2019 was another year of upheaval and awesome change for me. It was the year I let go of the so-called “Golden Handcuffs” and went back to being a full-time entrepreneur and made the decision to take my goals seriously. It’s the year I got 2 speaking gigs at two separate conferences which gave me the motivation to keep going down this course.
It wasn’t all sunshine and puppies, though. Losing the “Golden Handcuffs” meant I was fired (which I completely believe I manifested, but more on that later) so my husband and I had to rework our finances. I spent a lot of my time slugging away at a business I don’t want to do anymore in the hopes of getting it over with, which left me battling a negative mindset a lot of the time. It was also the year I was the most out of shape I’ve ever been.
But you know, overall it was a positive year in my mind, and one of massive change that makes me excited for 2020 and what’s to come. But let’s recap what I planned and how that went, shall we?
2019 goals taken from this post
My 2019 Year In Review
2019 Blog Goals:
- Release resource library – done
- Update posts with broken links to workbook library – done
- Add entrepreneur printables to Print Shop – done
- Relaunch Perfect Product Copy – eh, done-ish
- Release the full Stop Sucking at Marketing – not done
- 52 posts – nope
- Revamp layout (the headers look weird in mobile as you might have noticed) – done!
2019 Business Goals:
- Move Beige House to a better ad network than Adsense – not done
- 1k subscribers on Beige House youtube channel – not done
- Finish listing of all Meve Vintage inventory (which sounds like a no-brainer, but there’s so. Much. jewelry.) – still not done, there’s still so much.
- Work towards sunsetting Meve Vintage and focusing on Beige House – still doing
- Sell off remaining Reserved Stock inventory. – done
- Get a new desk! – done, built it myself !
Cool Extra Things that Happened
- Hired a business coach to help me focus on my goals which was totally terrifying but felt like the easiest way to close the gap between where I am and where I want to be
- Became fully self-employed again
- Relaunched Stop Sucking at Business!
- Spoke at 2 conferences
- Hired an SEO company to help BeigeHouse pull in more visitors and it has been SUCH a worthwhile cost, solely because it makes me feel the pressure to write blog posts every week now that I’m paying someone to fine-tune them.
- Took back BeigeHouse from the outsourced bloggers and social media managers I had running it. They did their best, but it wasn’t pulling in the numbers and it felt very generic. I decided that if I was going to pivot into having my blogs be more of an income source for me, then I’m going to have to be the active participant here and not just let it run passively.
- Hired an on-demand WordPress developer. He’s been SUCH a lifesaver, especially as I’ve updated both blogs, and saves me so much time. Now I can just say “hey, this thing looks weird, do you know why?” And he’ll dive in and fix it rather than me either not doing anything about it, or trying to fix it myself and making things worse.
My favorite posts of 2019
- Grum, Later, Planoly, and Plann: I tried all 4, Here’s My Vote for Best Instagram App
- The “Duh” Moment of Figuring Out Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- What’s Your Origin Story?
- How I Make Videos for YouTube and IG TV Using the Same App
- Falling Out of Love (with a Business)
Your favorite posts of 2019 (based on page views)
- 5 Examples of Killer Business Plans
- How to Make MailerLite Run on Genesis
- How I Use Promoted Listings on Etsy (With Costs)
- Creating Automatic Win Back Emails with MailChimp
- Business Plan Dos and Don’ts
2020 Blog Goals
- Release season 3 of SSAB
- 25k monthly visitors
- 5% engagement rate on Instagram
- Launch Stop Sucking at Marketing
- Release 24 videos
- Launch Day 1 book – done!
- Launch Vintage Star book
- 52 newsletters
- 52 blog posts
- Add SEO team that works on Beige House over to here – done!
2020 Business Goals
- Earn 75% of my income on digital media and services instead of vintage
- Sell off and close vintage shops
- Reduce spending by 50% (which will be easily done once the vintage line is gone. So many fees between shipping, Etsy, and eBay!
- Speak at 5 conferences or events, get paid for 1 (most speaking gigs cover your ticket only)
- Rework YouTube studio in the basement once all of the vintage glass is gone. I want to add more spaces for some backgrounds I have so I can do more lifestyle shots for BeigeHouse.
