How do you measure a year of work?
In my work life, 2022 has been a banner year. I started and finished my second ghostwritten business book, and watched the project move from an idea through many rounds of research and manuscripts to a published book on bookshelves. I worked closely with longtime clients and partners and started new projects with brand-new clients. I made new friends, grew my professional circles, and started thinking about a new fiction project.
2022 was the 15th year of my career, my third year working for myself, and my first year under the name Viewfinder Partners.
Here’s what happened in my world this year, by the numbers…
My own thought leadership
I wrote 25 blog posts and emailed my newsletter list 25 times (sign up in the sidebar or below this post!).
My email list grew by 38%.
I followed my own advice and put myself through the thought leadership cycle. Every two weeks, I reflected on my client work and turned those reflections into insights on:
- Finding focus and clarity
- Working on big creative projects like books
- Getting rid of jargon
- Aligning your work with your values
- Focusing on your audience, not yourself
- Creating a premise for every content project
- Building a thought leadership platform
- How to make a business podcast
- Setting thought leadership goals
My clients’ thought leadership
My team and I…
- Produced 17 podcast episodes (this one was my favorite)
- Published 15 profiles of interesting leaders
- Coached 6 leaders on their LinkedIn presence
- Ghostwrote 8 bylined articles for industry magazines
- Built 5 thought leadership strategies, including a few of my new “one-sentence strategy” offerings (ask me to find out more!)
- Produced 5 videos for the shifting world of hybrid/virtual events
- Ghostwrote 1 business book and celebrated its publish day!
State of the business
I’m celebrating a 22% increase in revenue over last year.
I worked with 5 new clients and many returning clients.
Staying curious
I also tried to stay open and curious. Back in January, I wrote:
CURIOUS is my word of the year for 2022. After the fear and worry of 2020, and the roller coaster of 2021, my only response to year 3 of pandemic work and pandemic parenting was to shift my perspective and try to get looser, more flexible, and open to what comes next — even if reality isn’t exactly what I had planned.
I’d say that I stayed true to my word of the year in 2022, and my mindset is very similar going into next year. At this point in running and growing a business, I’m carefully navigating the fine line between staying open-minded to new opportunities and ways of working…and holding firm boundaries to maintain the work life I want and need.
At this point, I know that I do my best work when I partner with B2B thought leaders who sell their ideas or expertise. I have stayed true to that wheelhouse, but open to what, exactly, that looks like. That means saying “That sounds cool! Maybe it’s a good fit. Let’s explore.” a lot. I’ve stayed curious about the kinds of clients I work with, the content formats I help them with, and the industries I explore.
There is a lot of gray area there, and it’s a balance I’ll keep trying my best to hold.
What’s next?
As I look ahead to 2023, I’m eager to keep a happy level of calm in my business — and I want to explore new ways to bring community into my work. I’d like to travel more, talk to more people, tap into a community of people doing similar work, and stretch myself. Basically, the extrovert in me is antsy to come out.
I’ll be looking for new ways to build community, even from my perch as a solo small business owner who works with clients remotely. That might mean doing more talks and podcasts, attending more conferences, events, and retreats, diving into more virtual communities, and definitely spending more time chatting with my work buddies on Voxer (hi, friends!).
Thanks for reading this year. I appreciate you, and look forward to digging into new ideas in 2023.
