2023 was a doozy…I’ll write more about it in my 2023 ARH Recap blog post. But for now, we are in one of my favorite times of year. Yes, of course because of the holidays and spending time with family, but also because this time of year means we get to start goal planning for the next year!

I’ve never really sat down and specifically thought about why goal planning excites me…just assumed it was because I am an Enneagram 3. But it’s maybe because these goals are bringing me closer to the dream life I have in my head, for my family, for my husband, for my children. It just lights me up! Okay, so here goes for 2024:

2024 Goals

Continue the ARH newsletter, increasing from a quarterly interval to a monthly interval.

After coming off a challenging 2023, where not many goals were achieved, I am grateful to say one that stuck and got checked off the list was the quarterly ARH newsletter. It was a great way to stay in touch with my clients and I am so, so excited to increase the interval at which I send this newsletter out this year.
This is a perfect example of growing slow and taking on what you have the bandwidth to do. Because I set the bar low with my quarterly newsletter goal in 2023, I feel like I have the ability to achieve this next level of goal in 2024.

Grow email list by 500 subscribers.

This year, I took a mini-course called Facebook Ads in a Weekend that was created by a speaker, Jenny Parulski, for the ESC Conference my friend Kassie and I are hosting in April 2024. Facebook ads is a marketing tactic that, until now, seemed very intimidating to me because it is constantly changing and there is a ton of strategy wrapped up into targeting certain people to make the ad effective.

However, Jenny breaks the big marketing strategy down into very easy, tangible, clear steps that makes the entire process of running ads far less overwhelming. All this to say, this is going to be my main tactic to grow my email list in 2024. I have grown marginally using my own reach on Instagram, but it feels like I am finally ready with a knock-out welcome email sequence and ready to pour some gasoline on the fire. We shall see how it goes with the Facebook ads!

Launch podcast!

Yep, you heard that right! I am starting a podcast in early 2024. If you had asked me this time a year ago, I would have looked at you sideways and been like, “Nope, not me. Never.”

But this time in rural Kentucky with very unreliable internet has really taught me a lot and has also allowed me to get inside my own head (in a good way) and figure out what this business is going to look like moving forward. We have learned a lot out here and now it’s time for me to share all that we have learned with the world.

The show will be a mix of business/branding education and personal experiences. I am hoping to start with “training wheels” by releasing the show in seasons of eight episodes. Hopefully this will allow me to work at a moderate (instead of my usual break neck) pace that will allow me to sustain the show and not become a statistic!

So far, my biggest challenge is naming the podcast. So if you have any suggestions…drop them in the comments!

Incorporate affiliate marketing into my marketing plan.

Affiliate marketing seems so trendy and for a long time I didn’t know how I felt about it. It’s a very noisy sales landscape out there right now, and I have been trying to be an attentive consumer when it comes to understanding why I would use one person’s affiliate marketing code over another. The answer is this:

I will only use an affiliate code if I truly believe the product will help me in one of the roles of my life (wife, mom, business owner, etc).

So then I took a step back and tried to determine which products/services truly did help me. Those that I would promote even if I didn’t get a commission. And that left with me with a core few. Those are where I am going to start because I shout them from the rooftops already anyway. May as well get paid for it!

Onboard five brand development clients per quarter.

In 2023, I launch my brand development services, which was a major pivot from solely photography services. It has taken a little bit to get traction, but I am confident that we are going to take off in 2024!

The Brand Development Program is for small business owners looking to create a consistent brand presence across all client touch points, both online and in-person. This is for those entrepreneurs who have largely DIYed a brand in the past and are looking for more cohesion across the board to increase the like, know, and trust factor from current and future customers/clients.

The entry level service is a Brand Analysis where I do a deep dive into your brand presence and give you specific action items to get you from where you are to where you want to be based off of the goals you set forth for yourself, your brand, and your business. This ultimately ends in a Marketing Plan that you can execute within your business yourself or that you can hire me to execute for you.

Five brand development clients per quarter would allow me to give each entrepreneur my full attention when they need and a thorough analysis of their brand. I can’t wait to meet the 20 entrepreneurs I will be working closely with this upcoming year!

Sell 200 Brand Strategy Framework courses.

Guys, I developed a new course! The Brand Strategy Framework course is for business owners who likely DIYed their brand in the beginning of their business, as many of us do. They are now at a stage where the need consistency to increase the like, know, and trust factor of their brand to encourage new customers/clients to purchase from them and nurture existing customers/client to retain them.

The mini-course focuses on goal planning to be strategic with your brand, the foundations of your brand, an audit of your brand, and finally the implementation and action plan of your brand to get it where you want to be. I am so excited to share this with the world and welcome business owners into it!

It is an “evergreen” offer, which means there won’t be a specific open or close cart date where you can only buy it at specific times. Instead, it’s so valuable that I want entrepreneurs to be able to dive in at any time to increase their brand awareness through consistency across all client touch points!

Be able to comfortably purchase the Brand Builders Program to build my own business and brand.

The Brand Builders Program is something that I first heard about from Jenna Kutcher. The Brand Builders Program is all about creating an irresistible personal brand from the ground up. Much like I walk business owners through what it means to build a brand, I want someone else to do the same for me! This is a major investment, both in terms of time and money, and it is a goal of mine to be able to make the leap by the end of 2024.

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Well, there we go. I bared my soul and goals for 2024!

I would love to cheer you on in your business goals. Drop them in the comments below and let me know how I can support you, one step at a time!