48: Choosing Enough: My 2025 Revenue Breakdown & Business Audit (Steal this!)

Chasing an invisible revenue target and feeling like you're never making enough? Here's the truth: bigger isn't always better. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm sharing my full 2025 year-end recap—the real numbers, what I stopped doing, and the one question that completely changed my business (and my nervous system). You'll learn how to define "enough" for your business, audit what's actually working, and build a business that fits your life—not the other way around. If you're ready to stop chasing the horizon and start leading with intention, this one's for you.

*Check out the full show notes for this episode CLICK HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

• How defining my "enough number" took me off the hamster wheel and gave me permission to choose the business I actually want to live inside
• My full 2025 revenue breakdown by offer - what worked, what didn't, and why I made less by design
• The exact questions to ask yourself in your own year-end audit (capacity, revenue mix, owned audience health, and boundaries)
• Why I'm backing off social in 2026 and doubling down on my podcast and email list instead
• How to choose better over bigger—and why that's not giving up, that's leading

Resources & Links mentioned in the episode:

• My favorite year-end recap carousel templates for Canva - grab these 6 free templates to share your own wins and numbers with your audience in a fun, engaging way!
• Join The Visual Edit Waitlist: my once-a-year, crazy-hands-on program where we build your brand rules, core templates, file system, and publish-on-busy-days routine together (launching live mid-January with limited spots - join the waitlist for first access and early bird discounts!)

Connect with me:
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🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

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Transcript

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The big headline for me, I made less, but by design, right, I, I found out what my minimum was. I, I found out what enough meant, and I'm happier with the business that I'm running. Bigger isn't always better. Hello, friend. Welcome back to the Creative Bodega Podcast. This is my final episode of 2025 and my 48th podcast of the year, which is wild. I have not missed a week. And if you know me, that's not really strange because I show up on social media consistently. I write my newsletter consistently every Tuesday, and I release a podcast consistently every Monday. Why and how do I do that with systems? It's not drive or motivation. It's literally finding something that works for me and not really giving up until I, I find that, so I'm a systems girl and I love repeating processes. To be really honest, that's not what this is about, though. I digress. I can honestly say though, that starting this podcast is one of the things that I am the most proud of in 2025. I just checked last week, I'll have to check again, but last week, according to Listener Notes, which is a website that ranks podcasts, I was in the 1.5% top. Podcast for marketing, which is literally insane. It's, it's something I am insanely proud of. And yeah, it just feels good because I also absolutely love doing it. So I really can't wait to see what's in store for the podcast in 2026. If I'd had to guess, it'd probably be working in some more guest speakers. I have my first guest speaker coming out. Hmm. Is it. I gotta check the schedule. It might be the next podcast the following week, the first week of January, but I'm really excited about that. I think it went really, really well and I need to explore that a bit more. But. Anyways. Today I'm doing a recap, a a year-end recap, and I think this is really important for business owners to do, you know, what are the numbers, what are the numbers compared to the year before? What numbers are we looking at? And I'm talking about a decision I made that really changed my life in my business, and that is choosing enough on purpose. I'm gonna walk you through what I made this year, what I didn't do. What I want you to look at in your own audit and what I'm planning to focus on in 2026, spoiler, it probably has to do with owning my audience even more. AKA Instagram, you don't own your audience, so I also put my favorite year end recap carousel template in the show notes. So make sure you check those out. You can also head to my website, the created bodega. Com slash blog slash 48 to grab that. So it's just literally like my top three or four Yearend recap, carousel template, links from Canva, and it's just fun to let people know, here are the numbers, here's what I did, here's what I'm looking forward to, here's what I'm gonna do next year. Like people always tend to really like this post. We're nosy. Hi. We're all really nosy, so uh, you can post it with your own wins and all that good stuff. So, quick story'cause I love a good story. August, 2024, last year I was. Very close to burnout honestly. And working with a therapist who was also like a business mentor. And she said something to me that like, or she challenged me to do something that honestly stopped me in my tracks.'cause it was something I had never even thought of.'cause she basically said, what do you actually need to make em like? How much money do you actually need to make for your family? Because if you know, and you followed along with my story, I am the maid earner for my family, and it's not a position I love being in, and it really puts a lot of stress on me and, uh, it just freaks me out. I, it's not something I ever wanted and, but here I am. Right? And it's just what kind of made sense for our family at the time. And maybe, hopefully that'll change one day, but here we are, right? But I was chasing an invisible number. I was launching and launching and launching and like feeling like I was never making enough, but I didn't know what I needed to make you guys. It sounded so simple, but I was on this hamster wheel, launching, planning, filling, repeating with this invisible revenue target. That just kept moving. Right? And my therapist had been gently pushing me for weeks to stop chasing the horizon and define what enough was. So I went to my husband and I said,'cause he does all the, you know, financials. What do I need? Where am I and what I've made, and what do I actually need to make? And we had a real honest conversation because, you know, every month we were meeting and he's like, and what are you projected to make? And what are you launching next? And I'm like, well, it mean even though he wasn't forcing me to launch stuff, he's just such a numbers guy. And forecasting is important to him. So he knows where we are. But it, all I heard was, what are you doing when you make money? What are you doing when you make money? What are you launching? You know? And I was like. You know, this needs to stop like this whole once a month meeting where you are pressuring me to tell me what, you know, tell you what I'm projected to make and what my plan is, is like it's freaking me out and, and it's making me actually hate what I'm doing. And he was like, he felt horrible. He actually was like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not why I'm asking you. It's just, I, I would like to know so I can plan ahead. And I'm like, I know that, but this isn't gonna work. Right? And, and so we sat down and we came up with. A number for our family of what made sense and. Seeing that number and knowing what I was already making took so much pressure off me. I'm like, okay, like we're good. Like I don't have to launch something next month.'cause I didn't want to. Right. I was feeling just so tapped out and like tired of launching. And so I'm not sharing what that exact number is on the pod'cause it's, you know, private for our family. But I cannot tell you how much that changed my nervous system. That one exercise shifted my whole 2025, and it gave me the permission to choose the business I want to live inside, not the one that just looks impressive from the outside. Right. And I think we get so wrapped up in the numbers and we see people flashing these numbers around and you're like, oh my God, oh my God, how is she making that much? What's going on? Like, oh, oh, I'm not making enough. Honestly, I think one thing that I've gotten wrapped up in is like more every year, bigger every year. Right? Or every month even. And that's just not what I need. I don't need to make more every year, like, and that's when it's like choosing enough, defining enough, and choosing enough. I don't have to go above that. If I do, fine, great, but this is what we need. Anything above that is extra goes into savings. Great. We're good. Right. So I didn't end up launching that last fall because of that. Like there were moments this year when I simply didn't have the launch in me. You know what I mean? Because it's a big deal. Launching takes a lot of energy for me, and I didn't, and I want to launch because I love. What I do, and because I love teaching, not because I have some arbitrary number to hit, bigger is not always better. You know, better is better, and sometimes better. Looks like fewer plates spinning, deeper delivery, and more margin. Right. So 2025 by the numbers. I'm gonna share what I made. I, I went back and forth with my husband on this. Like, do I, don't, I do, I have to. I don't feel like I owe it to anyone to share what I've made. It's completely private and mine, but when I have seen creators that I respect and love, share. The numbers behind the scenes, I'm all ears and I'm really intrigued. You know what I mean? So let me start by saying I do have three people that I employ. So I employ my virtual assistant slash community manager, Nicole. She has a certain number hours a week. I employ Steph, who is my brand strategist. And Steph and Nicole will help me on live programs, and that's super helpful for, for me, like they're co-coach in live programs. Right. And then I have Scott, who's my podcast editing. Guru, so that's three people, right? So I'm, I'm not completely alone. I do have help and it didn't start out that way, right? I started with the va, then I added on the brand strategist, then I added on the community manager when I started community. And last but not least, was my podcast editor. So they do things that I don't want to do or slash help me stay accountable to what I've committed to. So before I tell you what I made in this whole year, I just want you to remember I do pay contractors and I would say it probably comes out to be about$15,000 a year that I pay my contractors total. Then you need to take out taxes. You guys, I just got a letter in the mail what my estimated taxes are for. 2026 I think it was, and it was$75,000. So I'm not even gonna get into that. My husband was like, please don't talk about taxes.'cause like I don't want people coming to me. I'm not a tax advice person, but I always say how good he is with all that. So I'm gonna give you a number, right? It's gonna sound impressive for little old me in my fourth bedroom of my house, but a lot is taken out for both contractors and taxes. So I made$320,000 in 2025, and that's just about 3% less than I made last year. That's perfectly fine. Like, we're, we're good. My husband makes money too, so not as much, but he, he's, you know, with him and me, we're good. And we save, right? And we're saving for college and we have retirement. You know, we have our IRAs and we, he's so responsible with all the money, right? So let me tell you like where that money. Came from. Um, so my offers, so I've got my membership right, and the membership brought in actually second place. It came in second place after live courses. So my membership brought in about$147,000 this year. And. I've loved every minute, and I love my membership so much. I love the women in it. I love the comradery. I love the support. I love running challenges. I love seeing people reach their goals. I, I would never go back on this. So that is the core. In addition to live courses, so live courses was 152,000. So this year I ran three live courses, the visual edit. In January, which is my signature program coming up, by the way, get on the wait list. I ran, then start and grow your email list, live in like May. And then I ran the messaging edit, which was so amazing in September, October. And so those are my three live launches, live programs. Why? I love live teaching. I legit love it. And I also know that there's so much accountability and movement and progress that comes with a retainer like that. So it's, it's my jam. There's a place holder in my husband's little chart he gave me with all these numbers.'cause he had to put this all together for me. I did no one-on-ones, so I didn't do a single one-on-one. And that is something I'm getting more and more requests for. So I'm considering working them into my offer suite in 2026. You can stay tuned for that, but. The next highest line item is actually affiliate money. So I am an affiliate for Canva flow desks later.com. And I think that's it. Uh, I've really paired back. I used to be one for a lot of other places, but I've just been like, I really just wanna focus on, honestly, Canva. And flow desk. So, uh,$13,000 came from affiliate money and or money I've made as a Canva verified expert. So that was my next one. And then the last place, lowest moneymaking area where instant access or digital products. So. I barely speak about these. I'm not gonna lie. I, I really barely talk about them in my feed. I barely talk about them in my email. And this was all very intentional this year. I really wanted to focus on my membership. I really want to, I want that to be the option for people. And so I stopped kind of talking about all my instant access and at one point the number of instant access things I was offering overwhelmed me. I didn't know what to talk about when it just felt. Like all too much. So I decided to really focus my energy and my marketing on my membership, and so my instant access courses brought in$9,000 this year. So those are my numbers. So again, instant access, super low, and I didn't talk about it. So you guys back in 2023, and I have all the numbers in front of me. My husband got these together. Instant access, I made$127,000 because instant access digital products were so big back in 2023. And then, as we all know, in 2024 there was a massive shift. 2024, I made 25,000. This year I essentially stopped talking about them'cause I just wanted to focus on my membership and live programs. It just shows you, you know, you gotta keep up with kind of what's happening and what's going on. And I saw a massive shift and I jumped on it. Right. The, the membership model made a lot more sense to me and instead of constantly kind of pushing. Other one-off products. Like I wanted people to get results and I really truly feel in my heart of hearts that that's a membership situation. So let's see here. My membership churn, so quick definition churns the percentage of members who cancel in a certain period. So the lower the churn, the healthier the community is. It has leveled out around 9% for me, which tells me that my membership experience is consistent, right? That was a lot higher last year. I'm really proud to have gotten that down. I'd like to get it down more consistently below 10%, month over month is for sure a goal for 2025 for me. My email list, so this is just like, you know, I'm just kind of going through the bigger numbers. My email list. I've gained 5,000 subscribers this year, which I am. Very happy about. My email performance is phenomenal. I have a 53% average open rate. They say that the average is 20 to 30% for industry, 99.4% deliverability. So for all the flow desk haters out there who say it's poor delivery. I call bullshit on that 99.4, and it was the same last year. Uh, 2.7% click rate. I will take it one to two percent's average and then 0.4% unsubscribe, which is amazing. And this is why I pound the whole like own your own audience drum. Like it's no one's business. This is where my sales happened in the emails, right? So Instagram, I gained 20,000 followers this year, which is great, but it's an ego number to be really honest. I care so much more about about sales, about my email list growing and my open rate and all that good stuff. And again, for the podcast I've published, this is my 48th episode. I haven't missed a week since I started in March, and I am in the 1.5%. Top marketing podcasts in the world, which is just freaking awesome. It's awesome. And I can't, I have nothing to compare that to'cause it's my first year. So I can't wait to see what that looks like. And my, my listening, my listens. Listens. Is that how you, it just keeps going up and up and up and up. I love it. I love it. And the more I keep getting more dms where people, instead of, they're like, I found you from a reel. They literally say, I found your podcast. And I'm like, I freaking love that. I love it. So the big headline for me. I made less, but by design, right, I, I found out what my minimum was. I, I found out what enough meant, and I'm happier with the business that I'm running. I don't have to make multiple hundred thousands of dollars. Like, Hey, if I could do that and have my nervous system be intact and not employ 30 people, great. But I don't wanna employ people beyond what I already am and. I wanna keep loving what I'm doing, so we're good, right? So bigger isn't always better. And here's what I want you to audit. I want you to grab a piece of paper, open up your notes app and or pause if you need to. As I get going here, here are the exact questions and the numbers I really want you to look at for your own year end review. And the goal isn't perfection, right? It's just kind of like gaining some awareness. Around your honest answers, right? What's the first thing that comes to your mind or gaining some awareness around numbers that maybe you're not tracking yet, that you probably should? So first thing is capacity and energy. What did you resent doing this year and what brought you the most joy? I wanna know those two things. When you do your best work. So really thinking about the time of day, the days of the week, are there particular seasons? You know, I'm really big on this, like being energy led. Right? And I think it just helps you work smarter, not harder, right? The next area is offers and revenue mix. So what percentage of your revenue came from each offer? So for me. 1.5% came from my instant access or digital products. 51% came from my membership. 52.7% came from my live courses. You know the other thing that my husband didn't include in here? Uh, and I bet you with my Black Friday sale and my commissions from my affiliate sales. I probably get over 300 K this year. Uh, I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep you posted on that one. See, this is the competitive part in me where I'm sitting here like, oh, like what's enough? And then I'm like, I can get to 300 K. Oh, make me stop. Okay. Okay. Um, which offer? Created the most stress per dollar and which created the least, right? So really thinking about what offer created the most stress and what created the least. And then if I had to cut one offer for the next 90 days, what would be the positive chain reaction? Or how would that feel, you know? So that's always, again, like finding your minimum if it's bringing you, uh, the most stress and making you the least money. We're gonna cut back on that. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna think about that, right? Okay. The next category owned audience health. This is big. What was your email list growth this year? So total net new subscribers. Mine was 5,000. Okay. Email performance. I want you looking at that average open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, and deliverability rate. These are huge. They're so easy to find in flow desks. You just click on analytics at the top. Okay. Uh, list sources like, so where does your new subscribers actually come from? I'm. Really bad about this and I need to create new forms in flow desks for each of these places. Meaning, which I actually did, I did this a couple months ago, I just haven't actually looked at it. So we're gonna do that. Darn it. So like, did my email subscribers subscribe through my website, through social media, through my Lincoln bio or through my podcast? Those are the three places. So really looking at, you know, where the subscribers came from. And do I have at least one Evergreen lead magnet that generally matches really well? What? What I sell? So that's something to ask yourself. Does your freebie relate back to your offer really well? And that's really important. Okay. Next is community stickiness. So churn rate, if you have a membership, what's that looking like? Uh, what is your unsubscribe rate looking like? You know, so what is the churn? Unsubscribes and unfollows, you know, we want more follows than unfollows. Unless something, you know, drastic happened, like you completely change what you're talking about, then you can't, you know, beat yourself up for an unfollow if you're changing up what you're discussing, right? So is it trending flat down. One reason people stayed this year and maybe one reason people left. Ask yourself that honestly. And what member only moment did I deliver or could I deliver quarterly? That makes staying a no-brainer. If you have a community, or even if you're just, we're talking about your community on Instagram, right? And then last but not least enough in boundaries. So my private enough number kept me sane this year and you can keep it to yourself. Is it monthly? Is it annual?'cause my husband was honestly looking at my numbers month over month. And so I had really low, low months when I wasn't launching. And I'm like, you can't. Put this pressure on me to make this number every month. That's not how my business works. Right? And we have money in savings for this very reason that we can dip into so layoff. And again, my God, he, I mean this. All it took was one very honest, raw conversation between the two of us, and we're such good communicators that it's been so, so, so much better slash like, non-existent. The pressure just isn't even there. He, he doesn't even ask me anymore. I'm like, thank you. And then if income already met enough, you know, what would I stop doing? You know, can you take off that launch? Or what do you wanna do with your time instead? So one boundary for 2026, I want you to think of one boundary for 2026. Example, not being on social media on the weekends, you know? Capping your membership at a certain number or capping a live program or cohort at a certain number. So I do that every single time. I literally am like 30 women. 30 women, 40 women. Like I don't take more than that because I want it to be a great experience for them and for me. Okay. Uh, how many launches are you gonna have, max? Like, how many times do you wanna launch this year? In the beginning of the year, I said two. And then may came around and I felt a little energy and I was excited to launch, start and grow your email list. So I said, F it, let's do it. And I did it and it was awesome. I loved it. And then, you know, definitely maybe a boundary is, you know, uh, this buffer in between launches or anything like that. So set one boundary for 2026. You can really. Stick with. If you want an easy way to share your takeaways publicly, I would love for you to grab the year end recap carousel templates in the show notes. This is something I do every year. I share my numbers in a carousel and then I say, Hey, comment like template to grab these templates, and they're my top Canva Carousel recap templates that I think it's really fun because it forces you to grab the numbers right. And it forces you to be specific instead of egg. So what I'm focusing on in 2026, just owning my audience even more, which means growing my list. I'm not gonna lie. And continuing with my podcast, I'm, if anything, I'm backing off social a little bit or not putting as much eggs in socials. I'll say that, and my podcast and my newsletter is where I'm gonna be focusing probably more of my energy, right? It doesn't mean I'm not showing up. I'm absolutely showing up. Instagram is one of the first places people find me, but I'm doing everything in my power to get them onto my email list or get them to start listening my podcast to really grow that know, like, and trust factor even more. Okay. If 2025 felt like a lot, please hear me. You're allowed to choose enough. You guys, enough clients enough launches enough revenue to support what you need to in your real life. You can build a business that fits you now and then change it later when your season changes, right? And that's not giving up, that's leading. It's essentially finding your minimum. And if that's what allows your nervous system to feel safe, then more power to you. Okay. If you want more behind the scenes numbers and the how details, make sure you're on my newsletter. That's where I share things that don't make it to Instagram, and I'm proud of you. It's been a great year. It's been, it's been a wild year. It's been a different year, I would say socially, politically, but you know, maybe it's the one we needed and here's to choosing better over bigger, and to owning more of what actually moves the needle in 2026. I will talk to y'all soon. Happy New Year.