Yearly Reflections: A Glimpse Into Schmooz Media’s 2017

I cannot believe it is December and nearly 2018. It is so striking to me that I am writing this reflection again; a whole year has gone by and now Schmooz is over three and a half years old. Last year, I reflected on a whole bunch of milestones that we had reached at Schmooz, and I also set some goals for what I wanted for 2017. I put those thoughts and hopes out into the world, and a year later, I am tickled pink to see that what I put down on paper then has come to life now. I am so proud of what we do here.

This year, I wanted to do something a little bit different so you can get a glimpse of life at Schmoooz and so that I can share some of the things we have learned:

1) Really Good Stuff Happens and Needs to be Celebrated: Every time our clients message us about great results or when a new opportunity presents itself, we ring a cowbell here in the office! It never fails to help us to crack a grin and feel motivated to keep our energy up to continue doing excellent work.

As a founder, one can get bogged down by trying to create a good workplace culture, but if you let hard work and life’s natural moments of celebration lead you, I think a lot of great things can happen amongst a group of people working together towards a common goal. At the moment, I prefer to celebrate my team as often as I can with small surprises instead of one large and extremely planned out celebration. After all, we should all smile as often as we can!

2) When Things Feel Tough, Try to Focus on Coming Together: Transparency and good communication are really important to me. I’ve always loved the idea of building something where people had each other’s backs and were able to do the things they really enjoyed doing on a day to day basis. No business is perfect, which means there are tough days or weeks; people get sick, clients can be demanding (often more than one of them at a time), new software systems can be confusing and some months, and accounting and time tracking leaves much to be desired.

Being honest with your team and your support network about tough times can be empowering when you focus on everyone’s strengths and optimizing the skillsets of the people around you. Thanks to the amazing people I have around me, I continue to learn that letting go of internalizing my challenges and accepting the help of the community I’m building is far more powerful than pretending I’m doing okay all alone.

3) After Three Years, My Financial Projections are so much more clear: I cannot explain enough how helpful my last three and a half years of financial reports are to me as I plan, hire, and welcome new clients into the Schmooz family. Even a year ago, I could not understand the peaks and valleys as clearly as I do now. I can only imagine how I’ll feel about this in a year from now, but I think it’s worth mentioning that it is VERY worthwhile to keep excellent track of your finances so that you can be empowered to make good decisions based on data as time passes and patterns emerge.

4) Surround Yourself with People Who Share Your Vision, but who are Different Than You: I feel amazing about the team we are building and the space that we share. The people who work in collaboration with and day-to-day at Schmooz are good people who want to make a difference and work hard to communicate well with each other. We often say to each other that it is a privilege to do what we do every day and be part of creating something that benefits our clients and helps us create the lifestyles we want. I will continue to challenge myself to hire people who, while they share the vision of what Schmooz does, are smarter than me and are different than me so we can continue to become more and more well-rounded as a company.

A Final Note: It has been a wonderful year for Schmooz, and as always, one filled with laughter and learning. The passion and unique skill set of the full-time, part-time and support team continues to develop over time, as do our offerings. We know so much more about what we need to do to provide excellent services to our clients and we are all able to focus on our strengths. I’ve never wanted Schmooz to be the largest company, just to be the best we can be. It feels like we have taken leaps and bounds this year and I could not be more proud of the Schmoozers.

Whatever it is that comes next, Schmooz is ready for the challenge! Bring it on 2018 – the Schmoozers and I can’t wait to see you all there on the other side.

Happiest of Holidays to you… and of course…

Happy Schmoozing!

Zoe Share

Founder

Chief Executive Schmoozer