Do this NOW if you want your best year yet

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

Today I’m gonna share with you the one thing you need to do if you want 2026 to be your best year in business. Now you might be thinking, I’m gonna say set big goals or plan your strategy, do a budget, get a coach. And don’t get me wrong, all of those things matter. But before any of that, you need to do one powerful game changing a step.

And if you wanna know what that is, you have to listen to today’s episode.

Before I start today’s episode and let you know exactly what that thing is that you need to do. I wanna let you know that my Black Friday offer that I teased in the last episode is now officially live. I dunno if there are any spots left because I’m obviously recording this in advance.

But in a nutshell, here’s what the offer is. It is a three month one-on-one Voxer coaching package with me. That means that you get Voxer access to me, so that’s a voice and text messaging app you can jump on in and say, Hey Clare, I’m really struggling with this today. You can send me your website to review.

You can ask me for feedback on your email sequence. You can tell me about a troublesome client that you were having. So you can either voice note me or text me, and I’ll come back to you. It’s as simple as that. It’s basically like having a coach in your pocket. So this offer is that you do a three month coaching package with me, and the cost is only a thousand Australian dollars, including GST.

So this is an absolute fraction of my usual coaching prices, just because it’s a Black Friday offer. I will never repeat [00:02:00] this offer again. So if you’ve ever wanted to work with me, now is the time to push go. There’s only 10 spots available, so I don’t know how many are left if there’s any left at the time of recording, but if this sounds like something you are interested in, jump on into the link in the show notes and secure your.

Spot because this is the last time I will offer this package, three months of coaching with me to close out your 2025 and set you up for an incredible start to your 2026. Alright, so what exactly is the secret source? The one thing that I think will really change the game for you next year, you need to reflect on the year that was.

So let me explain why this is so important. I recently hosted the Profit Collective Retreat and we didn’t  just dive straight into our 2026 goals and planning because here’s the truth, it’s very hard to look forward without looking back. So what we did, we actually pulled apart 2025. We had to look at wins, the things that didn’t go well, diving into the actual financial performance to take the lessons from the year, because if you don’t learn the lessons from the year, that was, you will drag the same patterns and mistakes into the next year.

There’s a saying, I’m sure you’ve heard it before, you need to slow down before you speed up. And I get that this is unsexy. They’re like, gimme my vision board. Let me map out all the big goals. But there are so many secrets in what has unfolded for you in the past. So let’s start with the quantitative side, which is your numbers.

Success leaves clues, and your numbers don’t lie. So what we’re gonna do, I want you to start by opening up your profit and loss statement month by month from January through to the end of October or November, or whenever you’re listening to this episode. But let’s assume that from now until the end of October, and I really want you to have a look at it in detail month by month.

Look for the patterns. What was your profit or loss like each month? Where were your biggest income months? Which months were your quiet ones? What was happening in the big months? What were you launching? What were you selling? What was going on in the quiet ones? And then think as well, like what was  actually going on outside of business at those times.

He might have reflected and say, I was going through a really tough time personally at that time. And that sort of has affected my results. And I want you to really ask yourself like, what was I selling at that time? How was I marketing? What was my energy like? Was there a particular offer or product that I was selling that absolutely crushed it?

Was there something that bombed completely? And then I want you to have a look at your expenses as well. Were there any times that your expenses blew out this year, and if so, why? There’s gonna be some real big takeaways by analyzing your numbers. I know for me, I’m gonna put my hand up right now and say that I’m really guilty of having expense blowouts with my in-person events.

No matter how much buffer I put into my budget, I always go, I don’t wanna try a little extra thing here or that would make it really special. And so for me, I know that I’ve definitely had some expense blowouts from my in-person retreats. So reflect on that. Learn like what’s the takeaway? And you might notice some things, like maybe you say my, you know, when I do my one-to-one service work that outperforms my group work, you might say, my retainers outperform my one-off service package.

You might reflect on some of the investments you’ve made. You might say, oh my gosh, I spent all that money on Facebook ads, and it simply didn’t move the needle at all. Or maybe it did. Maybe you noticed that you’ve run some, you know, had some months where you just went, worked really, really, really hard and had a big month, but then your energy crashed the next month because you just wore yourself out.

Here’s the thing, data doesn’t lie. The purpose of looking at this isn’t to shame you, it’s to teach you. And if something’s not working. Now’s the time to recognize that you either need to refine it, fix it, or maybe, just maybe it’s time to let it go completely. Next, I want you to think about the qualitative side.

So qualitative is all about the feeling. So let’s zoom out from the spreadsheet. And I want you to really, like, sometimes I find it helps for me to actually pull up my calendar when I’m doing this part and actually look month by month at what was going on. So that really helps to go, how was I feeling at that time?

So for example, I can look and say I was away traveling that month and it felt amazing. I was doing lots of in-person stuff there that felt really great. Or maybe for you, you’re like, I did a lot of networking that month and even though I had a really big month in business, I hate networking ’cause I’m an introvert and I felt like crap.

So I want you to ask yourself, what made you feel excited and alive this year? Did you love being busy or did you hate it? Did you enjoy networking? Did you hate it? Did you enjoy showing up on social media? What left you feeling completely drained? Next, I want you to think about which clients lit you up and which clients made you think, oh my gosh, I will never do that again, and what were the traits?

What were the lessons out of that? I know for me, I’ve had an example where I’ve said. I knew there was red flags and I said yes anyway, and then I really regretted it afterwards. I didn’t trust my intuition from the outset. So there’s a lesson in that for me. Conversely, you might say you know sometimes someone who seems to be asked a lot of questions up front actually turns out to be great clients because they’ve asked all of the questions upfront to really reflect what are the lessons you wanna capture from this next?

How did your team perform? If you’ve got team, who are the star performers? What did you love about leadership? Where did you struggle? How were you as a leader? Did I lead them well? Did I hire too fast? Should I hang on to that person? I probably should have let go. Where did I feel in flow and where did I feel resistance?

Because success isn’t just about numbers. It’s also about energy and happiness. If you’ve hit your income goal but you feel exhausted, snappy, and you are [00:10:00] hating your business, that is not living your dream. If you can’t take a weekend off, all the money in the world won’t mean anything if you just work all the time.

So next I want you to bring this all together. Have a look at the quantitative data, the qualitative data. And I want you to really kind of figure out what the learnings are overall. Where were the times that you were making a lot of money and you felt happy and confident and you had freedom? What do you need to double down on?

What do you need to let go of? What do you need to expand into? Growth isn’t just about making more money. It’s about figuring out what works for you. So the final part of this process, only after you’ve done all of that, once you’ve done that deep reflection, this is when you can get into planning for your 2026.

So when you [00:11:00] can start to set your big juicy 2026 goals. So at a top line level, think about how much revenue do you wanna make for the year. That’s that top line sales number. Then what do you want your business model to look like? I am getting rid of that offer ’cause that drained me. I’m gonna be doing more of that, less of that.

Have a think about where that’s gonna land you in terms of profitability. Do you wanna make any pivots in what you’re doing? Who do you wanna serve? And most importantly, how do you want it to feel? Don’t just plan to make more money. Plan to make aligned money ’cause that’s true success. So to wrap up for today, before you dive into your goal setting and vision boarding for the next year, review the year that was, pull the lessons, own your wins, clean up what’s not working, and step into the new year with absolute confidence and clarity.

Because that is how you create your best year, year. And if you’d like some help doing that, as I mentioned at the start, there might still be some spots available for my Black Friday, one-on-one coaching offer. It is an incredible price and incredible offer, and an incredible way to help you skyrocket your way into the new year with a coach right by your side.

This is not a group coaching package. This is one-on-one tailored support just for you. I would love to help you have your most profitable year yet. It’s just a three month popup offer. So secure your spot via the link in the show notes for today’s episode. And if you’re all gone, my apologies, but feel free to reach out to me and we can chat about other ways that I could support you in your business.

Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and it’s inspired you. To go and look at those numbers and reflect on the year that was. I’ll catch you again next week.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio