Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 221 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast. 

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love you to take a screen shot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/221

Before I get started on today’s episode – how did you go with last week’s episode? Episode 220? Kate Merryweather was my amazing guest talking all about LinkedIn.  My advice, listen to this episode and then give LinkedIn another go! If you didn’t listen into that one – then once you are finished here – slip back there for even more small business made simple GOLD!

One more thing, before we start, I want to plug my online marketplace and ask that if you can, you support rural and regional small businesses this year when gift buying and gift giving.

It’s been another tough year in the bush, and I know everyone of our sellers on the platform – www.spendwithus.com.au would appreciate your purchase or your help to spread the word about their products and services, if you can’t financially help.  Sharing an Instagram or Facebook post or giving the platform a shout out in your emails or socials would be just as rewarding.

Thank you – thank you enormously.  Shop at www.spendwithus.com.au

PS – we have site-wide gift cards – so you can buy one of them and the recipient can shop any of the 23,000 odd products on the site!

Ok, onto today’s episode which will be huge!

2022 in review, my predictions for business in 2023

Ok, let’s start with 2022 in review.

Well, it’s probably an understatement to say that it’s been a tough year. 

Online retailers had more competition from bricks and mortar.  I think if you started your online e-comm business during the pandemic, you were a little surprised that those huge online sales pitted out due to people going back to supporting bricks and mortar.

Bricks and mortar retailers – personally I found them to be in two camps.  Those who pushed, pivoted, changed, and dug in during the pandemic fared well – the customers they kept happy and attracted during the hard times in the pandemic supported them well and they continued in the positive.

Those who found they needed to completely shut down during the height of the pandemic, and had no online e-comm presence, have found 2022 to be a struggle.

Just to clarify some businesses had no choice as to whether they shut down or not, so no judgement, I am just giving observations.

Tourism based businesses; it’s been a rollercoaster!  2022 has had high highs and low lows.

Service based businesses; I have to say the I’ve seen great things.  Many of my clients have declared business as usual – although I know that might not be everyone.

So, I thought I might share a few things that have worked for me this year, and you might nod along and thing, yep, they worked for me, or they might just get you thinking about what you could do differently in 2023 that might help move the needle.

1. SEO – yep, let’s start with a big one straight out of the gate. In late 2021 and early 2022, I hired the amazing Casey to do some SEO on pages of my website that I really wanted to rank for in 2022 and beyond.  One of them was my Speakers Page.  When people typed in marketing keynote speaker, or marketing guest speaker or social media guest speaker – etc etc – I wanted to be up the top of page 1. Why?  For bookings of course! Did it work?    Around 4 of my speaking gigs this year came directly from google searches – and although 4 is not huge, it was a great 5 figure return on my investment into SEO.  So, if you want to be found for something on google, perhaps SEO is the place to put some energy in 2023?
2. Showing up – now if you’re a long time listener you know I was also going to say this! Video was my word of the year, which I’ll talk about a little later, so showing up, including non-video, was an important marketing strategy for me.  Did it work?  Hell yeah!  People who watched me show up came and worked with me privately, hired me for workshops/speaking gigs, became podcast guests and I was asked to be a podcast guest, and referrals were given – which resulted in more work!  If I haven’t convinced you on the merits of showing up – human to human marketing – then I’ll simply beg now for you to make it a plan for you in 2023 – please, please, please embrace H2H marketing.
3. Networking – for someone (me) who hated networking only a few years ago, gosh it’s a powerful marketing tool! Networking with the right people can bring you leads, referrals, opportunities and probably above all – friendships.  You can network online or offline but make sure you make space in 2023 for networking or more networking.  And I’ll just add, I don’t think I realise right now, just how impactful the networking I did this year, will help my business in 2023.  Opportunities I can’t imagine right now will come in 2023, all from the people I’ve managed to “hang around” this year!

Many, many, many other things worked well for me in 2022, but those were the biggest 3 that I wanted to share.

All in all, my year was a great success.  My profit was great, I built new amazing friendships, I help 100’s of small business owners move the needle in their business and loved all of it!

Could I have done things better – absolutely – nothing is surer!

I haven’t missed a podcast episode all year – but some have definitely been forced and last minute.  I need to plan better in 2023.

My socials have been ad hoc, especially in the past few months.  I think I am letting my disillusion with Meta get in the way of my business and haven’t been as consistent as I would like to have been.  I have started to implement some things in place to combat this in 2023.  I am pretty sure this is a topic for another episode!

My email marketing has been inconsistent in places and pretty darn good in other places – so although I’m disappointed in some of things I’ve missed doing, I am equally chuffed with myself that I have managed to do other things!

When I look at my goals for 2022, I have conquered about 40% of them and found as the year has rolled on that about 30% of them I didn’t want to do anymore – so they were no longer goals and about 30% of them I just didn’t put enough energy into to conquer.  Maybe in 2023 or maybe not at all!

I have this saying, and it sounds very vain, but it’s not.  It goes like this “I always get want I want” – and it’s true.  I also get what I want because I acknowledge that if I didn’t get it (whatever “it” is) then I must not have really wanted it because I didn’t put the energy into getting it.  If I really want something, I will work until I get it.  So, it sounds vain, but it’s really just reality!

For instance, I didn’t reach my goal of having 3 x 6 week mastermind programs for 2022.  I did one in February and then that was it.  I never gave promoting, launching and marketing the program the energy it needed this year, so far can I think that I would achieve it!  It was a goal that became a non-goal.

What goals did you reach, and which ones didn’t you achieve?  Why was that – for both achieving and not achieving?  Don’t be disappointed in yourself for not reaching goals, if the reality is that you didn’t put the energy in to achieve them in the first place!

Ok, let’s move on – predictions for 2023.

I am afraid to say that I don’t have a magic wand or crystal ball to make 2023 a brilliant year. I think it will be tough.  Maybe tougher than 2022.

The pandemic is finished – Covid is still around, but the pandemic has ceased but the consequences of both are still very much a reality.

Economics was one of my absolute favourite subjects at school and at uni, and although I am not good at it, the micro and macro of economics is still something I look at and make assumptions from.  And frankly you don’t need an economics degree to see what’s happening and what will happen.

Governments simply cannot pay out billions to help us move through a pandemic without economic issues in the future and unfortunately, those economic issues are going to start impacting us in 2023.  High inflation, wars, cost of living, they are all going to impact us as consumers and as business owners in 2023. 

But it’s not dire.  And can I just ask one favour of you?  Remember that media makes money out of bad news.  So, as we head into 2023 and you hear story after story of cost of living woes, inflationary issues and the talk of recession, remember that bad news sells.  Media HAS to talk about this stuff to sell ad space, newspapers, listenership etc – but you don’t have to listen or buy into it.

I am not saying that the economy won’t take a hit, but what I am saying is that you don’t have to get bogged down in the story line and should three thousand percent dig in and watch your own business and watch for patterns in your industry, your town, and with your customers/clients. 

The pandemic taught us, if nothing else, that we can survive, we can pivot, shift, change and surprise, delight and solve our customers problems. 

This is where you REALLY need to concentrate in 2023, not listen to all the media hype, but watch for patterns you see, listen to your customers – what are they saying and move your business model around according to those two things – patterns and customers.

My prediction for 2023 is that it will be a tough year for any business owner who is set in their ways, doesn’t move with the times, doesn’t listen to their customers and isn’t ready to pivot, and doesn’t show up for their community.

When budgets are tight, who do you spend money with?  The people you know, like and trust – right?  Not some random on the internet – but people you know, like and trust.

Make sure you are building a community, showing up and building trust – these things will serve you well in 2023 and beyond!

What will I be doing differently in 2023?  Well, I guess I have to solve some issues of things that didn’t go so well in 2022 for starters.

So far I have hired a new VA to help me with some aspects of my business I want to do better, such as Pinterest and YouTube.

I will build into my calendar more time to batch podcasts and all the bits that go with an episode, such as emails and social posts and also build into my calendar more time for social media in general – especially video.

I’ll take some time in January to plan out launches and launch them!

And I 100% intend to build in more time that’s not work in 2023.  My hope is to take a whole day off each week to enjoy – but as I say this it doesn’t look good for me does it – I have used language like “hope” and “intend” – what I need to start saying is that I am taking Thursdays off in 2023, period!

What are you going to do differently in 2023?

What do your ideal clients want from you in 2023?

What worked and what didn’t work in 2022 in your business?

Just like you’ve taken some time to listen to this podcast, please take some time to go through those two questions, what worked and what didn’t in 2022.  Make a list.

What goals did you hit this year, which didn’t you hit and why?  Are they still important and relevant for 2023?

We learn so much from looking back – so give yourself that space to learn.

I’m going to leave this podcast ep here my dear friend.  I feel I could talk for ages about this, but I know what time of the year it is and overwhelming you with new strategies and things to do just isn’t going to help you!

Feel free to reach out to me in my Facebook group – Like Minded Business Owners.  If you’re not a member, come join!  Or of course email or DM me with your thoughts or questions.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 222!

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!