. Sri Lanka had been kind of, you know, should I go? No, definitely a bad idea. No, da da da da da da da da. You know, it made me tense for many years when people would even mention Sri Lanka in conversation.

But I decided that, you know, the time had come, 25 years is a long time. And what I was hoping for is a little emotional experience, a manageable crisis, crisis, and then I could come straight back into work. And so that’s what I did. And it was probably a bit dumb. Reflecting back, it’s now late January, reflecting back, it was probably a bit.

dumb because I was busy, which is great. And I’m very good at compartmentalizing. That’s fabulous. So good for trauma. If you can compartmentalize, wow. But you know, of course, humans are complicated. are living, breathing skin bags of emotions and it’s catching up with me now. It caught up with me in January.

So, um, I should have, and if I did my time over, I should have given myself more support mechanisms, more space, less kind of hustle and bustle and busyness in November when I returned back, you know, because the whole, you know, the whole thing has kind of left a bit of a sadness and a malaise, which don’t worry. I don’t need any recommendations for therapists. It’s all good. It’s under control, but yeah.

I would do that differently. Things did not sell easily in 2025. I um gave you the example of Catalyst, which was only November 2024 when it was sold out with a packed room to February 2025, where I really had to work hard to get people in there. Weight lists and interest lists, still a good idea, still an easy thing to implement, but

I’m finding them less and less effective over the years. Like case in point, somebody came out of left field, paid in full 5,500 for Momentum Mastermind. I don’t know. You know, she, she downloaded a few lead magnets. She’d, she’d looked at resources. She’d been listening and watching my content. Great. Wonderful. That she was not on a wait list where, whereas, you know, I’ve got a wait list. I’ve got an interest list for Hustle and Heart program. I reckon some of those people, some of those subscribers.

would have been in that interest list for 10 years. Seriously, hand on heart, 10 years, 10 years worth of sales emails and promotions and why didn’t you buy, please do this survey and do you still want to be on this interest list? And they haven’t purchased. So yeah, absolutely. Wait lists are great. Interest lists are great. I’m continuing to do them, but they are definitely way less effective. Sales calls less effective.

You know, I don’t do sales calls without people answering questions beforehand. One of the questions is, you willing to invest right now? I make sure they’ve seen the sales page. My prices are on my website. Like, you know, I’ve got various mechanisms in place to make sure that I’m not on the call with unqualified people, but still, you know, people slip through. All right. Best performing marketing of 2025. Now this is nitty gritty detail that.

I think is probably a bit too dry for podcasts. But what I thought I’d do instead is give you a bit of a hierarchy. Yeah. And this is what I recommend to all my clients. If you’re listening to this podcast and you are a kind of a bi-proxy client. Firstly, for my hierarchy and why a hierarchy? Because it kind of makes it easier. Right. It means that like, you’re not overwhelmed.

and thinking all things are equally urgent and important because all things are not equal, let alone urgent and important. So my hierarchy is email at the top. Absolutely. Definitely. My email list growth continues to be, you know, not brilliant, but most of it comes through leveraging other people’s audiences. In 2025, it came through online bundles. It came through guests.

Um, speaking the own conference, you know, various, various audiences like Sydney university, for example, the MBA students, you know, that’s where my email, this growth came from and also through Google, um, long form content, number two. So long form content for me is podcasting and blogging. And I don’t, I don’t publish a blog every month for, for a good 10 years. I think it was 10 years well over.

I did once a month, every month, come rain, hail or shine. I’m publishing a business blog and that worked really well for many years for my Google ranking. My Google ranking worked really well for many years for sales. I’ve had many, many big and tiny companies, um, engage me through having Googled and they came through the long form content.

Um, the podcasting is taking over it’s, you know, I’m doing it a hell of a lot more than I am blogging, but I still love writing. And there are some things I think work best for writing rather than podcasting. So next rung down is Instagram and LinkedIn. These are the two social channels that I value the most right now.

And I do recycle a lot of content, stuff that performs well on LinkedIn. I’ll put on Instagram stuff that performs well on Instagram. I’ll put on LinkedIn. Sometimes I’ll take the entirety of a LinkedIn post that’s performed well and I’ll recycle it into an email or I’ll do the other. I’ll take an email and I’ll turn it into a LinkedIn post or I will take an old blog post and I will republish it as a LinkedIn article. So lots of cross-pollination going on with that.

The next rung down is threads, TikTok and Facebook. Now don’t go finding me on TikTok cause it’s a pretty much a graveyard. can’t remember the last time. And I keep telling myself, Brooke, do it, do it. Just do like a 30 day challenge. Like do, do a TikTok a day for 30 days. Watch this space. I might, I might just get around to that. Now threads is a funny one. Cause I think fre- threads could potentially be amazing.

I just have to kind of secure that habit. need to bed down that habit. need to do some habit stacking. Atomic habits, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, the book Atomic Habits, Habit Stacking is putting one established habit with one habit that you’d like to establish. So I had a little flurry of publishing, like I’m literally talking 24 hours, publishing a few threads and it’s already resulted in a sales conversation. So that’s.

And then fifth, okay, this is a weird little, weird little thing. I purchased a school community in 2025. I purchased a school community, which in effect is kind of like purchasing an email list or at least that’s one way of thinking about it. Now I’m making $2.50 off this. I’m basically breaking even the people, the members that are paying for my school community, uh, covering the costs of the money that I spend. have a new,

sales revenue, which is in my zero file, which is business community. And that’s where school goes. So what I’m paying and what I am receiving is more or less the same. I’m making a little, but not much. And initially I was thinking, okay, what I’m going to do with school is I’m going to use it to run the life’s a pitch party. But I.

I not, I chickened out. was like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. So I might still do it. I’m not sure. And you know, like any, any marketing channel, the more you put in, the more you will get out of it. You can’t expect to just kind of post a few times and then ghost the channel and then it’s going to be fruitful because it does not work like that. It’d be great if it did, but it doesn’t work like that.

Now the other thing that I started in 2025 was Substack. And again, I haven’t really found my groove. had a bit of fun with it, but one of the, oh, let me, let me think about how I phrase this. One of the appeals of Substack was the fact that it’s supposed to be bringing you people, right? Because what are you doing over at Substack?

that you couldn’t be doing on your own website in your own business. So it’s supposed to be finding you people and you know, people find you on Substack and I’ve got a lousy like eight subscribers or something ridiculous. So whether or not I’m actually going to pursue this, I don’t really know. I’m like, well, why would I be building, you know, subscribers on LinkedIn, which aren’t really subscribers, subscribers through my actual email list.

You know, my mastermind people, why wouldn’t I just put the energy in my mastermind people if, you know, I’m going to be writing a whole bunch of brand new content for Substack. And yes, I have considered recycling and I have considered kind of making Substack and the podcast kind of be, content partners that might still work. might still happen, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. All right. So.

Content events, webinars, challenges, other free offerings, like this is working better than the kind of old school lead magnets. And I say old school lead magnets. I love lead magnets. I have a terrible addiction for creating them. enjoy every minute of it. And I’m not apologizing. God damn it. I’m not feeling guilty about it, but they are working less and less. And you can take a content event, which was live, which is live or was live.

And turn it into a lead magnet, like what I did with scalable stackable recurring revenue, which is now a private podcast. So content events for me, I’m finding a lot of fun. I’m finding them hugely effective. And even if I’m not getting more than, you know, a hundred people or sometimes fewer that I don’t really care about saying with the low cost events, $39.

$97, $147, you know, that kind of price point, $49, whatever. I don’t really care if I only make 16 sales. So long as a percentage of those people convert and convert relatively quickly into a higher price thing. Yeah. And that’s the whole point, right? Because if somebody’s seriously considering you and they’re flirting with you, they’re looking at your content.

You’re like, should I buy, should I work with this person? If they’re a premium buyer and if they’re smart, they’re going to buy some low cost thing first. They’re going to want a little yogurt sampler and a content event or a low cost content event, a low cost paid life experiment, which is what I teach inside of Momentum. And also it’s a standalone product for $9. Ta-da, very, um.

Very, what’s it called? Macro. that what the kids say? Metta, very meta. That’s what the kids say. It gives people a real taste. I like a yogurt sample in the supermarket does. It gives them a real sample of you. Yeah. Which can be hugely effective for, you know, those people that want to buy and invest at a premium level. All right. I’m going to wrap up. I want to talk about an experience that I had.

I went to a creative writing workshop in Canberra. My client, Sonia Van Der Haar from LimeSmith invited me. She invited me to see Catherine Devaney. I’m now a firm fan of Catherine’s hilarious. She used to be a standup comedian. She also used to be a columnist and now she teaches creative writing. Really good fun. Now she said something in that workshop, which kind of hit me between the eyes and it probably wasn’t intended to, but you know, me being me and also

Anyway, boring. She said something like the people that she works with, she calls the gunners because they should have write a book, could have write a book, what I write a book, gonna write a book. They’re gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna. She said, come with me to Paris. Come with me on a writing retreat to Paris. Come on a, you know, a fun holiday, do some creative writing. Doesn’t matter if you don’t finish your book. Doesn’t matter if you decide, Hey, I don’t want to write a book anymore.

doesn’t matter if you decide, Hey, I don’t really want to write at all. I just want to hang out with other people that are writing. Doesn’t really matter. And this reminds me a little bit of another phrase that somebody said to me many times, which is a gigs a gig, babe. And so what does that mean? It means like money’s money. If someone wants to work with you, take their money. So thank you very much. Gigs a gig, babe. Whereas this hit me between the eyeballs because I.

Don’t think like that. That is not how I approach people that I work with, especially like, you know, if I’m doing a short, sharp masterclass and, you know, I’m only really kind of having a superficial engagement with somebody. Okay. Maybe, you know, it’s not necessary and it’s over the top to be auditing those people. But I, I really sincerely.

You know, don’t love and the older I get, the more cranky I get. I don’t like training groups and coaching people who aren’t going to do anything with it. So it hit me between the eyes because I’m like, well, maybe I’m just a bit of an asshole. maybe, maybe I’m being too precious. Maybe I need to kind of leave that. need to drop that because women are pretty good at being overly responsible and taking too much responsibility.

And when you take too much responsibility for other people, you disempower them. You take their power away for the right reasons. You could say the right reasons, know, for reasons that you think are virtuous, for reasons that you think are good. You know, I’m taking responsibility because this person, you know, it’s like the woman in an abusive relationship is like, but he’s got so much potential. He’s really a lovely guy. He’s got so much potential. I’m sure he can change. He will change. I’ll change him.

Like that’s something I’ve never really, I’ve never bought into from the time I was a teenager. There was no way I was going to be with somebody who had, you know, more problems than I was. I had more than enough problems. Thank you very much. So I don’t know. You tell me, what is your take? Do you like Catherine de Veni’s idea that, you know, you can just participate in these writing retreats. You can come to Paris, you can spend money and you can just do it because it’s fun. You can do it because it’s fun. God damn it.

And it doesn’t have to be so deep and meaningful or, you know, am I being, is it, is it good for me? What do you think? Or are I may being overly moralistic, taking too much responsibility and disempowering clients? don’t know. I honest to goodness don’t know. I do love group facilitation. I love coaching. I feel like I’m a born coach. I really enjoy it. I love asking uncomfortable questions.

I love complex conversations. love deep conversations. I hate small talk. I don’t want to waste time. I love the kind of holistic psychology of the whole thing. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s very much about kind of, you know, the whole human, you know, it just, guess, I guess it has to do, maybe it’s my own hang up with, you know, is this valuable? Is this relevant? And when people, you know, turn out to be kind of

playing at business and there’s plenty of them. There’s plenty of them that are just playing at business. taking the good parts or the status parts or the fun parts and they’re leaving the actual, you know, making sales and making money part. Plenty of them. You know, am I being overtly precious? I don’t know. You tell me. So I had a lot of fun. Like I said, 2025, it was a mixed bag. It was a mixed bag. It was hard fun.

was highly creative. It demanded a lot of me. I changed tact multiple times, but you know, this is something that we talk about a lot in momentum. The goal might stay the same, but there’s always 25,000 ways to get there. So if this way doesn’t work, if you try this experiment and it’s not working, then you can always change things up. can change.

the whole way that you deliver the thing. Momentum third iteration from face to face in Sydney and Melbourne eight years ago to a master, a master, sorry, let me start again. A membership, I had momentum membership for about 14 months to third, third iteration. Lucky. It’s been so much fun. Absolute pleasure.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Let me know. Sincerely, I would love to hear from you, especially that last conundrum about, you know, am I just an asshole? Am I taking too much responsibility? Should I be a little bit more lighthearted like Catherine? And you know, my friend Kate, a gig’s a gig, babe. A gig’s a gig. Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited, or has you changing the way that you do business or life,

Would you do me a super quick favor and write me a short review? Your podcast review means so much to me and it helps other values-based business owners just like you to find this show, which is a fantastic gift to me.