2020 Year in Review for BrandWell | What Went Well, What I'd Change, and Everything in Between
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2020 Year In Review for BrandWell
Where in the world do I begin? This year has probably brought about more change than the last 27 years of my life combined!
For a full synopsis of what 2020 held for me and my business, tune into The BrandWell Podcast. For the highlights, keep on reading…
I Took Brandwell Full Time
Wait, can someone explain to me how BrandWell has only been my full-time job for a year? To think I was still side-hustling in the evenings and on the weekends a year ago is wild to me, but it just goes to show, if you have a service or product that people need, it doesn’t have to take forever to scale your business!
I Hired 7 People
This is by far the smartest thing I have done for my business to date. BrandWell now has a team of 5 designers, one administrative assistant, and a Facebook ad specialist. All contract workers and all AMAZINGLY TALENTED. There is no possible way that I could’ve handled the growth we saw this year by myself and I’m so grateful I didn’t have to. Which leads me to my next, and most significant, milestone this year.
I Had a Baby!
Little miss Maia Brittany made her entrance into the world this summer and my life is forever changed… in the best way. Adapting to motherhood has had its challenges but by the grace of God, I have loved becoming a mama and have enjoyed the newborn season, even with its sleepless nights and emotions running high.
I Launched a Podcast
Having a podcast has been a dream of mine for quite some time. In 2017, my husband bought me a podcast mic for my birthday and it’s been sitting on my desk ever since collecting dust. I never felt like it was the “right time” to start a podcast as I was so new to my business and didn’t feel adequate.
Then I remembered that we all start somewhere and I might be able to share some nuggets of advice that I’ve learned through owning my own business for a 2 years with those who are in a similar season of life. This podcast has been so much fun for me to produce and I can’t wait to bring you guys a ton of content in 2021.
Brandwell Grew By More Than 400%
I’ve always been a goal-setter and sometimes I set goals that are a little… ambitious LOL. That’s the whole point of setting goals, right?! To achieve something you wouldn’t normally thing was possible?
In my first year of starting BrandWell while still side-hustling and working full time, I generated a moderate supplemental income. It was never a goal of mine to match my corporate salary in order to leave my job. After quitting my corporate position in October of 2019, I was able to give BrandWell the time and attention it deserved and we grew financially by more than 400%!
For detailed numbers, tune into the podcast.
Looking Past the Highlight Reel… What Didn’t Go So Well
Starting a business comes with all sorts of challenges and you will always be finding areas that you can improve upon in your business. I think one of my biggest takeaways as a new business owner is that you can’t do a million things well.
The Template Shop Flop
As hard as it is to share the things that didn’t go well in my business with you- I’m going to do it because there’s a lot of sugar-coated “success” on the internet and not everyone is “killing it” like Instagram makes it seem.
One of my goals for 2020 was to launch a template shop and to generate a passive income while I had a baby and took a step back from running my biz. Well… I did launch the template shop and it did generate some passive income, but nowhere near what I thought it would bring in.
After months and months of planning this shop, designing templates, hiring someone to run the shop, etc… you want to know how many templates I sold on launch day?
Three. THREE TEMPLATES!
And one of those was my blessed husband who wanted to be supportive (bless you, James).
Over time, we saw template sales trickle in every few weeks but I learned a very important lesson through having my hopes of endless passive income get squashed… if your audience isn’t asking for it, they probably don’t want it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There is definitely a need for website templates and I know other companies who specialize and this and are doing great… but BrandWell is all about custom design. That’s what my audience wants, and that is what we will continue to prioritize in 2021.
Rather than stressing over something that’s not really working out, I’m going to focus on what is working and continue building out my team of designers so that we can offer more custom design work in the new year and keep serving our clients with stunning, unique brands and websites.
Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead
There are more things that I could share that didn’t go so well in 2020… things like navigating business through a pandemic, clients who couldn’t pay their invoices, losing loved ones, and trying to figure out how to run a business with a baby at home… but I’ll wrap things up here.
My prayer for 2021 is that BrandWell continues to grow so that I can provide more talented designers with jobs, more incredible entrepreneurs with branding and web design, and most importantly, grow my platform and reach to encourage as many people as possible to follow their dream and do what they love.
Until next time…
KEEP BRANDING WELL,
Victoria
