Quarter 1 (Q1) is done and dusted! Here’s an overview of how the first quarter of 2025 panned out for me and my biz.

2025 Goals

Let’s start with a look at my business goals for this year:

• Post on LinkedIn weekly – to improve my brand visibility on the platform.
• Create monthly speaking reels – to practice what I preach to my clients!
• Embed learning – after 4 years of discovering new stuff, it’s time to put my knowledge into practice.
• Complete a social media course I’ve had my eye on for a while.
• Engage weekly in the Being Freelance Community.
• Maintain financial stability and growth.

I’ll come back to these later on so we can see how I’m getting on.

Professional Development

Although I want to embed the information I’ve learnt through various courses, webinars and events I’ve attended over the last 4 years, I haven’t been able to resist new stuff entirely.

If truth be told, every time I open my emails, I learn something new. Most of the emails I subscribe to, help to improve my knowledge of running a business and provide useful marketing and social media updates.

I am, however, trying to put stuff into practice as soon as I read a new nugget of information. It doesn’t matter if the information is beneficial for me or my clients. It’s starting to make so much more sense to work on something straight away. This is better than ‘saving it for later’ and never going back to it.

Reading has always been a big part of my life. Whether I’m digesting new information via emails, books, online communities, or magazines, there is no getting away from learning.

Away from reading, here are a few other professional development activities I attended or was part of in Q1:

• Noticing Kindness: A New Year’s Resolution To Stick To hosted online by Kindness Cheerleader Sarah Browning.
• A 2-day Creative Retreat in Brighton, run by Helen Jane Campbell, which kick-started my blog writing again. Hooray!
• Efficiency Hacks For Busy Businesses webinar by FreeAgent.
• Get Your A$$ Out There – a month-long programme run by Jodi Goldman to help increase visibility on LinkedIn.
• The Photography & Video Show at the Excel in London.
• Grow Your Marketing Career – hosted by The Alt Marketing School.

Client Work

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Q1 has been tough. The 2024/2025 tax year was my most lucrative since turning to freelance life. Yet, Q1 has been my quietest period since going freelance 4 years ago. The biggest disappointment came as 2 clients decided to pause projects. I shouldn’t be too surprised. We all seem to reflect at the end or beginning of a new year. Sometimes, that reflection results in businesses needing to spend their money elsewhere. Or they take things in a different direction, come January. But both of these clients were unexpected. I know one of these projects will kick back in later in the year. For now, I’m riding a weird wave of ickiness.

On the plus side, I’ve had 4 discovery calls this quarter and another enquiry. From those discovery calls, I have picked up a new client. I’m working with them on a project basis as they prepare for an event in June, so that’s exciting. With the others, it’s now just a matter of wait-and-see.

Other business news

In January, I celebrated my 4th business birthday! It was a fairly low-key celebration this year. I honestly have to pinch myself sometimes. I actually get to work for myself and make money from it! Should I do more to celebrate my 5th biz birthday next year? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Because client work has been on the quiet side, it gave me more time to focus on my business. It’s also helped me to embed some of that learning I’ve been trying to do for a while.

After the 2 clients paused working with me without any notice period, I finally issued terms and conditions. This should hopefully stop this from happening again.

I started to work on my SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and make my website more accessible. I’m already seriously regretting never having added alt-text to all my images before.

With the guidance of my pal, Sam Crawley, I also created 4 client personas. These persona’s help me and potential clients see if we’re the right fit for each other. You’ll find a snapshot below, but to find out more, you can find them here!

I launched a free resource on my website – 4 (and a bit) AI prompts to help with New Year goal planning. Check it out here.

As I alluded to above, following Helen’s Creative Retreat, I got back into the habit of blogging at least once a month.

Here are the blog posts I wrote in Q1:

• How AI Helped Me Plan My New Year Goals
• What Is A Creative Retreat?
• What Does A Social Media Manager Actually Do?
• What Skills Do You Need As A Social Media Manager?

I even created a Substack so people can find me in even more places online. Come give me a follow on Substack if you hang out over there.

You can also now find me in the Freelancer Magazine Directory alongside other fabulous freelancers! So, if you’re looking for a freelancer to work with you or your business, go check it out.

Community

I haven’t met up with my Being Freelance pals in person so far this year. But I have been way more engaged in the online community. I’ve been popping up for co-working on a Friday and the first Monday of the month. I’m getting better at asking questions, seeking advice from the community, and cheerleading others. I have a couple of events in the diary in Q2 for in-person get-togethers, and I can’t wait for them.

Progress

Before I wrap things up, let’s have a quick look to see where I’m at with my goals:

• Post on LinkedIn weekly – this is happening. In fact – during Jodi’s GYAOT programme, I was posting 5 times a week! Five posts a week are probably not sustainable for me in the long run. I had 2 enquiries come in via LinkedIn last month. I’m chuffed with this as most of my clients have come via word-of-mouth so far. Fingers crossed, my visibility is growing.
• Create monthly speaking reels – I still find recording these so awkward, but they are happening. I’ve got 3 in the bag so far.
• Embed learning – I’ve learnt so much this quarter AND put things into practice. Long may this continue.
• Complete a social media course I’ve had my eye on for a while. I’m pausing this one for now. I’m not entirely sure it’s the right programme for me after all, so I may look at something else instead.
• Engage weekly in the Being Freelance Community – a definite improvement here. Let’s see if I can keep it up in Q2!
• Maintain financial stability and growth. Universe, if you can hear me, please help Q2 be a bit more lucrative!

As always, I really hope to give you a warts and all look into what goes on behind the scenes at The Mindful Gingernut HQ.

How was quarter 1 for you and your business?