Latest / GEL & Tell / Ep 17 - Q2 Review, Q3 Reset: What Worked, What Didn’t & What’s Next
Transcript
- G: back to episode 17 of Gel and Tell. Thank you for tuning in. If you're here, We appreciate you. ⁓ we've had really lovely feedback recently from our So hi to you. If you are listening, don't forget us drop us a five-star review on Spotify. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe for more content like this. ⁓ Nora: Of course. G: But without further ado. Further ado? Nora: Don't ask me. G: Without further ado, let's get into it. So today's, you might not have noticed, but we're in Q3 people. So we are doing a Q2 review and a Q3 reset and goal setting session. So for those of you that didn't join us live in Q2, we made goals live and we kind of brought you along the process with us so you could set your own goals, personal and business for the quarter. So today we're going to look back at those goals. So if you set goals with us last quarter, find them in your notebooks or on your phone notes or in your memory bank we're to have a look at how we got on and reset for the next quarter ahead. But before jump in, I want to know, Nora, how are you? Nora: Love it. I am very good. Just before I say how I am, you said I not sure if you noticed it's Q three. When did you notice, Georgia, that it was Q three? ⁓ G: when you told me this morning you googled when does q3 start and it said july 1st like fuck i thought it was a roundabout now to be honest ⁓ but Nora: Yeah, yeah. It was it was so funny because we were discussing, ⁓ yeah, like when Q two finishes, we should do like an episode of like reviewing Q two and goals. We're like, when does it finish actually? Googles it. seven days ago. G: So probably should do that now. we could have done it for our episode last week if we'd have actually thought things through, but you know, hey ho, we're here now and we're gonna get it done. But yes, to Q3, guys. I believe in actually, we've now been, we've, Jell has existed within five quarters. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's mad, isn't it? I mean, this is the time last year, I would say end of Julyish, where it was starting to become an idea. It was not like yet a concrete concept yet, but yeah, it it was when the conversations were starting, I believe. G: Yeah, cool. Yeah, because it will be the 20 of July, we actually registered our domain. So we knew the name by the end of the month. ⁓ Nora: Yeah. Yeah. We knew it was gonna gel. G: ⁓ yeah, baby. updates for peeps from the week? No, anything going on in your world that you want to share? Nora: ⁓ I think since the last podcast I went to Marbella, which was lovely. not Yeah, it was your my birthday. it was my wedding anniversary. There's so many cute things in the last few days. But yeah, I turned 29, which is cool. to Marbella to my wedding anniversary with Geo, which was so wholesome and so nice. And being in the sun, getting a nice tan, you know, G: It's been your birthday! Nora: Can't get better than this, really. But yeah, all things good on my end. I've registered for my shows as well, which is G: Woohoo! It's happening, guys. Nora: Happening. Yeah, it is happening. So it's it's feeling more real now it's exciting. really, ⁓ really getting to the last final weeks now. So yeah, buzzing. How are you? How's everything? You've got a competition coming up as well. Just so happens that it's on the same day mine. G: ⁓ you know, I'm so pissed off about We have a competition coming up the end of August. Athex. I know how you say it. Athex, Athex. ⁓ Athex, that I've not done it before. ⁓ Nora: Mm. Ethics. That's the on people it, is that right? G: I think they're like partners of the event or something, but it's like a, yeah, something a bit different, like functional events. So that'll be interesting. But in classic me style, I've never done one before, but book two. ⁓ Nora: Is it like similar to Hyrocks or is it different? G: not at all. Yeah, way different. It's like three different workouts spread across two and a half hours, Olympic lifting, endurance, and then like a Metcon. So it's very, very different. And like you have an actual break in like the recovery stations between each set like workout. ⁓ It feels a bit more like turf games, to be honest, from my experience of doing that. Nora: ⁓ wow. Nice. Yeah. G: But yeah, it'll be interesting, but all is good with me. I'm excited for us to jump in because ⁓ we've got 27 minutes. So we've got to make every minute count now. Let's start with going back. Nora: Love it. G: Let's go through what goals we actually set. just for context, we set personal goals and business goals. So Nora, remind us what was your personal goal that you set for Q2? Nora: personal goal was to book my honeymoon. G: Okay, and did you book it? Yes or no? Nora: That's a no for me, unfortunately. ⁓ yeah. No, a hundred percent. ⁓ we have made progress. I've got two or three different contact details for agents that do specialize in planning honeymoons around Asia, which was the destinations that we were s thinking about. Just haven't contacted them yet or made a plan. but we have thought more through ⁓ what we to do ⁓ and what kind of holiday we want it to be and G: That's okay. We can't win at everything. Nice. Nora: just got the right contact details now. So it's just about getting in touch with them and also deciding when we're gonna do it. Cause obviously both of us are competing now. So it i it does depend on the timelines on that. you know, and we've got a lot of other travel coming up. So yeah. it is definitely gonna happen. We don't mind waiting for it though. G: Nice, makes sense. And I think I haven't got it written here, but I'm sure one of your goals is also for prep as well and to like book your shows and get moving on all of these fronts. And I think you are absolutely killing, killing it. Yeah, really proud of you doing so well. Nora: Thank you. Thank you. yeah, that's progressing really well. I starting the year when we were setting the goals, it was like, okay, I'm gonna go through this, you know, do a diet. But the jumping on stage thing was like, ⁓ if it goes well, I'll give a go. But now it's feeling more real. And I think I've started believing in myself more as well. So ⁓ it's cool. It's cool. It's gonna be a great experience, I think. just gonna take it day by day. and just see if I enjoy it. I feel like I've progressed in that aspect as well. G: We have to do the call out though. had, so with the goals, you may remember, we'd not just set the goal, but we set the action item that was going to come to support the goal. ⁓ one of the things that you put down that you said you were going to do with GEO was to do a weekly planning session for the honeymoon. So accountability check-in, did that happen? Nora: It did not happen. in regards to the honeymoon. We do have a weekly planning session, but with both of us prepping, other priorities came into that planning session that yeah. ⁓ But I believe so as well. But yeah, I the is still to book it. I j I just don't think it is the number one priority for right now. G: That is okay. Nora: we've got some cool trips coming up. I've got possibly Canada as well, end of this year. if Geo qualifies for the world. So That's gonna be a cool trip, which, you know, is also quite a nice experience as well. G: Nice, love it, well done. Nora: yeah, let's to yours. Tell us, tell us. I know what it was, but I want you to say it and yeah, just announce. ⁓ G: So I had to. My main personal goal for the quarter was to book my wedding. then my other one was to improve and beat my high rocks PB. And I'm very, very happy to say we booked our wedding. Nora: There we go. ⁓ it's so exciting. Do you want to tell the people where it is, what's happening? G: Yeah, I don't know if I'm getting deja vu, but I kind of feel like I told everyone on a previous episode. But anyways, we're going to Las Vegas bitches. And I'm so buzzing. Yeah, we booked for March, paid the deposit and it's all yeah, in really good flow. So not even just still talking about it. Like we're actually booking things, sorting vendors like it's happening. So yeah, need to obviously continue doing a lot of work on that because there is a lot of logistics and stuff to book and plan but like the actual wedding is booked and deposit paid. So yeah, actually plan some things. I'm terrible at making plans and arrangements and bookings. I'm very proud of myself. ⁓ thank you. ⁓ then the other one was the high rocks PB because I had in Q2 my next mixed doubles. I don't know if Q2 also had no because March was in Q1. So just done women's doubles. But in think it was May, April, I think was maybe early May and got a PB. Nora: That's awesome. I'm proud of you as well. ⁓ gonna be exciting. Nice. G: with Lou. So we got one hour eight, which is 15 minutes shaved off my previous mix doubles PB time. So it was buzzing with that. So I've just been really working on the running and trying to run like at least two or three times a week since to keep that pace and improve it for December when we're going to do our next one. So yeah, that's really cool. So I'm quite proud of myself for actually doing the shit I said I was going to do for once. So yeah. Nora: Not sick. Not for once. You do the things you say you're gonna do. Just not when it comes to planning. yeah, huge credit to you for planning your wedding. ⁓ I'm so excited for you. yeah, it's gonna be awesome. ⁓ cool. Shall go into business? ⁓ G: Do you think? Yeah. Yay. I'm ready. Yes. Okay. So business goals we set for Q2 because we're in a really good spot when we went into Q2 and we still are that we the focus wasn't to grow the business. It was to systemize and optimize. Did we actually prioritize systems in Q2? Nora: Do feel like we did personally. we had a business trip which was fully dedicated on filming onboarding videos, planning what that ⁓ customer experience would look like. And I feel like that was quite successful. Came back from that trip, set up the ⁓ right funnels automations. we have also progressed quite massively on I would ad systems as well. So like having a different way to G: Y'all be a style. Nora: to market, like set up our VSL. We put a lot of effort in systemizing that aspect as well. ⁓ G: Yeah, yeah, I'd say that's true. So we've got and we've got some new AI systems and stuff that we've built to help us be more efficient. So say yeah, we did prioritize it. And we said that the goal wasn't to grow, but we have literally doubled our business. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I I think just that that just came naturally. I feel like this has been such a good quarter for us. not necessarily about the growth. The growth is cool, but I feel like we've both and we've gotten so many comments about it. Like the energy is there, like we both show up so with so much like love for what we do. People are seeing it, our content has improved massively. I'm so proud of our content. Like I've told you this before. I've been doing social media for like Eight years now. you know, and I look at our page and like it might be the first time in ever that I'm like, I'm so proud of this. There's a like not that there's not room for improvement. There's always room for improvement, but like you look at our page, the the brand consistency is there, the the energy is there. Like we're I feel like we're being ourselves as well through it and it's so like fulfilling and like nice because I feel like people are G: Hmm. Nora: really responding really well to it. It's so lovely. so yeah. Yeah, I think it's been a just a great great quarter overall, which I think is that domino effect of like you do one thing, you enjoy it, like the rest of the things that s just fall together really well. And because people are seeing it, more people are inquiring and more people are keen. Yeah. G: Okay. Yeah, it's been super organic though, right? Like we've seen people who have been listening to the podcast. So if you're like one of them, thank you. Watching our content, replying to our stories, engaging with stuff, getting our lead magnets, whatever, or seeing some of our ads and then coming through naturally and just saying like, you know, I've been watching your stuff for however long and like, really like the vibe or like really like how you guys show up or just like think you're a bit not like the dicky gurus. Nora: Yeah. G: that we see in the industry kind of thing. And I just, I just think it's so cool because we're really not trying to be anything other than ourselves. Nora: Yeah, yeah. And got this message the other day from one of our new followers, who we just like we always like message our new followers just to thank them for like being on the page, like ask them about content, what kind of things they enjoy. and one of them came back a few days later saying how they binged all of the episodes of our podcast and this was someone that didn't know about us a week ago, right? And the fact that they not only watched our content on Instagram, but then went out of their way to find our podcast on Spotify or YouTube and watch all of the episodes. Just like made my heart so happy. I was like, what we're doing is so cool and ⁓ yeah, it's just I'm buzzing. ⁓ G: it melts my heart. So good. So I'd say then on the business goals, we actually did do the systems that we said we were going to do. And I would love for us to maybe share some of the things that we think worked the best and what made the biggest difference in Q2. So you just mentioned that obviously we had the new content. I don't even know that it was a new strategy. I just think we leveled up on the quality. And we were being consistently showing up every single day, which we were before. like, Nora: Mm. G: I think that we came back into our batch creation era and we were almost creating more content before we needed to. So we've got volume to choose from and work with rather than like, we kind of had a bit of a scarcity patch, I'd say a few months ago. Nora: Yeah. we caught ourselves on that and we were like, what we need to like promise to each other is we basically our VIP package, we apply it to us once a month. And like we have a content day for gel once a month and we haven't missed a month since I would say. Yeah. G: So we did it all quarter, didn't we? So that was actually an unintentional system that we set up for ourselves. we basically, and actually that needs to be celebrated because you made the most wonderful notion dashboard extravaganza that our team use. So our clients use it, our editor uses it, we use it. And this extends from like scripting that we write and add the scripts in, in the planning process. Then the client can approve the scripts for the videos and we approve our own. Then... Nora: Yeah. G: you upload with your magic tool the videos which you can chat through then they get edited and moved around and it all just like flows through and it's like this extravaganza system. I mean that system in itself is worth fucking millions. It's amazing. Nora: it has made us way more efficient. Clients are using it to plan their content once they receive it as well from the editor. They're also, you know, it's all in one place where they can refer back to it at any given point. the editor has access to their queue, so they kinda it's just so good, so efficient. I'm so glad that it finally worked because it did take me quite a few days to build, but That is one application that we utilized AI for ⁓ building it as well. And yeah, it was worth it 'cause yeah, we we now have a great system that works really well for us clients and our editor as well. G: Yeah. And what's really cool about it is it uses AI to make it more efficient and to be more organized. but what the AI doesn't do is write all the content ⁓ or like remove all of the human awesome elements that we can actually add to the stuff. So it just takes out the manual admin. I think that's what, you know, is amazing about these tools that we've got available to us now. It's about Nora: Yeah. Yeah. G: thinking about the application, not just using them to replace your own abilities and brain. It's about how can you leverage them to save you time on the shit you don't want to do, like labeling videos and uploading them to folders. Norris built a data wrangler so we don't have to watch five hours worth of video. It just labels them and organizes them. still written all the videos and filmed all the videos ourselves, but we don't have to spend five hours organizing them. It's just amazing. And like, I think people get scared of it, which I get because... Nora: Hmm. Yeah. So G: I can still get scared of AI, but it's like, how can you use it as a system to save you the jobs that you don't want to do or that you can't add any more value? What value would it be one of us sat watching a video and labeling it? Zero. You cannot add any exponential value on that. a computer can do it. Whereas if we were to write a video script, we could add a lot more personality, opinion, vibes, value. So we spend the time there. I think it's, yeah, I'm just super, super impressed by it. I you absolutely smashed that. So cool. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. G: terms ⁓ things that didn't work maybe, ⁓ did we say we would do but maybe didn't do from a business perspective in Q2, anywhere we feel like maybe we wasted some time? Nora: Yeah. Does anything come to mind for you? G: Mmm. I'm actually really struggling to think of where we wasted time to feel like we've been really, really efficient. I think we've got better with our boundaries with calls. We've not added in random calls, we've stopped over delivering people that aren't paying for certain services. So we don't do like extra calls. Like, in the last episode of this, I said, I sometimes do this and like, say we both really stopped doing that. So the boundaries have been better. ⁓ Nora: Same. Yeah, a hundred percent. I do genuinely feel it's been a very productive quarter. And that's not to say that we've been perfect, but I don't I can't point at something that we've done wrong or have spent much time on that wasn't useful. Like I do feel like we've taken all of the learns from Q1 and we've on everything. don't get me we've worked like really hard, and it wasn't all easy. G: this video. Nora: But we put the systems in place that can now take us forward and we could scale the business more. And we ⁓ did we invest in the mentorship that we're in now last quarter or this? G: Yeah, I think it was in Q. I think that was in Q1. I think it was in February or March. Yeah, I think that was pre Q2. could have leveraged that more. I think that's maybe a thing that we've both acknowledged recently is that like, we've invested in this amazing program and we are now starting to use it more. But we basically like sat on stuff for a couple months whilst we were so busy and didn't get the most out of it. But now we're really starting to like double down on our ad strategy and like we're seeing great growth. So I think ⁓ Nora: Was it? Okay. Okay. Fair. Yeah. G: It is, yeah, one of those things that when you're busy, you know, you need the help to invest in it, but you don't necessarily leverage it as much. We did have probably like six weeks where we didn't do anything. So that was a bit of a mess. But then we held ourselves accountable. And then we put stuff in place to make sure we're actually like, showing up and utilizing that service more that we're paying for. And at no point did we blame the mentorship or, you know, regret the investment. We've just gone, you know what, we're not showing up as the best clients as we could be. So we're going to make a change. And we have. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. Any anyone like that invests in something but doesn't show up enough should not be playing the thing that they invested in. Like, you know. Yeah. G: So that's. Yeah, but we've seen it so many times, people have said that to us, not in jail yet, recent times. Well, maybe once. But we have had we have had that in the past in the previous company we worked for where people would blame the business despite them not doing any of the work, which is bizarre. And just as an FYI, hopefully those of you that are listening in have just reflected on your own goals for your personal and your business goals for Q2. And write down, know, Nora: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. G: Where did things go well? What are you proud of? What did you achieve? Did you stick to what you said you would? And where did you maybe miss or reflect on that you could have done something slightly differently? that's really important before we set our new goals. Because if we don't look back at what we said we were going to do and we just make more, we're just adding goals to the pile and not necessarily achieving anything. But super proud of us. I think Q2 was an amazing quarter, probably our best one yet. ⁓ Yeah, did set and say, Nora: Yeah, I would agree. G: in the last episode, because it's the one where we told everyone our revenue target for the year, I believe, that our goal was to hit 250k in 2026. And we're still very much on track, right? Nora: Yeah. Yeah, we're exactly on track with that. G: chef's guess. yeah, I don't think we changed that goal. I think we stick with it. And I think we just ⁓ ⁓ Nora: No, I think it's nice big goal. Not you know, unrealistic, but not also if we, you know, stop doing what we're doing and we stop working hard, we're not gonna hit it. So I think it's a good like stretch goal, let's say. Yeah. G: Yeah. Yeah, but we're very much on track, is amazing. But what that also means, guys, is we've had to VAT register, which is a fucking ball ache, and it's going to cost us so much money. And we're having to learn that. So that's been a Q2 to three situation that we're handling. And we're not experts in and it stresses me out. But these are the things. That's why we've got accountants. And we've got each other, which is nice we can Nora: Yeah. That's why we've got accountants. Yeah. G: we can try and figure things out as well. But it's one of those where, you know, it's a necessary evil of growing a business. let's talk Q3. I would love to know, Nora. And for you guys at home, when you're listening, write down what is your Q3 personal goal? I'll think of mine too, if you think of yours, Nora, and then let's write them down. Nora: Let's go out. G: And then I would like you to also write a business one whilst you're there Okay. You wanna go first? Nora: Yeah. G: Tell me your personal goals for the quarter. Nora: I think the main one would be prep related. Obviously, this is my first bodybuilding season. It's something very much out of my comfort zone. so wanna make sure that I finish prep with a big smile on face. I wanna be present, I wanna enjoy it, I wanna make memories with Gio that we can look back to for, you know, years to come. and I wanna just like embrace the sport. I really love bodybuilding. ⁓ I think too many people like misunderstand it. And yeah, I just wanna just just really enjoy the whole process really, which ⁓ someone who's a first timer can be very overwhelming there's so many things to think about, but I've got the right support around me. So I'm excited for that. I've got other personal goal, which is something that I've been wanting to do for a very long time. But Well, for those of you that do listen to the podcast and do know me for many years, music has been a very big part of my life for since I was a kid, really, because my dad used to sing and play the piano. So then I sang and played the piano since I was a kid. And one thing that I have felt like I've like just stopped doing as much is like just create music. and I've wanting to get into DJing for a very long time. And my birthday from Gio was ⁓ DJ console and I've now got the kit that I need to start learning DJing. So I actually wanna start learning. I wanna dedicate well, one slot week I can start learning DJing. 'Cause it's been something that I will I've been saying I'm gonna do for three years and I haven't. So G: love it. Amazing. ⁓ I to get sub 22 minute 5k. It's pretty audacious. Yeah. So I want to get that. Nora: What is your personal goal? nice. Well you're a very good runner though, I would say. So I don't think it's unrealistic. I think you can do it. G: My lifetime PB is 23 minutes, 30 seconds or something. So we'll have a go, but I I need, I'm asking one of my friends to pace me, something like chasing around, try and get there. So that's one. And then I want to smash my first ethics without injury. So those are my personal goals. Let's move to business goals. What did you write down? Nora: Okay. Nice. one thing that I said was more in person stuff clients and for us. Yeah. That is one that I really think that we both enjoy quite a lot and it can bring our community together and ⁓ yeah, just f it just creates so opportunities for us and our clients and I I really want to make it a priority in Q three. I think we could G: Love that. Yes, love it. Yeah, I wanna do that. Nora: Host our first client event. G: Yes. Okay. I love it. And I really want to do that too. I we literally spoke about it earlier today. So let's make that our main goal. also wrote 10k ⁓ which I'm not really bothered about followers, but we've had some really good growth recently. So like, fuck it, let's get to 10k by the end of the quarter. So let's we're to do an in person community event for our clients and bring everyone together and build that community and hit fucking followers. Audacious, but why not? Okay, so ⁓ Nora: Yeah. Yeah yeah. Love it. G: Moving into action items, let's do three quick actions that are actually going to drive these goals. ⁓ Maybe for now, let's just focus the business ones, just for the sake of the pod. How are we going to drive this community activation? Nora: We start we need to look at the calendar and find a a good week in the next three months. I know we discussed yeah, we discussed some possible but we need to look at the calendar and actually map out based on what we both have going on because we've got a lot of stuff coming up. ⁓ yeah, find a good date, make plan of what the idea is for the day, what do we want to get out of it, and then G: Okay, so we need to find a date. Mm-hmm. Nora: Start inviting people. I don't think we should overthink it. We're so good at just like yeah, just doing stuff. So like let's just do it. It doesn't have to be fancy. Bring our community together, good vibes, good energy, go karaoke at the end of the night. Yeah. G: doing stuff. Yeah, let's just do it. Okay. Yeah, perfect. Let's just do it. Let's do it in London. Okay, so we're going to do that. are we repeating from Q2? So posting every day with the same quality and intention and energy. We to be bit better on our stories. We've improved a bit and we do try but I think maybe we can set like certain things or put a reminder in our diary just to make sure we're showing up on stories like we know we should be and we can. We're to put an offer out as well. We haven't actually sold anything for ages. So we're going to do a like a campaign ourselves, like we run for our clients, we're going to do one of those this quarter, because we haven't really done one for a while. Any other actions or sort of things that we need to be doing that we haven't mentioned? It's a bit quick fire, I know. Nora: Awesome. Don't think so. I think just continue more in person work together. I think we've prioritized that this quarter and I do believe that it is a big contributor to why this quarter was successful. Cause working is great and obviously allows us that flexibility for both of us. But I do think we are we just get a lot more done when we're together. We come up with so many ideas. yeah, and and we enjoy business. ⁓ G: Yeah. Which is why we're actually going to Rhodes in two weeks. So we've got a little trip coming up. So we are going to be spending some lovely time in the sunshine together with one of our gorgeous clients, Sammy, as well. So we're super excited. yeah, we've set some goals. We reviewed our goals. We've made a bit of an action plan. ⁓ think a lot of this is continuing doing the stuff that's working already. We had amazing quarter. And what we're not going to do is just Nora: Whoa. Yeah. G: add more stuff in for the sake of it or change what's already working. We're going to stay consistent, keep doing the simple stuff, keep showing up every single day like we do and enjoying what we build because there is no point having money if you can't enjoy spending it. Nora: Hundred percent. not all of it though. Don't spend all of it. ⁓ G: I'm spending all your money. No, I'm not. really, we're actually kind of bad at spending money. So hopefully you got some value from listening today and you've also mapped out and reflected on your goals from Q2 and set some new ones for Q3. ⁓ Make sure it's really important that you've written what the goal is, why it's important to you, what actions you're going to be taking to get there and anything you did last quarter that you need to cut out because maybe it was distracting or it didn't actually help you to achieve your goals. It's okay to not hit a goal, but what isn't okay is to give up. So keep going, people. Message us if you need any help. And we are so grateful for you listening this far. And have an amazing rest of your day. Nora: And we'll catch you on the next one, which is gonna be a really cool episode. we've got, yeah. It's gonna be a good one. But catch you on the next one, people. We appreciate you. make sure that you also rate the podcast on Spotify. Five stars, please, if you are listening every week. and yeah, we'll catch you next week. Bye. G: Spicy spicy See you soon, thank you, bye!