My August business review proved popular so here I am with September’s! It’s a completely different vibe to August because school holidays are over and September was definitely all about grafting to get the sales in and build the business.
Here’s what it looked like on my Toggl report:
How many hours did I work in September as a solopreneur?
I clocked up almost 103 hours over the month which works out at slightly more than my usual 20 hour week. I really put the work in!
Let’s break it down segment by segment and I’ll share the fruits of my labour at the end of this post.
How much time did I spend building my sales ads funnels?
The big orange segment (32.5%) is the time I invested in building out my sales ads funnels. It’s one of those jobs where you see very little immediate financial return and have to hope that it pays off further down the line.
I do all my own web design and at least 15 hours went on writing, designing and building web pages for my sales funnel. Not my favourite job, but I stick the radio on and music helps me get it finished.
With some new Meta ads creatives on the way, I’m planning to scale my ads in Q4 and make it pay me back for all my hard work!
What marketing did I do in September?
The green segment (26.1%) is my Marketing time. I track ‘Funnels’ (orange) separately because it’s a different revenue stream and I want to be able to measure ROI for each.
Marketing jobs in September included:
Promoting my email marketing membership (try it here for 14 days)
Client testimonials (Leanne made over £22k!)
Booking sales calls
Strategic networking
Where did the rest of my 103 hours go?
How much time did I spend on sales?
I track ‘Sales’ separately from Marketing. That’s the yellow segment (12.3%) and I’ll share at the end how much I did in sales in September as it was a figure I was over the moon with!
How much time does my email marketing membership take?
My membership took 9 hours of my time (8.69%) in September which includes stuff like creating the email templates, email writing hour calls and a tiny bit of admin as my VA handles most of it.
Why was client work only 13% of my time?
Client work was only around 13% of my time because I’d taken a break from selling 1-1 over the summer months as I was so busy with pushing the membership and building my sales ads funnels.
Why was my admin time higher than usual?
Admin (4.23%) was higher than I’d like but it’s for a good reason! I was busy sorting out contracts for new clients thanks to all the selling I did in September.
What were my business highs and lows in September?
Onto the highs & lows from the month:
HIGHS (and how much money I made):
🤝 I got to work with a strategy client in-person (which I love to do!)
👋 Welcomed 19 new members into The Spark
📈 Had a strong Financial Year End
🏃🏼♀️ Did my longest ever run: 9.5km
☕ Attended school coffee morning with P
🩰 Went to the ballet
👧🏻 Back to school (year 5!) went smoothly
🍴 Went for lunch with my friend Daisy Ferns and left feeling so upbeat about business!
💰 I secured £18,000 in sales!
LOWS:
🥱 I felt really tired at the end of the month which was frustrating. Maybe I worked too hard?!?
📉 My Meta ads conversion dropped and I’m still figuring that out…
👻 I totally ghosted Instagram (is this really a ‘low’ if I made £18k anyway??)
Was September a good month for my business?
Overall, September was flipping brilliant and I’ve set the business up for a strong start for my new financial year and Q4.
I have a small vulnerability hangover from sharing my facts and figures because there are businesses like mine that make a lot more money than I do but I’ve made it all on my terms and I think I have a great balance of work and play.
If you found this review interesting, please comment to let me know and I’ll do it again for October.
Kelly :)
PS here’s my August review if you’re interested to see what work I got done over school holidays.
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