Your Next 90 Days: A Simple Plan to Grow Your Online Business in 2025

 Can you believe that quarter one is almost over? , or is over? I can’t believe it. If you’re like me, then quarter one flew by in a blur. Let me just fill you in a little bit, cause I feel like quarter one of 2025 was a crazy busy business quarter for me. So, right at the top of quarter one on January 7th, I launched pre- orders of my very first book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy, which comes out in like two weeks on April 15th.

I then went to New York like two weeks later for four days and recorded over 24 recording hours, the audio book at the publishers, which was just like such an incredible experience. I got to have my team come with me. We went to see a Broadway show, we saw Book of Mormon, it was hysterical. Let me know if you saw it. We went out for Italian food. We got Van Leeuwens. It was just such an awesome time. Two weeks after that, I had a $338, 000 launch in four days. And here’s the deal: the launch was actually very easy and very chill and, dare I say, fun. And I definitely had too much coffee, but also in quarter one I got out and worked outside of the house a little bit again, which I don’t know why I just had accidentally stopped doing, but very much needed to get back to doing.

So I thought we’d sit down together today and I would show you how to reflect on the last quarter. Learn how to reflect on the last quarter so that you can plan a better next quarter. The quarter that we’re about to head into is quarter two. I think it’s important before we rush into quarter two that we just take a moment to pause to breathe and to reflect on all of what we’ve done over the past three months so that hopefully the next three months can be a little bit smoother, more fun, more joy filled, more creative, whatever it is that you need, we kind of have to figure that out by reflecting and then pull that into your next quarter.

So today I’m going to walk you through the exact process that I do in my own multi seven figure online business. to reflect on the last quarter and plan for the next one. By the way, you can get my free annual planning guide to use this as a companion to this episode by clicking the link down in the description. I just added a brand new section to this free downloadable planning guide for your online business, for you to reflect on every single quarter and for you to plan the next one.

Let’s hop in and talk about why reflection matters. Why can’t we just skip to the next one and say good riddance with the last quarter and on to the next one? So if we don’t stop and reflect, we’re just going to rush into the next quarter without actually understanding what worked last quarter and what didn’t. But more importantly, why those things worked or didn’t work so that we can either do more or less of it in the next quarter. It’s also a mistake to miss this opportunity to reflect because it’s an opportunity to also look at your data. If you don’t stop and look at your data, then you’re just making decisions off the top of your head in your business and zigzagging all over the place, which might be leading to a lack of progress or results in your business.

Alright, so let’s just hop right in and get started and let’s learn how to review last quarter and reflect on what’s happened so far so that at the end of this episode we can plan a better next quarter.

If you already have my annual planner guide, then you know when you sat down at the end of last year to plan out the rest of your year, I encourage you and prompt you to plan out goals for the entire year, for the quarter, for every single month we break it down. So you definitely want to get that guide with the link in the description. It’s a totally free annual planner guide that I have created for online business owners. It’s actually the exact guide that I use in my own multi seven figure business to plan my year every single year.

So we want to start out by reviewing those wins. And I want you to think a little bit more open minded about what wins you had, like while it’s helpful to think about what wins you had just maybe on like financials or certain numbers and metrics. Like there also might be some mindset wins or a win of how you showed up for yourself or something brave that you did or a time that you put yourself out there and applied for a really scary podcast. I’m looking at myself like I think I’ve applied for a hundred podcasts in the past quarter that have scared the heck out of me. So those are wins too. I want you to pat yourself on the back for all of the things.

The next thing we’re going to do is look at what worked in your business. And like I said, more importantly, why that worked and that’s going to force you to look at your data. So when you look at the data, we can, I guess, define why, what worked by what kind of goals that you had. So if you wanted to grow your email list, did your email list grow? Did your number of subscribers get bigger? Did you sell more of a product? Did you gain more followers on Instagram or more subscribers on YouTube? Whatever it is that your goal was, we can look back and see if the data is actually showing you that your goal worked or the actions that you took towards , stepping towards that goal actually worked.

. One thing that I really like to do and that I think ultimately leads to a lot of business success over time is spending a little time understanding the mechanism of why something works, as my mom always said. So my mom would always say, you have to understand the mechanism, Sammy. And so she was a physician and so she would always be curious, like when someone had a symptom, you know, if something worked to cure that symptom, it’s like, why does that work? Because if you can reverse engineer the mechanism, you can often find other things. So I like to do the same thing when it comes to business because it then makes you start to see patterns like, oh, I see this kind of marketing messaging, for example, that’s working. It’s not just like, oh, when I post six times on YouTube, all of a sudden I get more subscribers. It’s like, well, what was it about posting that consistently? Maybe it was actually the content. Maybe you’re getting better right at creating the videos. Maybe your messaging is landing with the right people.

The algorithm is starting to find the right people, whatever. So we want to understand the mechanism so that we can do more of that.

And the same goes for the next step. We want to also know what did not work this past quarter and why. So what was the mechanism behind that? It might not have worked for you like something that you tried, right a strategy didn’t work for you or something didn’t work for you like being on your phone so much didn’t work for you or having so many meetings spread out throughout your week didn’t work for you. So it can be both goal oriented and also just like how things showed up in your business.

The last part of reflecting on our quarter is all about rating yourself in different life categories. So, I want you to reflect on the past three months of your life and kind of give yourself a grade of, so to speak, like, 0 to 10, how would you rate yourself in some of the following categories? Like, work, self care, movement, connection, community, and joy. Those were just some of the ones that I came up with, but obviously you can add or subtract any other life categories that are meaningful to you.

. It’s not that you necessarily focus on all of these at all times in your life, like I think that there are seasons where maybe a handful of those categories are something that you focus on more than others. But it does tell you a lot when you look back and reflect on where you’re like, Oh, wow, my joy score is really, really low, but my work score is really high. Maybe I would like two of those things to be a little bit more balanced going into the next quarter. If there are also certain feelings coming up for you, like, you’re feeling a little burnt out or you’re not feeling like you’ve seen many people in your community, like that connection score is really low and the community score is low. That would maybe tell you a little something about why you’re feeling the way that you’re feeling.

Okay, if you actually want to see me walk through this document, the free planner guide that I’m linking to you down below in the show description, and watch me fill it out for my own business in real time, you can click the link in the description to watch this episode over on YouTube. So I actually have a video version of every single podcast episode, and it would be great to pop over if you want to see me walk through it. Otherwise, don’t worry about it. We’re just going to keep on rolling with planning next quarter.

All right, now let’s plan this quarter now that we’ve reflected on the last one.

The first thing I want you to do in planning the next quarter is think of what you want more of in your business and in your life. This would be a great opportunity to grab from those categories like if you see, for example, like I did that my joy score was pretty low in quarter one, I want more joy in quarter one, and I’m going to sketch out a couple of ideas as to how I think I could get there. But you could obviously also use this category to create more tactical goals like, I want to grow my email list. , I want more email list subscribers or I want more downloads on my podcast. And then I want you to sketch out some of the major steps that you’re going to take to get there. So what are three things that you need to do to get more downloads on your podcast? What are three things you need to do to grow your email list, for example?

The next thing you’re going to do is also think about what you want less of in this upcoming quarter based on how things went last quarter. So again, this could be like, I want less time on my phone. I want less time in meetings. You know, I want more head down work time or something like that. It could be, I want to focus less on how many Instagram followers I have. And the, you know, kind of complimentary goal for this quarter could be that you want more of an email list because you want to focus on something a little bit more long term.

From there, I would love for you to create at least two concrete goals. So two goals for this quarter, very specific, you know, smart goals that are measurable and that you can actually come up with a very specific goal to say, like, I want to add 1000 subscribers to my email list because then we can reverse engineer that goal and say, what are three things you can do to add 1000 subscribers to your email list this quarter?

Well, one thing you could do, for example, is buy my book, When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy, because in it, not only do I teach you all of my email list building strategies that have led to me growing an email list of over 46, 000 subscribers, and guys, I talk about legal stuff. Like, can we all remember that? I’m a lawyer who helps online business owners. So if I can do it, imagine what you can do, but not only is my book going to help you do that, but if you purchase my book before April 18th, so you still have got a couple of weeks, you get immediate access to a free email list builder course that I’ve created called The Ultimate Email List Growth ToolKit so you can just pre order my book using the link in the description or head to samvanderwielen.com/book, head back to samvanderwielen.com/book, head to the bonuses section, fill out the info, and you’ll get immediate access to that course. So that would be a great way to hit that 1k subscriber goal, just saying.

Okay, but in all seriousness, if your goal, for example, in quarter two was to grow your email list by however many subscribers, here are three concrete examples of exactly what you could do to grow your email list in quarter two.

Number one, you would create an irresistible freebie. It’s one of the things I teach you in that free email course you get when you buy my book. I talk about it a lot in my book, but an irresistible freebie is something that people cannot resist downloading. We want to make sure it’s targeted to your ideal customer and then it’s exactly what they want, not just something that you think that they should have.

Number two, you would then create a sequence that follows that freebie that nurtures the person who’s entering your email list. Give them additional value, orient them to what it’s like to be on your email list, who you are, what you do, how you help people, and what to expect next.

Last but not least, you want to focus on creating and posting evergreen content. Things like YouTube videos, podcast episodes that are optimized, SEO optimized blog posts that have a call to action to your freebie. So instead of creating lots and lots of what I call toilet content on social media, that just disappears almost as quickly as you post it, we can still post there, but I want the primary focus of your content machine to be the big three content strategy, either this podcast, YouTube channel, or a SEO optimized blog posts.

All right. Well, I hope you found that so helpful. Like I said, make sure you grab your planner before you go. The link is in the description. I’m so glad you joined me here. And if you want to get that free email course to add 1000 email list subscribers to your email list in the next quarter, make sure you go and order my book using the link in the description or head to samvanderwielen.com/book, head back to that same page, go to the bonuses section, fill that in real quick, and you’ll get immediate access to my free email list builder course, The Ultimate Email List Growth ToolKit I can’t wait to help you build your email list in this quarter and beyond.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you loved this episode. Send me a DM on Instagram @samvanderwielen if you found it helpful. If you’ve already pre- ordered my book too, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. I have been reading and responding to all your messages. I absolutely love it, I am so pumped that it’s like only two weeks away, so I cannot wait. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next Monday with a new episode.

Thanks so much for listening to the on your terms podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, “Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business” at samvanderwielen.Com and to stay connected and follow along. Follow me on Instagram @samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.