2019 has been simply an incredible year that has seen new businesses start and some existing businesses shutdown.
We asked entrepreneurs and business owners of a word that could represent their business in 2019.
Here's what they had to say:
#1- Consistent
I would have to say the best word for our business in 2019 would be ‘consistent.' The team I have assembled at Northface Construction takes the extra time to deliver consistent results. We make sure to deliver exactly what we promise and go a bit above expectations to boost customer satisfaction.
Thanks to Josh Swisher, Northface Construction!
#2- Empathy (For your Customer)
One lesson I learned as a business owner is to have empathy for your customers. When you look at life through the eyes of your customers, are you giving them what they need? More often than not, this question helps me decide where I need to allocate our resources and time. If our customer walks away with a positive experience, there’s a likelier chance that our name will stay on their mind, and more importantly, in their hearts. That’s what our business aims to do.
Thanks to Casey Ribbick, Senior Care Center!
#3- GLORY (verb)
Every year I choose a verb as my intention for the year. In 2019, I chose ‘glory', which, as a verb means to rejoice proudly, to take great pleasure and pride in something. It was a great word to live by. As I grew my business, I attracted amazing clients and created a group program that brings me great joy everyday, along with insights on how to serve my clients and my audience even better, and grow my business even more. On the personal side, I moved to my favorite city, Vienna, Austria, met great new friends and generally had a lot of fun this year. I definitely recommend choosing a word to decide how you want to experience the new year. It works!
Thanks to Angel Pretot, frenchfluency.net!
#4- Growth!
My business has grown tremendously in 2019, both with returning customers as well as new customers. I have been very lucky that once someone tries Subarz, they realize the taste and texture is unique and delicious and they order more, and refer others. Additionally, I have experienced quite a bit of personal growth in 2019, primarily through seminars, classes and workshops focusing on social media, entrepreneurship in general, growing my business and much more. Lastly, I have also grown through significantly more networking in 2019 and have met amazing female entrepreneurs through several networking organizations.
Thanks to Daphne Subar, Subarzsweets, LLC!
#5-Excellence
I just met with my team a couple weeks back and introduced our one-word brand for 2019: Excellence. I really stand by if we can't do it with excellence, then let's not bother doing it at all. We are really going to be evaluating client experience and internal workflows/processes to make sure those who engage with us feel we do everything with excellence.
Thanks to Garrett Konrad, IFC!
#6-Scale
In 2019 I invested heavily in people, technology, SEO, advertisement spending, and social media to continue to scale our business. 2019 has been a year sacrificing my time and investing in people and technology so that we can better serve our clients. I'm excited that we have a robust business platform that will allow us to help more people and grow my business exponentially in 2020!
Thanks to Randy VanderVaate, Funeral Funds!
#7- Focused
One word to represent me and my business in 2019 is focused. To be focused a person has to be strategic about how to get things done. I own several enterprises that make up a conglomerate corporation, so being strategic about priorities and time management were key to staying on track with what I wanted to accomplish professionally in 2019. Inclusive, I had to remain focused on achieving my goals in 2019 by weeding out distracting people, places, and things since what I would accomplish in 2019 would catapult me in 2020, a new decade. Essentially, opportunities I am interested in/people have set aside for me in 2020 are contingent upon what I finish 2019, like being promoted to the next grade, which I achieved.
Thanks to Kyla L. Tennin, Lady Mirage Global, Inc.!
#8- Bigger
Bigger would be the word to describe my business and myself in 2019. We added many new SKUs to our line of hats so our inventory got bigger. We made the largest fitting hat probably ever made fitting a 29 around head (for comparison the average male head size is 22 1/2) so our hats got bigger. In turn our sales and profits got bigger. Since I work around the clock and sit at the computer all day I gained a couple and even got a
little bigger.
Thanks to Mike Lindamood, Lamood Big Hats!
#9- Adaptability
I’ve been a business owner for over a decade and if there’s one secret I’ve learned, it’s adaptability. Very rarely will things go according to plan. In most cases, the unpredictability of life will upset the expectations you have in your mind of how things should go. I had to learn how to make decisions quickly and roll with the punches when things did not go according to plan. Instead of giving up or getting frustrated, I learned that I had to accept the roadblocks and maneuver around it. Adapting quickly will always move you forward faster.
Thanks to Matt Jones, The Net Lender!
#10- Tenacity
One word that comes to mind when I think about Mailbird is tenacity. As a female entrepreneur, I jumped a lot of hurdles to make it where I am in the very male-oriented tech industry. But this never discouraged me. Every time I heard a no, I became that much more determined to get a yes the next time. Slowly but surely, I came to realize that the important thing to understand was what I could bring to the table, not if I were male or female.
Thanks to Andrea Loubier, Mailbird!
#11- Engagement
When I think of Beekeeper, the word engagement comes immediately to mind. In today's work culture, the most important thing to remain successful is to ensure that your workforce is happy and engaged. Thankfully, Beekeeper provides several ways to accomplish this feat, which puts everyone on the same path to success.
Thanks to Alexandra Zamolo, Beekeeper!
#12- Transparency
Yoreevo is a real estate brokerage reducing commissions in NYC, especially for buyers. Both I and my co-founder purchased apartments years ago and found it amazing that buyer agents advertise themselves as free while most commonly being paid 3% of the purchase price. In NYC, that's tens of thousands of dollars per transaction. Yoreevo is bringing transparency to an industry and educating buyers that their agent is not free, showing how much their agent is getting paid and presenting a better option with our commission rebates. Bringing this transparency, increasing awareness and saving our clients money is our mission every day.
Thanks to James McGrath, Yoreevo!
#13- Persistence
2019 was a key year for us in terms on growing which included our first external fundraising. This required a lot of persistence to get through the hundreds of rejections and set backs we experienced until we were able to raise the required growth capital. It was all about pushing through obstacles and challenges and turning them into opportunities and it requires endurance and strength to keep going when the tide seems to be going against you. With continued persistence, I was able to navigate the funding landscape and successfully overfunded and grew the size of my team by 300%.
Thanks to Ram Krishnna Rao, MarketOrders!
#14- Gratitude
Over the past year, I’ve realized how thankful I am that I get to work with such great customers. Every customer interaction inspires me to want to perfect the products I provide. Throughout my journey as an entrepreneur, I’ve come to realize that gratitude is the biggest motivator in my business. It dictates all of the decisions I make and helps me to push forward when things get tough.
Thanks to Connie Heintz, DIYoffer!
#15- Breakthrough
2019 is a tough year for CouponBirds. We have overcome lots of difficulties and challenges. We see the affiliate margin is shrinking due to the downward trending of the big economic environment. At the same time, we have to invest more people and funds to maintain and improve the quality of online coupons and services. Haven’t joined the first tier among hundreds of competitors, we still get influenced by algorithm adjustment from search engines many times. However, with the continuous endeavor, we obtained doubled users from last year. And the business keeps growing and gaining more trust. We achieve our goal and break all the barriers this year. 2019 is a breakthrough year for CouponBirds.
Thanks to Tricia Liu, CouponBirds!
#16-Reorganization
2019 I have been rebuilding and reorganizing. After 15 years operating my company I needed to step back and really evaluate everything. What I am doing properly and what I am doing incorrectly. This should happen much earlier than the 15 year mark but I finally got my organization running properly and needed to really develop a better strategy from here foreward.
Thanks to Joel McLaughlin, Dataflurry!
#17- Remix
Why? Because I've revamped nearly every aspect of my personal life and my business. I've moved to a new area with a bigger and better home. I've improved aspects of my physical health by eating healthier and sleeping better by remixing my diet and sleep hygiene. Also, I've switched up multiple different aspects in my business. For example, I used to run my podcast all by myself. Now, I have someone who handles all of that. I used to try to give value and inform in my email marketing. Now, I focus on entertaining people and telling humorous stories and things have never been better. That's why if I could only choose one word, it would be remix. And I encourage other entrepreneurs to remix their businesses as well.
Thanks to James Pollard, The Advisor Coach!
#18- Diversification
2019 was the year that demonstrated the importance of our recent efforts to diversify our client base, even when business was going well. Over the past twelve months, two of Murray Resources' largest clients underwent significant hiring slowdowns, which significantly impacted our recruiting work with them. However, our firm was able to successfully withstand the resulting revenue loss due to our recent client diversification initiatives. By expanding our service offerings and the markets we serve, we were able to substantially increase our client base from ~50 companies eight years ago, to over 300 companies in 2019. As tempting as it may be to lean disproportionately on our top clients while their – and our – business is thriving, we anticipated that circumstances out of our control would inevitably arise. The diversification efforts not only helped us withstand a slowdown among our top clients, it forced us to commit to markets and services that are now part of our core business. It was gratifying to see our previous efforts bloom in 2019 – and it builds confidence in our continued ability to withstand unforeseen shifts in the market going forward.
Thanks to Keith Wolf, Murray Resources!
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