2020 Unruly Recap + Looking Ahead Into The New Year
P.S. Some of these links are affiliate links which means I may earn a commission if you purchase anything that I recommended, at no additional cost to you. I would never recommend something I don’t personally use and love! So if you love one of my recommendations, shop away!
Have you ever seen other small biz owners and wonder how they run their business?
Maybe you’re curious about:
What tools they use
How they plan their days
What their biz goals are
In honor of that, we’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look into our business this year and what we’re working towards in 2021. We’re sharing what worked, what didn’t, the lessons we learned, and how you can avoid making similar mistakes.
what DIDN’T work for us in 2020?
In true Unruly fashion, we want to kick this post off with the things that didn’t quite work for us and what we learned from them.
We think it’s important to look back on the things that didn’t quite go so well and reflect on why that could’ve been. So let’s dive right in, shall we?
Hiring Outside Of My Brand’s Mission And Values
Early on in our business journey, we made the mistake of not getting clear on our brand mission and values. This had a negative effect on our hiring process.
So when it came time to hire people into our company, we became caught up in what people call “the shiny-object syndrome.”
Instead of asking important questions to make sure they were aligned with our brand’s values, we simply relied on their personality on social media to qualify them for the role.
SUCH A HUGE MISTAKE.
Please learn from our mistake before you hire again and make sure you’re clear on what your brand’s mission and values are and what your company stands for. Know that it’s okay for you to ask the people who you’re bringing into your company if they’re aligned with said mission and values.
Time Management (Spoiler Alert: I Overcommitted)
We didn’t have the best time management in 2020, but in our defense, 2020 was a rough year.
Many things happened that we could have never predicted or anticipated, and our characters were tested. Because of that, we did overcommit in both our business and personal lives which, in turn, hurt our productivity.
Instead of judging ourselves, we’re giving ourselves grace and hoping you do the same. 2020 was tough, and the fact that we're still here is just freaking awesome!
Our Systems (Too Many Tools = Zero Adoption)
The more tools that you have to use for your business to run, the less you're going to actually use them. Instead of improving your operations, they start to become a roadblock in your workflow and in your day-to-day operations.
However, we tried all the tools around the block in 2020 - Google Docs, Slack, Voxer, ClickUp, Asana, Trello, you name it.
We tried to do too many things with way too many tools at once which led us to zero adoption. We were investing time, energy, and money into these tools just to end up not using them effectively or at all in our business.
It wasn’t until we sat down and audited our systems and got clear on what our workflows looked like and what tools complimented them that we successfully consolidated our tools.
Currently, our business manager is transitioning most of our business operations to ClickUp. We chose Clickup because of its all-inclusive features.
We can create documents, set up all of our tasks and calendars, track our time, and easily organize our projects in one platform!
This is not to say that you won’t have to use several tools in your business.
The fact of the matter is that there's always a set of tools that you’re going to need to use in your business, but the important thing is consolidating and getting rid of the tools that you don’t use.
What DID work for us in 2020?
Now, we’ll reflect on the things that did work for us at Unruly this year.
Starting The Year Reading “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz
This book helped us start our business with the right money mindset. After reading it, we could easily understand the difference between our business revenue and actual profit, what our expenses would look like, how to pay ourselves well, and more.
All of these things are so important for small business owners to understand, especially if you come from a corporate background.
In the corporate world, you just sign a waiver, and then, before you know it, you’re already contributing to a 401K, you’re enrolled in health insurance, and you have a savings plan.
As a small business owner, you’re HR. Reading “Profit First” helped us set up the foundation for our business so that we could take care of these very important things.
Now, when we invest in a course or hire someone, we do it confidently knowing that we paid ourselves first.
Investing in financial literacy will pay off big time in the long run. If you take away anything from this blog post, please read this book!
Not Having A Website Or Social Media
The second thing that really worked for our business this year was launching without social media or a website. Now, we’re not saying that those things are not important.
However, because we launched our business without relying on social media or a website, we were able to get really clear on our value and what we bring to the table.
We became very comfortable with selling and pitching ourselves so we didn't feel that we weren’t good enough just because we didn't have a social media account. Meaning, we didn't place the value of our work in the number of followers we had.
We reached out to potential clients on LinkedIn, our personal Instagram account, and emails, and that’s how we began to grow our client list.
When we finally decided to launch our social media presence and work on our website, it was with a completely different mindset.
Our goal wasn't necessarily to acquire customers from our social media but to build our community and find other like-minded women.
Setting A Revenue Goal For The Biz
At the beginning of 2020, we got clear on how much we wanted Unruly to generate in revenue. From there, we worked backward and figured out what we needed to do to achieve that goal.
We didn't set a ton of very granular goals just because our number one goal for this year was to launch the business, get ourselves out there, build our email list, etc.
However, we’re so glad we set a revenue goal early on as we surpassed our revenue goal by a 30% margin!
As you plan for the new year, set a revenue goal for your business, and visualize it happening.
Investing In The Biz
Investing in our business was probably one of the best things that we could have done this year. Not just in terms of outsourcing, but also in terms of furthering our education.
Outside of our business, there's a lot of other things that make up our world.
We only have 24 hours in a day and we can't do it all so we definitely prioritize part of our income to go towards investments that allow us to gain back time in our business and be more present in our lives.
So… What’s In Store For Unruly In 2021?
Redefining Our Offerings
2021 will be centered around redefining our current offerings and adding new products to our product suite. Expect more ways to work with us, more education, and new resources!
Expanding Our Influence
We have goals to be featured on podcasts, be a speaker at virtual conferences, and more amazing things to help us expand our influence and reach more people like you.
Own Our Audience
We spent a lot of time this year trying our best to show up on social media that we didn’t put as much focus on connecting with our community on a more personal level. In 2021, we’re shifting our focus to building our community and being more accessible through text marketing.
If you want to sign up to receive text messages from Unruly (some naughty, some nice 😏), DM us on Instagram so that we can send you the number once it’s ready!
From Freelance To CEO
Stepping into the CEO role is one of our main focuses for 2021. We’re honoring our CEO days and making decisions as the CEOs of our brands instead of seeking outside validation.
More Investing
We’ll continue to become more financially literate and invest our money so that it works for us. Resurfacing our 401Ks, doing research on stocks, and increasing our savings in 2021!
Donate To Latinx Funds
We’ll also be donating more specifically to Latinx organizations. Once an illegal immigrant for almost 20 years, Maritza, our founder, knows the struggles that women in the Latinx community face. Our goal for 2021 is to give back to the Latinx community with more than our time.
recap…
If you want to go into 2021 with a clear strategy and action plan for your business, spend some time reflecting on both your wins and lessons from 2020.
Reverse-engineer your goals by writing down your big goal. Then, write down smaller, specific action steps that will help you get there.
What are you most excited to work on in 2021? Let us know in the comments below!
