Summer Sorensen

Do you do an end-of-year review to evaluate how you did against your goals (if you set them)?

I do, and I am sharing them with you as a means to be transparent, learn from what transpired, and make an action plan to continue improving in 2023. Without further ado, my 2022 year in review.

The categories for my goals in 2022 were:

Revenue, content (in terms of content I produce for myself, not for clients) and education.

As I plan my 2023, more categories will be added, such as fitness, spiritual, home, and relationships. But the above is what I wrote for 2022, so that is what I have to analyze.

Revenue goals

In 2021, I set modest but achievable revenue goals. And I exceeded them by a large margin. My 2021 review is here.

I recall starting 2022 with a little more cockiness than was perhaps appropriate. I set a very lofty-for-me revenue goal. And I fell short by a third. And that’s OK. I’ll unpack something further down I’ve observed that caused me to miss the target.

Content goals

My content goals were as follows. Actual results in red.

• 24 blog posts on this site (not including articles on my business website). I got 14 done.
• Regular scheduling of social media posts for my business. I was very inconsistent, and only started doing more towards the end of the year, when I found myself down a few clients and with more time.
• YouTube channel underway with regular video production: by 2/15. I started in late October, again, when I had some “found” time.
• Business newsletter launched: tentative goal 4/15. I still haven’t started it. LOL. Taking baby steps though.
• Start writing articles for my business website. That felt like a big barrier to entry due to some technical troubleshooting. I got three done. This is a big victory for me, as starting was the uphill battle. Now continuing will be the battle. 🙂

Education goals

These are comprised of:

• Attending conferences (I attend AdWorld and Social Media Marketing World each year)
• Reviewing notes from conferences, writing out action steps, and acting on them
• Watching the sessions online that I was unable to watch in person, and applying the point above
• Reading business books (and personal reading, which is often theology books)
• Going through online courses I purchase and implementing the knowledge gained
• Reading articles and doing research on the technical, nerdy elements of social media tactics and strategy so I can stay relevant in my profession

It is sufficient to say of all these items that I was inconsistent. At least more inconsistent than I hoped. That’s not to knock the effort I did put in, which was fairly substantial. But in all, I started off with gusto at various times, then trailed off.

Takeaways 

Here are some key takeaways that I have realized.

• My systems are incomplete for execution. Rather, using the systems with consistency is where the problem often lies. I’ll be doing some deep thinking about what causes that.
• Regarding revenue
  • I came up with a calculation and breakdown for how to achieve the goal, but I didn’t follow through on it.
  • I should mention that even though I fell short of my goal by 33%, I still earned 20% more* than in 2021. That is something worth celebrating.
• I had enough work to keep me busy and financially comfortable. That is ultimately my goal, so it kept me from hustling to make even more money, because I had my hands full enough. Things look different as we enter 2023, so the way I go about business will also be different.
• There is an ever-present tension between having client revenue that pays the bills, and allowing time for me to create my own content, as per above.
• My ultimate goal is to generate revenue from my content (blog and YouTube traffic and subscribers) to replace the need to take on paying marketing clients. I am hesitant about being so candid, but publishing this brings a certain level of realism and accountability.

My plan for 2023

I don’t have specific goals written out at the time of this writing. I’ll get to that soon. But as a general framework, I plan to:

• Continue publishing at least one blog post per week on this site.
• Write at least one article per month on my business site.
• Create a YouTube video version of most of my blogs and articles — at least one per week.
• Treat my own content production schedule with as much care and detail as I’d give to my client work. That was a big epiphany for me. I have solid systems in place for clients; why not treat myself as my own client?
• Continue living out the tension and take on more clients as time allows, but choose carefully who I take on.

Wrap up

If you’ve made it this far, you are awesome and I appreciate you more than you could ever know. I hope this year finds you in a state of mind to keep pursuing the things that you are passionate about without apology. I’d love to know what those things are, if you’d care to leave a comment.

Cheers,

Summer