With the new year right around the corner, you may already be thinking about all of the things you want to accomplish in 2021. Will this be the year you launch that new product or service? Will this be the year you bring in enough revenue that you can hire a web designer? Will this be the year you reach 6-figures?

It’s so fun and refreshing to list out all of the goals we want to accomplish in the new year. The thing is, cooking up new goals and ideas is easy, but unless you’re reflecting on your past goals, you’ll have a harder time bringing them to fruition, if at all.

We think one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your business is not dedicating recurring time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished (or not) in the past. It’s imperative to look back on previous years before jumping the gun and setting new goals, and here’s why.

No matter what type of giveaway you end up deciding to try first, the foundations of running a successful giveaway are generally the same. If you follow these eight basic steps, you’ll have a clear control over your giveaway and can potentially reach a lot of new people.

Client and customer testimonials are one of the most crucial pieces of your marketing strategy. The journey you want to take people on to lead them to a sale consists of three main parts:

1. The “Are you in my head?” stage when you relay their pain points to them

2. The “Yeah, that actually would be nice..” stage when you have them envision what their life would be like if those problems weren’t problems

3. The “Okay, I’m ready to buy!” stage when you present the solution as your product or service

But– hold on a minute– hardly any one is just going to be ready to buy after seeing your thing. First they want to know if it will even work, and that’s when you bring in the big guns. (Big guns being testimonials, if that wasn’t clear.)

Testimonials can sometimes be the single defining moment of someone ready to hand their money over, or not. You probably wouldn’t purchase a product on Amazon if it didn't have a single review, would it? We as consumers count on those reviews as the proof of a product being worth the investment or not.

So, what makes your products or services any different? You can use those testimonials strategically in your marketing plan to be the final push that gets someone over the line and to the checkout page or paying their first invoice.

That’s why we’re going to share with you 7 places you should be showcasing client or customer testimonials, if you aren’t already.

We all aim to shoot for those killer client and customer testimonials, the ones that you’re so so proud to display on every outlet possible. And why wouldn’t you be? 87% of consumers place as much trust in reviews as they would word-to-mouth, and 90% of consumers want to read between 5-10 reviews before gaining trust in a brand.

That places a LOT of pressure on us as creatives to give our people the best experience possible when working with us so that we can have another awesome testimonial to add to the pot. After all, birds of a feather flock together and when you wow one dreamy client, another is bound to follow soon after.

But what if we told you that there’s no need to feel so pressured? That there are actually a ton of simple actions you can take to get raving client testimonials and wow your customers?

“Do I need a website to use Dubsado?”

“How will I be able to use it for all the things I need to launch my business?”

We get these questions tons. The short answers are no, you absolutely do not need a website in order to make Dubsado work for you. And yes, you will be able to use it for every aspect of your launch and beyond. In fact, Dubsado could actually completely replace your website.

Evenmoreso, although Dubsado is a CRM, it can serve the same purposes as many other softwares, especially for someone who might be new to being in business and doesn’t have the extra income right now to invest in other tools.

So, keep reading if you want to deep dive into all things Dubsado, how to use it if you don’t have a website, how to use it to launch your business, and how to bypass the headache and set it up in just one or two days.

Hosting webinars is a super fun way to engage with your audience, pitch your product or service and add amazing value. But there’s also a lot to think about!

It can be both crazy-exciting and super duper scary to host a live webinar. There are probably tons of thoughts and what-ifs floating around in your cute little brain.

“What if I forget what I want to say?”

“What if no one thinks what I’m talking about is interesting?”

“What if…?”

These are totally normal fears to have, especially if you’re someone who was scared to ever even show your face in a video, let alone host a live webinar for a group of people. This is a big step to take in your business, and we applaud you for coming this far.

We’ve hosted countless webinars (literally.. we lost track somewhere around 50), so we’ve picked up a few tips along the way that we’d love to share with you. Stick around for the end because we have a treat that will help you knock your first webinar out of the park!

We’ve launched The Creative Template Shop-- us cool kids just call it The Shop-- and it’s FILLED with templates for your business, ranging from social media to client experience to even web design and opt-ins. These already-made templates are the silver lining for any biz owner who struggles trying to put together beautiful graphics for their business.

You’re working your tail off in your creative service-based business.

Your life is all about clients: finding them (where ARE they??), landing them (and competing on price makes your feel like you’re charging so much less than you need to if you want this biz to be sustainable), making the ones you DO find happy (so much so that you find yourself delivering WAY more than you originally agreed to)...

And maybe you’ve convinced yourself that this is just how life has to be if you’re going to do what you love for a living.