In 2025, my theme was Connection. The idea was to go deeper in my business relationships, with friends and family, in the things that light me up.

It didn’t happen.

Not in some dramatic, everything-fell-apart way. The truth is simpler and a little embarrassing. The goals I was actually working toward were in direct conflict with the lofty word I’d chosen. I said I wanted connection while building a year that structurally made it impossible.

I’ve had years where I didn’t fully live up to my theme. That’s normal. But this was the first time in over a decade where the word I chose felt irrelevant by March.

So instead of forcing a tidy narrative about connection, I’m going to be honest about what actually happened and why that’s shaping what comes next.

A Look Back at 2025

Some highlights from 2025.

• I crossed 100 episodes of The Remote Work Tribe podcast, ran in-person marketing roundtables in multiple cities, and kept refining the internal tools I built and use to deliver client work.
• Revenue stayed consistent. The work stayed good.

But Connection as a theme? It didn’t stick. Not because the year was bad, it wasn’t. I just chose a word that required flexibility I hadn’t built into how I operate yet.

That’s it. That’s the lesson.

Which brings me to my word for 2026: Systems

Not the sexiest word, but after spending a giant chunk of 2025 of adding without infrastructure to support it, it’s the one that fits.

What Systems Means for Me This Year

I’ve always had systems for the things that matter most like client onboarding, how I run calls, and how I deliver work. That infrastructure is a big part of why I’ve been able to do this for seven years.

But there’s room to go deeper. This year, I want to extend that same thinking to the areas I’ve been winging or white-knuckling.

• In my business – Tightening how I ingest client notes, company data, and call recordings before a project kicks off. Documenting strategy and positioning recommendations so they’re more useful long after we stop working together. Writing and handing off assets so nothing gets lost in translation. I also want to keep building out a productized offer I’ve been developing that lets me help more founders, ops and marketing leaders without starting from scratch every time.
  
• In my health – I got an Oura Ring back in 2024 and it’s been useful for noticing patterns I used to ignore. This year I want to build on that with some boring but important defaults: consistent sleep, drinking enough water and a simple walk/hike routine a few days a week. Nothing flashy. Just sustainable.
• In travel – Travel has always been one of the reasons I built this business. This year I want a rhythm to it instead of cramming trips in when I can. A mix of shorter trips and longer international ones, plus a couple of in-person work trips to do some of my favorite client work face-to-face.

The thread across all of this is the same. Take what’s been working and make it more structured.

As I step into 2026, systems will be the focus. Not because I want to optimize everything or turn my business into a machine. But because after seven years of building, I want what I’ve built to work a little harder so I can keep doing this for another seven.

The post My Theme for 2026 – Systems appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

I had a few conversations this year with freelancers and small agency owners who are 10–20 years older than me. Many of who have been in business longer than I’ve been in the workforce. All are people who are good at what they do and have been doing it a long time.

The conversations clarified something for me.

I love executing, the actual fixing, the positioning, the art of crafting compelling messaging. But I also want to build assets that compound. The things that make the execution sharper and give clients more than just my time.

From the outside, my business probably looks the same as it did a year ago. From the inside, almost nothing is.

The quiet build

Here’s what I built this year that most people can’t see yet.

70+ Clarity Jams

I got tired of positioning being a black box that takes months, costs 10k+, and is outdated within weeks of launching the new positioning. When in reality, your positioning is always evolving, especially now when someone can spin up software in a weekend. So, I thought what if you could look over the shoulder of someone adapting their positioning. Just me and a founder vibin’ over Zoom talking about positioning and hearing their pitch but thru the lens of an actual product or service page on the screen.

And that’s how I accidentally launched a 2nd podcast, one on positioning and messaging, where I get on a call with a founder, hear their pitch, and workshop what’s working and what could be improved.

But somewhere around Jam 30 or 40, something shifted. I stopped thinking about each conversation as a one-off and started seeing the patterns underneath.

At 70+ Jams, I’ve built a library of what works and what doesn’t that I couldn’t have bought or learned any other way. It doesn’t show up on a services page, but it’s underneath everything I do now.

Internal tools

I started building my own tools this year. Nothing fancy. Just scrappy internal stuff that automates the parts of my workflow I used to do manually or pay someone else to figure out so I can execute more efficiently.

I didn’t set out to learn to code. I just got tired of waiting for the right tool to exist, waiting for a developer to have time, and waiting for someone else to solve a problem I could see clearly but couldn’t fix myself.

So, I started fixing them. It’s not a product. It’s not even something I talk about much. But it changed how I think about leverage and what I’m capable of building.

100+ episodes of The Remote Work Tribe

I passed 100 episodes this year and landed some of the biggest guests I’ve ever had on the show, like:

• Jason Cohen
• Jacob Bank
• April Dunford

When I started the podcast a few years ago, I had no idea if it would go anywhere. Now it’s a growing body of work of how remote-first and hybrid founders, operators and marketing leaders lead their teams that anyone can point to and learn from. The compound interest is starting to show.

Roundtables

As an introverted leader, I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could host 5 in-person marketing roundtables this year across 5 different cities. Small, hand-curated groups of agency owners, marketing leaders, and founders sitting in a room talking through real growth challenges.

Just having actual conversations about the stuff people don’t post about online.

Every room was different. One was mostly agency owners grinding through the same client problems. Another was founders trying to figure out positioning in markets that were shifting under them. Another was marketing leaders venting about things they couldn’t say at work. The mix varied, but the energy was the same. People who wanted to talk about what’s actually hard, not perform expertise for an audience.

I learned a lot. More than I expected, honestly:

• About what’s actually working right now across different business types.
• About how the same challenges show up differently depending on whether you’re running an agency, leading a team, or building a company.
• About what people will say out loud when no one is recording.

I’m going to keep doing these intimate roundtables. The format works. Getting people in a room, in person with no agenda other than “let’s talk about what’s real” is rarer than it should be. And it’s one of the few things that actually cuts through the noise.

But I’m not doing 5 in 4 months again. That pace nearly killed me. Next year I’ll be more deliberate with fewer, but better.

Who the business works best with

One thing I got clearer on this year: the kinds of clients where I do my best work.

It’s less about title and more about how someone operates.

The best projects we had this year shared a pattern. The person who hired me was competent, busy, and didn’t want to babysit the work. They had something that needed to get done—a homepage, a positioning problem, a launch or just needed a bunch of content written—and they wanted it handled. Not workshopped. Not run through endless rounds. Just handled, quietly, by someone they trusted.

That’s when I’m at my best. When there’s trust, when there’s room to move, and when the goal is “make this work” rather than “make this safe.”

I’m not drawing hard lines. I still work with marketing teams of all sizes. But I’ve gotten better at recognizing the conditions where I can actually do good work—and more protective of those conditions than I used to be.

Where I showed up

I logged a lot of miles this year including Japan, Phoenix, Taiwan, Thailand, Burlington, Boise, Tampa and Austin.

I don’t talk about this much because it can come off the wrong way. But the reality is that some of my best client relationships and projects this year started with showing up somewhere in person thru a conference, a dinner, or a conversation that wouldn’t have happened over Zoom.

Seven years in, I’ve built a business that travels with me when I need it to. That’s not an accident.

***

Seven years in, I’m still a strategist. Still a writer. Still the person who fixes the homepage and makes the messaging land.

But, I’m also becoming a true builder and fixer.

Plus, I’ve also got 70+ clarity jams under my belt, tools I built myself, and a much clearer sense of who I do my best work with.

That’s the update. On to year 8.

The post Reflecting on my 7th Year In Business: Top Highlights and Lessons Learned appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

That’s why Clearscope’s latest release caught my attention. They’ve doubled down on being an AI-powered platform built for content teams who need to win across multiple surfaces: search results, AI answers, and even those real-time recommendations that decide which articles get cited.

I’ve used Clearscope off and on for years for my own site and for client work. Sometimes it’s as simple as running a draft through their Google Docs add-on to tighten it up. Other times it’s pulling a full keyword research report to map how competitors are covering a topic. Either way, it’s never been about “gaming” the algorithm. It’s about making sure my content aligns with search intent and drives long-term organic traffic instead of chasing cheap clicks.

With this new update, Clearscope has become one of the few tools that can actually help you build a content moat that compounds over time.

*This post is part of my ongoing partnership with Clearscope. I’ve used the platform for years in my own work and with clients. If you try Clearscope using my link, it also supports The Remote Work Tribe at no extra cost to you.

Talking SEO with Bernard Huang

When I sat down with Clearscope co-founder Bernard Huang on the Remote Work Tribe podcast, we geeked out on:

• How SEO shifts when AI platforms rewrite the rules.
• Why content positioning is one of the most overlooked ranking factors.
• The difference between “copycat content” and content that actually compounds.

That conversation stuck with me. It mapped perfectly to my own Content Moat framework:

Insights + Community + Content Efficiency = Your Durable Content Moat

This article is the practical version of that conversation and shows exactly how I use Clearscope to operationalize a content moat, both for myself and for clients.

The Content Moat Framework (and where Clearscope fits)

I’ve worked with 90+ B2B brands. The patterns are clear:

Most companies get one thing right. Few get all three.

• Insights. Original POV, depth, and positioning that makes content hard to knock off.
• Community. Distribution through real connectors, not just channels.
• Content Efficiency. Squeezing more ROI out of what you’ve already published.

Clearscope plugs directly into the first and third pillars.

• Insights. Clearscope surfaces the context readers and search engines expect, so my POV lands with authority.
• Content Efficiency. Clearscope makes it simple to update evergreen assets so they keep ranking, keep compounding, and even start influencing AI outputs.

That’s why it’s part of my stack.

Step-by-step: How I use Clearscope personally and with clients

Here’s my actual workflow.

1. Turn interviews into briefs. I start with founder/SME interviews and VOC research. Then I layer those insights into a content brief and mini-outline so the content blends real voice-of-customer with data-backed context.
2. Start with a draft. I never let Clearscope dictate what to write. That’s how you wind up with 10x copycat content. Instead, I start with a POV-driven draft
3. Drop it into Clearscope. I run the draft through Clearscope to see the current content score and missing terms.

1. Check coverage gaps. Are there concepts every competitor mentions that I skipped? Are there reader questions I didn’t address?
2. Layer in missing insights. I add depth where it’s needed — without bloating word count. Clearscope highlights gaps, but I bring the positioning.
3. Re-check for intent. If the SERPs show people want templates and my draft is strategy-heavy, I adjust. Clearscope helps spot that mismatch while also ensuring I am not missing any key ranking factors.
4. Align with key stakeholders. A CEO, SEO, and SME rarely agree on content. Clearscope’s reports cut through opinions, “Here’s what’s missing, here’s why it matters.” That accelerates approvals and distribution.
5. Final edit + publish. With a stronger content score and tighter POV, I push it live.

The result? Content that ranks faster, stays fresher, and is harder to knock off.

I use the same process to update evergreen pieces, which is a key component and often a quick win for the third part of my Content Moat Framework: Content Efficiency.

Clients often let top posts decay. Running them through Clearscope is the fastest way to reclaim rankings and leads without writing from scratch.

A simple Clearscope pass can give a post another 12–24 months of life, which is one of the quiet moat bricks most companies ignore.

One professional services client saw their definitive guide climb from page 3 to page 1 after a single refresh, and it became their top organic lead driver.

What’s new in the Clearscope 2025 launch

Clearscope’s latest release reframes SEO for the AI era:

• Search has evolved. Google and AI chatbots are converging. Clearscope now tracks both.
• Tracked Topics. You can now see how your content surfaces in Google and AI tools. That’s proof your content is influencing more than just rankings.
• Topic Explorations. Clearscope now maps clusters, pillars, and spokes, essentially productizing a large part of the content hub/spoke roadmaps I’ve been building since 2019.

This is Clearscope evolving from SEO optimizer to full-on content strategy engine for both SEO and LLMs.

Clearscope Pricing: Is It Worth It?

If you’re evaluating Clearscope, here’s what you need to know.

• Essentials – $99/month if you sign up for 6 months (normally $129).
  • 20 AI Tracked Topics
  • 20 monthly AI Drafts
  • 50 Content Inventory Pages
• Business – $299/month if you sign up for 6 months (normally $399).
  • 50 AI Tracked Topics
  • 20 monthly AI Drafts
  • 300 Content Inventory Pages
  • Dedicated Account Manager

See Clearscope plans here.

For solo strategists and lean marketing teams, Essentials is plenty in my experience. For larger teams or agencies, Business saves time (and money).

Clearscope vs AI writing tools

AI writing tools (Jasper, Copy.ai, even ChatGPT) can crank out words at lightning speed. That can be useful for content creators who just need a draft. But let’s be clear: fast ≠ strategic.

Back in 2022, I tested Jasper head-to-head with one of my own freelancers. (Read that experiment here).

The human-written piece crushed the AI version because it had POV, in-depth context, and real positioning. AI-generated words alone don’t build trust — or rankings.

That’s why my workflow today looks like this:

• AI tools for speed and first drafts.
• My POV and strategy layered in to guide the content creation process.
• Clearscope to optimize content with data-driven insights that make it competitive for top ranking keywords.

The difference is night and day. Clearscope isn’t about spitting out copy. It’s about giving content marketers, content teams, and even solo freelancers the ability to streamline their process and publish content that compounds. The ease of use, whether you’re running a draft through the WordPress plugin or polishing inside Google Docs means you don’t get lost in the tech.

It’s that combo of AI for speed, human POV for differentiation, and Clearscope for AI-driven optimization that transforms one-off posts into moat bricks.

FAQ

• Is Clearscope worth it if I already use AI tools?
  • Yes! AI helps you write faster, but Clearscope ensures what you publish actually ranks and lasts. They’re complementary, not substitutes.

• Do I need a big team to use Clearscope?
  • No. I’ve used it as a solo strategist and with lean client teams. Essentials is plenty for individuals.

• How often should I update evergreen content with Clearscope?
  • Every 6–12 months, or whenever you see rankings start to slip. A single refresh can extend the life of a post by years.

• Will Clearscope help me show up in AI chatbots?
  • That’s what the new Tracked Topics feature is for to measure and optimize for AI discoverability.
    
• Is Clearscope better than Surfer SEO?
  • Both Clearscope and SurferSEO are popular SEO tools for content optimization, but they serve slightly different needs. Surfer is more prescriptive on keyword research and SERP analysis, while Clearscope offers ease of use and helping content teams and SEO professionals write with in-depth coverage and search intent in mind. Personally, I prefer Clearscope because it integrates directly into my workflow (Google Docs, WordPress) and feels less like I’m chasing the algorithm and more like I’m building long-term assets.
    
• Does Clearscope actually improve content quality?
  • Yes, but only if you use it correctly. Clearscope won’t magically make bad existing content high-quality. What it does is give content marketers and content creators a framework to cover topics comprehensively with the right target keywords and context without the guesswork. Pair that with a strong POV and editorial standards, and you’ll see a measurable lift in organic traffic and top ranking results. If you treat it like a checklist without adding insight, you’ll just end up with copycat content.
    
• What metrics should I track when using Clearscope?
  • I usually look at three buckets:
    
    
    • Search performance: keyword rankings, clicks, impressions.
  • • Engagement: time on page, bounce rate, scroll depth.
  • • Compounding impact: whether that piece starts driving links, shares, or showing up in real-time AI chatbot answers.
    
    The last one is harder to measure, but it’s where the real moat is built. Clearscope makes it easier to connect your content creation efforts with results that actually matter.
    
• Is Clearscope worth the price?
  • Clearscope isn’t cheap compared to most SEO tools. The Essentials plan starts at $129/month (or $99/month if you commit to 6 months through my link). The Business plan is $399/month ($299/month with the same 6-month savings).
    
    Here’s the ROI math I tell clients. If one in-depth article you run through Clearscope improves its content grade, fills a few key content gaps, and follows the keyword suggestions, that single piece of ranking content can bring in hundreds of extra visitors per month. That easily covers the subscription within a few months. And beyond rankings, Clearscope helps improve readability and usability. For content marketers, freelancers, and agencies, the use cases stack up fast from creating briefs, to auditing old posts, to polishing final drafts. When you’re selling strategy or execution, those improvements translate directly into better deliverables (and better margins).

Why Clearscope still matters in 2025

SEO isn’t dead. It’s evolving.

The only way to win long-term is to build your marketing moat: content that ranks, content that influences AI outputs, and content that’s hard to knock off.

Clearscope is one of the rare tools that helps make that possible.

That’s why it’s stayed in my stack, and why I recommend it to founders and lean marketing teams who want their content to work as hard as they do.

Try Clearscope here.

Note: I did collaborate with Clearscope on a webinar and a podcast interview, and I continue to use the platform actively. Posts like this show the caliber of thought-leadership partnerships I do with brands.

If you sign up through my link, you get a discount, and I may earn a commission. Thanks for supporting my work.

The post Clearscope Review 2025: How I Use It to Rank On Google, Influence LLMs, and Build Content Moats appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

Ashley wasn’t looking for a copywriter. She was gearing up to fix her org’s homepage, a long-overdue project for a fast-growing skincare membership association. But what started as a “let’s clean up the copy” initiative quickly turned into something messier:

• Internal language that didn’t land
• A design team still recovering from years of website restrictions
• 25+ competing CTAs on the homepage that gave site visitors zero sense of direction
• And a gut feeling that the message wasn’t just unclear, but it was holding them back

She didn’t want to throw more words at the problem. 

“There were no patterns at all,” she said. “It was like people are lost in the woods, and we are not giving them a flashlight.” 

She wanted clarity and a messaging partner who could help her team find it before they wandered too far down the wrong path.

Fixing a bloated homepage by rebuilding their messaging 

My role was to bring clarity before design decisions locked in messaging that didn’t fit.

So, Ashley brought me in early, before design, before any internal roadblocks were put in place, to help her team get aligned on what they were actually trying to say.

“It was really impressive how willing you were to dive in without any preconceptions and just learn our audience,” she adds.  

Here’s what we tackled:

• Rebuilt the homepage messaging from the ground up, with messaging clarity and conversion at the center
• Rewrote the messaging using the voice of their members, not internal buzzwords or jargon. 
• Delivered a simple Figma mockup to unblock visual direction and reduce rounds of guesswork
• And yes, stripped 25+ CTAs down to a focused, narrative-driven experience

It wasn’t about clever copy. It was about clarity, making decisions with confidence, and about giving their team something they could build on, not second-guess.

“You ended up informing the entire design and the content mapping,” she said. 

In fact, this work set the tone for doing this entire redesign differently. 

The moment everything shifted

“There were a lot of clarifying moments,” she said. “But a lot of them were facilitated by you, and your process surfaced them.”

This worked because we started with first principles and got messaging clarity before things spiraled. That’s the part most teams miss.

By resetting the message first, Ashley’s team was able to:

• Push back on legacy limitations 
• Align creative and dev early
• Build a user experience rooted in purpose and messaging clarity 

“Your work has really set the tone for empowerment and doing this a little bit differently and pushing on the purpose and the goals of the project,” she adds. 

This meant decisions were made faster, internal alignment tightened up, and the project finally started moving forward with confidence. 

What it’s like working with Jessica as a messaging partner

Ashley knew something was off and was willing to bring in someone early enough to help get it right.

“I will sing your praises to anybody who is looking for things that you do,” she said. “And I would also love to work with you on future projects.”

***

If your website isn’t converting, it’s often not just a design problem. It’s a messaging problem.

I help lean teams fix their messaging before it spirals into bloated websites, wasted ad spend, and missed conversions. 

Book a call here. if you’re ready to get clarity and move faster.

The post How a marketing leader turned a stalled website project into a strategic messaging reset appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

Traffic without trust is a dangerous illusion. It looks like momentum on paper, but behind the scenes, it quietly bleeds time, money, and good prospects.

That’s because this traffic wasn’t turning into leads.

Bounce rates were high. The sales conversations that did happen weren’t going anywhere. And the homepage read like something that had been slapped together years ago and never revisited—too vague to be useful, too busy to be clear.

When he reached out, he wasn’t looking for a full rebrand or a months-long engagement. He just wanted to understand what was going wrong. We did a short messaging and homepage assessment. The goal wasn’t to write better copy. It was to rebuild the buying journey, so visitors could act faster.

Within the first pass, a few things became obvious.

When you see a site pulling real traffic but losing people in seconds, it’s almost never a traffic quality problem. It’s almost always a messaging structure problem. And that was exactly what was happening here.

The core value proposition was buried. The copy leaned heavily on buzzwords and clever phrasing, but failed to say anything specific. And structurally, the site was working against the conversion, asking people to take action before they even understood what the product actually did.

In the assessment, I outlined what was missing and what needed to shift. I reworked the messaging hierarchy and reframed how the offer was being presented, so that buyers could actually see themselves in the story being told. It wasn’t about fancy language. It was about removing friction and giving people a reason to trust.

A few weeks later, he rewrote the homepage himself based on everything I shared. And almost immediately, he started noticing that visitors were sticking around longer. They understood what the product was and why it mattered. They stopped asking confused questions on demos.

The product still has room to grow. The market’s still competitive. But the fog is gone—and with it, the invisible bottleneck that was holding everything back.

This wasn’t a full sprint. But it’s a clear glimpse of what happens when you stop trying to “optimize content or copy” and start fixing the real bottleneck: a lack of trust.

***

If you’re staring at a traffic report that looks great but you are not seeing demos or free trials, there’s probably a messaging bottleneck somewhere.

That’s exactly what I fix in my Messaging Moat Sprints. Fast, focused, and under a month.
If you want a second set of eyes on it before you rewrite or rebuild, book a free clarity call here.

The post From SEO traffic to actual marketing traction appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

In 2024, my theme was sustainability. At the start of the year, I had grand plans to work smarter and create systems that wouldn’t burn me out. It felt ambitious yet doable. But now, as I look back, one uncomfortable truth keeps circling back.

It stems from this quote that I heard from Andrew Wilkinson, “The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

It’s a quote I’ve heard before, but this time, it hit differently. Because when I asked myself the hard questions I use to reflect each year, the patterns became impossible to ignore:

• What went well in 2024?
• What accomplishments made me the proudest?
• Where did I stumble? What mistakes or failures taught me the hardest lessons?
• What do I want to stop doing?
• What goals did I not achieve this year, and why?
• Where am I encountering resistance, and how do I push through?
• Did I truly embrace the theme I set for myself?

Some answers came easily. Others, not so much. I didn’t fully live up to my sustainability theme in every area, but I made progress. And that’s the point of setting a theme/word for the year.

Progress not perfection.

A Look Back at 2024

This year, I leaned into sustainability not just as a theme, but as a guiding principle. One of the reasons I started my business over six years ago was to design a career that gave me the freedom to work with incredible clients while staying curious about the world around me.

In 2024, I reconnected with that flexibility in a way I hadn’t since my early remote employee days back in 2016. I traveled more for both fun and business, including a marketing conference in Vermont, a small retreat with fellow founders in Costa Rica, and a birthday hiking trip in Hawaii. Each experience gave me fresh perspectives, kept me energized, and often tied directly to my work.

At the same time, I focused on building a sustainable business that balances delivering high-quality, impactful work with creating space for long-term growth.

Some highlights included:

• Seeing my content moat framework deliver long-term results for multiple clients and launching right-sized offers to help earlier-stage companies get started faster.
• Writing over 30 case studies and customer success stories while leveling up my storytelling and interviewing skills.
• Helping founders refine their messaging for rebrands, product launches, and LinkedIn strategies. Watching them go from “kind of clear” to confident was a major highlight.
• Exploring one-off consulting with a few early-stage founders and marketers transitioning to solopreneurship, which has been incredibly rewarding.
• I finally redesigned this website.
• On the metrics side, I grew my LinkedIn audience to 5.3k followers and my email list to 2.6k subscribers, up by over 1k. But what I’m most excited about is not follower growth, but the fact that I feel like I’m reaching more of the right people.

The seed for 2025’s theme

Toward the end of the year, I found myself in Costa Rica at a founder retreat. We spent three days sharing ideas, swapping stories, and pushing each other to think bigger about our businesses and our lives.

But what stuck with me wasn’t just the ideas we shared. It was the feeling of being fully present. No inbox distractions, no endless to-do lists. Just genuine conversations and deep connection.

That retreat planted the seed for my word/theeme in 2025: Connection.

This year, I want to connect deeper in all the areas that matter most to me:

• In my business – Leaning into collaborations and building deeper relationships that fuel growth.
• With family and friends – Nurturing the people who’ve been with me through the highs and lows.
• To what lights me up – Prioritizing travel and exploration which makes life feel full of possibility.
• To my health – Ensuring my physical and mental well-being don’t get sidelined in the process.
• To my finances – Being intentional about creating a future where I’m doing work I love—or at least like—70% of the time while building long-term security so I don’t end up dying on the Amazon warehouse floor at 80. lol.

The pattern across all of these goals is being intentional, showing up fully, and making the time and space for the things that matter most.

2025 goals in motion

Of course, a theme is nothing without action to back it up. Goals without a plan are just wishes, so for 2025, I’m keeping my goals intentional and grounded in a solid plan.

Here are a few I’m especially excited about:

• Double down on my core channels – Email and LinkedIn are my core channels, so I’m aiming to be more consistent and intentional about being of service on there.
• Prioritize fitness and health – I got an Oura Ring last year (After debating it for an embarrassingly long amount of time) and it made me more intentional about noticing connections I used to ignore. Fitness has been on the backburner for too long, so my goal is to find an activity I can learn to love and commit to doing it at least twice a week for three months. The thought behind this is once I’m 3 months in, it will be more likely to stick longterm if I like doing the thing.
• Go on one founder retreat. This is something that I’ve done every year since 2022 and has been one of my better investments as it gives me space to work “on” the business instead of “in” it.

All of these goals (and a few more that are more personal) are backed by detailed plans with tasks and milestones to give me the best chance of achieving them.

***
As I step into 2025, connection will be my compass. Here’s to a year of going deeper, showing up fully, and creating meaningful progress.

The post My theme for 2025 – Connection appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

But as a founder partnering with other founders and lean marketing teams, I get to focus on what I do best—conversion content marketing strategy and copywriting—to help clients communicate their value and achieve measurable growth. Bonus: I get to skip the pressure (and panic-inducing hives) of climbing a career ladder to a CMO corner office I never wanted.

The year of sustainability 

This year, I leaned into sustainability—both in how I work and how I live.

One of the reasons I started this business six years ago was to design a career that gave me the freedom to work with incredible clients while staying curious about the world around me.

I don’t want to wake up 20, 30, or 50 years from now wondering what the hell I did all of these years.

I also reconnected with that flexibility in a way I hadn’t since my early remote employee days, way back in 2016-2018. 

I traveled a lot for both business and fun, including but not limited to attending a marketing conference in Burlington, Vermont, a 3-day retreat with a small group of fellow marketing and writing founders in Costa Rica, and a birthday hiking trip to Hawaii.  

While exploring new places kept me energized and gave me fresh perspectives, I’ve also been focused on building a sustainable approach to my business. One that ensures I have the creativity and focus to consistently deliver high-quality, impactful work for my clients.

I’ve learned that sustainability doesn’t have to mean doing less. It means being intentional about designing a business that supports both my clients’ goals and my own long-term growth.

This year reminded me how much I value the ability to blend meaningful work with meaningful experiences. And more than ever, I’m focused on making this balance a lasting part of my business and life.

Another year of thankfully working with great clients on incredible projects

Every project this year taught me something, whether it was deep dives into content strategy or just seeing how small tweaks can make a big impact. For that, I’m incredibly grateful and thankful.

I partnered with lean teams across B2B SaaS and professional service firms to craft content strategies and write copy that helps them communicate their value clearly and drive long-term results. By staying hands-on, I ensure every project is aligned with my clients’ goals.

However, there were some things I was especially proud of working on:

• I leaned heavily into my content moat framework this year, and seeing it deliver long-term results for multiple clients was a personal win. As part of an effort to meet clients where they are, I also created a right-sized offer to help companies that were earlier into their content marketing strategy get started and make the process of seeing results happen faster.
  
• I loved helping a handful of early and growth-stage founders refine their messaging through rebrands, product (and feature) launches, and even how they show up on their personal LinkedIn profiles to land bigger deals. Seeing them go from ‘kind of clear’ to confident was a big highlight.
  
• I produced over 30 case studies and customer success stories this year for professional service firms and B2B SaaS startups and continued to level up my storytelling and interviewing skills.
  
• I took on a few consulting gigs with early-stage founders and some in-house marketers looking to make the jump to solopreneurship and realized just how much I like it. As a bonus, everyone who I’ve worked with in this capacity seems to really value it.

Trends I’m seeing 

This year, a few trends have been impossible to ignore. They’re shaping how I approach content strategy, copywriting, and how I’m helping my clients stay ahead.

Using AI thoughtfully 
AI is everywhere, but the key isn’t throwing it at every problem. Or worse, burying your head in the sand and not using it all. 

Instead, it’s figuring out where it actually makes things better. The best use cases I’ve seen are about improving systems and processes so the real work (the stuff humans do best, like creative thinking and building relationships) has more room to shine. 

I’ve been experimenting with my own business workflows, and when I find things that work, I share them with my clients. For instance, I use AI as my marketing copilot whenever I’m writing and revising. I set the context, add very specific instructions, and add my rambling draft, and then AI helps me find gaps and refine them. It is not automated, but it makes me a better thinker and writer. 

Distribution is everything (and it is getting harder)
Creating great content isn’t enough anymore. Gaming Google? Also, that’s not the answer. 

The real challenge is making sure your content actually gets seen when search and social platforms are more fragmented than ever. I’ve been working with clients to map out intentional, multi-channel distribution strategies. Now, all of my strategies are customized to individual clients, but broadly speaking, this looks like:

•  Focusing on evergreen topics that can work across more than one channel. While the content is customized for each channel (search, LinkedIn, newsletters, etc), the topic is the same. You aren’t reinventing the wheel every single time. That’s important since the vast majority of my clients have lean teams.
  
• Leveraging SMEs, collabs, and partnerships – Are there internal experts we can interview? Are there relevant customers to feature? External partnerships and comarketing opportunities to amplify our reach?
  
• Using metrics to double down on the platforms and formats driving the most engagement. One small thing I changed in my process this year was to track referral traffic in GA4 across Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc., for all clients. Across the board, I’ve seen traffic spikes from LLMs. I’m also starting to see patterns emerging around what is likely to get picked up and drive brand awareness and even traffic from LLMs. I’m using that to refine strategies and tactics. 

And yes, that’s easier said than done, but it is a problem I’m very much tackling brick by brick. 

The return to real connection 
People can smell fake—or bad AI—from a mile away. Whether it’s an overly polished ad or a LinkedIn post that feels robotic, audiences are gravitating toward brands that feel human, authentic, and trustworthy. 

For many of my clients, this means creating content that’s deeply empathetic and audience-first. It’s about focusing on their customers’ actual pain points and stories instead of surface-level marketing-speak. I’ve been working with founders and marketing teams to:

• Refine their brand voice to feel more relatable and real.
• Create personal, story-driven content that resonates with readers. 
• Show up in meaningful ways where their audience already is, whether that’s a niche newsletter, Google, LinkedIn, Threads, or an offline event. The brands that are getting outsized returns today (and I suspect even more so in the next 3-5 years) are the ones making their ideal customers feel understood and valued.

These are the challenges I’m tackling with clients every day. My content moat framework directly addresses these challenges by helping clients build evergreen assets that are designed to keep getting results over weeks, months, and even years. It’s about building trust, standing out in increasingly fragmented channels, and making sure your content works as hard as you do.

Rethinking limiting beliefs for more intentional growth

I recognized an opportunity to push beyond some limiting beliefs in my business and personal life. While I’ve built stability I’m proud of, I’ve focused on making thoughtful adjustments to position my business for long-term growth, like exploring new systems, building creative partnerships, and delegating more effectively. 

I’ve also started prioritizing systems that free up my time for high-impact work, like building out a content strategy and delivering creative solutions, so I can continue growing my business in a way that serves my clients and aligns with my strengths.

Carving out time for business and personal growth 

Every year since 2022, I’ve gone to one smaller biz retreat abroad with other founders. I’ve walked around with a new idea or perspective that has been immensely valuable for my business.

I feel like I need to do one of these once or twice a year every year. It’s that valuable, and if I’m honest, a lot of the views that I’m sharing in this 6-year recap came from a retreat that I went to last month. 

A lot of the goals I have for the next couple of years require me to think differently. While I have a massive bias for action, I realize there is value in delegating more off my plate and investing in creative collabs and partnerships, especially if I want to continue to grow and don’t want to put in 60+ hour work weeks all the time.

But I’ll share more of my plans for the next year in my 2025 annual theme post.

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The post Reflecting on my 6th year In business appeared first on Jessica Malnik.

Last year, I was all in on leveling up. But if I’m keeping it real, my biggest level-up turned out to be in my ability to overthink.

So, yeah, not great.

Despite my overthinking, I still managed to have some BIG WINS in 2023, even if it wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. I hinted at some of them in my 5th business anniversary post, but some of my faves were:

• I had the highest revenue quarter I’ve ever had in business.
• I soft-launched several new service offerings in 2023. A couple of these offers saw some immediate traction, like my conversion troubleshooting offer, which I’m going to focus on growing this year.
• I spoke at a conference in Thailand.
• I got featured in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for the first time. Bucket list item.
• I turned the mic over to my podcast editor, Sebastian, who interviewed me for our 50th episode.
• There are now more than 60 recorded episodes of The Remote Work Tribe podcast. This year, I interviewed some dream guests, and the podcast was listened to in over 109 countries.

But I also faced more challenges than I did in 2021 and 2022 combined.

• I struggled with a couple of challenging situations that knocked my confidence more than they should. And it forced me to level up my mindset.
• I grew my email list by 60% but missed my goal of doubling it year after year.
• I wasn’t intentional about planning to take more days off where I didn’t work.
• This past year taught me that I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to hiring and empowering my small but mighty team.
• While I’m taking steps to delegate more of the admin and ops internal tasks, I’m still a long way from my original goal of delegating 80% of it.

***
2023 was a year of both growth and learning, and I’m taking these lessons forward into 2024.

For 2024, my theme is SUSTAINABLE.

So why did I make my word for 2024—sustainable—and what exactly do I want to achieve this year?

This goes back to a goal I’ve said since year one. I want to build a business for the long haul. Something that could be around for decades.

A lot of the business owners I look up to the most are the ones who have been in the arena with the same business for 10, 20, or 30+ years.

Making sustainable my theme for this year is my way to keep this long-term goal front and center. I want to make sure I’m setting myself up for a future that’s not just successful but also fulfilling.

It is about being selective and doing work with clients that make sense long term.

It’s about not overdoing it and ending up burned out. And one of the easiest ways to burn out as a founder is to hire people who aren’t self-motivated and need a lot of direction.

This means continuing to invest in building more systems and processes so that projects and tasks get the same or better results while still being able to delegate bits and pieces when needed.

It also means making sure that I free up time each week to focus on my own business development and marketing so I can maintain a sustainable pipeline.

This idea of sustainability spills over into my personal life, too. It’s about investing time in people, skills, and habits that’ll be handy in a few years (or decades). Or just making sure I’m around folks who lift me up. This also means being able to take vacations without having to work like a crazy person before and after.

When I think about the goals that I want to achieve this year, the common thread is a need to grow sustainably without compromising quality or becoming a shell of my former self.

It’s clear to me that there’s always more to learn, and I’m excited to take these lessons into 2024.

Here’s to thriving and enjoying the ride over the next year!

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