Hi hi, Olivia here! I wanted to pop in here and do a little 2021 recap and share what’s in store for us in 2022.
2021 was one for the books. I started last year with the mindset of “we’re going big”… no playing small, taking risks, going all in and betting on myself and this business more than I ever have before. And that’s exactly what I did – it was our best and biggest year in business yet. We hit milestones month after month, grew our team from two to five, 2.5x’d our revenue (listen to that podcast episode here) and worked with 50+ clients who we are obsessed with.
I am so proud.
On top of growing the business, I also got married, took 4 weeks off, went on a honeymoon, started renovating our new house, traveled to a few new countries and cities and got to spend a lot of time with friends and family. While this was so much fun and rewarding, 2021 was also a year of burnout.
It was the first year since owning Current that I felt burnout on a physical level. Feeling unmotivated, brain fog, frustration, hormones imbalances and fatigue were physicalities from pushing myself to the limit every single day. I truly believe that when you want something really bad, you have to go for it no matter what it takes, but I also don’t support hustle culture. I knew in order to reach these goals I had to push myself, but I also know it’s not sustainable.
Which leads me to here, 2022. Last year we laid the foundation, this year we simplify. We’re refining our offers, simplifying our processes and introducing new marketing tactics.
What I’m looking forward to this year
01. Step more into the CEO position
Most of last year my focus was to remove myself as much as possible from daily design responsibilities for clients so I could take 4 weeks off for more wedding/honeymoon. Now that we have a solid team in place (2 Graphic Designers, 1 Marketing Coordinator and 1 Copywriter), I can now remove myself even more and really concentrate on the big vision goals for the business. My goal is to be mostly working on Creative Direction for clients, overall marketing efforts for the business, strategic partnerships and my coaching clients.
02. Limited amount of custom design clients
This year we are capping the number of clients we take on to ensure maximum quality, for both our team and our clients. We have a very precise process that we know converts and I know the number we’re able to take on without our team feeling burnt out. I’m curious to see how this goes, but if you know you want to work with us this year, don’t hesitate to book a discovery call.
03. Launch my personal brand
Last year I launched my first ever mastermind for designers, Designed to Scale. Mentoring fellow designers has been something I’ve wanted to do for years and it was a dream to finally do it! With my coaching offerings doing well and Current growing equally as quickly, I’ve decided to separate the two and create a separate website, byoliviaaustin.com. This way, it’s easy for people to know where to go to access coaching vs. get custom design help without it being confusing to potential clients on either side.
04. Concentration on passive income
We’ve got our custom design offerings down to a science, but our passive income has slacked a bit even though we have an amazing template shop. This year, we are putting a heavy concentration on growing our email list, introducing paid ads (Instagram and Pinterest) and adding more Showit website templates to our template shop.
05. More team building
In December 2021 we went on our first team trip together to Nashville, TN and it was a blast! This year I want to focus on team camaraderie and getting together a few times a year in order to build a high-quality team culture.
I hope you liked this blog post! I always love to read about people’s goals and what they have going on in there business, so thought it would be fun to do the same. If you loved this post and/or want to share your goals with me, DM me on instagram. Happy New Year!
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