How my business BLEW UP in Lockdown... an update, one year into this pandemic
We all know 2020 was quite the year, and it certainly did not turn out how many of us expected it to. I went into 2020 with a few goals. I wanted to reach 70K on youtube, 15K on Instagram, 5K on my email list, 70K in sales gross, and visit 5 new places.
While my travel goals totally tanked (whos’ didn’t?) I actually blew my business goals out of the water. Now, this is something I hold with a light grasp, and also view with a lot of complex feelings because I know not everyone had a year like me. I saw so many amazing local businesses close because of the effects of the pandemic, and so I’ve always been a bit hesitant to share about how much my business has grown. But you know that I’m all about honesty and so, now that we’re a solid year into this I thought I would share a retrospective on my business and all the major changes it's made. Because even though this past year has probably been one of the hardest for me personally (like I’m sure is the case for many people) it was the most successful year for me professionally.
To set the scene, this is how I started off the year with my business:
In early 2020:
I had one team member.
A few social clients, but not a lot.
I was still doing a bunch of freelance videography gigs.
Then, of course, the pandemic happened and all of my in-person gigs were canceled… which is okay, I’ve actually wanted to be location independent for a long time and this was sort of the kick in the butt to make that happen for me.
My channel kept growing and more clients started coming in. I found that because online communication had basically become the only option for communication, a lot of people started to realize they needed to work on their social media presence for their business. Either that or with more free time, people wanted to start a side hustle or a creative side project. With all of that, my clientele really grew.
So… what happened next?
I had to start creating systems.
This was actually a bit of a struggle at points because I was individually emailing each client. Every client has a slightly different experience and needs, even if we were offering them the same services. If you're a service provider you can understand that there is a lot of information that needs to go back and forth in order for everyone involved to be prepared - so I would be exchanging so many emails going over what the client needed to provide, what I needed to provide, what that timeline would look like, etc, etc. This wasn’t working and I knew I needed to create a system. I hired Charlotte, a Dubsado consultant to help me get set up with Dubsado (her IG is @charlotteisaachq if you want to contact her, she’s amazing). She helped me put systems in place that would ensure that I’m giving each client the same experience and not forgetting any of the essential parts of the process. And now... rather than dealing with a hectic inbox, we have an application form that we receive notifications from, and there we have a nice stream of new leads showing up almost every day. This was one of the biggest changes that helped scale my business - sometimes automation can feel intimidating and it can be a bit of a job to set it all up, but it was definitely worth it!!
Next, it was time to start growing my team.
One of the biggest things that have changed is my team. I’ve grown to be a team of 7 now, and each member has a differing number of hours, not everyone works full time, but I appreciate all of them and the hard work they put in that’s ultimately allowing my business to continue to grow. I mentioned that I started the year with Taylor - we’ve been working together since the fall of 2019 and I couldn’t do it without her, if you’re a long-time listener of the podcast you’ve probably heard me shout her out before. After Taylor, my first hire was Jordyn, who’s actually my cousin, and we brought her on at the beginning of the summer to help us out part-time since she’s a student. Then we went quite a while before expanding further in the fall, when we hired Kitsune, Lauren, Shelby, and Gabriel all within a few weeks of each other. It really was like finally getting the support we needed because before that... Taylor and I were both feeling completely overwhelmed every week. I consider my team to be the best investment I’ve made in my business. I absolutely could not do this work without all of these amazing people, and I’m so happy I was able to grow to this point in 2020. You can learn more about my team here on my website.
It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Here are some of my ups and downs on YouTube.
I would like to say that my story on YouTube was an uphill climb to success throughout the whole year, but the real story is much more complicated than that. I had a huge uptick in views in March of 2020, specifically on a number of videos I made of TikTok tutorials. Seeing those constant green-up arrows lasted up until May, but soon after, I started to pretty consistently see red-down arrows across my analytics. I was still getting some views but those huge TikTok tutorials weren’t pushing my growth quite as much as they had been. Overall, my channel has had a few viral hits like my Instagram Story Hacks videos, and my TikTok Tutorials, which have amassed millions of views between them and that means that a lot of my subscribers have come from those videos. So... when I don’t post hacky or viral-worthy social media tutorials, I don’t seem to get as many views. This is a big area of insecurity for me actually. I feel like, for a subscriber base of my size, I should be getting more views on each video.
So if anything... my youtube journey in 2020 was me trying to learn not to care about the metrics quite so much, and focus on making content that is valuable and also something that I love to make. I definitely had a few breakdowns throughout the year, you may have seen my crying-in-public video where I talked about how I suck at YouTube. But, all of these ups and downs have led me to my current strategy which I think is going to be fruitful for me - which is the “one for me, one for the algorithm” strategy. I actually originally heard this from Sara Dietschy, it’s the idea of creating half of your content for the algorithm or the audience, half for your own creative fulfillment.
Another hurdle has been figuring out what my job should look like.
As a business owner, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what role you have, especially as you start hiring. I’ve realized over the course of the year that I want to be able to lean into the more creative side of my work and being a content creator - not necessarily managing clients or doing a lot of admin work. I love the strategy and the content ideas that go into working with clients, but replying to logistical emails and setting up meetings wasn’t how I wanted to be spending my time. This is a lesson I’m taking away from 2020 and trying to apply in 2021 about what parts of my business I actually need to have a hand in versus what I can start to assign to others. My dream has always been to be a content creator, and I want to be able to focus on that more, and having the awesome team that I do take over more of the operations is going to be a big part of that.
As you can see, there have been a lot of ups and downs, but I feel fortunate that for the most part it has been going up and my business continues to grow and thrive. I feel so lucky to be able to earn a living doing what I love and with a team that is so great. Let’s see what 2021 will bring.