Before you set your goals, do THIS: 2023 Closing Duties

In this episode of "How You Pictured It," we walk through a comprehensive end-of-year reflection process, designed specifically for creative solopreneurs. As 2023 draws to a close, it's the perfect time to look back on your projects, client interactions, and personal growth to help set the stage for a successful 2024. I discuss the importance of reviewing the past year, understanding customer feedback, analyzing returning clients, and finding the right balance between work and life. We also delve into optimizing your systems, financial review, and the role of education and development in your business growth.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How to conduct a meaningful review of the past year's projects, including what worked and what didn’t.
• Strategies for gathering and using customer feedback to improve your services.
• The value of analyzing returning clients to understand successful client relationships.
• Practical tips for achieving work-life coexistence and setting effective boundaries.
• Ways to review and update your business systems and processes.
• The importance of a financial review and budget adjustment for the coming year.
• How to identify areas for personal and professional development.
• The role of networking and collaboration in business growth.

Resources Mentioned:

• Downloadable list of reflective questions.
• Tools for surveys and client feedback: JotForm, Typeform.
• CRM systems for improving business workflows: Dubsado.

Connect with Us:

• Share your reflections and insights with Kate on Instagram @dearkatebrandstrategy.
• Visit the Dear Kate Brand Strategy website for more resources and support.

Closing Thoughts:
Your journey through 2023 has been unique, and reflecting on it is key to moving forward with purpose and clarity. Use the insights from this episode and the downloadable questions to craft a strategic and successful path for the coming year. Id love to hear about your key takeaways and any surprises you encountered during your reflection. Send me a DM over on Instagram @dearkatebrandstrategy Join us next week for more insights and strategies tailored for creative solopreneurs like you.

Follow Dear Kate Brand Strategy on Instagram
Learn more at Howyoupicturedit.com

Transcript

Kate: 0:14

Welcome back to How You Pictured It. As we near the end of the year. It's so easy to jump ahead and start thinking about goals for 2024. But before we do that, let's go ahead and do some closing duties on our business for 2023, let's put a recap on what went well, what needs to go better, what changes you could make, and kind of figure out what those goals need to be going forward. It's always best to look back, to see where you've come from to help you guide where you're going.

ATR2100x-USB Microphone & 1080P Pro Stream-1: 0:41

I created a downloadable list of questions that you can look at to recap your year. You can find that@howyoupicturedit.com or in the show notes of whatever podcast player you're listening to. Let's get started. First, I want you to look back over all of the projects that you had this year. Maybe make a list of everything that you worked on and go through and find, which were your top favorite projects that you worked on. And let's review why those were great. Did we love the scope of the work? Did we love the project itself, the actual work, their creativity that was involved? Did we love the client? What were the winds of each of those favorite projects? And how can we think about getting more of that in the new year? While we're at it. Let's also look at. The things that not go so well. Which projects do you never want to do again? Where they, because of the client where they, because of scope creep. The nature of the work itself. What was it that you did not like about those projects and how can we make sure to change that in the new year as well? While you're going through those projects from the year, it would be a great idea to pull out favorite images. Favorite. Portfolio pieces that you can add to update your portfolio. We get so in the weeds of working throughout the year, that it can be hard to update as we go now is a great time to update your website with fresh work and stories of that work as well. You can also use that to create some social media posts and. Fill out your social media calendar for the coming year. With that. We also get into our next tip, which is to look at customer feedback. If you have received feedback from customers already this year, That's great. If you haven't, it's a great time to send out a end of year client survey. You can use something like jot forms or type forms to send out a survey to clients, asking them just a few basic questions. I would say keep it to 10 or less. Um, this will be so helpful for you going forward. Questions to include, could be things like, why did you choose me to work with, for this service? What, sent you looking for my service in the first place. Um, you could ask things about what did you think of the process? What were your favorite parts of the process? Is there anything that you would wish had changed? These are all really great. Um, questions to ask to help you. Not only like, figure out. Where to go in the new year, but to use to influence your copy, writing your messaging and how you talk to future clients. It also suggests asking for a review in these surveys, ask them what they would say to a friend that was looking for a service similar to yours. You can then also ask them to copy and paste that to your Facebook or your Google reviews, but it's nice to have a. Um, hard copy of it, yourself that you can, uh, use to update your website. Um, use in social media posts, things like that. Always nice to have testimonials to share. Using client words. And how they speak and think about you is great for your copywriting going forward. Another thing we can do is look at returning clients. Did you have clients come back to you? What made them come back? That's good information to inform you for the coming year. And how to retain more clients. It's so much easier to keep a client than to gain a brand new one. So anytime we can get people back in the door is so valuable. Looking at those clients that did return gives us an idea of what a successful client interaction was and how we can repeat that process to get more of those types of clients. Next, we're going to talk about work-life coexistence. Not work life balance. I don't really think that is a thing. Work in life have to exist together. There's never going to be an equal balance of working and life. So finding the kind of coexistence, um, is what's important. I'd like for you to look back at the year and think about times where you thought I should be working. And times where you thought I should be at home and try to figure out how we can make sure we feel less of that, um, pull in the new year. What boundaries can we put in place? Where can we get help at home to make work easier? Where can we get help at work to make home easier? What things can we do to make that feel better?. This leads perfectly into our next topic, which is systems. We're going to look at those things that we do, um, repeatedly and regularly. And they can be automated things or they can be a manual tasks that we do and look at what needs to change. If you've got something like a CRM, like Dubsado. Um, is that working for you? Do you need to update workflows? Do you need to change emails? I have written canned emails and go to send them, or have found with them. Like in my sent folder, talking about my kids being seven years old and they're definitely not anymore. So those are things that I need to update and change at the end of the year. Um, But also just looking at, am I still doing things the same way as when I set up those systems in the first place? What has changed, what needs to change to make that work-life coexistence happen? Along with this, we're going to get into finances. Here's a good time to stop and look back at the year and see where you've spent money that maybe you're not using the things that you're spending money on any longer. What subscriptions do you have? Are you. Paying for a CRM or a gallery system or some other software that you're no longer using. Do you need to add in to your budget for next year to allow for those things? Let's look at our finances and find the expenses that have gotten out of hand and how we can bring more income in to kind of balance that.

6:22

Our next topic is going to be education and development. We're going to look back at the year now and think about the times when you maybe didn't take on a project because you didn't feel like you had the skills for it. So what did you need to learn or grow in to be able to take on the work that you wanted to do. Another thing we can look at here is what we maybe hired out. But wish we could've done ourselves. Is that something you would rather learn in the new year then continue to hire out? If, so, where are you going to learn that? Do you have an educator in mind? Do you have a way to learn that? So start thinking about those kinds of things. What ways do you want to grow in the new year in your skills and in your education? And then the last thing that we're going to cover today is networking and collaboration. Let's take a look at the people that we worked with this year. Be it clients that we actually had, or just people that we met. Um, or people that we hired. Think back to the people in your business this year. And look at how they've helped you or maybe not so much and see how you want to continue or discontinue those kinds of relationships in the future. Other ways that you can have similar relationships to the ones that have gone well, other ways that you can collaborate with other business owners. Think about the who to solve your problems and not the how for a little bit.

Kate: 7:35

If You're feeling overwhelmed by all of that, I totally understand. It was a lot of questions and a lot to think about, which is why I made you a downloadable worksheet with all of these questions and a few more to help you think through your past year? Like I said in the beginning of the episode, having a clear view of the past and where you're coming from, makes it so much easier to know where you're going and how to get there in the future. I want you to take all of this information and make sure that you are setting good boundaries and good intentional goals for yourself for 2024. Having all of this data and experience is one of the benefits of being in business for more than one year. You can use this data to inform your decisions going forward. And it will make it so much easier to make smart decisions. So tell me what was one thing that stood out from you from your reflection? Was there anything that just caught you off guard as you were answering these questions? Was there something that maybe you didn't realize was a win, but really was. Or that you didn't celebrate enough? Tell me about it in DMS. Over on Instagram at dear Kate brand strategy. I'd love to continue the conversation there and I will talk to you next week. Have a good one.