New Year, New Goals! What you can expect from Bent's Woodworking in 2020
Here Goes Nothing
Hello everyone and welcome to my first actual attempt at a blog post. Something that I have been thinking about for a long time, but as with most of the ideas rattling around in my head, had to take a backseat to reality. This just so happens to be a perfect segue into the topic of today’s post.
2020 is here, and 2019 is already a distant memory to me it seems. I think it is because I am so focused on what I want the future to be, I don’t spend much time at all reflecting on the past. I’m not saying that the past isn’t important our that I don’t use valuable lessons learned, quite the opposite actually. I take the hard lessons that I learned and apply it towards what I want to do in the future and in the development of new goals. Over the past few weeks I have felt overwhelmed in a sense. Nothing like “I want to quit” or “I don’t want to do this anymore”. More like “What can I do to get better?” or “What can I do to provide more?”.
Now, while it is great that I am finally really taking a deep look at what I want from my company and what kind of person I want to be, it’s hard to turn off the thoughts and ideas. The biggest issue that I have is actually picking just a few things that I want to focus on and get really good at. Instead, I end up trying to do too many things at once, never really mastering anything. That must stop! So, here are 3 things that I really want to do a better job focusing on this year. This is by no means an all-inclusive list; they are three that I am really focused on.
1. Getting More Organized
This is something that I am awful with, especially when it comes to business related tasks. Well I know it seems like everything is very organized, it pretty much just is that way in my shop. What I struggled very badly with is the other side of Bent’s Woodworking. Things as simple as keeping up with the books, coming up with good ways to store files, developing a schedule, etc. Basically, I don’t have any systems in place to make all of this easier on myself. One of the biggest things I struggled with was getting everything ready for the taxes at the end of the year. Then I finally made the decision to get QuickBooks small business and it completely changed the way that I’m able to keep records. To be honest, I actually believe that making that switch is what really made me get motivated about becoming more organized in all other aspects of my business.
2. Website Development
Ask anyone that has been doing this for a while, specifically content creators, and the one thing that I continue to hear over and over is how important a website is, as well as an email list. I figure if this many people are stressing the importance, it must be something that deserves more attention. This past year I finally developed my website. Overall, I’m fairly happy with it but I find myself constantly tweaking it trying to make it better. This is definitely one of my major focuses in the coming year. The vision that I have for Bent’s Woodworking and myself when I retire is to have one place where people can go and have access to everything that I do. Having the ability to pick and choose what will help them most at that moment. Believe it or not, this is one of the biggest driving factors for me deciding to finally start this blog. While some people enjoy watching videos, some people enjoy plans, and then there’s people who just enjoy reading. The website is just another way for me to branch out into all of those different areas to serve the largest audience I can. At some point, I think I will probably take the plunge and look at hiring a company to really help me design and perfect my website, but it’s a very difficult thing for me to do now with as much time and effort that I’ve been putting into it. I also keep it close because I feel like I’ve learned so much and I am continuing to learn on a daily basis on how I can improve the site.
3. More Content
So here I am racking my brain thinking of how I’m going to make my life easier, and what do I come up with? Make more content! Now here’s what I mean by more content. The way I look at it is that even if I’m just posting a one minute video sharing a quick tip, or maybe I am taking the time to write my thoughts on something that happened to me, or maybe I’m doing a full tutorial on how to make raised panel doors. Bottom line is that I have lots of things that I feel like I’m not doing a good job capturing. And this is where the idea of more content comes into play. Now where do I put all of his content? Well that’s the thing that’s been running through my head nonstop. The first idea that I have is a blog, which you’re reading now.
The second thing that I will be starting this year is a podcast with a good friend of mine Ben Marshall. The reason this all came to be is because literally every single conversation I have with him is so good that I wish I could go back and listen to it all over. The idea behind the podcast is not just a focus solely on woodworking, rather a little bit of woodworking, a little bit of business, a little bit of life, really just a little bit of everything that people might experience in this content creation world.
Lastly, I want to start a second YouTube channel. I know that might seem a little crazy but hear me out. The purpose for the second YouTube channel is really to cater to those who follow me the closest. I have a lot of interesting things that I would like to share and videos specifically on the content creation side and the business side, but I don’t want to clutter my existing channel which is meant to be woodworking instruction and other woodworking related tasks. The focus on the second channel would be to really talk about woodworking and so much more. I have this idea in my head that I can take common questions that I get and find a platform to share answers for everybody to benefit from. Maybe also a place where I could do lives or even post the lives that I do on Instagram for a place where people can go look at it further than just 24 hours after it’s over. The idea for a second YouTube channel is definitely something that I’ve learned from my good friend Jay Bates where he started a second channel for a lot of the same reasons. If I want to go watch woodworking videos, I’m going to go to his original channel if I want to get updates or hear what’s going on in his life, that I can go to a second channel. Some of you might be saying, “well yeah but you have an Instagram or people can see what you’re doing on a daily basis.” That is true, however; what I’ve come to realize is that everybody doesn’t have an Instagram account. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to bet that the majority of the people that follow me on YouTube also don’t follow me on Instagram. The solution that I have is to start that second channel, not focusing on partnerships or anything other than a place to put more information that maybe doesn’t pertain to just woodworking. Plenty of my following is also is trying to create a business just like I was at one point. These are the people that I think I can reach on a different level by having more content.
Closing
So, what will be the purpose of this blog? I have to be honest; I don’t know. I don’t really have a plan for this. The bottom line is that I love teaching, I love sharing my thoughts and ideas with other people, I love talking about content creation, and I think that I can get some pretty good messages across by writing as well as videos. I would assume that you will probably see my thoughts and opinions on tools from time to time, maybe something that happened in the shop behind the scenes, or maybe I just want to get on here and ramble for a while. Either way in the end it’s all just more information and as long as I can get at least one person to enjoy the effort that I’m putting forward then I find it worth it. I actually found this to be pretty fun and I’m excited about where it will go in the future.
Thanks for reading and share your thoughts in the comments.
See you next time!