HOW TO MAKE THIS YEAR DIFFERENT

Getting things done built your business. Now it’s keeping you too busy to change it.

This is a four-hour strategy workshop to decide what needs to be different and make a plan for it.

BOOK YOUR SEAT

DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

You started last year with plans too.

Things you wanted to change. Things you wanted to grow.

Things you swore you weren't going to keep doing yourself.

And yet somehow, twelve months later, you find yourself in the same place you were a year ago.

You were busy, clients needed you and your team needed you.

Sales needed attention, then something unexpected happened.

And gradually, the things you said mattered most got pushed behind the things that needed you right now.

Maybe the business grew anyway.

But did it become the business you actually wanted it to become?

You really don't want another year to disappear into the business.

This year doesn't need more of your effort.

It needs more of your intention.

STRATEGY ISN'T A WISH LIST

Most business owners don't need more goals.

They need to understand why the important ones haven't happened already.

Before we rush into another year of goals, I want us to look backwards.

What did you say was important last year that didn't happen?
What did you do or, more importantly, not do?
What were you thinking?
What were you feeling?
What did you blame?
What was genuinely outside your control? And what was within your control?

Because if we don't understand why something didn't happen, writing it on another annual plan doesn't make this year any different.

Then we look forward.

What are you actually trying to create?
What does the business need to make possible in your life?
What needs to change?
What matters most?
What are you deliberately not prioritising?
How will you know you're on track?

Because strategy is about choices.

Your time is finite.

Your money is finite.

Your people are finite.

Your capacity is finite.

Constraints aren't something to complain about. They force strategic thinking.

THE QUESTION BECOMES

Given the constraints, how good can we make your business?

Why Dawn?

You get my brain working on your business.

I’ve spent years sitting in the seat where the decision ultimately lands with you.

I’ve run businesses. Led teams. Read the financials. Made hiring decisions. Made sales decisions. Made expensive decisions.

Made decisions I got right.

And some I didn’t.

Dawn Mardon is a businesswoman, strategist, coach and former CEO with experience spanning business strategy, leadership, technology, insurance and AI & innovation.

She spent seven years as CEO of a South African insurtech business, leading through the real-world complexity of growth, people, financial decisions and change.

She holds a BSc Honours in Mathematics, postgraduate qualifications in Education and Business Management, and is a certified coach through the NeuroLeadership Institute.

Today, Dawn works with ambitious women business owners to help them think more strategically, make better decisions and build businesses that work commercially and for the lives they want to lead.

Dawn lives in Ballito, South Africa with her husband and son.

I've sat in the room where the strategy gets decided and the room where you find out whether it actually worked.

This isn't about creating a beautiful plan in January that bears no relationship to the business you're running by March.

We're building something you can actually use.

IMAGINE THIS

It's March. And you're still doing what you said mattered in January.

You know what the business is building towards, your team is focused on what matters. You look at your numbers monthly and can immediately tell whether you're on track.

A new opportunity lands and you don't automatically say yes, you check whether it fits. Something goes wrong and it doesn't immediately derail the plan.

You know where you're going.

You know what matters now.

And you know what can wait.

That's what I want you to leave the room with.

BY THE END OF THE FOUR HOURS

You'll understand what needs to be different to make that happen.

You'll leave knowing:

What you actually want the business to create this year.
What last year taught you about what's been getting in the way.
What business success looks like AND life success looks like.
What your strategic priorities are.
What you're procrastinating on and how to change that.
How you're going to measure strategically and intelligently.

YOU'LL LEAVE WITH

Your strategy for the year ahead.

Not pages of theory.

Not another list of things you should do.

A working strategy you've built in the room, capturing your direction, priorities, measures and next moves that you can take back into the business and use.

“More than anything I am grateful to have walked away with a plan.”

And, that's the point, right?

You're not coming to spend four hours feeling inspired about the year ahead.

You're coming to leave with a plan.

Get in the room.

There is something magical about a change of scenery.

For four hours, your job is to think about the business.

AND, you're not doing it alone.

You're sitting alongside women who understand what it means to have people looking to you for the answer. A woman across the table will say something about her business that makes you realise you've been doing exactly the same thing.

Someone will ask a question you hadn't thought to ask.

You'll hear an idea you can take straight back into your business.

That's part of the work.

You're not just buying four hours.

You're buying four hours in a room of women who came there to think seriously about their businesses.

HOW TO MAKE THIS YEAR DIFFERENT

Four hours out of the business.

A strategy for the next twelve months inside it.

Join me and a room of ambitious women business owners for four focused hours to step back, think strategically and decide what needs to happen to make this year different.

Friday, 22 January 2027

09:00 - 13:00

Plato Umhlali · Ballito, KZN

Four-hour live workshop
Strategy workbook
Refreshments Included

Places are intentionally limited to keep the room useful, interactive and personal.

Don't get to March and realise you're already repeating last year.

Make this year different.

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HER HORIZON WORKSHOP SERIES

Four times a year, we get in the room together.

Her Horizon Workshops are focused, in-person business sessions for an ambitious woman who wants to step out of the day-to-day, think differently and leave having made tangible changes to her business and her days.

Each workshop tackles a different part of building and leading a successful business.

JANUARY