It’s the final Whin Big Podcast of the year! And, as you know by now, we love to spend this end-of-year episode reflecting on goals. In this episode, Katie reminds us of her 2021 business goals and whether she achieved them or not. She also gives the low down on the four goals she’s setting for 2022.
Keen to set your own goals for 2022?
We’ve updated our goal-setting worksheets again this year, and now they come in a more print-friendly format. Less colourful, it’s true, but much more practical! The worksheets will help you evaluate last year and set out new plans for your 2022.
Want to take the Listener’s Survey?
If you’ve already listened to the episode, you know the drill – here’s the survey link. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the podcast and your ideas for the future. If you didn’t listen already, you just love a survey – well crack on anyway!
Katie’s recap of her 2021 goals
Katie set 4 key goals for this year, and she had mixed results with achieving them. How did you get on with yours?
Goal 1: set better boundaries on work time
As well as creating stronger boundaries and protecting her non-working time, she had an overall goal of working less in 2021.
Katie succeeded in achieving this goal, but unfortunately, not because of healthy work-life balance boundaries.
“I definitely worked less in 2021. It was a difficult year. It got messy in the middle. I was struggling – I wasn’t doing much work because I was focusing on being a person.” – Katie
If you listened to Whin Big Podcast episodes between July and early September, you’d know that Katie was dealing with the challenges brought on by poor mental health. She updated us regularly on how she was doing, and we’re all glad to say that things are much better with Katie in this area.
However, one thing that’s become very apparent to Katie is that as she starts to feel more in control of her mental health, and as life (and the world in general) starts to open up again – things are starting to get busy.
Without a visible reminder, it’s easy to forget to keep setting healthy boundaries on your work time.
Goal 2: Have more scalable services
Katie had planned to align her services to help more than one person at a time rather than work on individual projects – like web design. She wanted to avoid taking on projects that required 100% of her time.
Katie tried incredibly hard to achieve this goal. She launched her All-in-Whin-Marketing-Method a few times through the year with varying levels of success. This only added to her mental health struggles and was incredibly unhelpful for focusing on the value she offers.
“What I’ve learned is that live launches and I do not go well together in this season of life.” – Katie
On a more positive note, work for the updated Instagram Masterclass is now underway. She’s created individual workshops for this programme which can be purchased individually (or as a bundle). People can access them on-demand, so there’s no need for a live launch.
Goal 3: Take better pay
As a limited company, Katie-the-director has to pay Katie-the-podcast-and-Instagram-marketing-whizz a salary, and her goal for 2021 was to pay herself better.
After looking through her records, Katie was pleased to notice that some months brought more income than the same months in 2020. However, as she talked about earlier in the podcast, she didn’t work as much this year – meaning she didn’t have the funds to pay herself better consistently.
So there is still work to be done in this area.
Goal 4: Only do work that brings joy
Katie planned to take on projects that excited her this year, which meant aligning her project choices with her values.
And she smashed this one!
Taking time to reflect on the work she’s taken on throughout 2021 – for her clients and projects for The Whin – has been a wholly positive activity. She’s enjoying the work and the clients immensely and couldn’t be happier with how goal 4 went.
“Reflecting on the year, I’m proud of all that I’ve achieved. Even if a bunch of it was simply surviving – that’s okay with me.” – Katie
Big picture goals for 2022
Now that Katie’s reviewed the results of her 2021 goals, she’s in a positive frame of mind for working on her four key goals for next year and excited to share them with you now.
Goal 1: Fill final spot for hands-on marketing support
Katie has one more spot available for long-term marketing support for a small business or charity. And this year, she’d like to fill the spot available for 2 or more days a month making strategic plans, create content and set up marketing tools and systems.
Katie’s working with several clients in this way – and with one last spot available, she’d love to find the perfect client. If this sounds like the support you need – or know someone looking for this kind of marketing help – get in touch.
Goal 2: Integrate marketing automation into The Whin’s big picture
Last year’s launch experiences have put Katie off launching for the foreseeable future. She still loves creating affordable workshops and training programmes for those who don’t have a marketing consultant budget.
To help her do this more productively, Katie plans to set up marketing automation from her website to grow her mailing list and offer incredible value to people in a more streamlined way. If you listened to last week’s episode with Kenda Macdonald, you’d understand why this is an essential piece of the marketing puzzle.
Goal 3: Update the All-in-Whin Marketing Method to a more sustainable format
Katie runs a 12-week training programme called The All-in-Whin Marketing Method for business owners who want to learn the foundations of marketing online. Her (not exactly positive) experience of launching this as a group programme has led her to take stock and look for alternative ways to promote and sell it to new customers.
Goal 4: Refresh The Whin Big Podcast with a new format and exciting content
Katie’s mind is blown when she thinks about how we’re heading into creating and producing episode 100 of The Whin Big Podcast. We’ve been running for well over two years, and Katie is so proud of every one of the episodes.
“We’ve been recording since September 2019. That’s middle-aged for a podcast! Lots of people are starting theirs now, but there’s not so many who have been running for two years. I’m clearly an expert now 😂” – Katie
In January, there will be two special episodes – 99 and 100 – which will celebrate the milestone and follow up some of the guests you met way back at the beginning of the podcast to find out how their businesses have progressed over the years.
After that, there will be a longer break to give Katie time to plan and create some fresh and exciting content to give the Whin Big Podcast a fresh lease of life around April time.
Don’t worry! There might be a break between episodes, but you can still keep up to date with all the goings-on here at the Whin Big podcast. Make sure you follow The Whin on Instagram, and if you haven’t already, sign up to the epic Whin Weekly email. Every week you’ll receive lots of resources, ideas and tools to help you market your business on Instagram and beyond.
Listener’s Survey – Let’s hear from you
Katie and the Whin Big Podcast team are always coming up with new ideas for episodes and formats, but Katie wants to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of the podcast, and what content you’d find useful by filling out this short listener’s survey. Everyone who fills it out and sends it back will get a discount voucher of £10 to put towards any of the £35 Instagram training workshops. Result!
We’ll send discount vouchers out to everyone who’s completed the survey at the end of each week.
Resources from this episode of The Whin Big Podcast
Have your say: The Whin Big Listener Survey
Whin Big Podcast: 97: How to hack the buyer’s brain
