A year ago I made the decision to leave part time employment and go 100% freelance with my marketing consultancy business Torchlight Marketing. I wanted to take some time out to review what’s happened over the past 12 months. I am a great believer in celebrating your accomplishments and using what you’ve learnt to grow in the future.
Here’s a snapshot of my journey…
BIGGEST CHALLENGES
I’m sure it will be the same for the majority of SMEs, but just surviving (and continuing to survive) lockdown and keeping the business afloat was a huge challenge from March-July 2020. Trying to manage workload, homeschool with two young daughters and generally staying sane throughout the process took a lot of blood, sweat, tears and working crazy hours.
Proudest moment: continually adapting my schedule to fit everything in and managing to continually deliver quality work for my marketing management clients
VARIETY OF WORK
I’ve enjoyed the variety of what I do for clients helping solve their marketing problems. For example:
· Helping geography primary resources company B&C Educational with their Facebook account (including FB groups, native posting and ads), website content, content strategy and helping them see the value of building relationships using free documents, blogs and FB group posts. As a result website traffic and awareness has significantly increased.
· Working with KAMguru to refresh their website and re-brand all of the fantastic freebie resources they have on offer. The website is now much easier to navigate, the key service offerings are a lot clearer and the download process for free resources are just one simple click for users.
· Refreshing and redeveloping the website for Calvin Hanks’ Health and Safety consultancy following a marketing review.
· Completing my first Pinterest review for a fellow female entrepreneur.
NOT NEGLECTING MY OWN MARKETING
When you work in marketing it can sometimes be difficult to make time and maintain your own! As you’re so busy doing everybody else’s it is easy to neglect it.
From the beginning of the year I gave myself specific platforms to focus on: LinkedIn as an engagement platform and Pinterest as a website traffic generator.
I’ve also started to develop my own Torchlight Marketing branded tips and have blogged every month so far– both of which were goals highlighted at the start of the year.
Proudest moment: completing my yearly content strategy so I know exactly what content I will be posting around for the entire year and successfully sticking to it!
LEARNING
It’s been a fantastic year for learning too. I’ve loved utilising free tools such as Asana for project management and Capsule for sales tracking.
I’ve finished two fantastic marketing books: Myths of Marketing by Grant Leboff and Watertight Marketing by Bryony Thomas.
I’ve continued to keep up to speed with everything Pinterest by being part of Kathryn Moorhouse’s Pinterest Gameplan 2020 group and completed 3 hours of LinkedIn training with digital specialist Claire Durrant.
Working on my business challenges, business targets, mindset and development with my mentor Kathryn Moorhouse. (I have learnt so much through this process that it deserves it’s own blog! More on this in my December article.)
Proudest moment: Seeing how my thinking is already aligned with two marketing experts who I really respect.
FLEXIBILITY
What I’ve really loved about this year is the flexibility that working for yourself brings. Time management has always been one of my strengths but I’ve really been able to adapt my schedule around my family.
I follow the work hard, play hard mantra and have still managed to make time for fun and time off! Which is so important to keep yourself business fit!
It’s easy to keep working when it’s your own business but rest is so important too.
Proudest moment: Being able to take a complete week off from the business by using scheduling tools and being super organised.
WHAT’S THE POINT OF WRITING ALL THIS DOWN?
Even reading this back gives me an enormous sense of achievement which I want to celebrate!
It’s also been made easier by looking back through all my weekly wins which I dutifully write down at the end of each week.
I also burn a ‘celebration candle’ every Friday that was given to me to mark my weekly accomplishments.
This process really helps me to be proud of my work and how far I’ve come.
Proudest moment: completing the achievements page of my Inspire Now journal every single week.
I hope you’ve found this article insightful and it has made you think about your own achievements.
How do you celebrate them? I’d love to hear your stories.
Maybe this article has also sparked off some questions with your own marketing.
Do you need help to achieve your marketing goals?
Are you looking for marketing support and content strategy guidance and ideas?
Is Pinterest something you’d like to explore for your own business?
I’d love to connect with you and chat through your ideas.
You can reach me directly on zoe.bishop@torchlightmarketing.co.uk