Hello everyone! Today I was going to share something else but I recently attended the virtual Growth Week Live event and have way too many thoughts on it that I have to share!

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I think I promised I’d share my experience on two weeks without a phone, as my old phone broke and I had to wait for the new one to come in, but I’ve pushed that back for the 17th. I would have just done that one next but there are other more time sensitive things to write about! Anyway, back to Growth Week!

So, I haven’t talked too much in depth before on the blog about my financial goals. I have mentioned here and there that I am getting stuff sorted but money is always such a strange thing to talk about, so I haven’t shared too many details. (Spoiler: I am planning to share a ton next month for Blogmas!)

One of the groups I joined on Facebook to learn more is Tori Dunlap’s “Her First $100k”, which aims to teach people, primarily women, about building wealth. Since your first $100k is the hardest to reach, that’s the goal of the group! I’ve seen a lot of success in my short time following the group and using their tips, advice, and recommendations. So when Dunlap’s email about how she was a presenter for Growth Week landed in my inbox, I was curious. I had been reading through the posts from other people in the group that Dunlap had inspired, but I hadn’t sought out hearing Dunlap herself. I’m sure if I had looked her up on YouTube or seared in the podcast app I would have found a ton of interviews from her, but since I hadn’t, I thought this was a cool idea.

The way Dunlap presented Growth Week Live was by sharing a bit on the event, stating it was “built for the online entrepreneurs, small business owners, content creators, creatives, and everyday hustlers who have something special to give”. She added it was a free 5-day virtual event and I was sold! Her own presentation was about building a community through podcasting but the rest of the topics I briefly looked through seemed interesting too. Anyway, I signed up and here is what I thought!

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My Thoughts on Growth Week Live 2021

Overall, I have positive thoughts on Growth Week Live! I have to admit, when I signed up I didn’t really expect that I was going to enjoy it very much. I truly thought I would watch Dunlap’s presentation and maybe a one or two others but I got really into it really quickly! I really liked a ton of the presentations and it kept me coming back for more. I barely watched any of the Day 1 sessions, which I am a bit bummed about looking back, but by Day 2 I was trying to watch as many as I could. I’ll name a few of my favorites in this post for sure! Here’s my thoughts:

My thoughts on the hosts

The two hosts were Mallory Rowan and Gemma Bonham-Carter. Honestly I was unfamiliar with both of these ladies but now I’m low-key OBSESSED! They were such sweet, funny, cool, passionate, and knowledgeable ladies. As far as I could tell, they were not only the hosts, but the organizers as well. Both presented their own sessions on Day 5 (I did watch Mallory’s and loved it but only watched a snippet of Gemma’s before the video was made private) and actively watched the others as well, taking notes and even doing Q&A’s after with the speakers or just chatted and replied to other participants if the speaker wasn’t available. Honestly, seeing them pause to jot something down in the middle of a Q&A was so cool to see, because it did show that even the hosts and experts were learning!

My thoughts on the price

Well I have to talk about prices! You might be a tad confused now because I’d previously mentioned it was a free event. And it was! But, there were two paid tiers as well. They had the All-Access tier which I believe was $50USD (although the ladies are Canadian so maybe it could have been CAD) and the VIP for I believe $150. The All-Access tier would give those ticket holders lifetime access to replays and some freebies while the VIP ticket would give ticket holders access to the replays, even more freebies, and exclusive VIP sessions with some of the presenters throughout the week as well.

If I’m being honest, I thought it was a tad high! But, I will add that I was only doing this for fun, and I don’t actually have a business to apply it to. Yes, I could apply it to my blog if I really wanted to, but that wasn’t my intention for attending Growth Week at all, so for me it didn’t make sense to pay. I think I would have liked the All-Access pass to be able to rewatch my favorite sessions and watch the ones I missed, but I would have preferred it to be in the $20-30 range. I did consider the VIP access as some of my favorite presenters mentioned really cool freebies, but that was just way too high for me, maybe if it had been closer to $75 though.

I also wanted to point out that while the VIP pass was promoted heavily throughout the event, the All-Access wasn’t. I honestly don’t recall the hosts ever mentioning the All-Access pass, so maybe some of the freebies I wanted would have been available if I did get that pass. But they only ever mentioned the VIP one so it was impossible to tell which were available for both and which weren’t.

Even with the free pass though, I was able to get a lot of freebies by signing up to newsletters for various presenters and I took a ton of notes so I did think the free pass was still worth it! And honestly, I might consider a paid ticket for next year since I really did enjoy the event.

Schedule

I had a lot of difficulty with the schedule! While I understand that it was meant to drive ticket sales for the replays, I thought it was silly to schedule everything to be during the traditional office work hours when a big portion of the target audience was people with side hustles. Even business owners likely had pre-scheduled meetings or calls I’m sure!

For the most part, I was able to watch after work by not watching live and watching it at double speed to catch up. It made it so I could watch a lot of the content still, but getting good notes was challenging too. I didn’t get to watch every session as the videos were removed at the end of the day, so that was a bummer. I am happy with the amount I did get to watch for free, but it was pretty disappointing when videos were set to private before I could finish watching them. I think a good compromise might have been to leave the videos up for the week, and then remove them but, again, I’m sure that did drive sales so I can’t really blame the organizers for it!

Content

I really enjoyed the content of the sessions! Since I wasn’t watching live I did miss out the morning meditation/yoga practices that started out each day and then I’ll admit I did skip the workouts at lunch to get to the other sessions faster. If I had more flexibility and watching live I probably would have loved that!

The quality and topics of the sessions was amazing as well. The content was so varied and covered so many aspects of business management, content creation, personal growth and discovery – it was great! Each day had certain themes to them so that was cool to be able to focus on those topics but even then I saw a lot of overlap and reiteration from each presenter. I think that was some of the most important things to recognize as I watched various sessions. If multiple people were giving the same tip, it was obvious that was a good tip! I’ll share some comment points presenters made in a bit but I found myself loving that the content connected to each other!

I also want to make sure I point out that a lot of the sessions I thought I was going to love based on the title and sub-title it was promoted with, I didn’t end up really enjoying as much. And other sessions I was just going to speed through ended up being ones that I tried to watch twice if time allowed because it was so good. My notes did vary in length from 2-3 lines total, to 2-3 pages or more! I don’t want to say that some sessions/presenters were lesser quality necessarily but I do think that certain topics, presentation styles, and slides just resonated more with me. I know that other people greatly enjoyed sessions I wasn’t too interested in since I could see the live chat, and I’m sure I loved sessions that other people didn’t care for (no one was negative in the comments so hard to tell on this one). I’ll share some of the topics I enjoyed the most later!

Presenters

I LOVED how diverse the presenters were! They came from all sorts of different backgrounds. They had different socio-economic backgrounds, education levels, career paths, race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, types of businesses (physical/digital products, coaches, etc.), and so much more! It was not just influencers, although they were also influencers. I really appreciated the effort that Mal and Gemma must have made to find and promote business owners from all walks of life.

My Favorite Sessions

As promised, here are some of my favorite sessions!

• Pandemic to Profit: How TikTok took a side hustle full time, presented by Taylor Magee – I loved Magee’s story and her brave dive headfirst into her business when it took off.
• Taking on Twitch: Secrets to streaming success, presented by Carla Marie – I have no intention of streaming on Twitch but this was such a fun session I couldn’t skip it!
• How to Start a Podcast: Develop, produce, and monetize your podcast, presented by Millennial Women Talk – I subscribed to the podcast SO FAST. The hosts are sisters and I loved their energy!
• Craft Your Mic Drop Moment: A step-by-step guide to becoming the speaker you dream of, presented by Mike Ganino – I think this was my favorite of the entire week! It resonated so strongly with me because I used to be petrified to speak publicly. I dreaded reading aloud in class. Eventually, I became a top presenter in my business classes (because you have to be!) and am preparing to give a presentation about my blogging journey. Ganino also said he helped organize a TEDx event and it’s been a goal of mine to give a TED Talk so that was cool. AND he is from Chicago! I loved his presentation and took a ton of notes for it.
• From Gifted Product to 4-Figure Brand Collaborations: 5 tips to turn gifted offers into 4-figure collaborations, presented by Naomi Genota – I liked it because I think this was the most actionable for me in my blog, if I did want to focus more on it.
• Scaling to Burnout: Money minimalism & the right scale for your business, presented by Mallory Rowan – this was a host for the week and so it was cool to see her present. I really loved Rowan’s reminder not to sacrifice what is important to you just to grow your business if you started your business to do more of what you love, such as spending more time traveling or spending time with your family. It was a really, really good reminder and very thought-provoking.

There were so many more I almost added to the list. I have a ton of notes from other great sessions on sales, Pinterest, LinkedIn, pitching, hiring and scaling, and so much more!

Takeaways

So I also promised to share the things that came up again and again, so here they are!

• Know your worth and negotiate to get it.
• Don’t be afraid to say no, then follow up to get that yes.
• Tell a great story and tell it well.
• Scale your business and grow it when you need to.
• There are templates for everything so focus on the content first, then make the design fit the content.
• Be consistent, persistent, and kind.
• Deliver what you promise.
• Take breaks when you need to and prep for breaks early on (again, hire when you need to!).
• Start incorporating your values early in your business (pay well, support important causes, etc.).
• Your time is valuable so delegate what you don’t like or an’t do when you can and budget for that.
• Ask yourself if you are doing something because you truly want to or because you think you should.
• Don’t be afraid to try new things!

Final Thoughts – Would I Recommend Growth Week Live?

Honestly, yes! I learned so much and had a lot of fun watching the sessions, so I would recommend it. I love that there is a free option, even if it’s not the best for a busy person. I can’t say for sure if it would be helpful to any and all business owners though as paid content. I do think that there is just so much free content out there and I’m sure a lot of the presenters likely have other (free) content to share. I do think that if you are a small business owner, and you are aware of what your shortfalls are, then look for content specifically covering that. It doesn’t have to be Growth Week content, it can be YouTube or just a Google search, but Growth Week could be great if you aren’t too sure where to start. In general, I think Growth Week also is structured really well and so diverse in every way, that everyone can get something out of it.

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So those are my thoughts on Growth Week Live! I really enjoyed the experience and I loved getting to see so much content for free. Mal and Gemma did say they intended to do Growth Week Life in 2022 as well, and honestly I am planning to stay on their email list so I can make sure to sign up.

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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