2023 Review
The year 2023 is coming to an end soon and it is time to take stock of 2023.
I won't hide anything from you, it was a year of great questioning about the purpose and survival of my company.
STAND OUT
There is a strong growth of small businesses that offer the same type of products and there are also other big players in the field. My company must stand out from the others. But there are so many others! My choice was to diversify my product offering with wooden discs, acrylic discs and several other customizations. I also offered you disc-bound books with leather covers to allow you to change the position of the pages, remove pages as well as add pages. However, I must admit that it was too much. Too many possibilities, too many customizations. Too much manufacturing to order.
SHOW ME
Visibility on social networks has become EXTREMELY difficult. It has become that we have to do "steppettes" in "reels" to capture your attention long enough for the algorithm to show our publications to more people.
Even if you're not a customer of my business, I really appreciate it when you like, comment, save, and share my posts. It's also good for my business when you react to my stories. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
STAY AFFORDABLE
And through all of this, I still want to offer you the best prices possible. My profit margin is not very high and I am trying to find a solution to improve it while not increasing the prices too much.
REFLECTION
I have been a stay-at-home mom since my first child was born in 2017. My youngest will be starting kindergarten at 4 in the fall of 2024. I am thinking about it. What am I going to do? At this rate, it is very clear that I cannot live off my business, it cannot be my only source of income, at least in the long term. I thought: find a part-time job, try to work on graphic design contracts (it is not that easy!), find a telework job, take an online training course (to have another job in 1 or 2 years)... all while continuing my business. At the moment, I am more inclined to take a distance learning course that will allow me, at the very least, to have a possibility of finding a stable and well-paid job, even if it is only in a few years.
SO, 2024
Although I am still thinking about what I will do, it is obvious that I need to change my business. So I have decided to offer less "made to order" and personalized products. I will be completely removing the acrylic discs, which have not been very successful. I will be removing the wooden discs except for the sponsor requests which are popular. I will keep the HOPE (in vitro fertilization) kits until I can offer you another alternative in the new collection. There will be no more stickers offered since they have not had the desired success. Instead, I will come back with full color pages and more illustrations.
COLLECTION 2024
The chubby books will remain but they will combine pregnancy/birth and birth/early childhood. The From pregnancy to early childhood combos will be offered with the leather covers (until I run out of leather covers). There will also be childhood, school, memories of a life, hope. As for the milestone cards, there will be some, but they will be different, I won't tell you more! The learning cards will also change to be in the same format as the new milestone cards. By grouping similar formats, I reduce my printing cost per item, which is not to be neglected! My goal is to present a uniform collection with packaging that will also attract points of sale.
On that note, happy end of year 2023! And see you soon!
Married