183: Lessons from 2024: What Worked, What Didn't, and What's Next for 2025

So I've been in deep review of my year of 2024. I've been thinking about what I'm taking into 2025. And in the very last episode, I shared with you my process for that. And so it really takes some time. It takes kind of clearing your mind, clearing your desk and setting aside some very special time for me. I set aside an entire day to dig in to the year and ask yourself things like what worked, what, what didn't work? And then what are we taking into the next year? And so in this episode, I'm going to share all of those answers with you.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing

the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

I want to first talk about why I do this other than the fact that it is an essential and super valuable thing to do at this time of year. But the other reason is that I am just walking away from an incredible event called ideas for 2025. So this event is put on by Stu McLaren. This is the third year that I've had the honor of participating and he brings together just an incredible group of entrepreneurs. Russell Brunson, Jeff Walker, Amy Porterfield, Michael Hyatt, Jenna Kutcher, Megan Hyatt, Miller, Nathan Berry, Ryan Levesque. I mean just some incre people and we all come together in person. We were in Charleston, South Carolina this year and we do a closed room two day mastermind where we are learning from each other. And then we go live on the night of the second day and broadcast for free the answer to the questions that I'm going to share with you today. What worked in 2024? What am I taking into 2025? And so it's an incredibly valuable session. It's also a ton of fun because the whole point is to raise money for Stu's charity called Village Impact. And so while tickets are free, we are raising money. My panel basically bid off a hot seat, like a two hour hot seat with someone. So it's just really, really fun way to both learn and also raise money for an incredible cause. All proceeds go to Village Impact and so you may still be able to go check it out. The URL is ideas for2025.com if you want to go take a look. Maybe there will be a replay available for purchase and then all of those proceeds will go to Village Impact as well. So I want to share with you kind of my takeaways from doing this process, asking myself these questions. And one of the most interesting things is that of our takeaways were really similar. Meaning I don't think that my takeaways are completely unique to me. There were a ton of, oh, there were tons of overlapping takeaways from what worked this year and what people are taking into the following year, which I thought was incredibly fascinating. So when I look back at my year and again make sure to listen to the previous episode where I really talk about what this process looked like. How did I review the year. So when I look back, one of the best offers that we that we made, one of the most successful things that we did was a done for you handbook. This handbook is made into an ebook and it's time saving research for my students and or the entire really art licensing community. And so what it is is this tremendously robust handbook where my team, I had a team of six people work on this handbook for over a year, researched the industries and the companies within each industry that are licensing artwork from artists. So There are over 400 companies that are completely vetted listed in the handbook. Now we estimate that this handbook is going to save someone over 600 hours of work if they were to go in to research it all themselves. That's incredible. Now we've had all sorts of comments and speculations like we use ChatGPT for this or something and I'm going to set the record straight that we absolutely did not. Again, we spent over a year in research for this handbook and it's incredible. Incredibly kind of hand curated, picked and researched vetted licensing companies. So when I look back at that this year it was one of our most successful campaigns still available. If you want to go take a look at it, it's bonniechristine.com handbook. It's called the ultimate licensing Handbook. So it has generated some incredible revenue for our business. But my biggest takeaway from that Is the ease of like this done for you perspective, meaning I think across the board that our audiences collectively want time saving, kind of fast track solutions to things that they are struggling with. And so the reason that we came up with this handbook is that I looked at my average customer's journey and this is the part that has the most friction. It's right after you are completely done creating a body of work, and it's right before you're actually licensed. And you're just kind of hit with this wall of research that needs to be done. And it's not super straightforward, it's very difficult, it's very time consuming. And I really wanted to see if I could simplify it for someone. And so this handbook was born. So when you think about it in your own business, when you think about your own audience, is there a point of friction that you could simplify for someone, that you could do a done for you service or done for you research that would help kind of simplify their whole approach? That is my question to you for going into next year. And also the lens with which we're really looking at everything. How can we buy people time back or how can we get people time back? How can we save them time is what I'm trying to say. How can we save people time? How can we help them in research? How can we fast track their success?

If you're an artist or designer dreaming of seeing your work on products in the real world, like fabric and wallpaper and greeting cards, but maybe you're struggling to break into the world of licensing. Listen up. The art licensing industry can feel like almost an exclusive club with gatekeepers and confusing entry points. But I found a way to simplify everything. Imagine pouring your heart into your art only to see it gather dust. That is not what we want. Maybe you've tried posting on social media, setting up an online store, sending out emails, but it feels like shouting into the void. The art world is confusing. And breaking into licensing isn't just about talent. It's also about finding the right partners that are the right fit. Now, I've been in the same boat. I've spent tireless hours researching, compiling lists,

learning how to approach companies.

Then one day, I had tremendous success. So after so much trial and error, I signed my first licensing deal.

Then another, and another.

Today, my artwork is licensed all over the world. And I want to help you achieve the same success.

So I've taken what I consider the

most difficult part and, well, I've done it for you. I've poured over a decade of experience in developing the Ultimate Licensing Handbook. This is a curated list of over 400 companies across 17 industries so you don't have to this handbook is so much more than a list. It's a comprehensive resource that is going to help you eliminate the guesswork. It includes pitch templates that get results and step by step guidance on how to approach companies. If you've tried compiling this information on your own, you know how time consuming it is.

It would take months.

In fact, we've estimated that this handbook will save you over 463 hours of

work and it gives you direct access

to the company's that can take your career to the next level.

So are you ready to take the Next step?

Visit BonnieCristine.com Handbook to get your copy of the Ultimate Licensing Handbook and get instant access to all of these resources that we've poured so much into so that you don't have to remember there's

room for you and I'd love to

help you get started

the next one what will I carry into 2025? Is this really pull, in my opinion, to move to more analog, the more analog kind of tactile portions of my business. I think that as AI and technology rise, we're rising with it. We love the new technology, we're using it in different ways all the time. And also we want to match that rise just as equally with more human first experiences. So more personalization, more tactile experiences, more transparency, more human connection, more community experiences, and more leaning into the analog side of our business. And so I think that as AI and technology increase, there's this across the board yearning to get back to the doing. One of my biggest takeaways from this week was learning that audio like podcasts and audiobooks are way on the rise, whereas things like Kindle, books or things on online are kind of going down, audio is going up. And the takeaway from that is because people can listen to audio and still be in their tactile world. So like, think about what you're doing right now. Maybe you're making biscuits or painting or working in the garden, right? You can listen and learn while you're also experiencing your tactile environment, which is why audio is on the rise. I think that's super interesting. And so when we think about how we're going to do this right, we've got several things planned for our membership, our course, our communities. We also are really leaning into our immersion Box experience. So everyone who enrolls in the Surface Design Immersion course gets this Incredible box delivered to their door with a handheld tangible 400 plus page workbook that goes with the box. I mean the course and then all these other little pieces that you need in order to make this course a full experience. You get a sketchbook and just beautiful things that bring it to tangible life. The next one is our shop. So Shop Flowery is my new product shop and we're really going all in on this product shop. I have never been more all in on anything. It is so fun to bring things to tangible Life, to experience the tactile version of some of the things that we're trying to accomplish. And so we're leaning into the shop even more in 2025 as a way to really give people a part of the business that they can touch and hold and have and use. The next one I can't share too much about, but we're dipping our toes potentially into some publishing. And again, the whole concep is that we want you to have something that you can hold in your hands, snuggle up with and have a moment with, have a human moment with, interact with, touch and feel. And so that's kind of all I can, I can share right now, but I'll be sure to keep you posted as we go. Now, the other kind of thing that worked really, really well for us that I think is worth mentioning, this is one of the things that I talked about on the live stream is something that we do, I think sets us up for success that's a bit different than what other people do. When I think about a launch, a big release of either a product or a course or an offer, we always think about the pre launch Runway. So what are we doing as we lead up to the opening day and how are we building anticipation? Now, typically what I see is people start maybe four to six weeks out. Some people start less than that. But what we do is start four to six months out. And so what this means is that we spend the vast majority of our paid traffic four or five months before we get to opening day. Now this is terrifying because it is, it is based on faith, right? Like there's no immediate return to our ad spend, it is spending today for a hopeful return and 4, 5, 6 months, but only based on whether we do our job well. If we can provide value in between now and then for the people who come on to our list to get to know us and get to learn with us. And this, hands down, I think is one of the reasons why we're seeing so much success in our Business because we fully lean into the time that it takes to build relationships with people who come into our community. We don't want to get you in just to sell to you. We want to invite you to come join our email list and come join our different free programs, like our free mini class, our pattern week that's coming up. You'll hear more about that soon. Our free workshop as a way to really serve you, as a way to really get to know you, as a way to genuinely connect with you, build a relationship with you, have community with you, and then potentially, you'll want to go deeper with us, Right? But. But that all takes time. I think about how long it takes to just build a friendship, right? And it takes time. You don't ask someone to marry you right when you meet them, right? It takes time to build this relationship. And so the longer the Runway, the better. We love to surprise and delight our members, our community, our email subscribers. They are vip. They're so incredibly important to us. And so when you think about your own business, can you take, you know, what you consider to be your Runway and double it or triple it and focus on the connection building in between? I'd love to hear, okay, my friends, so those were my takeaways. And what I'm really thinking on, what I'm really betting on for the upcoming year, what we are going to be using as a filter in our own business. And if you do this process, I think you'll get so much clarity as well around what worked for you, what didn't work for you, and what you'll be doing moving forward. My friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you. Bye for now.