August was a great month. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 then I would put it at a solid 8. As I was working through my Powersheets Month in Review, I am realizing this month was full of a lot of wins. This is my business review for the month of August.

August Wins

• We went on our first Shuman Family Vacation! We spend 3 solid days just hiking back and forth from the beach to the pool.
• I launched The Brand Gathering monthly membership and will call it a success (more on that later!)
• I had my highest revenue month ever in business.
• I spoke at the Rising Tide Society’s local Tuesday’s Together chapter about branding and marketing.

Business Review: August 2018

August Goals

❑ Grow Instagram to 1,500

Even though I didn’t reach the goal. I will still call this a win because I added 85 new followers for a 6.6% growth in followers.

❑ Grow email list to 300

Once again, I may not have hit the number but I grew my email list by 12% in the month of August.

☑ Book 3 projects for October

I booked three more brand and website projects for this month! YAY — keeping my booked 2-3 months in advance.

❑ Sell at least 30 monthly membership spots

I didn’t reach this goal but I am still calling it a win. My launch happened without any hiccups and I am so excited for the people who did join in the first week.

❑ Finish Designing Two Showit Templates

I decided to push the launch of the template shop back to January 2019. I was overloaded and stressing out about it and I realized I would be bombarding my audience with one new thing after another. I want to spend the rest of 2018 focusing on the membership.

The Brand Gathering Launch

I focused all my marketing solely on the new monthly membership for a full week. All podcast episodes, YouTube videos, email marketing campaigns, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, etc. all were promoting The Brand Gathering monthly membership. My goal was to get 30 members by September 3rd and I reached 14 members during the first week. I am calling it a success though because I truly enjoy and want to serve every person that joined. We have a good group inside with good, positive energy. I plan on doing an episode on the Get Back to Business podcast breaking down my launch strategy day-by-day and what I would change going forward.

Tracking Analytics – August 2018

Each month, I’ve been tracking my analytics so I know how my business is progressing. I track my audiences on my website, blog, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Email, Podcast, and most recently YouTube.

Website: Visitors: 939 (↑ 34.7.%) Page Views: 2046 (↑ 32.2%) Audience: 805 (↑ 37.6%)

Note: I recently started posting in more Facebook groups again and blogging more regularly.

Blog: 325 (↑ 39.5%)

Instagram: Average Likes: 61 (↑ 1.7%)  Comments: 12 (↑ 71.4%) Followers: 1374 (↑ 6.6%)

Facebook: 415 (↑ 3.75%)

Note: I was running Facebook ads to promote The Brand Gathering which helped with likes.

Pinterest: 7,763 (↑ 22%)

Email: 224 (↑ 12%)

Note: My email list is larger but I only count my active subscribers.

Podcast: 311 downloads (↑ 208%)

Note: I only released one episode in July, which is why the increase is so high.

September Goals

❑ Reach 30 Members inside The Brand Gathering

I am giving myself grace and have set a goal of 30 members inside the membership within 30 days.

❑ Grow Instagram to 1500

Continue to focus on engaging with others on Instagram and organically growing my reach.

❑ Book 3 projects for the remainder of 2018

Follow up with clients that fell off the radar and promote complimentary brand discovery calls. If I book 3 more projects I should be booked for the rest of the year.

❑ Set up one funnel to the membership

My freebies right now are promoting a complimentary brand discovery call at the end of the funnel because I didn’t have a low-cost offer. I would like to re-do my email funnel with my copywriter and have it end with The Brand Gathering membership offer.

❑ Set up two collaborations

I huge part of growing the membership will be growing my audience and reach. I will do this by setting up collaborations with business owners who have a similar audience.

❑ Hire Facebook Ads Manager

Another aspect of growing my membership will be using Facebook Ads to reach cold traffic.

For September, I am focusing on cultivating relationships and serving my audience. I want my membership to feel like a tight-knit community and I know the way of doing that is to support their business fully. What are your goals for the month of September?