Why we Took a Summer Sabbatical
I've been blogging, working, social media-prepping and doing some thing to grow my site consistently for the past 6 years. Since I started, things have changed a lot. "I" grew into "us", a lifestyle blog turned into a business site and our goals financially have grown over time. But, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of WHY I was doing all this.
So, I asked myself an important question - What is important to me? I wrote down things like my marriage, my family, daily prayer and bible study, our financial goals, getting in shape for a half marathon.... on and on. Basically, my blog did not fall very high on my list. I had gotten to a place where if someone just wiped the slate clean and all the sudden my site was gone, I wouldn't really miss it. I realized that this needed to change.
There are a lot of aspects of my business that I love; I love making videos. I love talking to people one-on-one. I love helping small businesses solve a problem they've been struggling with. I love systems and workflows and organization.
As I took the summer to pray, plan, and process what I wanted to do, I decided to make some big changes:
01. More video, less text
I love doing videos, I hate typing blog posts. Most of my future "blog posts" will be video and audio focused with minimal text. Guest bloggers will be allowed to post in whichever format they choose, and we have a HUGE archive if videos aren't your thing.
Due to a new work schedule, I also plan to start posting new blogs on Friday mornings. Previously I was posting every Monday, but changing this schedule will make it easier for my team & I to edit format and plan posts without working on Sundays.
02. Less noise on social media
Personally, I have been cutting back on a lot of social media accounts. I stopped using Snapchat, I unfollowed everyone on Twitter, I unfollowed every friend on facebook and I deleted the multiple Instagram accounts I once used. I've been trying to work on minimizing time on my phone over the past few months, and I have decided to expand that into my business accounts.
We're going to stop using Twitter as a platform for our business. We still have automatic messages going out for blog posts and new videos but we're not going to be actively on the account from now on.
Facebook has been good to us, but now our groups and pages have become inactive, incompatible with our posts and really ineffective for our community. We are shutting down our Nora Conrad community. The Zero Strategy group will stay active for the time being, but you must sign up for the course to be apart of that group.
Conrad Community members are all welcome to join the new group, we'll be combining everything to make it more active and simpler for our community.
03. Improved courses
Over the next couple of months, we will be doing a major overall of our course (you might have noticed some changes already). Each course is going to get new videos, new resources, and new downloadable guides.
Our goal is to update these courses and give you all a more in-depth look at the tools we love. This process will obviously take a little bit, but we will be starting with the lessons on the zero strategy course.
04. Improved products
Our products have needed an update for awhile. This will mostly be new designs, but we will also be improving the features of each product and include more resources to give you a better value. The products will be available on this site as well as Etsy. Again, we'll be doing this slowly over the fall quarter.
I love writing content. I love sharing what I know. I love connecting with people. I love sharing my faith and helping other Christian business owners. I want to focus more on the things I love in my business and less on the things that hold me back. I hope these changes will result in better content for you all and fit better into my lifestyle and new routines.
Happy Friday everyone!
