As 2020 has arrived, I wanted to take a beat to reflect on this past year and how it affected and improved my business and clients.
There were a number of things on the personal front that affected my professional life, from buying a 30 foot school bus turned camper and planning to travel in that full-time, to ultimately moving into a house again and growing roots in a city I love. This meant a lot of time spent away from my office getting the bus and moving boxes in order.
That said, 2019 has been the best year in terms of production for my own marketing efforts and my clients. Having clients on retainer gives me the flexibility to focus on their needs and to become part of the team instead of just hands on a keyboard, and I can still take on the one-off HubSpot development projects I love to do.
I've refined how I collaborate with clients and my virtual assistant team, which means increased productivity and a better insight for clients on what I'm working on. Not all the processes are perfect but are a work in progress.
Every year I take the time between Christmas and New Year off, and focus on stepping back to look at what went well, what didn't, what to do next time, and my goals for the upcoming year. These are the same things that I do once a week on my call with my business mentor. Getting away from the day-to-day nitty gritty of making a living leads to refocusing on what's important, whether it's a work goal or a personal one.
Looking forward, I'm super excited for 2020 and my seventh year of running ashleyidesign. Once again I'll be teaching an intro to web design course at my alma mater this semester, which gives me the opportunity to teach others how to build websites much like I learned myself over 20 years ago.
I mostly look forward to continuing to help my clients grow their businesses and non-profits and making new connections wherever those may lead.
Until then, it's ski season for me right now, and as soon it warms up I'll be on the motorcycle exploring some trails. I hope you have a great start to the new year, and here's to the next decade!
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