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261: Reflecting on 2024: Lessons Learned and Moving Forward with Host Kendra Corman · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Imperfect Marketing Podcast.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Korman, and today we're going to do something a little bit different.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a journey through my 2024, the ups and the downs and everything in between.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Because I believe that sharing our experiences both successes and, let's call them, challenges is how we're going to grow together in this crazy, crazy world that we live in, right?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: So, as we jump into this reflection, I want you to think about your own year what worked, what didn't and, most importantly, what did you learn?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and get started.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: So I choose a word of the year.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: My word of the year for 2024 was discipline, and let me tell you it was a big change for me and it really did help me along the way.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: In September, I started incorporating daily walks into my routine.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Didn't matter if I only had 30 minutes between meetings.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I made it happen.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I blocked out 30 to 60 minutes, depending on what I had available each morning in my schedule, knowing what I had to work with instead of in advance or doing some sort of set time, and I stuck to it.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't just about physical health.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I held myself accountable to complete my top priority items every single day, no excuses.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I stayed true to my morning ritual and in August, I even started listening to affirmations every night when I went to bed.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The result has been transformative.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: By forcing myself to stay accountable, I've seen amazing changes in both my personal life and my professional.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So let's talk tech, because that's a big game changer for me in 2023 and 2024.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: If you've been following this podcast, you know I was using AI quite a bit later, in 2023, so I was a little bit later than a lot of people that are experts in this space.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But 2024, that was child's play to what I'm doing now.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: The tools have gotten significantly better but, more importantly, I've gotten better at using them.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: My prompting skills have leveled up huge and I have been exploring new ways to integrate AI into all of my workflows.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: One of the most exciting developments has been using Claude's project feature.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So, for those who don't know, claudeai is an AI assistant and they've introduced earlier this year the most amazing feature for pro and team users.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It allows me to create specialized workspaces we'll call them where I can organize chats and documents to provide context, to enhance Claude's responses and even customize Claude's tone for those specific projects.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It is a huge game changer for me for collaboration and addressing that pesky cold start problem in AI interactions, and it lets me cut down on a lot of the prompting piece of it because it has most of that knowledge.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: In that project, I also started working with Makecom to create automations.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: The possibilities are crazy and I can't wait to see what else I can create, but I'm actually getting rid of some of the paid versions of systems I have because I'm actually able to automate it in between.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest investments I made in 2024, though, was hiring a writing coach and is tech free.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I worked with her for over three months and she challenged me.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the biggest things I got out of it, and, you know, it's funny because people talk about how AI is getting rid of jobs like copywriters, and while I think that that might happen eventually we'll see I've actually found that people who can write and edit well are in even more demand by the people who know what they're talking about.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest lessons I learned from my coach was about understanding and reminding where my target is at right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I had created this amazing subject line guide for my email marketing course launch.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: By the way, you can find the link to that in the show notes.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: But here's the kicker my target audience didn't like email.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: They worried about bothering people.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Let's just say that was a bit of an eye opener, right when she said why would they, why would they need a subject line guide if they're not sending emails.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that makes sense, doesn't it?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just about improving my writing, though.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: She helped me become more direct, lead with key three key points, because that seems to be the magic number, but, most importantly, she pushed me to meet my customers where they're at.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It sounds so simple and I do it for my clients all the time, and I truly believe we all need coaches regularly to help us see our blind spots.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Another area of growth for me was my YouTube channel.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Now it's not quite where I want it to be yet, because I'm not getting checks from YouTube, but the progress has been incredible.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: My subscriber count went from six to nearly 800 when I was recording this.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: The views have skyrocketed from 25 to 55 per episode to 200 to 1500 per episode.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: How I focused much more on SEO and, being true to the platform, I also started using TubeBuddy, which is a tool that the amazing LaShonda Brown of Bootstrap Biz Advice introduced me to.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: If you haven't checked out her channel, you definitely should.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Now, that's all great, right, and that's the perfect version we see of everybody on the socials.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Right, that's the filterized version to a point, because it definitely wasn't all smooth sailing.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I had my fair share of challenges and made some significant adjustments along the way.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: In January, I totally messed up my bootcamp.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: More than 150 people didn't get the communications they were supposed to.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I was sick, not feeling well and just not checking things properly.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It was horrible and totally embarrassing still embarrassing, but you know what led to a positive change.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I hired a VA who now helps me check these things and we haven't had any errors like that.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: We've had errors, but not those.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I also realized I wasn't ready to launch my email marketing course this September as planned, so I pivoted, twirled whatever you want to call it, because I know a lot of people don't like that word anymore.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: With the popularity of my AI speaking gigs, I decided to test some AI resources for people and that's been really well received, so I'm excited to see where that's going to go next.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the podcast that you're listening to right now or watching.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I have to be honest, there were a few episodes.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I totally phoned it in and you know what A couple of my friends noticed and they mentioned it, but it didn't sound like me.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Not a great situation, but it was a wake up call.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I realized I was rushing at times and just trying to get it done, without thinking necessarily about the delivery.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I think the quality of the information was always good, but the delivery was lacking.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So now I'm determined to stay eight weeks ahead on recordings with the ultimate goal of getting like 12 weeks ahead, because that buffer is going to let me give.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Give me the flexibility to skip a week if I'm tired or if I'm not in the right head space and I think that that's really important because I'm not always in the right headspace to be on for lack of a better term right, and I want every episode to be top notch.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So, despite the challenges, 2024 was a year for me of significant achievements.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I wrote a book, I became a paid speaker, added another 700 people to my email list.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: The book Mastering AI and Communications was a bit of a whirlwind project.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I decided to write it in late December 2023.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I spent 10 days writing it based on a presentation I had recorded.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It's given me a ton of credibility and it has been great for lead generation for my speaking gigs and strategy sessions.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: As for becoming a paid speaker, one of the most impactful experiences I had was investing in a system called the Talkadot.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: It's a survey system that gets you actionable feedback from speaking gigs.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Get this 100% of my audience found one of my sessions valuable, 91% said they'd like to hear me speak again and the attendee testimonials were incredible.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Growing my email list was a focused effort.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I decided that I would dedicate six weeks or more, and I think I ended up at like seven to list building.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it was two months in a row, but for the most part it was at least one every other month.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: But between speaking gigs, freebies and some paid ads, I ran on Facebook.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Facebook, I did manage to add those 700 new subscribers.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I also read eight business books this year, surpassing my goal of six.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: It's hard to pick a favorite, but anyone not everyone by Corey Quinn really resonated with me.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I loved how he positions niching down and it's inspired me to work on a plan for 2025 that focuses in a way that doesn't eliminate my other business target Buy Back your Time and who, not how, were also amazing books.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: They got me thinking differently about delegation and time management.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Biggest change that came out of those because I read them like one after another is that my VA now enters all my tasks into Asana.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It has been transformative.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I have stopped triaging from email, stopped losing track of tasks and emails and I'm reaching inbox zero, which means no emails in my inbox almost every day.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: That was huge for me.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So what are the big takeaways from 2024 for me?
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Well, one discipline right, that was my word of the year Definitely does pay off, whether it's in your daily routines or your business practices.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Consistency is key to embrace new technologies, but also focus on improving your skills and using them.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Take some time to learn and develop.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's really important.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Three, invest in yourself.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Whether it's coaching, reading or trying new strategies.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: It's really important to make sure that you focus on yourself.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Four, be ready to adjust when your plans aren't working.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Progress, not perfection, okay.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And then five, build systems and delegate tasks to free up your time and energy for what really matters and what's gonna make a difference.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Now I wanna challenge you.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Reflect on your own 2024.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: What were your biggest lessons, what are you proud of and, most importantly, what are you gonna do differently next year?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: That's all for this episode of imperfect marketing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your thoughts and reflections from 2024.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Share them with me on LinkedIn.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: You can connect with me at KendraCormancom.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Forward slash LinkedIn.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It'll take you to my LinkedIn profile or youtubecom.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Forward slash at Kendra Corman and leave your notes, your messages, in the discussion there.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: All right, and then, speaking of show notes, I don't want to forget to check them out for links and resources I mentioned, including my subject line guides, information about my book, mastering AI and Communications, and a lot more.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in and remember progress over perfection.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: More Thanks so much for tuning in and remember progress over perfection.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Keep moving forward, keep learning and I'll catch you in the next episode.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Until then, have a great rest of your day.