Looking Back at 2021: A Year in Review

Dec 26

Wow, what a year! Meg here—after years of freelancing and working full-time in design and marketing roles, I launched Due West Design on December 21, 2020. Following a tough year of pandemic and personal loss, it felt fitting to introduce ourselves to the world on the winter solstice. The solstice is when the Earth's Northern Hemisphere is tilted as far away from the sun as possible, and that half of the planet sees the shortest hours of sunlight and the longest dark hours of the year. Sounds counter-intuitive, but I love that every day after the winter solstice gets just a bit brighter and longer, until we’re in the season of warmth, growth, and sunshine that comes with spring and summer. It turned out to be the perfect metaphor, as our year got busier and busier, and we had the opportunity to build so many good relationships and be a part of so many exciting launches and client projects. Thankful for you all for being part of our journey!

I always love reading about how other small businesses do things, which is why I wanted to put together a recap of the last year. It’s been exciting, busy, and at times exhausting, but we’ve learned a ton and have big plans for 2022!

2021 By the Numbers

This is where it’s super fun to look back and think about everything we accomplished this year. In 2021, we…

Designed 8 new brand suites (plus several design refreshes)
Designed and built 14 new web sites (11 Squarespace, 2 WordPress, and 1 Shopify! Plus UI design and refreshes for a few others)
Delivered 6 Design VIP Days and 2 half VIP Days
Created a LOT of digital marketing and print projects
Made 2 new hires (our fabulous design assistants)
Won 1 national award from Graphic Design USA
Had 9 five-star reviews on Google My Business
Met 668 new Instagram followers

What Went Well

All in all it’s been a really good year. Our revenue was good, we had a really awesome roster of clients, we invested in several things to help grow our business (which I was shy about before), and made two amazing hires. The quality of our work keeps getting better and better and I’m super proud of everything we delivered this year. Creating packages helped streamline things a bit on the back end and we dabbled in several new marketing initiatives to help get our name out there. We hired a bookkeeper who helped get us going on QuickBooks and has allowed us to see a more detailed breakdown of our finances. And I loved launching Design VIP Days and setting up Trello to help manage all of our projects. We’ve also made some fun new friends on Instagram and in several online communities 🥰.

What Didn’t Go as Planned

I don’t think I was prepared for the expenses that came with 2021. Our hires were great investments, but prior to that I tried outsourcing administrative and set up tasks to other companies that we didn’t see a great return on. Out of the courses and coaching I invested in, only a few really felt worth it—one was Sarah Masci’s Day Rate Mastery course. While it’s not our only (or even our main) offering, Design VIP Days have created a great container for ad hoc design work that either has a really tight turn around or just needs a dedicated chunk of time to knock it out (vs. a monthly retainer) AND I really enjoy doing them! And I loved Christy Price’s “Make Money With Your Blog” course on affiliate marketing. But sadly the others I took fell a little short.

Another thing that was tough was just the sheer exhaustion from pushing myself and our team really hard this year. I worked a lot more than previous years and am eager to implement some new systems that will help us streamline and simplify things going forward. I didn’t do much marketing before as a freelancer so that was something new (and time consuming) that was added to my plate. It’s helpful though, because we can now look at what efforts worked well and where we can stop or scale back, which will help us make the best use of our time in 2022.

What We Learned This Year

There are so many takeaways from this past year, but here are the big ones:

Online business can be lonely. I’ve personally found a lot of support in the Being Boss Community (which is now FREE, so go check it out!) and the Creatively Connected group that closes down at the end of 2021. There’s something about talking shop with others who are doing the same thing that is really helpful and life giving.
Finances are important. I mean, this is obvious, but becoming an LLC made me take the leap and hire a bookkeeper, start tracking everything more closely in QuickBooks, and implement the Profit First method, all of which have been really good decisions. Having more solid data at the end of the year makes it so much easier to see the big picture.
Road trips are good for mental health. It’s been another weird year where air travel was still kind of sketchy and driving feels a little safer to us. Despite working a ton, I’m so glad that I made time to take a few road trips to Sedona, Boulder, and western Colorado. Sometimes a change of scenery can do wonders for your outlook and energy level.
Zoom fatigue and burnout are real. Anyone else tired of being on camera constantly? In some cases it makes for a really productive meeting (especially with screen sharing), and sometimes a phone call can be just as effective. I’m thinking about limiting video meetings to certain days because I find them so energetically draining as an introvert.
Upholding boundaries is hard but important. This last year forced me to get more clear about what we want to do as a business and what’s not a good fit. I’ve identified pain points and am reworking packages and offerings to make sure we stay in our zone of genius and refer out projects that are not aligned with our strengths and vision.

Our Goals For 2022

When it comes to goal setting, I look forward to Susannah Conway’s free Unravel Your Year planner, which I have printed on Lulu Xpress and work through each month. Kerstin Martin also released a fantastic free guide called The Calm Business Review, which you can also print at home or send out for professional printing. Both are excellent resources for evaluating the last year and setting goals that feel good for the year ahead. Here are some of mine:

Identify opportunities to tighten up project timelines where possible (and provide even more resources for our clients to help keep projects moving)
Finetune our processes and become more efficient with administrative and other recurring tasks (for instance setting up Acuity has been a game changer!)
Become more strategic with social media (including a planning day each month to batch content)
Continue creating more high quality work that we’re really proud of! And get better about updating our web site’s portfolio and sharing what we’re up to with others.
Trust my gut. I looked externally this year for courses and coaching to validate things that for the most part I already knew. In 2022 I’d like to make more space for reflection and listening to my intuition vs. getting sucked into the noise that can sometimes come with online business and social media.
After working a gazillion hours in 2021, I’m ready to work smarter not harder in 2022. This will hopefully leave more time for nature walks, reading, yoga, and cooking so that I can keep my energy up and bring my very best self to every task.
Hopefully many more adventures! Maybe this will be the year that we can finally feel safe flying and visiting our loved ones more regularly?? I miss travel and it fills my cup so much. This pandemic has really put a damper on things and like everyone else, I’m ready to turn the corner. I’d also love to get to more local in person business events and co-working opportunities in the near(ish) future.

So there you go! Our first full year in business has been awesome and full of important lessons. I am grateful for every second of it. And I love the lull between Christmas and New Year’s where there’s time to do a deep dive with your own business and make some strategic decisions (and goals) for the year ahead. Wishing you all the best in your own business planning for 2022 and a prosperous new year!

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