2022 In Review
2022 was a big year for our little communications consultancy. I finally got out of my own way. I hired support: A virtual assistant from She’s A Given and another writer based on a recommendation from podcast guest and fellow communications consultant Stef Tschida. You can learn more about them here.
Other 2022 Highlights
Highest revenue year to-date
1M+ words were checked in Grammarly (love that plugin)
30 interviews on The Coast
26 clients supported, either through projects or ongoing retainers
19 students taught in Popa & Ass workshops
10+ courses taken (more on my favorites below)
3 new services offered
2 projects that got weird (and led to the new services offered)
2022 was the year that I decided to be “hot and smart,” so I invested in continued education, coaches, a personal trainer, and even a set of hair extensions! My highest self has thick hair, and it was time to start embodying her. Do what you gotta do, playa!
$5K invested in coaching and learning
The first course I took in 2022 was Amanda Frances’s Money Mentality Makeover. My hairstylist, Erica, told me about her book at one of my appointments, and it turns out another client of hers, MacKenzie, was the one who told Erica about it.
MacKenzie and I connected about a month later when we interviewed her for our podcast, I read Amanda’s book, and signed up for the course. It was all extremely serendipitous!
I learned a ton, witnessed Amanda’s personal money journey, and get lifetime access to any new modules. It was my first online course and totally worth it.
I’ve been in Jenni Adishian’s Abundant Collective since she launched it in 2021. I’ve gotten so much out of the community there, and when she launched The Portal exclusively for business owners, I jumped it. It is a three month intensive for you to learn how to tune in and channel for your business. I’ve been using the skills she taught us since.
Somewhat in parallel, I was frustrated by my bickering with the SEO guy for one of my cornerstone retainer clients. In an effort to make our arguments more productive, I took my friend Marissa’s SEO course. Not only did it help me win my fights (😜), but it also gave me a line item I could add to client proposals—SEO research for blogs and articles. In just a month, that course paid for itself!
About those projects that got weird
When you work in client services, you’re dealing with other humans, and those humans come with all their ideas and history. Even with the best of intentions on both ends, sometimes projects just get weird. That’s the easiest way to put it.
Ultimately, what I learned from those projects (after I worked through feeling gross about them), was a lot of us need to get to know themselves and their businesses better before they hire me. That’s how it was then, at least. I couldn’t write someone’s website without knowing their mission, brand voice, etc. And, often, they thought they knew they had those things when they didn’t.
Starting midway through last year, I began offering workshops and intensives focused on the foundations of your business communications: Finding your voice, coming up with your foundational messaging, building your bio, and more. I hope wrap these things in a bow eventually and bundle them so people can self-serve at a price that feels good to both of us.
Soon, hopefully.
A few other notes that might help you in your biz
I taught myself a little about SMS marketing and started dabbling in that—the ROI can be so much higher than for email marketing, depending on your client. If you have the ability to play with it, do it!
I got really tired of planning my day around discovery calls where the client either no-showed or wasn’t a fit. I updated my contact form to more properly vet leads, removed my Calendly calendar from my contact page, and enjoyed a much higher proposal acceptance rate because of it
I added meetings as a line item on proposals 😇😇😇
HBU?
What did you learn in 2022? How did your business evolve? It’s always helpful for me to look back and remind myself of the sheer amount of shit I did. Working for yourself can be isolating, and it can feel like you’re slowly chipping away at something that isn’t really moving, but looking back can help you see how much it really is.
2023—Let’s go
2023 is already off to a big start. I can’t wait to see what I have to share next year!
