Reflecting on Twenty Nineteen

2019 felt extremely quick for me. MJ Creative Co. was supposed to be a side hustle, but in 2019 it turned into a full time gig. Although I delivered for Amazon on the side, after summer I got really busy and shifted to full time with MJCC. The way my business worked, and the mindset I had, really changed over the last year. I’m still figuring out what I want, and how to change to succeed in the way I want to, but I thought it would be beneficial to reflect on what happened and how I want 2020 to be different.

THE BAD

One of the hardest parts of 2019 was feeling like I was in limbo. I still wanted a full or part time job, something in my field (marketing/design), but I didn’t have much luck. I applied for tons of jobs, ones that I was absolutely qualified for, and had no responses. Employers are judgmental of big gaps in a resume, even if the gap was mostly because the job market is so difficult. Truthfully, I felt so depressed that I couldn’t find a job. The pressure of needing MJCC to work out, because I had no other options, overwhelmed me at times. It made it hard to concentrate on continuing to build my business. After a while, I gave up a little on the job search and focused on my Etsy Shop for the remainder of the year.

Once I rebranded my business in October, that was when my mindset changed for the better. I could focus on the good, the best parts of the year, and continue building myself and MJCC to reach a higher potential.

THE GOOD

Although there was its share of bad, there was a LOT of good that happened in 2019. I decided to break it down by four of the things I’m most proud of from the past year:

BRANDING DESIGN

Expanding my business to branding design was my favorite part of my business this past year. Helping amazing small business owners realize their branding dreams makes me endlessly happy, and I plan to continue offering, and maybe even expanding, my branding services in 2020.

Some of my favorite logos this year (so difficult to choose because I love all of them):

ETSY SHOP

The biggest change in my workload and financially in 2019 was my Etsy shop. My first year of having my Etsy shop (2018) I made 110 sales. This past year, I made 322 sales, an increase of 290%. These stats aren’t meant to be a brag, but a comparison to show the difference time and hard work can make. With the hope that I’ll continue to improve and add more items to my shop, I would love to grow another 290% in 2020. I could make 940 sales or more!

CLIENT WORK

Clients are the absolute best part of my job. Beyond the branding clients, I started MJCC as a stationery designer and calligrapher and I continue to bring in wedding work as much as I can. My heart really does lie with invitations and paper items, and although it’s a more difficult industry, I really want to focus a little more on growing that part of my business.

I had some really great clients, both on the invitation side, and on the day-of and signage side of weddings. Here are some of the projects I loved this year:

STYLED SHOOTS

I only choose to participate in 3-4 styled shoots (aka fake weddings for pictures) per year. And 2019 was an amazing year for styled shoots, and working with super talented vendors in the Milwaukee, WI area. I could have a whole blog post for each of these, but I’ll just post a couple of the photos instead to give you a sneak peek.

THE BEST

I unfortunately lost my sweet pug, Penelope, early in the year at 2 years old. But, my year got exponentially better in July when we adopted Maisy, the sweetest puppy of all time. She’s a big mix of a bunch of breeds of dog, and her sweet face is the reason I get up every day and smile.

THE FUTURE

My 2020 goals:

1. Build 3 separate streams of passive income
2. Blog 1x per month
3. Post a new YouTube video tutorial once every 3 months
4. Create a calligraphy instruction book by May
5. (Random extra) Guest host on a podcast

There are a lot of things to look forward to in 2020, and I have a lot of work ahead of me to get my business to the place that I want it. Specifically, the beginning of this year will be focused on creating passive income, like calligraphy instructional book(s)!

Thank you so much for your support this past year!