Get your business ready for 2025

Akua: 2025 is right around the corner, and if you need help on how to plan and make this year the best year yet for your business, then you want to tune in today’s episode. We’ve gathered business experts to share with us key insights on how to best prepare your business for the new year and things that they have been implementing in their business.

Get your pen and paper ready because so many gems were dropped throughout this episode. You are going to step into the new year with so much clarity and confidence. Now let’s get into the episode. Hey everyone. This is your host Akua Kanade, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast. More people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process.

So on this show, I get to sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs, and creators

Elizabeth: Hey guys, my name is Elizabeth McCravey and I’m a website template designer, educator and podcast host. And my biggest tip for you as you plan the new year is to create a word of the year or words for the year for your business. So we all know about that word, the year concept when it comes to our personal life, right?

We hear words like, you know, joy, presence, fun might be a common word for the year, but But have you ever done this for your business? So I’ve done this down my business over three years in a row, maybe four years now, and it has seriously been so impactful. And I recommend doing this separate from your personal word of the year, if that is something you do, because you are not your business.

And I believe that by declaring a shared word of the year, we unintentionally blur the lines between ourselves and our business. So you are merely a part of your business. Not synonymous with it. So your business needs its own word. And on top of that, having a word of the year for your business can provide focus and guidance when making decisions throughout the year.

So for me, I typically don’t just pick one word. Two years ago, it was three words. This year it was four words. You can really vary it up based on your goals for the year and what you’re working on, what your season of life is. And the words you pick should have meaning behind them that you can explain and they can be a guiding light for business decisions you make throughout the year and the random things that come up.

So, you know, you can ask like, Hey, Does this thing I could do fit into my word of the year? No. Okay. Then I’m not doing it. Um, so let’s get practical. How do you pick a word of the year for your business? Here are the questions that I would recommend asking yourself. Get out a journal, think through this, do this part of your goal setting time.

So here are the questions. At the end of the next year, Where do you want your business to be? What are the biggest changes you’d like to have been through by the next year? So think about like, what kind of transformation do you see 2025 bringing to your business? What will be defining things that may already be on the calendar for 2025?

What are the goals you have for the year already, and then what words, some of those goals. So another thing great about words of the year is that like your goals may shift as the year goes on, what you’re working on in January and what you might think will be the most important thing all year long might not actually be when it gets to like October and November of next year.

So this work can kind of help you see, okay, do these new goals fit into it? So spend some time journaling as part of your goal setting for 2025 and come up with those words. I also recommend writing the words somewhere that you see fit. See them daily in your office space or something like that and share them with your team, whether you have contractors or employees, everyone should know what the guiding words are for the year.

So I hope this helps you and I would love it if you would share with me your words of the year. Once you have them.

Danielle: Hello there. My name is Danielle Desir Corbett and I am a podcast marketing coach and also the host of two travel podcast. First is the Thought Card, which is all about empowering financially savvy travelers to become lifelong travelers while also pursuing financial freedom.

And my other podcast, my second show is called Road Trip Ready, planning tips for road trips and helping you discover amazing destinations across the U. S. and Canada. So let’s get started. Here is my advice for thinking about the new year is to really streamline your workflows, your processes. It is time consuming when we are doing repeated tasks over and over and over again and having to reinvent the wheel, which is why I spent the latter parts of the end of the year Really thinking about what do I do repeatedly, my repeated task over and over again, and how can I make checklists, templates, and workflows for myself as well as my team.

So for example, right now I’m really working on leveling up my Pinterest strategy. So I created a huge database of over 35 pins so that I can now no longer have to Create pins from scratch every single time. So that’s been my focus right now, which means in the new year, I can just literally customize my pins in a couple of minutes and send them out and batch work in that way.

So that’s been very, very powerful. Now, being the savvy business woman that I am, I’m templates I’ve created and now share them with my podcasting audience who can now purchase them and save a lot more time in that process. So you can definitely create these systems for yourself and maximize your efficiency there.

And also share that with others, whether it’s a freebie or it’s something that’s a paid product as well. So that is my tip. Again, my name is Danielle Desir Corbett. I look forward to seeing all of your success in the new year. Bye.

KP: Hey, I’m KP She/her and I’m the founder of Inkpot Creative, a queer led design studio that builds impactful brand and website experiences for photographers who dare to be different.

Jessie: And I’m Jessie She/her, the media operations manager here at Inkpot Creative. Our best advice for business owners who are looking to take their business to the next level in the new year is going to be planning by the quarter.

KP: We did this for the very first time in 2024. And let me tell you, it made a huge difference by setting goals and plans every three months, instead of for the entire year, we had lots of flexibility in space to adopt quarter by quarter as needed, and really allowed us to stay clearer in our messaging.

Jessie: So one of our examples of this is with our marketing. We had basically like quarterly themes. So one quarter we would market our blogging services. The next quarter we would market our rebrand services. So if something wasn’t working or if there was a new avenue we wanted to explore, if there was a new business idea that we came up with halfway through the year.

We could kind of shift focus without abandoning our overall big picture goals. So it felt a lot more intentional and manageable, and it really let us break up those big picture goals into bite sized pieces that felt way more attainable and helped us kind of go step by step instead of just being like, we want to get here, but no real picture of how to actually get there.

KP: So if you’re a business owner gearing up for the new year, give quarterly planning a try. Use it as a framework to stay on track while keeping room for creativity and flexibility. Set goals, evaluate what worked and what didn’t, and reset.

Jessie: It’s all about taking control of your business’s direction without feeling stuck in that year long plan. So by working quarter to quarter, you’ll not only stay on track, But you also find a bit more freedom to grow and kind of play around and evolve naturally as the year goes on.

Scott: My name is Scott Wyden Kivowitz, and I am the community manager and podcast host, producer, and editor at Imagine. Our show is called the Workflows Photography Podcast. My advice for new year planning for business owners looking to take their business to the next level is around podcasting. If you have a podcast for your business, then listen up.

My plan for 2025 is to batch record half of the next season’s episodes in over a three to four month timeframe, rather than spreading the recordings The entire year, this approach will allow me to dedicate the remaining time to more detailed editing and creating even better content to promote the episodes, both within our community and externally through social media and email.

I aim to collaborate with our designers to produce the design assets, the best design assets. for promoting each episode. And by focusing on the optimal length for each episode, I can ensure that each is finely tuned rather than settling for varying lengths. I’m using historical data to determine the ideal length for our episodes.

This strategy will enable us to optimize our episodes more than ever before. Very thoughtful, very mindful, but not so much demure. I got this. And so do you.

Molly: My name is Molly Balint, and I am a business coach and Instagram strategist, host of the Soft Business Podcast and founder of the Soft Business Movement. Before you listen to any advice that I could possibly give you, I want to tell you one of the most important lessons that I have learned in my own business, and that is to be okay with what works for you.

There is so much coming at us. on the internet. And especially this time of year, everyone else’s journey or system or planning method can feel like it’s either the right way or it can feel like it’s the silver bullet that’s going to fix everything in our business. So I just want to tell you and remind you to know yourself, trust yourself, trust what works for you and believe in the path that you are on.

Um, stick with it. You will waste more time trying to be somebody else’s business when you could have just been like blazing your own path forward the entire time. All right, here are the top three ways that I’m getting ready for the new year and planning for the year ahead in my business. Number one, celebrating my wins and lessons.

I do this every Monday in a Trello board. I sit down and I write down my weekly wins and lessons before I even plan the week and paying attention, not to the big wins, but to the little wins that add up, that makes our business successful. That is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself and for your business.

And also paying attention to what you learn. We need to pause. We need to look up from our work and we need to pay attention to the things we’re learning in our business. Number two is plan realistically. Plan in a way that is valuing the success of your business, that you have a successful thriving business, but also values your rest and your creativity and your time away from your business offline.

And then the last thing, if I could give you a little strategy, Before you start any planning for the new year, look at your business as an ecosystem, sit down and map all the ways that people are coming into your business, all the ways that people are finding or learning about your business, and then ask yourself, is this diverse enough?

Am I leaning too hard in one place? Am I spread too thin? Starting here will help you understand what you should prioritize and where you should put your time and your efforts as you look at the new year.

Rhea: Hi, my name is Rae Whitney. I’m a wedding photographer and a business coach for photographers and creatives. And my advice for business owners that are planning for the new year, those owners that really want to take things to that next level in 2025 is to. To get clear on the type of help that you really need within your business.

I want you to ask yourself, are you struggling with marketing? Are you struggling with selling? Does your pricing structure really match your sales goals? Are you struggling in with. Setting sales goals in general, maybe your confidence or your belief in what’s available or possible for you is just not at the level it needs to be.

And you really need to work on becoming more confident as a business owner. I think that it’s really important for us to get. Clear on what our main struggles, concerns, and goals are currently, so that for that next year you can have a new level of clarity and that you can seek help in those specific areas.

You’re not trying to figure it out. You have kind of a plan and you’re very aware of things that you are struggling with or think, or challenges that you’re currently having. I also believe that this can feel really scary for a lot of business owners. This can feel like really kind of scary work when you start to get real and start to pay attention to the concerns and struggles, but it’s just really important for you to move the needle forward and so that you can seek help.

In those specific areas so that you can get over those hurdles and you can really reach your goals, the goals that you really have for yourself in the new year. I think this is important work, and I think this is work that we’re going to have to constantly come back to time and time again, as we continue to be business owners, as we continue to improve our business, grow, pivot in our services, or just do new things in business.

It’s really important to look at and be aware of the challenges. And those things that really are stalling you from moving the needle forward and get specific again. Is it marketing? Is it selling? Is it pricing? Maybe it’s your skill set. Maybe you, you’re, you have low confidence and you need to find yourself, uh, having higher belief and better thoughts.

Maybe you desire to be around community, whatever it is that you need help with and that you really crave and that you want to break free from. Um, I really hope that. This video helps you get clear on those challenges so that you can create a strategic plan of action to learn, to grow, and to become a better business owner.

Okay. Talk to you guys later.

Justin: Hey there. My name is Justin Shields and I’m the founder of So Curious, an art and culture brand. My, my company is on a mission to spread joy and spark meaningful connections through beautifully designed cards. Art and experiences that that that celebrate authenticity and kindness. I also am a coach for creative professionals like you.

I got a quick tip for planning your year and I’m hopeful this is something you have literally never considered before. I want you to run a life audit and do an eid. Um, it’s actually pretty simple. You, you, you make a list. Of everything you did in the previous year, like literally everything you can think of the wins, the losses, the, the things that didn’t work financially, but that you genuinely enjoyed.

And then next to each item, you’re going to label it as either essential, interesting, but optional or draining. Now, now you see it EID by, by going through this process though, you will discover what you need to eliminate. I’m assuming you work for yourself and when I started my first company, I built a golden prison I was making more money than I had ever made But the work that I was doing it was it was web design kind of building custom wordpress Sites for customers and I hated it.

I was good at it. I was fast The money was solid, but I quit a nine to five job that I kind of liked, but felt was out of alignment to be free. And I built this new career for myself that was somehow worse, you know, and I was working more like I was working more than the nine to five. I ran that business for a few years and it was successful, but I was literally drained all the time because I’m a super social person.

That built a job where I was stuck all alone, all the time, coding websites. I don’t even like coding websites. That’s the thing right there. And worse, I didn’t have a plan on doing something different that made money. Now, this time around, when I launched so curious, I told myself I deserve to have it all impact.

Money and joy and, and it’s a lot of work, but this time I’m enjoying it. This time I’m making things that I’m passionate about and I’ve optimized my life to make it essential and interesting. So do yourself a life audit. And then do an E I D. Thank you. Bye bye.

Katie: Hey friend, I’m Katie Hunt from Proof to Product and I help creative entrepreneurs get their products on the shelves of stores big and small. We’ve helped over 30, 000 brands and our clients sell to Target, Anthropologie, plus thousands of independent retail shops all around the world. So what am I doing to prepare for the upcoming year?

I’m doing two main things. The first is I’m looking back at the last 12 months and I want to, um, Audit what worked really well and what maybe didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. So I’m looking at the finances. I’m looking at the strategy. I’m looking at the details of our launches. I’m looking at our staffing and our operations strategies.

I’m looking at our systems too. And I want to carry anything forward that worked very well for us. Anything that we can enhance and increase what we’re doing there. I want to do more of the things that are working well. And the second thing I’m doing is I’m looking forward. So I’m planning forward as we go into the next year, and I’m deciding what we want to do more of, what we want to do less of, right?

Like I talked about in the audit from looking back. But I am starting with my personal life first. I am putting the things that matter to my family and to myself first. first on the calendar, and then I’m layering in one big project per quarter for the business. After that one big project is set, then we’re layering in all of the nitty gritty details for strategic sales, marketing, and all of those things that we’re doing otherwise.

So I’m looking back, then I’m looking forward, I’m making a plan. So that’s what I’m doing to prepare for the coming year. I hope you’re getting set and excited for what’s to come.

Akua: Thank you so much for tuning in today’s episode. And I want to hear from you. So share with me your biggest takeaway from today’s episode on Instagram and make sure to tag me and also what are your 2025 goals?

And as always, I will see you next time. That ends our episode of the independent business podcast. Everything we’ve discussed today can be found at podcast. honeybook. com. Head to our website to access for show notes, relevant links, and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss our future content.

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