2020: Year In Review
By: Ben Lee
Tags: Year In Review, 2020, Coaching

What a year…

I hadn’t envisioned myself writing this Year in Review because, like most of us, I was hoping to call 2020 a wash. But in keeping with my annual tradition, I think there are plenty of learnings and takeaways from this year, maybe even more so than previous ones.

I also feel extremely privileged for having worked in the knowledge economy for the past 10 years and for having very little transition during this challenging time, especially when so many are on the brink of collapse — mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. I’m hopeful that we’re going to see some things turnaround in the next couple of months.

So let’s jump in.

EXITING THE AGENCY I BUILT

I began negotiating an exit from Rootstrap at the end of March. As these things are always a bit complicated and tend to take time, I needed some cash flow. So here’s what I did:

— Invested $20k in a new venture (NeonRoots, LLC restart) — Brought on a Creative Director, UI/UX Designer, 1 Video Editor, 1 Copywriter, 1 Producer, 1 Virtual Assistant, 1 Bookkeeper — Started shooting content for a Masterclass for agency owners — Started coaching on Clarity.fm as a top of the funnel tool to get people to follow, buy, and upsell. That worked, but it wasn’t necessarily attracting the audience I wanted. I was also ridiculously undercharging for my coaching but was happy to do it as I was specifically targeting business owners impacted by COVID-19.

Exiting the business was incredibly difficult, but it was absolutely the right move for where I’m at in life. I’m trying to stay as lean as possible and maximize efficiency across the board.

PUSHING NEW SERVICES

I quickly realized that I didn’t want to start yet another services company (at least not this quickly), and I definitely didn’t want to be in branded content or growth services. Also, seeing how challenging it was to push budgets across during a pandemic, I had to lean out the team even more.

And there were 7:

Bookkeeper

UI/UX Director

Creative Director

TikTok Editor

VA Manager

VA for Outreach

Community Manager

My goal was to get my monthly nut to around $20k or less, including paying myself a salary, and I’m super grateful that I was able to do that and then some. We even had some record months.

ITERATING ON SERVICES

We finally landed on what we knew best:

— Helping companies build internal Virtual Assistant (VA) systems — Design sprints — Executive coaching

BUILDING AN F1 PIT CREW

I spent a ton on coaching this year and saw immediate impact and ROI with most of them. Check out this Notion doc to see more details about my coaches:

Spanish coach

Speed reading coach

Functional medicine doc

Microdosing coach

Productivity coach

Business/finance coach

Biggest wins: -> Productivity soared with GTD -> Have read more books in 6 months than I have in my entire life -> Feel more confident looking at financials

EXECUTIVE COACHING

I released my Masterclass for free and got 200 sign-ups. Of that, I pulled in around $5k in sales and another $40k in coaching contracts. High ROI.

Coaching has been loads of fun, but I’m not quite ready to settle on it full-time. For starters, I’m way too young. I see myself coaching when I’m in my 50s or 60s. I want to be in the game still, not just helping the coach and the offensive coordinator from the sidelines. That said, I do believe I have a talent for it and will continue on a case-by-case basis for a select few agency owners.

SELLING ALMOST $10K IN BLACK FRIDAY COURSES

It’s been my dream to have more time to build out my own content. I’ve done it before, and I can’t describe the feeling of creating a passive stream through your work. I shot video content over the course of a year, edited it in Costa Rica, and went live for Black Friday.

HAPPY HOURS: STUFF I DID FOR ‘ME’

— Comedy improv on Zoom was awesome and something I will definitely do again — MotionLA every Sunday is my friend’s workout group that is a HiiT + socially-distanced outdoor workout on the beach — Surfing 2–3 times/week in LA, then sometimes 2 times/day in Costa Rica — Adopting 5am Club religiously and doing 20/20/20 consistently (workout, meditation, learn, and journal) — Nomad’ing it in Costa Rica for over a month and a half

GROWING A COMMUNITY TO 1200 STRONG

I love community building and created some killer workflows to automate a lot of the work. I do live training, drop resources weekly, and try to provide as much insight as possible from my experience in the digital agency space.

BECOMING A PROCESS NINJA

This year I became even more obsessed with testing the latest in productivity tools, mastering Notion, Todoist, Zapier, and other tools.

🚨 THINGS THAT NEED IMPROVING

— Healthier working habits — Dealing with Generalized Anxiety — Patience: still wanting everything done yesterday — I want to enjoy the ride a bit more — Less time on devices — Friendships — cancelled a lot of friends this year, which is okay and normal, but now it’s time to rebuild and make sure I’m being a good friend and supporting those that are closest to me

2021 PLANS

— More “ME” time — Continue surfing a lot — Possibly start back up with tri training — Exec program/MBA — EIR somewhere like a hedge fund — Flesh out a venture engine concept I’m working on — Invest in real estate

Let’s see how much of this comes to fruition :)

Oh yeah, and stay tuned for Part 2 on the most important business lessons I learned in 2020.