Quarterly Review: Overcoming Setbacks, Networking Wins, and Planning the Next | EP244

Let's talk about the unexpected setbacks of the last quarter in this latest episode. Discover how I navigated the ups and downs of my ambitious five-goal plan, from launching VIP strategy days to focusing on Pinterest, networking more, creating a new website, and securing more speaking gigs. Through candid reflections, you'll learn the pivotal role mental health played in my progress. Plus, get a firsthand introduction to my new VIP strategy days for podcast planning, an exciting service designed to elevate your podcasting game.

In our second segment, I share my recent networking adventures, including my experiences with Enfys Maloney's Vibrant Connections group and the dynamic sessions with Businesswomen Unltd. With a quieter summer on the horizon, I outline strategic plans for launching my new website and promoting the "Start Your Podcast" program. Amidst professional updates, I sprinkle in a touch of personal joy, expressing my excitement for my birthday trip to Paris and promising to share updates and photos with our community. Stay engaged with our journey and connect through our social media platforms and show notes for more insights and stories!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Review your goals twice a day, every day, in order to be focused on achieving them. Les Brown, welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I have decided that that is going to be the quote that I repeat on all of my quarterly reviews, so you'll know what's coming, although you'll probably tell from the title, in fairness. But welcome back to the podcast. It is that time again, it is quarterly review time. It is also a little bit of a celebration.

Speaker 1: 1:34

So, as you are listening to this, I am actually probably already in Paris. If not, I'm on the Eurostar going to Paris right now for my birthday, which was yesterday, as you're listening to this, if you're listening on the Thursday. So it's quite an exciting week for me. I have never been to Paris before. I am looking forward to going up the Eiffel Tower and doing all of the touristy things and really getting to know a city that is, you know, in fairness, not that far away. And this will only be my second time going to France and staying in France, so I've been through France a couple of times on other holidays or day trips, but I've never actually stayed in Paris, never been to Paris, and only stayed in Paris in my year seven, no, year nine. We went for the week, I think in year nine. That's when I went to Paris for a week, but not Paris, sorry to France, but we stayed in Normandy, I think somewhere around there. So, very excited, happy birthday to me. Very excited, happy birthday to me, 43 years young and very, very excited to be going to Paris. So, yeah, I should probably have mentioned this a few weeks ago on the podcast and any of you guys who have been to Paris could have given me some tips. But never mind, we will go, we will live, we will learn. Go, we will live, we will learn.

Speaker 1: 3:07

But this episode is all about looking back at our goals for the last quarter and seeing what we have done and then setting goals for the next quarter. So let's jump into a little review. So, if you've got your notes with you, if you're doing this with me, then write down what your goals were or find your. Where you write your goals down, what were your goals for the last quarter. So, if you remember mine which I'm sure you don't, because it's hard enough to remember our own right, hence the quote at the beginning of this episode.

Speaker 1: 3:39

I had five goals for this last quarter and I don't normally set five. I try and stick with three because I think three is more appropriate. One a month or one, you know, three spread over the course of three months is much better for my head space to get around. So I thought I was a little bit in, a little bit ambitious, but I thought I'd be OK. Turns out not so much when I actually look at this. So it all went a little bit peak tong in the last three months and that has been affected by my mental health, which is an episode that we've got coming up. So stay tuned for that. I'm going to kind of deep dive into what's been going on for me and just addressing some mental health topics, which I think is really important in business to make it known that other people are going through things and we may be in a really great space, but not everybody is and sometimes we're not in a great space and we think we're all by ourselves. So I really want to kind of address that in a episode by itself. So make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast to hear that one coming soon.

Speaker 1: 4:53

So my goals for the first quarter were I was launching VIP strategy days. Last quarter I was going to focus on Pinterest, I was going to network more, I was going to get my new website up and I was going to get more speaking gigs. And really I kind of failed in almost all of those areas and I'm not beating myself up about it because sometimes that's just how it goes. But my VIP strategy days, they are up on my website so you can go to the work with me page on my website. They are there, you can message me, you can talk to me about them. I have got dates in the diary, sort of set for them, sort of flexibility around dates for them. But I haven't really promoted it and I think that's because the last promotion of my program, my Start your Podcast program, my spring cohorts launch, didn't go as well as I'd hoped and that kind of had a knock-on effect, whereas I should have then really promoted my VIP days and been out there promoting other things. It kind of put me in a bit of a hole and I wasn't really prepared to be out there promoting. So that didn't really go to plan, although they are there.

Speaker 1: 6:07

And if you are interested in the VIP strategy strategy is a big word to get your tongue around the VIP strategy days. They are to kind of plan out your podcast. So if you've been thinking of doing a podcast but you just don't know where to start, you're not particularly a tech phobe, or maybe it's just you're not even at that point where you want to look at actually recording and editing. You want to kind of get it set out, you want to plan in place, you want to be able to visually see what podcast looks like for you. That's what strategy day is for. So we will look at how it's going to fit into your current workload, whether you do episodic episodes, whether you do seasonal episodes and what they look like. So the structure of the episodes, what are you going to have in them? Are you going to do guest interviews, things like that, and then we're going to plan out a year of ideas for you. So whether you you going to do guest interviews, things like that, and then we're going to plan out a year of ideas for you. So whether you're going to do three seasons a year, whether you're going to do a podcast a week for a year. We will plan out that first year of content and then we will develop some of those ideas into full episodes that you could take away and record. We will also go through a launch strategy. So what does that look like for you? When would you be planning on potentially starting the podcast and what would you need to do before it launches to ensure that it gets the best start it can? So that's what the VIP strategy days are. It's around four to five hours with me in person, unless you're too far away for us to get together, and then we can do it on zoom. So that's the vip strategy days didn't really promote them much last quarter, but we'll be doing that this quarter.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Um, the next one was the pinterest, and I have been doing the pinterest. I have been really enjoying sort of monitoring that I have got an episode coming out in maybe six weeks time where I'm going to actually give you a proper breakdown of what my Pinterest journey has been like so far, so you can have kind of the reality of it, because I think oftentimes we kind of hear everybody's superstar success stories when they're x number of years into something and then we expect to be able to do that in a few months. And the fact is, when you're working with SEO and you're working with search engines and things like, it's not an overnight thing and I think a lot of people therefore give up too soon to really get the benefits of something. It's very much like podcasting. Podcasting isn't something that is necessarily going to be an instant success thing. It's something that grows with you over time and if you give up too early you miss out on the good stuff. And I think it's the same with Pinterest. So new episode coming out about that soon.

Speaker 1: 8:56

So the next thing is networking, and I have joined a new networking group. So Vibrant Connections with Enves Maloney is a great new networking group that started in March or April this year. I've joined that. I'm really enjoying it Slightly different to some of the other networking that I do, which I love because I love to do networking. That is all different because then you get different connections, different types of people and different levels of connection with those people that are in those groups. So it's always interesting to do something that's slightly different. And Vez does have a waiting list for Vibrant Connections, so if you connect with her on any platform, you'll be able to get yourself on that wait list. She is sales training with Enves and I'm going to check actually I'm going to stop because I know how to spell her name, but I know I'm going to get the F and the Y the wrong way around, so bear with me. E-n-f-y-s so it's Welsh and I believe it means rainbow. So Enves Maloney Find her on LinkedIn is a good spot. Or she has the business lounge on Facebook. So she is the host of that group and she runs some in-person events as well. So really a great, great networking group to be part of.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Other than that, I've actually not done as much as I wanted to when it comes to networking. So the small business vibes I haven't actually been able to get to. I've just kind of missed putting it in my diary. That's what that one has been. It's been. I've missed putting it in my diary and therefore haven't been able to make it, and then there was a couple of dates that I couldn't do. I do remember that. So I haven't done as much as I want. So that is still on my list to get more networking done for the next quarter. So I'm going to carry that one over, but I am still running my online networking meeting with Business Women Unlimited. So that is once a month on the third Tuesday of the month.

Speaker 1: 11:03

This month, we had Diane Watson from she Can Prosper, author of the she Can Prosper book, come and talk to us and, and in July it's our last month before the summer breaks. We always have August off and it's it's going to be a really good one. So we're going to be jumping in to small groups, breakout rooms, one-to-ones, and doing some speed networking online. So there's going to be no teaching element as such, although I am going to talk a little bit about networking and using it well, but there's no big teaching element. We're going to be jumping pretty much straight into breakout rooms. So if you want to come and join us, you can book on the businesswomenunlimitedcouk website and join us for that event. It's £10 plus VAT, there is no lockout, there is no membership fee and you can come to as many or as few meetings as you like. So do come and join us. The Shining Star Awards have also just opened, and if you want to take part in those, you need to attend three meetings, I think, before the closing date. So if you can join us for July, that would be awesome.

Speaker 1: 12:18

The new website yes, I haven't even started that Procrastination Station happening on that one. I really need to get it up and running, though. We've had a few podcasts launched and I really want to get a central hub for them so that I can share them with people. It's going to be really exciting. So that is definitely on my list. And speaking gigs so I am. I did do a speaking gig last week so that was good, but I haven't got anything else booked in. So if you know anybody who wants a speaker to come and talk about podcast guesting or podcast creation, I would love to be invited to speak in some more groups. So I will be doing that looking for more speaking gigs in the next quarter. So didn't do great.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Obviously, the mental health has been a bit of an issue, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much about it, like I say, but I am ready to plan for the next quarter Now. The next quarter is really going to be a catch up quarter. So for me, june, july sorry, july, august is really a quiet time because a lot of the people that I network with have children, so a lot of people in my realm have children and what happens in the summer and they all go on holiday, so it gets a bit quieter. A lot of people that I work with work around, do quiet and down over the summer holidays due to family commitments. So it does lighten my load a little bit when it comes to networking, when it comes to activities on social media and stuff. So I am going to have a bit more time to myself.

Speaker 1: 14:10

So what's the plan? The plan is to plan out my next promotional period. So I am going to be opening up the Start your Podcast program in October, the beginning of October. So September is going to be promotion month for the opening of that cohort. So if you want to be part of that, you can go on to my website. You can get in a couple of ways, but if you go and watch the masterclass, you'll be able to go and fill in the application form for the October cohort.

Speaker 1: 14:49

So I'm going to be planning the launch for the September. So that's going to be a big thing. I want to get the website done. So the website is going to be one thing that I want to do in the next quarter, because I'm going to have basically all of August is going to be pretty quiet on the work front for me. So I am going to have that time to really dedicate to getting the website sorted, going to have that time to really dedicate to getting the website sorted. So websites and the promotion plan for the next cohort of Start your Podcast will be done and then I'm going to leave it.

Speaker 1: 15:25

I'm actually only going to put those two down because I've got some things in the pipeline and depending on whether they come to fruition or not depends on how much time I'm going to have to play with. So there's a few things that are coming up that I need to just reserve some time and space for. So I think actually we're going from overloading myself and not reaching any goals. Did I reach? I did do the Pinterest one, so I did do Pinterest, but the rest of it really didn't get focused on. This time I'm going to do two and hopefully that means that I will get a lot more done in my quarter. So we're going to set up the new website and we are going to focus on the promotion for the Start your Podcast program. So those are my two. I am going to obviously continue to network at the level I am. I will try and get some more in if I can. I will be putting feelers out for speaking gigs, but they are likely to fall in the next quarter because, again, most people don't do much in the way of offering speaking opportunities in August and then September. Everybody's kind of getting back into their routine. So I don't do much in the way of offering speaking opportunities in August and then September, so everybody's kind of getting back into their routine. So I don't suppose speaking gigs are going to come out into play until October, november time anyway. So that is it for my review of my goals.

Speaker 1: 16:49

It's unfortunate that sometimes things don't go to plan and mental health and other people do affect these things. You know, it's all well and good setting a goal, but when they are reliant on other people it is somewhat out of your hands. There's only so much you can do. So, like I say, I'm not going to beat myself up about it and I don't want you guys to beat yourself up about it when you don't hit your goals. Up about it, and I don't want you guys to beat yourself up about it when you don't hit your goals. But one of the really important things is that beginning quote that I said is that you need to check back on them.

Speaker 1: 17:19

And the reality is, even after last quarter, when I said, oh, I need to put my goals up next to my vision board, I didn't do it and therefore, again I get to the end of the quarter and I'm like what were my goals? So I really need to put them up. I'm going to do it as soon as I finish this recording. They are going on a post-it note and I am going to put it on my social media. So if you were on my social media when I recorded this, then you will have seen it. If not, then do feel free to tag me in your own goals that you post on social media, because you know, if you say it out loud then it's more likely to happen. So I would love to come and cheer you on with your goals.

Speaker 1: 18:03

Other than that, I would love it if you would come and join me in my Facebook group. So I have a Facebook group called Start your Podcast. It is there to help potential podcasters just understand a little bit more about podcasting. We share over there podcasts we're listening to and that we enjoy. I share some tips and tricks over there. It's a really fun place to be to discover more about podcasting.

Speaker 1: 18:26

So if you are interested in that, then please head to the show notes. I have a link in there for the group. Don't forget. You can also send me a text by going to the show notes, and there is a button there that you can send me a text. So if you've got any questions or if you've got any feedback for me on the episode, then please do share that with me. I would be delighted to hear from you. Other than that, I think we are all good for this week. So a little bit of a shorter episode these tend to be when I'm doing these goal reviews. I'm hopefully going to be having a lovely, lovely long weekend in Paris, so I shall probably feed back to you on that when I'm back on my socials. So make sure that you are connected to me in the group on Facebook. I will pop a picture or two in there and I will speak to you soon. Bye for now.