2025 Business Goals: Systems, Strategy, and Sustainable Growth

Following yesterday's honest look at 2024, it's time to talk about intentional growth in 2025. 

After spending a year adjusting to working traditional hours and learning about my true capacity, I'm ready to build systems that actually support my goals. In this episode, I'm sharing my strategic vision for the year ahead—from restructuring my services to finally completing those half-finished projects.

This isn't just about setting ambitious goals for myself and my business. It's about creating sustainable systems that work in real life. 

Whether you're planning your own content strategy, trying to increase revenue without burning out, or looking to build better business systems, you'll walk away with practical strategies you can implement in your own business planning.

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EPISODE 149.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/2025-business-goals-systems-strategy-and-sustainable-growth/

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🥳 To celebrate the launch of the fourth season of Talk Copy to Me, we're doing FOUR short episodes this week 🥳

If you haven't listened in to the first three episodes, be sure to check it out after you listen in to this episode. On episodes 146 and 147, guest experts joined me on the show to talk about what marketing trends need to stay in 2024, as well as share their marketing predictions for 2025.

Episode 148 was an honest reflection back on my year in business in 2024. And today, I'll continue the conversation with my goals for 2025. Moving forward, Talk Copy to me will go back to weekly episodes on Tuesdays. See you next week, we're we'll keep talking copy.

Here's info on your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.

When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
• Learn more about Erin’s VIP intensive options if you’d like to learn more about how you can hire her to help you with your marketing efforts
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products
• Come chat with Erin on Threads, Instagram, or LinkedIn

Transcript

0:05

Hey friend, if you listened to yesterday's episode, you know, that I just walked through my entire 2024 business review. And today's is to talk about the goals that I've set for 2025. Well, let me tell you, sitting down and trying to plan 2025 feels very different than it has in the past. Maybe it is because I have a better handle on the amount of hours and work schedule that I have. Maybe it's because sometimes when you have a maintaining year, like I had last year, what you need is to set yourself up for growth, which is a Can be difficult, , if you're not exactly sure what changes come with growth when you plan for the year. And, , maybe it's just because that this year is a, already feels like a decade. It is a wild time in history. And just trying to make any plans for the future feels Scary for some, I'm sure., it feels complicated for most and just overwhelming. So I'm not necessarily a person who sets ginormous business goals. I like to have a general idea of what I want to accomplish.. And I think that's kind of what you'll see. Throughout this episode., so maybe it won't be what you're expecting of me and maybe it will, but either way, I am excited to share my plans with you today and hopefully in listening to this, you'll get some ideas for your own goal setting along the way. So before we dive into any specific goals, let's first talk about what I'm carrying forward into 2025. When I look back at 2024, several things did work really well for me. You know, the final quarter push that I did for my own SEO content showed me that, yes, everything you preach to clients and everything you do for clients actually works well for your own business. It is a lesson that I didn't need to learn. But it was still pretty remarkable to learn that lesson myself., working without my children at home, lovely. Once I got the hang of it, it was lovely. And it gave me a real new perspective on productivity. Now, being an adult with ADHD doesn't always mean that my productivity looks like another person's productivity, and can sometimes feel overwhelming if I'm not able to focus. But, it still has a lot of freedom to be able to sit down at my desk and not be interrupted. every four seconds but to be able to have that cognitive space to work in large sessions and not necessarily work when I'm already exhausted from parenting all day and trying to work all day and it's great. It's great to wake up, feel refreshed and be able to get into work. My client work continues to energize me as well, and opportunities like teaching, speaking that I had last year allows me to share what I love with others. So those are all things that I hope to bring forward. To continue on that, do you know what brings me the most joy in my business? And that's strategy elements. When I'm helping my clients think bigger about their content, their copy, and, and prepare them better for the success that they're hoping for. That's where I work the best. That's where my, , superpowers come in. You know, we're all tasked with having a unique selling proposition., I really loved the episode we did at the end of last year with Belinda Weaver, where we talked about being choosable instead of the USP. But if we are, if you're going to pressure me for a USP at all, something that makes me different than other copywriters is just this unique strength that I have to develop strategies and, you know, make the, make the plan on the strategy that either I or my clients can implement, which then leads to success. Which is why one of the exciting things I'm doing for 2025 is reorganizing all of my own business offers and processes to make sure that they lead truly with strategy first. I'll talk more about that in a bit, You know, I'm talking about like joy and what brings me joy in my business, which really reminds me of our gal pal Marie Kondo. And she talks about thanking the items that are no longer serving you before letting them go. Well, I do want to thank some habits or some behind the scene things that are no longer serving my business, like not understanding capacity as well as overcommit., and, , feel overwhelmed in the process. Or starting my own personal projects, not client projects, but like things like creating content for my website with, with great enthusiasm, but not following through the, not following them through to completion. These patterns have taught me valuable lessons throughout the years, but it is time to release those patterns. And I actually feel like moving into 2025, I can see them, identify them, and , make the necessary changes to adjust those patterns before I fall down that trap. Whereas in years past, I didn't necessarily have that insight or ability to recognize them. So, an exciting part is that, and we mentioned this within this conversation, and in the last episode, 2025 is my first true year with a predictable work schedule. So now that I truly am starting to understand my own capacity and ability to work and what hours work best for my brain and my business, I can plan so much more intentionally. There's no more guessing about what work can get done. So that gives me a lot of motivation to move forward, feeling more confident in the plans that I do set for my business. All right, let, let's move away from the general and talk about exactly what I'm focusing on in 2025. Okay, so first up, let's talk about services. Everything, and I truly mean everything, needs to lead with strategy. So much of it already does, but I am reviewing all of my offers through this lens in quarter one. From my VIP intensives, to my content packages, to my consulting calls, website audits, Website copy. Strategy needs to be the foundation. So, while I'm not making any drastic changes to how I do the business, I will be, , making the strategy clearer on the front end for all of my leads, and then working through the strategy first with clear boundaries with my clients. Now, leading with a strategy first perspective does not mean my projects will take longer, but it does mean that we determine the strategy upfront and then we move on to the actual implementation part. In addition to the services that I offer clients, I'm also hoping to do a review and overhaul of my products and my affiliate program., moving, speaking about affiliate , first, I want to be more intentional about how I affiliate for other people as well as what resources my own affiliates have to promote the tools and the resources that I offer my clients. Speaking about my products now, I've had a product suite for a long time. It has been located in various places. You know, some things are just available through Thrivecart. Some can be purchased on my website. So I would like to streamline that by creating a shop directly on my site. This probably won't happen in quarter one, but it will happen, I would say, at some point mid year. And then just having that shop there allows people to better understand what I can offer them from a DIY perspective, instead of, you know, pointing people in various locations. In addition to that, it's really important that I audit all of the courses or products that I have created at this point. So if you are a former student of mine or a current student, and you're working through any of my courses, I truly would love your feedback. If there was ever a question you had, , you wanted me to go deeper into a topic, or you just think that you would have loved to have, you know, an extra lesson on something or a module added, let me know because I'm excited to actually audit these products. We're going to move away from here because I feel like I could talk about services and products for a long time. I'm excited about them, but let's talk about the content or the marketing that I do. You know, this is going to be a three pronged approach for me this year between my blog, my email, and my podcast. I would like to commit to creating one podcast episode and one blog every week for the year., And when I say that blog, I do not mean the podcast show notes. Those always get created alongside each podcast episode that I create. I am talking about a standalone, standalone blog, which could be on a completely different topic than the week's podcast episode or something similar. I would also like to. to be more consistent as well as bump up my email communication. You know, in the past, I, I wouldn't say that there was a consistency on the amount that I was emailing. Sometimes it was, you know, twice a month and other times it was twice a week. And knowing that I send out an email usually for each new podcast, I would also like to have more of an evergreen,, connection based email, so I'm hoping for about a twice weekly email to my audience, but the thing that I want to make clear to you all, because I know you're hearing this and you're like, that's a lot of content creation. One, this is my job, so I move through it a lot quicker than the average business owner would. Would I have. I already have things started. I have things I can repurpose. So don't get overwhelmed by the amount that I am creating., there is a lesson here because this is not, my goal here is not just about creating more content. It's about being more strategic with the content I create. You know, I've been listening to some of my old podcast episodes. as ideation generators for, for potential blogs or for emails. And I'm realizing there are some great quotes that could start off a short email, let's say, so there's a lot of strategy that's actually going into this content creation and it's not creating for the sake of creating. But before I move away from content, one thing that I need to work on individually is being more strategic with selling in the content that I create. If you've been a regular listener to this podcast, you probably have noticed that I rarely talk on the podcast episodes about ways that you can work with me. That's because I have never been a heavy verbal seller. You know, I've been very fortunate to have a lot of referral relationships, so people have got sent to me from networking partners or from individuals that I've worked with in the past and then referred me out to their own network., But I wouldn't say that my approach to not sell is something I would recommend to my clients either. So one thing I'm planning to do is to go back in my catalog of episodes, because they are neatly categorized by topic, and just create tiny ad sentences. And I'm going to talk about a couple of sets that explain like, you know, if you're listening to a brand messaging episode, well, here's what it would be like to work on a VIP intensive with me to go through your brand messaging., or if you're, if we're talking about copy coaching and strategy here, hop on a call, you know, like we can discuss this in a one hour power session. All ways I currently work with my clients, but I just don't talk about as often. So, I mean, if you want to work with me, everyone, we all know. I just said we could do VIP days or strategy sessions together and get you in a good place. So I'm just reminding myself to be more cognizant when I create content about not just educating. But also selling., it needs, my content needs to both serve lead generation, but also conversion. I've said this so many times on the podcast about websites specifically, but I, and my website does that, you know, I, I tracked and I convert. But the podcast hasn't had that focus. So I am not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that you are about to be infomercialed your way out of season four, but I'm going to try to be more cognizant myself about talking about how I can help you do that, not just how you can do it on your own. And, you know, I mentioned websites. I do have a feeling, while I'm comfortable with my website, I have a feeling that I will be redoing some, if not all, of my website this year. I'm not setting it as a super official goal with a timeline because I don't have the capacity or brain space to plan it at this moment, but I have been making adjustments, adding a portfolio. Writing and Publishing Case Studies,, Developing a Speaker Page, all things that I have had, again, drafts of or plans to create that weren't brought into fruition, that because I keep touching and adding, I do want to review a full complete review of my own website, which will likely get done this March during my annual Spring Clean Your Website Challenge., I should actually probably pull up that waitlist for that, because In March, I do a complete website audit, done with you, like DIY to done with you approach, where we all work together as a group to truly audit and make improvements on our websites. That's probably the time that I will sit down and make my game plan, make my review, and determine at that point whether I need to just make some slight adjustments to the site, or if I plan on doing a complete overhaul of the design., speaking of getting in front of people, though, like lead generation, as I was talking about before, visibility in its own right is a huge focus of mine for 2025. Beyond creating my own content, I would love to get back into podcast guesting. If you listened to yesterday's episode, you know, you can feel free to poke fun at me for the fact that it was a goal of mine last year podcast last year to pitch podcast and, you know, be a regular podcast guest. Like I was in years prior and I pitched a total of zero podcasts last year. And, and that needs to change this year. Podcasting as a host and as a guest is something I am Oh wait, I think I did pitch a podcast last year. Okay, let me take that back. I think I pitched, oh goodness, I did pitch, all right, I lied. Yesterday's episode was a big fat lie. I am just realizing right now, I did pitch one podcast and that was Candace Coppola's, The Power and Purpose podcast. I don't remember whether I reached out to her on social or I, I, I actually just pitched versus a forum, but I do remember that I did connect with her and suggested a topic. So. My sincere apologies to all of the listeners of yesterday's podcast episode, because I have just realized at this moment that I misspoke. Let's start this over again. Last year, I only pitched one podcast and that needs to change this year for visibility. So my goal, I don't have a precise number, but my goal is to just be more proactive in, you know, pitching podcast,, topics that will be relevant to their audience and, you know, beneficial for me as a part of my , visibility efforts. But in addition to guesting, I am going to actively seek out local speaking opportunities, which is not something I've truly ever done in the past. I may have spoke at local events., but I've never really pursued it on my own. It was more just requests from people in my network and I don't think I've done a good enough job because I've been so indoctrinated into the online business world to make local connections. So I would like to change that this year., Visibility is important because the truth of the matter is I can't help people with my services if they can't find me. And yes, SEO is great, but SEO is not the only way to be found by your ideal audience. I'm also planning to invest more in my own growth and experience. So I mentioned yesterday that I started the Cornell Women's Entrepreneurship Certificate., so, that is my, my main and only I've already had two things that I've considered adding to that plate in regard to learning opportunities. One was Jess Haney's One Client Method. Again, if I am really truly focusing on capacity and making that a prioritization of my year, this would be something great to work forward. Do I think my client management skills are good? Yeah. I mean, I've been in business for nine years now. I know what I'm doing, but I think that would have been a nice addition. I didn't let myself do it though, because I knew that. I would be balancing two very different things, two different learning objectives, and I was already involved in Cornell. In addition, another one that I'm actually super sad that I didn't join was Ashley Rose's Systems Over Stress Group Coaching Program, which I think is launching now. We all know from yesterday's conversation that Airtable is something I would like to complete and set up as I've already kind of got that ball rolling. And I think that being in a program for a long set amount of time to be able to do that would be helpful. But again, I am already booked for quarter one. So joining something where I would waste a whole quarter's worth of time where I'd be in this program just didn't seem like the right move. So I say this all to say how proud of myself I am. And this relates to capacity planning because normally my ADHD brain would tell me that I have all the time in the world, you know, in addition to being a mother and, having my children's own sports and extracurricular activities that I Make happen and running a business. I apparently feel that I could be a student in like 10 different ways. So just recognizing what my capacity is and what my focus is and staying in my own lane has been a very good thing for me. It's a signal that I am following through and, and making these things happen. But in regard to growing, while I have a focus for quarter one, I do want to continue to expand my network to build stronger industry connections and just keep learning from others in this space. Not quite sure where that learning is going to go after quarter one, but I don't think that's something I need to actually have figured out right now because I don't think that there's any major business lessons that I need to learn. You know, in the years past, I might've needed to get better on bookkeeping or to get better on some legal parts of my business, but I've taken those foundational steps, so I think now it's more figuring out what comes to me at a time that I'm able to utilize or improve on it, , because the capacity timing is right, and then I will take that, the efforts to grow in that way. But I did just say, let's talk about making it happening, , because goals are great, but we really need to actively make a plan so we achieve those goals. And here's how I am going to approach this. You've heard me say capacity planning a few times. The first thing is getting intentional about my schedule. I'm working to build specific times for,, lead management, client work, content creation, as well as a buffer time. Because, goodness gracious, do I know, as a mother of young children, the fact of, even just this month itself, the amount of buffer time I've needed for the neurovirus, or the book fair at school that I help run, it has taken some of the hours that I have judiciously set aside for my, my working time, and just, they vanished into thin air. So I went back through my capacity planning exercises to estimate how many hours I had each week, then I could estimate the amount of larger client projects I could take on, and then what gaps could be filled with smaller projects, like VIP intensives, or like, you know, just regular, , strategy sessions. Which is why yesterday In the episode, I had ment Oh, actually, I don't know if I mentioned this in the episode, but I mentioned in my email to my email list that I was that I was offering a 25 percent discount on my strategy sessions. That could be booked in February or March, because I am I now am very clear on where these go. calendar gaps are within those two months, but that was a special that was just running until February 1st. So, if you do want to book a one off strategy session with me, I will put the link in the show notes, , so you can also get a strategy session for 25 percent off. You need to do it. You need to move fast because that discount is ending, um, at the end of the day on February 1st, but you can book it for February or March and you can book multiple sessions. Again, getting back to the point, the reason I'm able to do this, the reason I knew it would be a good time to have a disco and have this offer was simply because I knew I had some, you know, gaps that could be filled within these two months around the larger projects that I have scheduled. So that's just a general idea on how those, like, Doing capacity planning based on hours was helpful for me, so I feel really good and centered knowing what other My availability is now for an entire year so that I can better plug in client projects and not overwhelm myself. But how will I know? You might be saying this, Hey Erin, how do you know if this is going to work? Well, I've set up regular check in points throughout the year for myself. Not just to review my numbers, I do that consistently, , and those do matter, but for the less tangible things so my plan is every month to do a bit of qualitative and quantitative journaling on what the month was like so that at the end of 2025, I can make better decisions. I already have , KPIs that I track like audience growth, visibility efforts, content created, learning opportunities, and profit and loss information, but I'm going to consider . Am I enjoying my work? Do I feel energized by these projects? Are my systems making life easier or more complicated? Um, and I think these. This idea of having a monthly check in will help me stay on track. But there's another thing that kind of makes this all happen and that's support system. And support system can be many things. So one of them is just systems and tools, you know, investing in the infrastructure that will help me work smarter and not harder, which means finally completing that air table setup, you know, streamlining my bookkeeping, making sure every tool that I'm paying for is actually earning its keep. And you know, what's that saying? It takes a village. Well, that absolutely applies to , business growth because no successful business owner does it alone. So this year I do plan on being very intentional about building a support network, which means actively participating in the professional communities that I'm already in, inserting myself in local communities, which I've never tried to, , become a part of, , nurturing industry relationships that I have and creating connections that really go beyond. Just social media interactions. So between professional networks and, you know, other communities, even this podcast community that you that show up for me week after week, I'm just making sure that there are people in my corner who get it. They can offer feedback, they can hold me accountable, , and they can understand the challenges and exciting opportunities that I have ahead. So, you have it. There, we are, we are summing up my 2025. Is it ambitious? Maybe. Will everything go as planned? No, probably not. That's, that is to be expected., but a point that I've tried to learn over and over again and that I am truly embracing is that it isn't perfection, it is progress. So, growing on my maintaining year, being open to the opportunities that are ahead of me, and kind of just forging through with my status quo like plans is the goal. If you are realizing that you need help getting clarity on your marketing strategy, I would love to help. Book one of those one hour strategy sessions and we will map out your specific goals and create a clear game plan for your business. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for taking part of this four episode celebration, and I hope you'll come back again next week., the next episode of Talk Copy to Me will be our 150th episode. Yay, yay for that. That's exciting. And it will be on Tuesday. From then on, all of our episodes, unless there is a special series, kind of like we've done here, will be weekly on Tuesdays. So you can expect me to show up in your podcast player on that day of the week. So I will see you on Tuesday where we keep talking copy.