Sometimes you ask for a sign…

In December, I travelled to Phoenix in the US to attend a 3-day Business Breakthrough event. I’d travelled a long way to be there and I went into those 3 days feeling very open-minded about what might come from them. I was at a point where I was thinking a lot about the direction of my business (and slightly unusually for me), I found myself asking for signs.

I have this idea for a summit… confirm to me that this is the next step that I need to take…

Well… be careful what you ask for because over those 3 days, the universe had taken my ask literally and I felt like I was being hit over the head with them.

There were conversations, ideas and little moments that kept making me think about the summit I’d had sitting in the back of my mind for years and then one of the speakers walked onto the stage and started talking about… summits.

Not just summits generally, either. As I listened, it felt as though she was practically reflecting my own idea back at me.

The type of event.

The opportunity to bring people together.

The possibilities it could create.

I remember sitting there thinking… okay… I get the message… perhaps it was finally time to do this!

And then I realised something else…

This year marks 10 years since I started my business… 10 years!!!

When I thought about that alongside everything I’d been thinking about in Phoenix, the timing suddenly felt incredibly significant.

My business today looks very different from the one I started 10 years ago. I’ve changed direction, made mistakes, launched things that worked and things that didn’t. I’ve moved from running a branding and web business into the online business space. I’ve created courses, memberships, digital products & programmes. I’ve started a podcast and worked with hundreds of business owners.

Somewhere along the way, my mission became so much clearer… I want to help service-based business owners create businesses that give them more income, more freedom and more options without their growth always requiring more of their time. So I’ve realised that this 10-year anniversary isn’t really about looking backwards and celebrating everything I’ve already done. It’s about reflecting on everything those 10 years have taught me and asking myself a much bigger question… what do I want the next 10 years to look like?

• What do I want to build?
• What do I want to become known for?
• What kind of impact do I want to have?
• and perhaps most importantly… what role do I need to step into to make that happen?

That’s when the Online Business Growth Summit started to mean something much bigger to me. It stopped feeling like simply an event I wanted to organise and started feeling like a marker for the next chapter of my business.

This summit is pushing me outside my comfort zone

I’ll admit something… creating an online summit with more than 20 expert speakers is a much bigger undertaking than I originally appreciated!

There are speakers to coordinate, interviews to record, webpages to build, emails to write, technology to figure out, content to create, promotion to organise and approximately 7,492 tiny details that nobody tells you about beforehand. There have definitely been moments when I’ve wondered why on earth I decided this was a good idea!

But I also think that’s part of the point because creating the Online Business Growth Summit is forcing me to step into a different role within my own business.

For years, I’ve been the person creating the courses, delivering the programmes, recording the podcast, supporting clients and doing the work. This feels so different as I’m bringing people together. I’m creating a platform. I’m building something bigger than one course, one programme or one person’s expertise and I’ve realised that (in many ways), organising this summit is forcing me to step into more of a leadership role.

Not just within the event but within my own business.

Instead of allowing my business to evolve based purely on the next opportunity that appears, I’m becoming much more intentional about deciding where do I want this business to go? what do I want it to stand for? what kind of community do I want to build? and what impact do I want to have?

Those feel like very different questions from the ones I was asking when I started my business 10 years ago.

So, what am I hoping the summit will achieve?

Of course, I’d love thousands of people to register. I’d love the event to introduce new people to my work, grow my audience and create opportunities for my business. I’m not going to pretend those things don’t matter (because they absolutely do!) but there’s something bigger I want to achieve with it. I want the Online Business Growth Summit to show service-based business owners that there are other ways to grow a business because I know how easy it is to accidentally build yourself a business that completely depends on you.

More clients mean more hours, more sales mean more delivery, more growth means more work and eventually you hit a ceiling and burnout! That’s exactly why I’m so passionate about helping people explore online courses, digital products, memberships, group programmes, automation and other scalable ways of packaging their expertise.

The summit brings all of those conversations together.

It’s not about telling people there’s one perfect business model because I don’t believe there is one. It’s about showing people what’s possible and giving them access to experts who can help them think differently about everything from their offers & marketing to sales, systems, content, finances, visibility and mindset. I want someone to attend a session and have that little lightbulb moment… “Oh… I could do that” because sometimes that’s all it takes.

I also want to create connections

There’s another reason I’m excited about the summit…

People.

One of the things I’ve loved most about running a business over the last 10 years has been the people I’ve met along the way through networking, podcasting, collaborations & communities that have introduced me to some incredibly talented business owners. Now I have an opportunity to bring many of those people together.

The experts taking part in this summit all bring something different to the table but collectively we’re having a much bigger conversation… how do we build successful businesses that actually work for our lives?

Not businesses that require us to be available 24/7, where taking a week off means our income disappears or built purely around being busier. Businesses that are profitable, sustainable and designed with freedom in mind. That’s the conversation I want the Online Business Growth Summit to start.

Maybe Phoenix wasn’t really about finding a sign

Looking back, I don’t know whether I actually needed a sign because I knew deep down this was something I needed to do. I think I’d already made the decision somewhere in the back of my mind and simply needed the confidence to act on it. One thing that I do know for sure is that some ideas keep coming back for a reason and eventually you have to decide whether you’re going to keep thinking about them or give them a chance to become something real.

For me, the Online Business Growth Summit is one of those ideas.

It’s a celebration of everything I’ve learned over the last 10 years. It’s an opportunity to bring together some brilliant people. It’s a way to help more business owners discover that growth doesn’t have to mean working more hours. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also me drawing a line in the sand and saying… this is where I want my business to go next.

And honestly?

I can’t wait to see where it leads!