Reader, I thought I would share a bit about the struggles I faced in 2023 with the hopes there would be something of value to you.
It's a story of perseverance. I hope you find it interesting.
Let me set the stage.
In 2022, we lost 1 million dollars.
This means we spent a lot more than we made. This has never happened before. I've never lost money in business.
Now I am the sole owner of the business and by my very nature a saver.
This allowed me to have the funds to ride out the storm. I often joked that the Bank of Mike was the only reason we were still around.
Some of the decisions we made in 2022 were to blame.
For example, we had an event called the Crypto Business Conference which was about a $400,000 loss. Little did we know that the entire crypto market would be crashed by Sam Bankman Fried in 2022.
I also paid out bonuses to all of my employees in 2022, despite the loss. Why? Because 2021 was our worst year ever due to COVID. I wanted my team to have a win.
I have a policy that we pay bonuses on top line growth. And yes in 2022 we grew alot—because 2021 sucked. And I wanted my staff to know I had their back.
But there was another side of the story. I was at half salary still, to keep the company alive. And I never drew any money from the business.
Add to this, that in late 2022 I relocated my family from California to Tennessee.
And that meant a new school for my youngest. It also meant starting over with a new church and friends.
You see, I am an extrovert. But I am also 55 years old. This was perhaps the hardest thing for me. I'm still not fully settled in.
We moved into a rental, which I am writing from right now. I do not have a dedicated office here.
Instead, it's one of those open spaces when you first walk into a house.
So I had zero privacy while trying to rightside my business.
Not easy and never recommended.
Back to the business.
We had a rather large office lease in San Diego. I had been in the building for 23 years. In fact, I was their very first tenant and was their largest tenant.
In hindsight, I could have purchased the building for all the money I spent on that lease.
Anyway, I asked to be released from the lease.
My thinking was, "I've been with you forever and never missed a payment."
I also was one of the only tenants who paid the lease during COVID even though we were banned from coming into the building by the state of California.
They would not let me out. I went to battle with them. Trying everything I could to get out.
Eventually they agreed to let me out if I let go of my security deposit and made a few months of payments.
I did the math and realized letting go of the office was the right thing to do financially.
But I was in TN.
So I also made the decision to let ALL of the belongings in the office be sold off.
Fortunately, my staff was super helpful with this.
It was the first real "letting go" opportunity for me.
Bye bye massive conference room table. Bye to dozens of chairs and desks.
Goodbye to my favorite executive U desk.
Farewell to the space where we filmed two seasons of The Journey (check it out on Social Media Examiner's YouTube channel).
I began to realize that it all was just "stuff."
But I will confess this experience took a lot out of me.
But now we are a fully virtual company and will save well over $100,000 a year.
There's nothing like operating in the loss by a million dollars to help you shake things up in your company.
We had a few big plans for 2023.
First, we had been building a loyal following in the Web3 space.
I was traveling to events in 2022 and 2023, making key strategic relationships.
I got many of the top players in the NFT world on my Web3 Business Podcast.
We had grown our Web3 newsletter to about 7,000 people. We created a Web3 for Beginners course and put almost 3,000 people through it.
We had big plans to launch a new media company, focused on Web3.
But I'm a data guy. And the numbers were telling me a different story.
Everything was in decline. Our research shows that our audience of marketers did NOT find Web3 interesting at all.
The public narrative was that crypto and Web3 were for scammers and criminals.
So in the middle of 2023, we decided to sunset ALL of our Web3 programs.
That was no small task.
I had convinced many in the company that Web3 was a big deal and we could repeat what we had done for social media in this new industry.
We shut it all down. I was not gonna let sunk cost bias prevent me from doing the right thing.
Sunk cost bias forces you to be irrational with your decisions because of the big investment you've already made.
The decision to shut down all our Web3 plans was highly liberating for me and many people inside our company.
Rather than chasing a sinking ship, we would be refocusing on our core audience—marketers.
Like the office in San Diego, letting this go was absolutely essential for us to rightsize our business.
People who know me well, know this about me. I am not afraid to shut things down when it's clear they're not working.
I am a big fan of Dr. Henry Cloud. In his book Necessary Endings, he discusses life and business much like a rose bush. These plants are not capable of their full potential without pruning.
By pruning the Web3 plans from my business, I was able to refocus energy into successful centers of my business.
So with Web3 and the San Diego office behind me, I went to work exploring the core operating divisions of my company.
There were two sides: those that generate revenue and cost centers.
First, I began calling into question every cost we had inside the company.
I started with contractors. I asked this question: What is stopping us from bringing contractor work in house and asking more of our full-time employees?
Considering that we have 21 of them, there has to be opportunities to save.
I began challenging my staff.
What does this person do?
Why do they do it?
Can we do without it?
Can you do it?
Why can't you do it?
Can someone on your team do it?
We systematically went through every department and eliminated nearly ALL contractor labor.
Then we began looking at all the software products we were blindly paying for but no longer used.
After that we explored the costs of putting on the conference. We started hacking left and right.
There was no reason to do really expensive things that had no material impact on the event experience.
One employee said, "I'm stripping things down to the studs."
When things were all done, we had a really great crew of committed employees who were very motivated to get this company to success.
And 2023 began an exciting exploration of new things.
We started a new podcast, the Marketing Agency Show with Brooke Sellas. This show explores the plight of agency owners.
We did this because we wanted to send a clear signal to agencies that Social Media Examiner is for them.
We radically changed our email newsletter. It's SO good now.
We also introduced three guiding principles for our staff:
Quality over quantity: We care less about the numbers and more about the impact.
Published is better than perfect: We would rather get it published than wait and perfect it. We can always change things later.
People over ideas: People matter most. All ideas must be deeply considered for their impact on our people.
We had a company retreat where we focused on the growth mindset.
There's nothing wrong with problems happening.
But the growth mindset should prompt us to ask two questions:
What can I learn from what happened? (There's ALWAYS something to learn)
What does this make possible?
I have learned so much from all that has happened in 2023.
For example, I don't need everything I thought I needed.
And what 2023 made possible was us to really double down on our most popular product—Social Media Marketing World.
I put my writer's cap back on and wrote every single marketing email. And I really enjoyed the creative process.
I found myself with a LOT more time.
So I began writing weekly original mini-articles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X.
This was super fun and engaging for me.
A new idea was born. And it's a really big one.
It frankly scares the heck out of me. But I am committed to it in 2024.
There is so much more I could say, but let me share a few thoughts.
When everything seems the hardest, it's your opportunity to stop and reflect.
What are my options? What can I change? What opportunities am I overlooking?
I've found a lot of value in the book 10X is Easier Than 2X. I highly recommend it.
In full transparency, what you're reading is the script I crafted for a bonus podcast episode I released last Friday from my Social Media Marketing Podcast.
I thought it would be valuable to someone out there.
If that is you, would you let me know, Reader.
Here are the best ways to reach me:
facebook.com/stelzner/,
linkedin.com/in/stelzner/, or
twitter.com/mike_stelzner.
Here's to a great 2024!
Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner
id:2024-01-04-20:01:29:159t