Did you accomplish everything you had set your sights on in 2019?

Happy New Year!

Did you accomplish everything you had set your sights on in 2019? Me neither… haha It was, quite literally, a total blur… but you know what? While it was a tough year in a lot of ways we don’t need to get into, I’m still grateful for all the good things that did happen.

Here are some of the highlights and a few things I’m really looking forward to in no particular order:

Orange Star Design

I finally relaunched my orangestar.com site — cobbler’s kid and all that. The new site better represents who I am and what I do today in terms of service offerings. Thanks, Jane, for all the help. In March I will hit the 27 year mark in business — crazy to think about!

The Smartist Way™

It’s really happening. Not on the timeline I was shooting for, but happening, still, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

The Smartist Way™ is An essentialist approach to branding and marketing for small business. It is a framework designed to help you  tame the chaos, end the overwhelm, and get growing by focusing on the right things (the essential things) to accomplish more while doing less.  Most businesses have a few common goals:   1) Be seen as an authority (Stand out), 2) Generate more leads & opportunities and 3) Get new customers & incerase revenue.

Seems pretty simple and straightforward, right? Why, then, does marketing feel so hard and overwhelming? I have a theory, and a framework… go and read more about it.

Content Creators Planner

Holy crap… are you sitting down? What a difference a year makes… Dec. 31, 2018, my friend Kim Doyal and I launched our Content Creators Planner website for pre-sales after our failed Kickstarter campaign didn’t get funded. Fast forward to December 2019 and our sales surpassed forty-thousand dollars for the month! Un-freaking-believable.

How did we do it? We’ll tell you all about it in our live stream this Thursday (and will have Q&A as well). Click here to register and get reminded when we go LIVE.

We’ll share:

• How we launched this in just 4 months
• How we funded our first print run with pre-sales
• How we found our printer
• Why we started with paid ads early on (and how we’ve scaled)
  … and so much more!

 

IamJaneRoberts.com

I tease Jane that she is full-time job, but helping her shape this as it has evolved has really been something inspiring. I have repeatedly said that I’m interested in doing great work with exceptional people to help bring their visions to life and Jane certainly fits that bill. Jane is an author, artist, speaker, podcaster, mindfulness enthusiast and spiritual mentor to many. Go see what we’ve been up to at http://iamjaneroberts.com.

 

Georgia Tech

I’ve been doing a lot of work with Georgia Tech in recent years. Here are a few of my favorites from 2019:

   

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering fall magazine
The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering is a true success story in risk-taking and innovation—a visionary partnership between a leading public engineering school and thea highly respected Emory School of Medicine.  View the full publication here.

Georgia Tech Bioscience and Bioengineering Impact Report
The Petit Institute is “creating the next” in bio-research supporting their 234 faculty members, more than 1000 graduate students and postdocs, and 19 research centers including the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center in Cell Manufacturing Technologies. The interdisciplinary research institute supports a variety of education programs, and serves as headquarters of Georgia Tech’s highly-ranked, multidisciplinary graduate programs in bioengineering, quantitative biosciences, and bioinformatics. View the full publication here.

Delta Dashboard
I can’t show you this but it’s a pretty cool project I’ve been working on with the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). I am helping with UI/UX design for an application they are developing for Delta Airlines.

 

ShiraMiller.com

My client just did 2 TEDx talks! I didn’t really have anything to do with that fact, but am excited for her and to be a part of her authority building efforts through her website design and ongoing support.

 

Persium Group

This was a massive project completed in record time for a financial services firm that was changing its name from White Horse Advisors.  It included new logo, messaging, print collaterals, website, lead magnets, process graphic, naming and explainer video for their cornerstone framework to help business owners build personal assets when their net worth is tied up in the business. They were truly a dream to work with! See it all at PersiumGroup.com

 

Tours Key West

We finally launched the new ToursKeyWest.com to great success. This was really a really hard one. It took a couple years to complete for various reasons, but it has done really well.

60 days post-launch:

• No. of sessions up +28.23% (5,297 vs 4,131)
• Pageviews up +303.68% (42,830 vs 10,610)
• Pages per session up +214.82% (8.09 vs 2.57)
• Average Session Duration up +37.64% (03:16 vs 02:22)
• Bounce Rate down –99.32% (0.36% vs 52.87%)
• Organic Search Traffic up +41.52%

 

Read, Watch and Listen

A friend of mine always says “Garbage in, garbage out.” And naturally, the inverse is true. I’ve become more discerning of what I let in, my time is valuable (as is yours) and I try to create more than I consume when it comes to content.

Digital Minimalism – Digital minimalism, according to Cal Newport, is a philosophy where we focus our online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that support the things we value. Take your time back!

F*ck Content Marketing – I really loved this book. (which is funny since I’m a content marketer – but it’s not what you think.) It’s about creating intentional content experiences based on user scenarios — not simply default chronological ones like a typical blog.

The One Thing – A must read for anyone with a project, a goal, a dream.  The key takeaway has become my guiding principle… “Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction.”

Essentialism – I’ve been working on my Smarts Way framework in preparation for launching it as a course and have read and re-read this book several times. When we focus on the essential and don’t worry about all the other things you “could” and “should” do — we accomplish more by doing less. Sounds good, right?

Fleabag – addictive, and hilarious. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is brilliant (she wrote and stars in it).

Killing Eve – Currently my favorite show. Phoebe W-B wrote this too!

The Joker – Really dark, but oh so good.

Big Bang Theory – I have really been enjoying binging on the reruns that are on all the time.

Michelle Malone – I’m a total fan and grateful to count her as client and friend… and thanks to her annual Eddie’s Attic double-header, I always have something to do on NYE! How such a tiny person exudes so much talent and energy is beyond me.

Art – I have not been making much art in recent years as I have been working on so many entrepreneurial projects. I will surely get back to it once I get back to a more normal and healthy work schedule. Check it out at jodihersh.com

 

🧡 Special Thanks!

Jane – for putting up with me and coming back for more.
Kim – for asking me.
Wayne – for challenging me!
DTK – for making sure the wheels didn’t fall off.
Christiane – for being there.
Jasper & Sam – fur shedding white all over my black.

 
I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’m 52 now and that’s what I do…I forget stuff LOL

I’ve got a lot planned for 2020 and look forward to sharing it all along the way!