The importance of planning never ceases to amaze me. 

Here in Northern Ireland we have received the good news that many COVID restrictions are being lifted and we are ending January in a much more positive place than we started.  I really hope that 2022 will be the year that the pandemic turns into an endemic and we can all start to live life without the shadow of COVID having a hold over our business and day to day life.

As I sit here on this the second last Sunday of January 2022, I am taking a moment to reflect on how much has changed in the world of HR Made Easy thanks to the planning decisions I have made.

How my business looks now in January 2022 is completely different than it was a few years ago.  All thanks to a decision I had made in October 2019 after work-shopping with Denise Duffield-Thomas in London.  I was working on those plans and then the pandemic hit and I, like many others went into reaction mode for my business. Whilst understandable, this wasn’t the best thing for me.  I talk about how that played out in this blog  “Lessons from lockdown 2.0” from October 2020.  In that blog I shared publicly what I had been feeling and struggling with for many months. I explained how I was no longer happy in the business I had worked so hard to create.  I was making my declaration that things had to change.

I drew strength and inspiration from Meghan Markle’s quote “It is not enough to survive, we are here to thrive”.

That quote was the guiding light for everything else that followed when it came to my business.

I had wanted to withdraw the traditional HR Consultant service of handling cases on site for clients.  But October 2020 was the first time I actually stopped offering it as a service to new clients, and made a plan for existing clients as to how I could phase it out.

I worked late nights focusing on completely changing my business model from a traditional HR consultancy into a fully online HR space.  This didn’t happen overnight.  In fact it took many months.

But I held true to my vision of “a new business model”, saying no to the work I no longer wanted to do and drawing new found inspiration and motivation to create projects I wanted to continue.

So if you know Johanna Scullion, HR Consultant of old you would say things like “oh Johanna is the woman to handle that challenging employee” or “don’t worry Johanna will do that for you”.

But here is the thing, as I said in the BLOG by being “that Johanna” I was holding my clients back.  So I committed to change and said:

I will not be the over-protective mother!

I will let them go it alone.

I will take off their training wheels.

I will be there “standing behind them” rather than “standing in for them”.

That is how I will help more small business owners. 

That is how I will make the impact I know I can. 

That is how I will safely have time for me at the end of the day.

By freeing up the time in my dairy from time intensive in-person case work, I will now be able to thrive and move forward with my dream of helping as many small business owners as possible by:

• • Making HR easy and accessible
  • Launching my membership to educate and support small business owners
  • Introducing my online mentoring sessions to help as many as possible

So now if you meet Johanna in 2022, I am delighted to say that I have achieved each of the three goals I set for myself in October 2020.

• johannascullion.com offers easy, cost effect and accessible HR solutions for small business
• The Membership was launched in June 2021 and is open all year round to help and support small business owners
• HR Mentoring has been a popular new service, with clients – old and new – on a few clicks of a button being able to book an hour or 3 of my time to take control and focus on the HR in their business

What’s more is that I have achieved goals I didn’t even know I had back in 2019:

• A complete suite of online contract packages for people to purchase and get immediate access to
• A new business planning and goal setting course sharing my own strategy of planning to help others
• A new online hub and centre to my business where more programmes and courses are coming this year to support not just small business owners, but other HR professionals.

So on this Sunday morning, I am so grateful to be able to look back at the decisions I made at the last quarter of 2020 that have completely revolutionised my business and achieved the single most important goal for myself:

“I have fallen back in love with my business again”

As a business owner I am sure, you will agree, that is one pivotable achievement right there.

So in my closing thoughts, I just want to say if you are reading this right now and want to make changes, don’t let the “big change” put you off making a start.  Know your destination – your big goal – but remember all of the best road trips have many, many pit-stops and detours on the way.  That’s all part of the journey.

Nothing happens overnight, things take time, but if you really want something and start to take steps towards making that happen, then I know that in six months you will be looking back and seeing how far you have come.

If  this sounds like something you want, check out my Review Reassess Realign Business Planning course which teaches the exact process I used to make this magic happen in my business.  Its on introductory offer of half price only £24 for the month of January and it will be going up to full price from 1 February 2022 so why not get it now and make those dreams happen.

I’m thanking the old Johanna for all she has done, but so very excited to be the new online Johanna who is on a mission to make so much positive change by helping 100 small business owners in NI this year.  But that story is for another blog 😊

Off to have another coffee.