It’s safe to say we’re already to flip this last page of the calendar and start with a fresh year. As challenging as 2021 has been, and as much as we’ve worked with our clients to make champagne out of some very sour grapes, the new year is much-needed.
One of our clients, Keen Technical Solutions, starts each week with a team meeting. That meeting usually kicks off with someone saying something along the lines of, “This is a great week to change the world.” It’s a motto, and it’s an attitude that we’ve really taken to heart (and a great example of how much we learn and are motivated by the people we work with!).
So, as we roll into 2021, I’ve put together a few of my own personal goals to be a better team member, a better advocate for our clients, and a more effective marketer. We also asked YOU in our newsletter about your business goals in 2021, and we’ll have a few tagged onto the bottom. Thank you for responding!
Learn One New Thing A Week. We’re all busy. But we can also be more effective and more efficient if we take time to understand what we’re doing and how we do it. One of my biggest regrets at the end of this year is not knowing enough about the finer details of paid social. We have two in-house experts, Ashley and Nikki, who live and breathe this stuff, and I haven’t made the time to reach out and learn more about how they create such effective campaigns for clients. As much organic social as I churn out, and what limited paid campaigns I’ve run, I still don’t know precisely how they do their work and how they can make small adjustments that have huge results.
Slow Down. Again, we’re busy. But there are many times throughout the week that I think of an idea, or a task, or something to pursue while riding my bike, working on something else, or cooking dinner that inevitably gets lost in the ether and never put into practice or good use. I’ve tried taking notes on my phone, but all the dings and beeps are distracting. I’m committing to bringing back my college-era pocket notebook and keeping a pen behind my ear so I don’t let the little things slip away. I’m also going to be better about spending five minutes at the start of the day and after lunch making the sort of concrete plan I used to make to be efficient and on-task.
Get Creative. We’ve also got two immensely talented graphic designers at Q+M. Both Catherine and James can whip up some beautiful work in no time, but I want to slowly learn how to do the basics that might help me show them the look I need or finish up what they’ve started to suit feedback from clients without having to hand it all the way back to our designers. I can limp around in Photoshop and Illustrator, but I have barely scratched the surface of what those platforms are capable of.
Think Ahead. I’ve always considered it my job to be thinking two or three steps and two or three months ahead for my clients. One of my goals for 2021 is to do a better job of anticipating changes and having resources and content in place to best support what we all hope to be a year of rebuilding and reinvigoration. Especially here in Traverse City, businesses have been in a dog fight without events like the National Cherry Festival, Traverse City Film Festival, and others. As those events come back in the spring and summer, I want to have better ways of integrating that surge of tourists into our marketing plans and content to ensure we get the most out of Traverse City’s comeback, because we need it.
We asked in our newsletter what some of our clients and friends are hoping to do more of in 2021. We received a ton of great ideas, and we’ve chosen a few to share below.
Let us know what you’re hoping to achieve by sending an email to cody@qandm.agency!