2024 Comma Retreat Recap
Written by Emily Garland
After another great year, Team Comma gathered (both in person and virtually) in the beautiful Sun Room at Kiln’s Salt Lake City location for our annual retreat. We came together to get inspired, celebrate our work in 2024, align on future team goals, and connect as a team. The half-day retreat itinerary included motivational talks, professional writer’s tips, and team-building activities that pumped us up for the year ahead.
Reminisce with us in our recap video and read on for a full review of 2024’s retreat.
Getting Energized with Guest Speaker, Nate Harris
Nathan Harris, an entrepreneur and inspirational speaker, helped the team start strong with an interactive presentation. He spoke about looking inward, finding strength, and overcoming limitations. Harris emphasized the power of positive self-talk and self-care. “Great work happens under the microscope,” he said. “If I’m not right inside, my work won’t be as great as it could be.”
Harris talked about the light and shadow that exist around the work we do. While striving for perfection can be a light, for example, it can also come with a shadow of overwhelm or fear of failure. It’s important to recognize our weaknesses to overcome them.
He also led an exercise in which every team member texted five people asking them to describe the person in three words. The responses, of course, were all very positive, and he challenged us to think about the disparity between those adjectives and our own inner monologue. “You have the responsibility to call yourself all of these generous words.”
The presentation concluded with a power-breathing exercise, which left the room feeling energized, positive, and ready to take on whatever comes next. We’re so grateful for the unique experience we had with the amazing Nate Harris!
Cheers to Doing More in 2024
Crystalee Beck, Comma’s founder, reviewed the highlights for Comma in 2024 so far. Comma’s goal for this year was to increase leads, revenue, client referrals, and team satisfaction, and she shared ways we have done that.
So far, Comma has won a Utah Best of State award, been featured in Utah’s Fast 50 (at number 21), and has delivered 3,075 pieces of content at a 99.97% on-time rate.
Comma has also sponsored 29 girls through our Comma Cares partnership with Kurandza this year. This amazing organization provides girls in Mozambique with skills training courses, education scholarships, and micro-loans, empowering them to escape poverty, child marriage, and even human trafficking.
More Growth Ahead in 2025
After a review of 2024, Beck shared the company’s goals for 2025. “Every new year is a time to reinvent,” she said. “In order for us to continue growing, we have to continually reinvent and renew. It’s exciting to me to see what we’re capable of.”
She quoted Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism, who evangelizes the “disciplined pursuit of less.” She shared a vision for smart growth for Comma in 2025. “We don’t need to do everything to grow,” she said. “We need to do what’s effective and do it consistently.”
We have some exciting events and initiatives for marketers in 2025, Comma will be announcing details soon. If you are a content marketer … stay tuned! We’ll be updating the Events section of the Comma website soon.
Advice From Top Writers
Next, the team was fortunate enough to hear from two of our amazing writers with tips for how to be the best writer you can be. Comma Lead Writer Mary Clark talked about creating internal deadlines that reflect personal schedules to avoid cutting it too close to company deadlines, and always striving to create valuable and engaging content.
Then Catrina, also a Lead Writer at Comma, spoke about improving skills like typing, technique, and research. One of her favorite tools is using typing.com to play games and speed up typing speed. “You can get more done in a shorter amount of time, without increasing errors, just by improving your typing speed,” she said.
Celebrating Team Comma
After our amazing writer tips, we heard from Lisa Heaton, our Head of Business Development, who discussed her goals for the year. She emphasized that Comma’s ideal clients are smart businesses that need smart writers.
Sarah Acheson, Director of Operations and Client Success, spoke about Comma’s successes this year, quoting Michael LeBoeuf: “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” She also emphasized that the leadership team couldn’t do it without Comma’s writers. “You not only make a difference. You ARE the difference,” she said.
Paige Smith, our Team Support Manager announced raffle winners and Bucket List Grant recipients. The Bucket List Grant is a $1,000 bonus awarded to team members to help them check off an item on their personal bucket list. Eight team members received their grants this year, as appreciation for their three years of service at Comma.
As a remote team, it’s a treat to be together in person. We came. We connected. We conga-lined!
Looking for content support at your organization? Please contact us here. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Want to join the team? We’re accepting applications at www.teamcomma.com/careers.
