2019: A Year in Review
It is that time of the year!! A time to take a moment and reflect on how the previous year went, what worked and what didn't, and how we want to move forward going into the new year.
This is my first "year in review" blog post. 2019 was also the first year I was 100% working for myself - from January to December (my business launched mid-2018, making 2019 my first fully self-employed year).
So here is a little review of 2019, plus some ideas, goals, and plans I am looking forward to in 2020.
(I just wanted to thank Paige for writing her 3rd "year in review" blog post. Since this is my first time, I am using her blog post structure as a guide.)
Year in review: revenue
I just need to start by saying that the fact that I was profitable by fully working for myself is pretty crazy to me! I am honestly so proud of myself for pulling this off hahaha. Since college, I had an entrepreneur mindset, but it was hard for me to visualize being self-employed. So the fact that 2019 was my first fully self-employed year running my own business and I ended the year with a profit makes me super happy. 😊
The reason why I want to share my revenue growth with you guys is because I LOVE reading about other soloprenuer’s business journeys. As a young, entrepreneur woman, I think it is important to be open and share my business journey. I see it as “paying it forward”. So many other woman who have decided to run their own businesses helped me by sharing blog posts like this one. And now that I have been doing this for a bit, I want to do my part and share this to hopefully help other young woman who want to own and run their own businesses.
I won’t be sharing any numbers on this posts, but I will share comparison charts that can give you a good idea of my business growth, and what I did/didn’t do to make it happen.
2018 vs 2019
Below I have a chart comparing my revenue from 2018 and 2019. Keep in mind that I started my business mid-2018, so this charts is only showing 6 months of revenue for 2018, and 12 months of revenue for 2019.
What I think is interesting is that even if you double my 2018 income (to pretend it was 12 months), there was still revenue growth in 2019.
When broken down by month (shown below), May, August, and December were my best months in terms of income, while April and August were my lowest. As you can probably guess, no two months are ever the same for a solopreneur!
Variables that affected my monthly income:
Number of clients booked for that month
Me experimenting with pricing
Taking time off from client work to work on my business, travel, and attend conferences and events.
Month by month breakdown:
January: Client projects
February: Client projects
March: Client projects
April: Client projects
May: Client projects + Traveled to Disney World for 3 days + Traveled to Boston for 3 days
June: Client projects + Traveled to NYC for 20 days + Attended the Creative at Heart conference in North Carolina.
July: Client projects + Traveled to Brazil for 2 weeks
August: Client projects + Traveled to NYC for a month
September: Client projects
October: Client projects + Traveled to NYC for 6 days to attend the Institute for Integrative Nutrition live event.
November: Client projects
December: Client projects + Traveled to NYC for 10 days
With the exception of my trip to Disney World and Boston in May, I was working during all of my others trips (so they weren’t “vacations”, but rather me working while traveling)
This year I had only two sources of income:
Custom brand, web, and ebook design projects (these have fixed pricing)
Hourly client work (these smaller projects were charged by the hour instead of a set project price)
This will be one of my priorities for 2020: to start bringing in income with other sources besides my design work (more on that below).
Year in review: marketing
2019 was a year of no marketing strategy, but that doesn’t mean that no marketing took place.
Here is what happened: from the moment I launched my business, I had a very focused target audience: wellpreneurs (entrepreneurs in the wellness field / ex: health & life coaches, yoga teachers, massage therapists, mindfulness teachers).
So all of my website copy, Instagram captions, newsletters and blog posts were always written for my niche - which I believe is what led me to my success this year. The truth is that there are many amazing brand + web designers out there, but very few who are targeting the wellness industry. That is why I think is so important to have a niche for your business (read more about how having a niche helped my business in this blog post).
I did start 2019 with the goal of writing one blog post and sending one newsletter a week. My plan was to boast my SEO and Google ranking with intentional blog posts. What actually happened? I only wrote three blog posts and sent nine newsletter the entire year!!! I know… that the best right?!
So how did my clients find me? While some find me on Google because of those few blog posts, the majority of them found me through 2 ways:
Instagram
Word of mouth
I was very consistent on posting on Instagram, averaging about 3-5 posts week. I also invest A LOT of energy in giving my clients the best client experience I can provide, and that’s what I think led to so many referrals.
I didn’t do a great job keeping up with what platform each client found me, so that is one of my goals for 2020.
Year in review: observations
Here is just a breakdown of how I feel looking back at the following areas of 2019:
Time/money well spent:
These ecourses:
Square Secrets Business course by Paige Brunton
Organize & Automate course by Nesha Woolery
A new laptop!!!!
Professional business photoshoot with David & Meivys.
Attending the Creative at Heart conference round 9
Attending the Institute for Integrative Nutrition alumni annual live event in NYC
Traveling to NYC four times (to see the bf ;])
Plann (Instagram planner)
Convertkit* (Email marketing platform)
Quickbooks* (Accounting software)
Bonsai* (Customer relationship management software - I use it to send contracts/invoices to clients. 2021 update: I now use Dubsado)
Blue-light protecting glasses to use while working on the computer
Sweat (This app helped me stay physically active throughout the year)
Meditation apps (My favs: Headspace and Insight Timer)
Listening to some powerful and inspiring podcasts (My favs: The Melissa Ambrosini Show, How I Built This, Socialette, The Goop Podcast, The Health Code, Being Boss, The influencer Podcast, The School of Greatness, The Simple Business Show, Vous Church)
Going to Vous Church.
Time/money wasted:
Canva pro (Canva is a free online platform that you can purchase the “pro” version that comes with more benefits. While I can see it being super helpful to many, it wasn’t something I used often because I use Adobe Illustrator.)
Skillshare (I can see myself LOVING Skillshare, but between all of the traveling I did and the ecourses I invested in, I did not have the time to really explore the subscription, so I canceled it after one month.)
Worrying, overthinking, comparing (you know… all of those unproductive thoughts)
What I avoided doing but should have done:
Consistent blogging and newsletters
SEO
Asking past clients for testimonials
Using Instagram more purposely
Participating more in my networking group activities
Year in review: changes for 2020 + goals
I have SO MANY plans for 2020, I am soooo excited! I feel like 2019 was the year for my to really focus on client work and improving my client experience. And now that I feel confident in my work and my process, it is time to expand. Here are my main goals for the new year, in order of important to my business growth:
1. Grow my sources of income:
I want to expand from only having 2 sources of income (design packages & hourly design work), to having __. My sources of revenue would then be:
Design packages
Hourly design work
Online shop on my website
An ecourse!!! (which I am most excited about)
Start a Youtube channel to document the behind-the-scenes of being a creative entrepreneur
2. Grow my team:
This is possibly one of the most important steps I must take, but also the one I am most nervous about. Ideally, I want to hire a digital assistant and …. ok, this is a secret but my bff and I have been talking about her joining me in business so we would both own the business and be able to serve even more people!!!
3. Smaller goals:
These are small things I want to get on top of that I know will positively contribute to my business growth:
Consistent blogging and newsletters (1x week)
Invest time into learning more SEO and applying to my business and my client’s
Better track how my clients are finding me (so I can use this information to focus my marketing)
Use Instagram to engage better with my potential clients, instead of only posting images
Be a guest speaker at podcasts
Alwayssss ask a happy client for a testimonial
Create a closed facebook community for my clients so I can support them even further
Year in review: travels
One of the reasons I decided to become self-employed was to have the liberty to travel and work on-the-go from anywhere. These are a few trip highlights from this year ;] (And if you are curious, my current homebase is Miami)
May: Disney World
May: Boston
June: Roadtrip to NYC
June: Creative at Heart conference in North Carolina
July: Brazil (Rio de Janeiro - my hometown)
August: NYC
October: Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC
December: NYC (yeah… I spent a lot of time in NYC haha)
Year in review: thank you!
I want to wrap up this post by sending a special THANK YOU to all of my clients this past 1.5 years! If it wasn’t for their business, Bia Alvarez Design Studio wouldn’t be here! I am so so so grateful for the opportunity to have served every single one of them, and I am beyond excited to co-create beautiful magic with my future clients ;]
Happy 2020 to you!!!! May this year be filled with abundance, happiness, growth, expansion, and a lot of love.
CONTINUE READING:
