Another Company, Life Changes & A Look Towards 2023

The Kim Doyal Show

This isn't my official year-in-review podcast episode (I'll record that in January), but I'm starting to look ahead at what I want for 2023. Both business and life. We're about to enter December (or, depending on when you're listening to this, we're already there), and I head back to California in a few weeks. The new planner, Create It, is done and off to the printer, so I can catch my breath for a minute and regroup. I've worked almost every day since the week off after my back surgery. Still, now that I'm starting to feel a lot better physically, my mental energy has shifted as well (nothing like being resistant to what is... although I've stopped saying my back is taking longer than I'd like. My only answer now is that my back feels better and better every day). Not that I could do much else... It's been raining almost every day (although, as I write this, there are bright blue skies outside... I'm hoping they stick around so I can take the dogs to the beach this afternoon). Let's get into today's episode... Launching a New Company I went into a lot of detail in the last episode that announced Create It, about the planner itself (as well as my decision to do this). I want to go a little deeper about my vision for Create It Company, why I decided to start another company separate from my personal brand, and how I see them fitting together. My first "real" entrepreneurial endeavor was the scrapbook store I opened with a business partner back in 1998. This was at the beginning of the scrapbooking craze, and I had just been laid off from my district manager position. Even though I didn't necessarily have the capital to do it, I would have opened another store (and can I say amen that we didn't). I had BIG visions for that store (and we could have killed it online had I known what I know now 🤣... hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?). My business partner didn't. It was more of a hobby for her, whereas I needed it to bring in an income. In many ways creating a physical content planner brings me full circle. Even at the Scrapbook store, I taught classes... so much of what I do today has been a part of my journey long before coming online. I'd like to see how far I can take Create It. Not just the planner, but the company. Which is why I needed to do this on my own. I've been fortunate to partner with amazingly talented people, but any time you bring on a partner, you're giving up control. And as crazy as I make myself, I'm much more willing to take risks, even when I have no idea how it will happen. The idea of giving up on myself feels like a death sentence. I have zero intentions of "retiring"... in fact, I see myself creating more as I get older. One of my goals with Create It Company is to scale it to the point where it doesn't need me. And who knows, maybe even sell it for a nice exit, but that's getting ahead of myself. Plans for the Company In addition to hiring people (again, I went into much more detail about this in the last podcast episode), we have many more products planned for the brand. I don't want to give them away too much here, but here are the categories of products we're looking at: More planners (beyond the content planner) Stickers (physical & digital) Pens Card decks Lots of training courses (with guest experts) Monthly content prompts and template subscription Consulting on planner creation and publication (helping other people produce planners) To do this, I will need a little help and guidance in the e-commerce space, which is where my friend Trey Lewellen comes in. Trey is a master at e-commerce. So I'm looking at joining his mastermind in January. Obviously, organic content and social media will be a big part of our growth strategy, but so will paid traffic. I'm on a mission to dial in paid traffic with someone internally (no outside ad agencies) and keep it in-house to keep our costs dow...