“Family > Work needs to be remembered!” I’ve done my best here - the WFH flexibility has really helped with my little one Raffey. I took a month off when he was born and then went down to 3.5 days a week for a couple of months while Claire finished off her counselling course. I do quite often find myself staring at LinkedIn or Outlook for no good reason when I’m with him, when I should just be paying attention to him & playing, but it’s quite hard to beat the dopamine hits my brain thinks it needs. Would probably give myself a 7/10.
“Any BD tips are always appreciated.” 2024 was a much busier year than 2023 for me professionally. I think what was really good was having a number of clients I’d met in 2023 reaching back out to me when they did need to hire 6-12 months later. It’s nice to know that having in-depth market discussions with clients make me memorable. As I didn’t need to do much, but what I did do went well 8/10.
“Work smarter, not harder!” This was in relation to the way I acquire new technology, I am currently torn between two AI notetakers – the better one doesn’t integrate with my CRM/ATS whereas the one that isn’t as good does. So I am looking at Zapier to integrate the better one, I’m not technical at all, so if anyone wants to give me a hand that would be great. I’m not sure if I’ve learnt my lesson about buying tech that integrates properly, it seems like I’m still a magpie who likes shiny things – 5/10.
“Don’t get fobbed off so much!” This was to do with my accountant. I actually moved to Worthing in January so didn’t go and meet him as I’d said I would. I’m not sure if I improved much here, there were a few times where I pushed back a bit to try and understand why we were doing something, but again not being a qualified accountant means I’m still a bit out of my depth. Generally, all the filings / VAT etc has gone pretty smoothly with him so I’m hoping we’re good here – 5/10.
“I need to let go of that ego, it in no way serves who I am as a person today or my life moving forward.” This was in relation to achieving personal goals generally, one of which was to stop living in the past so much. I did actually get a PT and so whilst I’m still a good few stone overweight, at least I can do sets of 12 Bulgarian Split Squats now (when I started I struggled doing one). Re. not living in the past - this isn’t something I consciously worked on at all, but having a baby certainly helps with that. No matter who you are you have to change nappies and when I’m not working I’ve been too busy to think about much else other than keeping a tiny human alive – 7/10.
“Professional goals:” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hire and grow the business, more to come on this one soon. I’m only going to grow the business if it’s good for: 1) me & my family 2) the person I’m hiring 3) Volition’s clients. I actually wrote a framework out for all the points I need to satisfy to make a hire which I’ll share at a later date too – 8/10.
“Marketing:” I didn’t read any Marketing books, or hardly any books for that matter. It is probably something I should think about taking up again soon but I’m not going to put any pressure on myself here for 2025. Someone did suggest Seth Godin - This Is Marketing, so here’s me adding it too the list for 2025. I also really struggled to write content for a lot of 2024, I wrote everything interesting I had to say in 2023! In no way do I ever want to be someone who posts me getting a coffee in the morning. I just need to think a bit more deeply about the conversations I’ve been having and how they could be useful to my network. 3/10.
“Product offering:” I regularly mentioned this to clients, but didn’t sell any retainers and more often than not spoke myself and them out of it with a line like “you don’t know us yet, so maybe when we’ve worked with each other for a bit and you know the quality of the service you would like to go down the retained route.” Business was good last year, so again I’m not going to pressure myself here but to any clients reading this the option is still there - https://www.volition.work/#services – 3/10.
More to come on the plans for the business in 2025, to anyone who has been involved as a client or a candidate so far in the journey, thanks very much!
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