What was your biggest business accomplishment in 2021? 🏆

[isabelle]

Hey Seller Community! As the year comes to an end, we're wondering...

We can't wait to read your replies and learn about your wins! 🏆 

[aarontw]

@DinaLRosenberg  - We'll definitely want to hear more about how you reached 116K. Your experience could be a great guide for the thousands of businesses that are adopting Square's Tik Tok integration 🤯

[DinaLRosenberg]

Sure..

The key is figuring out what your target audience/client wants to hear about, and packaging content of value (we lead with education) in a fun, quick way that taps into current trends.

We spend a lot of time in app- looking for sounds that are trending. There are a bunch of social coach accounts that help with what's trending.. one of my favorites is wavewyld.

It's really trial and error and allowing the customers to see the real you- which I know can be uncomfortable..

check out @amityilleapothecary if you wanna see what we post on TikTok

[DinaLRosenberg]

get on it and consume as much content as you can to see what it is about- then do YOU.. it isn't just young kids. Today a woman in her 60s came and said OMG I feel like I know you from TikTok!

[pessosices]

Hey @isabelle - this is such a great question!

(Also your graphic & gif game has been spectacular - big fan!)

It's a little hard to think of the accomplishments, as it's easy for the mind to go to the things that went wrong rather than the things we did right.

Here's a less tangible accomplishment, but still feels great!

We took a big jump to change up our process of serving customers in person again this year, getting closer to normal after the big changes from covid during 2020. It took a lot to plan out, execute, train our employees on the new processes, and then tweak the process and retrain our employees as we saw how it went.

Despite the stress throughout all of this and having to make new processes on the fly, it felt really great to have this all work out in a way that kept things safe and worked efficiently for our customers and employee.

I also switched our website over to Square Online to make everything simpler for online ordering, and it was really wonderful to hit the publish button and have everything work out!

It was also really wonderful to get a bit closer to our normal pre-pandemic sales numbers, and hopefully this next year we'll get even closer!

[MudFire_Dex]

Great question - At first I thought my answer would be surviving Covid closures and the membership drops and dips and still actually having our business. But now I would say it is how we rolled with the changes, took a chance, integrated our website with Square/Weebly, and now have a waitlist deep enough that we are proceeding with opening a second location.  Our sales are up 60.21% over 2020 and 40% from 2019.  Square was a big part of this 2021 success and offered us a chance to take a risk, simplify, and roll with everything.

[Abigails_stl]

That is awesome! Good luck with the second location!

[Thevioletfox]

My brain initially answered just staying open! But if I think about it a little more, I can say we did our first in person pop-up event in 2021. We donated over $145 to charity in 2021. We added the ability to special order new books for customers and consignment from local authors to our inventory in 2021. And joined the Super Seller group here on Square in 2021! So I guess we did a bit more than just stay open 😁 

[JUYBoutique20]

So awesome.  Congrats

[TOTSC]

My biggest accomplishment in 2021 was increased revenue and moving into our own retail location.  Exciting times!!😃

[isabelle]

That's huge @TOTSC 💕 Congrats! 

[JUYBoutique20]

Congrats.....

[Minion]

My biggest accomplishment for this year of 2021 was finally becoming an auto accessories dealer for hundreds of different brands.  Being that I'm in a niche market, I don't' want to expand into to many "normal" automotive services, but adding this one was a big one for me to get repeat customers locally when they return for a yearly undercoating, as well as within the states being able to sell and drop ship. 

The downfall...someone has to add all these thousands of products....me... I'm that guy. 🙄😂

[JUYBoutique20]

Congrats...

[Doran]

I think just making it through the year and growing through it.  2021 wasn't any easier than 2020 or 2008 so I'm glad to still have the doors open in person and now online!

[MudFire_Dex]

I hear you about the 2008 - I opened a business in early 2009 because we got a great deal on a lease, equipment, and inventory that was so hammered in its first 2 years by the economic recession that I closed it in 2015. This time around at least I started to immediately make corrections, order less, and tighten things down. Back then I just hadn't had enough experience and we never dug out of the hole.

[Myc]

Truth be told I'm just glad I made it through this year it has been tough but this might be also be one of the better years as well ....we shut down a location and consolidate not due to covid and it has brought us all a little more prosperity 

[Candlestore]

Glad to still be in business!!  Prices going up and up and people spending more on necessities which are also going up and up.

[Donnie-M]

My biggest accomplishment in 2021 was finally allowing customers to tip our counter staff and the increase in pay that they were given.  Between a company base pay raise and tip share, I have been able to increase my employee's wages 40-50% and only increase prices 10-15%.

[TCSlaguna]

We had our best year in sales ever! 

This was in huge part to Square reports and having an amazing team who love helping customers. 

We were able to focus on products that sell well, and were able to reorder products easily before they sold out. 

We also moved to Square Online and Square Appointments. While our online store is just gaining traction, Square Photo Studio will be a great tool to quickly and beautifully add photos to our site. 

[MsPeachesMBeal]

Omg I have to say building with the help of Square Online store has built me new clients all over the map In Store and traveling with the help of my team Online Square Store making convent for them to have options of their choice when ordering to this amazing Online square store it has built my business within my first year in my own business, I have made a very great number of Clients within in this year 2021

Thank You 

Oline Square Store 

[VanKalkerFarms]

Honestly, just surviving is my first answer.

I guess the real answer is somehow having the best year we have ever had at our garden center by 13%, and that our 2 bakeries only being down 7.5% despite monumental ingredient shortages that have removed up to 40% of our offerings for a day.