A Year in Business Part 1: The Highs and Lows
The first of two articles about year one of Bedgood Marketing
On October 31, 2023 I got laid off for the fourth, and hopefully, final time.
I had a feeling it would happen at some point so I had been working on a big plan for my future. But I didn’t know it would happen so soon. My plan was only in its nascent stages and was far from ready to be deployed. I had been doing a lot of work behind-the-scenes to start my own business as a fractional content marketer. I was learning everything I could about starting my own business and talking to people in similar lines of work to learn how they operated.
My goal was to have a few clients on the side first and then either quit my full-time job or wait until I got laid off and use the severance I’d get as a cushion to get the business off the ground. Instead, I was thrust into the world of unemployment with only a few weeks of severance to buoy me as I figured out my next move.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that Bedgood Marketing, though a huge risk, was the best thing I could do for my career.
Immediately I had to start building my business, fixing up my website, establishing my LLC, creating my business bank account, learning Quickbooks, deciding on pricing, all while somehow convincing the first few clients to take a chance on me.
Let me tell you, it’s not easy securing clients during the holiday season for a brand-new business. I leaned heavily on connections and after a long pitch process I was able to find one small gig for the month of January.
On January 8, 2024, after two straight months of extremely hard work, Bedgood Marketing received its first client check.
All of that work in November and December wouldn’t have been possible to do if I still had a full-time job. It required my full attention to get to that point that quickly. Plus, I was able to be open about my search for clients and not try and sneak around my current employer.
Getting laid off on October 31 ended up being the perfect time of year to lose my job so I could start 2024 off with a clean slate. That’s one of many examples of God’s provision for me over the last year as I’ve jumped headfirst into the world of solopreneurship.
As I prepare for my second year of business, it’s only right to look back at what has transpired in 2024. For this first post I’ll focus on both the highs of the year but also the challenges that came with being a solopreneur.
The Highs
Money
First and foremost, I made more money in 2024 than I ever did when I was a full-time employee. And that’s including the fact that I often made about $15-20,000 in side money freelance writing. No matter what I did though, I couldn’t figure out how to break six figures. I was able to do that by October 1 of this year. Money aside though, there were so many other incredible highs from this year in business.
Great Clients
I have worked with clients from across the country in extraordinarily varied industries. I’ve become an expert in aluminum cans, cloud faxing, clothing, IT staffing, landscaping, and more. It’s been extremely challenging and fun learning new businesses and developing content strategies that help them address their needs.
Control of My Time
I control my own schedule. Besides a few client meetings each week, there’s nothing forcing me to be at my desk at certain hours. It wasn’t until the last three months that I became comfortable enough to actually engineer my days in ways that best helps me.
Now I start most days with an hour-long hike through the nature preserve near my house. During this time, I organize my thoughts on what I will be working on for the day. I used to spend the first hour scrambling around for what I plan to do, now I get all of that done while I’m away from my desk doing something I love. On most days I don’t sit down at my desk to start working until about 10:30 AM. I know that a lot of the work I do is in my head and actually requires me to be away from the distractions of a computer screen.
But modern day remote workers are often overburdened with the requirement to be on their computers during the workday. Most of these workers, inundated with constant pings from Slack and Zoom meetings, dream of the day no one needs them. I get to experience this feeling for a majority of every day. It’s impossible to overstate how amazing it feels.
Family Time
I’ve also gotten to spend a lot more time with my family. I know how short the time is that my kids will be little and I love that I get to be a part of their daily lives and not just someone they get an hour with before bedtime each day. John McGee, a pastor at Watermark Church and father of four, often talks about the “shot clock” of parenting. You’ve got 18 years before they leave the house. If they’re in school you have only a few hours each day to interact with them. Don’t waste that time. You can’t get it back. It’s hard to keep this idea in mind all the time, especially with young kids who consume every second of every day. But one day they won’t. One day they won’t think I’m the coolest person in the world. So being able to be there as much as possible when they’re young is extremely rewarding…and exhausting.
Travel Time
Vacation time was also something I struggled to figure out at first. I took very few days off from January to May as I was grinding for clients and nervous to take much time away. Eventually though, this caught up with me and my innate need to travel took over. I booked a trip to Breckenridge with my wife on a whim in June. Then we spent a week in Montana with my side of the family. We rounded out the summer with a trip to Chattanooga. We’ve also spent long periods at my family’s place in East Texas. All told, I have calculated about 25 days of “PTO” this year. Fortunately I was blessed with clients who respected my time off and didn’t bother me during my time away as long as I turned in all my work before leaving. I know in the future my travel time might involve more work, but I am completely fine with that as long as I can get out and explore the world.
Purpose
I’ve been told more than once by bosses that I wasn’t a great “team player.” I’ve had a number of bosses who didn’t appreciate me, but I can’t think of a single coworker who didn’t get along with me. Often I was the one they trusted to voice concerns about company direction or policy. And I was bold enough to tell my bosses that people were worried about certain things. Good bosses would take this information and work with me to find a solution that improved the company. Bad bosses would tell me that I wasn’t being “solutions-oriented” and then lay off the entire marketing team.
What I figured out was that a “team player” is someone who tells the boss what they want to hear. And that’s never going to be my style. Sometimes I wish it was. Most people are like this and most people are comfortable at their jobs, plugging away each day, looking busy enough to not get fired. They take home consistent salaries and benefits and sometimes get promotions.
I’m just now wired that way. I need a mission, a goal, a purpose in what I’m doing. I need to know that the people leading me share those values and are willing to do what it takes to achieve greatness. I am completely incapable of following poor leadership.
Eventually I realized that I couldn’t work for another incompetent boss. I’d rather win or lose based on my own efforts and quality. As a business owner, even in the tough times, it has been far better for me to live that way. The reward that I feel with every check that hits my bank account is 10000X better than any paycheck I ever received from a company.
The Challenges
Constant Hustling
Finding clients is the hardest part of the job. Many people have asked me for advice this year and the number one thing they want to know is how to find clients. And the only answer I have for them is “hustle.” I don’t have a tried-and-true system or a special formula to follow. Maybe there’s one out there, but I doubt it. I think truly the only way to find clients is to try any and every method available.
This year I found clients via these methods
Friend-of-a-friend connection
Upwork - Yes, really. And it was my best client of the year.
Former employer
Friend starting a business
Client referral
LinkedIn referral - someone tagged me on a stranger’s LinkedIn post and I reached out
Former colleague
It can exhausting and oftentimes I found myself getting lazy when it came to finding clients because I was satisfied with my current client load. That’s a bad mindset as clients can leave at any time. Finding the right balance is really challenging.
Rejection
All of those closed deals came about after tons and tons of failed deals. Some were at the final stages before the client backed out. Most never replied. Many showed interest and then balked at my pricing. Several ghosted me. I experienced every type of rejection you could. I didn’t take most of them personally, but some of them stung. It was especially hard early on when I didn’t know if I would ever secure a deal that could pay the bills.
Losing Clients
In my line of work there’s typically an understanding that our engagements are short-term. Most of my deals are between three and six months. This is usually good for both parties. But some of my deals, the best ones, are retainer contracts that last an indeterminate amount of time. These anchor clients sustain me during seasons where the shorter term deals have dried up. Losing an anchor client is almost like getting laid off again.
It happened to me in September of this year. The company went bankrupt. It was a shock since I’d just spent a month planning out all of 2025’s content with them and they’d expressed clear interest in signing me for the entire next year. Suddenly all that future income was gone. Not only that, but my payment for the month of September disappeared. I’ve still not received that money. It came at a time of transition between other clients as well, meaning I didn’t have anything for a period of several weeks. No income, no clients.
Fortunately, I had a previously scheduled meeting with a company for later in the month and that turned into a deal that made them my new anchor client. It showed me that even in the most challenging times, it’s significantly easier to bounce back in this line of work because I’m always trying to secure new deals. Instead of the devastation of a layoff this was just a bump in the road that I recovered from quickly.
Staying Focused
Like I said, it’s great that I can work from home and control my schedule. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The interruptions from my two kids can be draining, even when they’re cute. The knowledge that there’s laundry I could be doing or dishes I could be cleaning, or, on the contrary, social media I could be surfing or stores I could be perusing makes it really difficult to get work done on days where there’s no one peering over my shoulder demanding I look busy. I have found a lot more success in this area by controlling my schedule and building in walks and other breaks during times where I know that my attention will be waning.
Taxes and Other Business Things
I’m not a math guy. I barely know anything about taxes or business. It’s been a huge learning curve for me. I’m proud of myself for doing as much as I have done this year without screwing it all up. But it’s been a huge burden and worry for me. I didn’t feel that my business was in any place to pay someone to help me with this stuff this year, but now that I’m more established I think that will become a necessity in 2025.
Loneliness
My son likes to ask questions about our day at dinner.
“What was your favorite thing today?”
“What was the funniest thing you saw today?”
“What’s the biggest thing you saw today?”
“What’s the smallest?”
Most days I don’t have an answer. If all I did was sit on my computer and work, there’s absolutely nothing worth reporting to him about. At least now that I am hiking most days I can talk about that. But, it’s definitely not funny.
I don’t miss anything about working in an office or for a remote company except my coworkers. I’ve made some really good friends over the years through work and I keep up with many of them to this day. Oddly enough, my last company had some of the greatest camaraderie of any place I’ve worked and it was fully remote. Most of us only met in person once or twice. I miss the serendipitous conversations in a real life break room or the funny Slack chats of remote companies. And I really miss our all-company meet ups. Those were always so much fun and created incredible bonds.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to find other people in similar lines of work and meet with them regularly, either one on one or in a group, to create a sense of community during my workday. Having complete control of my schedule even allows for some of these conversations to stretch over long periods of time, which is something that is exceedingly rare for most people in 2024.
Check out part 2 here, where I break down the lessons I’ve learned and acknowledge the people who helped me along the way. If you aren’t subscribed already, please do so below.