Year in Review: 2023 for Comma Copywriters

Crystalee here, founder and CEO of Comma Copywriters. Admittedly, it felt daunting to wrap a year’s efforts into a tidy blog post. But this annual recap is my own final assignment in 2023. I want to be deadline-free during our annual Comma Winter Break.

It’s been a time for reflection and gratitude. When I founded Comma in 2016, I created a job for myself that worked with my life and two little babies. But over the years, as my kids and our team have grown, my work at Comma has become a personal and professional mission. I feel passionate about opening doors for life-first work for our team.

Life and business both offer ebbs and flows. My 2023 word is “STRETCH,” and both Comma and I were s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d this year. While 2023 included exciting awards, new employee roles, process improvements, and business growth, we also were met with the explosion of AI, a tough market, hard decisions, unexpected disappointments, and even devastating losses on my team. Some I can share publicly; others are not mine to share.

Like my 2020 year-in-review post, I’m getting real about our highs and lows, with my commentary on leading a content marketing company the year that ChatGPT became a household name. (Whew!)

Q1: AI Explodes on the Content Scene, Comma around the World

HIGHS

Comma around the World: We’ve always been a remote team at Comma Copywriters, which means we get creative to build connection in our Comma-unity. In January, we kicked off an internal “Comma around the World” initiative with our team, inviting them to take pictures in their Comma shirts on their global adventures in 2023. The goal was to share peeks into our travels as a team and have a unique compilation for our annual holiday card. (And it worked! See the end of this post.)

LOWS

Explosion of ChatGPT and other AI tools: I knew a tidal wave of AI-generated content would be coming this year after seeing the $125M raise for Jasper in fall 2022. I didn’t anticipate ChatGPT, but the first month of 2023, it seemed omnipresent (and always at capacity!)

Although I had my own panic on how AI would impact our business, after a couple weeks of feeling paralyzed, I started taking action and educating myself during #UtahTechWeek. I attended a panel of AI scientists, hosted a lunch with other content marketers and gathered feedback, spoke with a Forbes writer, and started building Comma’s 90-day plan for AI integration. I wrote the following note to my team in February, sounding braver than I felt at the time: 

“I’m choosing to see ChatGPT as an opportunity, and we’re honestly in a great position as an established agency with a fantastic client portfolio  —  and the best writers! I anticipated climbing a new mountain in 2023, and while we’re in uncharted territory, I find this post from Ann Handley encouraging for writers:

One of the things I love about the explosion of chatter around AI writing is how overnight the conversation shifted from this:

*** Yo! No One Reads! Writing Doesn't Matter Anymore! ***

To this:

*** Writing Is the Most Important Thing We Do! Writing Matters! Dukes Up! I Will Fight You If You Disagree! ***

I love how everyone is *all-in* on words and writing.”

Q2: The Content Machine, Forbes feature, Comma’s 7th Birthday, Best of State

HIGHS

The Content Machine: We partnered with fellow agency owners (the three Cs): CMO Zen, CustomerFaucet, and Comma Copywriters and to host a cool lunch-and-learn event for marketers. We shared about strategic content marketing, content-first SEO, and content creation to help you make more of your content campaigns. All three elements (Strategy, Content, SEO) fit together like gears in a machine. We were asked about AI, what Google respects in search results, and our take on gated content.

Forbes Feature: In April Forbes featured my story about Comma Copywriters. The journey the past seven years has been the biggest effort of my life, between babies + business. I had no idea what I was doing when I started this business in 2016. And it was surreal to see what I hoped, prayed, and worked to achieve be featured on such a big platform. While I’ve had so much help, I give myself credit for the following: I believe big things are possible, I'm willing to work for them, and I have an eye for talent. (Looking at Team Comma.)

Charcuterie & Content Chats: Comma’s 7th Birthday Party: Cheers to seven years! Comma Copywriters celebrated our business anniversary with content chats by leading Utah marketers, the giant balloon comma of my dreams, and charcuterie spread for friends, clients, and team. This was the day after my grandpa died, which was really tough timing. I felt such intense, mixed emotions of grief (family loss) and joy (business), and decided to honor his memory as part of my message. Read the full recap here or check out the 60-second sizzle video.

Best of State: Comma was named 2023 "Best of State" in the Writers' Services category for the first time. (I applied for three categories and we didn’t have much of a chance in the Marketing or Small Business categories, but we did pull this one off.) To me, the value of awards are two-fold: Company morale and pride for team members to feel part of an award-winning company, and awareness/branding exposure. We’ve gained new clients and made new friends directly from winning awards like this, and that makes it a strategic business initiative and PR effort to apply.

New employees and clients: I officially made my first W2 hires, making the internal hub of support for the Comma team managed by W2 employees. (Both from lack of know-how and strategy, I went as many years as I could as the only official employee. But now that we’ve passed the million-dollar revenue mark and want to grow, it was time.) New roles included a director of business development, director of client success and operations, project manager, and team support manager. Also, Lisa (BD Director) closed on a client starting with a “Y” (thank you, Yardstick!) which helped us get closer to checking off our client ABCs.

LOWS

While I had a 90-day plan for my team on our AI strategy, I was three months behind schedule and AI was still weighing heavily on me. Why such a big delay? In full honesty, I was afraid and not being humble enough to ask for help. Fear can feel so real, but it’s just thoughts that feel real. I finally asked for help.

Part of my 2023 strategy was speaking engagements for visibility, but it didn’t go as well as I thought it would. I submitted an application to be a TEDx speaker, and was not accepted. My topic was a passion for me: the mirage of “work-life balance” is not only unattainable, but backwards. Why put “work” first? No thanks. Work needs to work for your LIFE.

Q3: 100 Companies Championing Women, Fast 50, Internal Changes

Highs

On August 1, Comma was recognized as one of the inaugural 100 Companies Championing Women in Utah and we enjoyed lunch with Utah’s governor and room full of women in business.

Later that month, Comma was also named No. 17 on the 2023 Utah Business Fast 50 list of fastest-growing companies in the state, our third year on the list. Paige, Sarah, and I celebrated at the same table as our clients at Beehive Meals. Several other Comma clients were in the room, including Squire, Brandless, Motivosity, and SixFifty. My third grade boy was NOT impressed and asked me if Tesla was on the list too ...

I paused, and smiled: "Oh, no, bud. This is only for Utah companies, and really only those who knew to apply.”

He thought I’d meet Elon Musk. Count on kids to keep you humble on days you go to The Grand America.

Utah Business magazine also kindly published my Founders Series essay in August: How Crystalee Beck Founded Comma Copywriters, which really felt like putting my heart out there. (I was up until 2 a.m. to hit the deadline. Ha! But I made it.)

Lows

With substantial growth also coming growing pains. With the help of the Leadership Team, I made executive decisions to simplify operations as we entered the second half of 2023. These were hard decisions for me, but necessary.

Q4: Finished our client ABCs, Comma Retreat, Unmet Goals, Big Decision, and Missed Award

Highs

Utah 100: We were No. 36 on the MountainWest Capital Network list of 100 fastest growing companies in Utah. I felt on top of the world to be recognized with other business owners, and even got to meet an Olympic champion.

A mere twenty-four hours later, I had food poisoning at Disneyland. Pretty sure I set a new record for hours in a Disneyland bathroom and when I tried to weakly nap on a bench, they called the nurse on me. (Did you know Disney cast members make a human barricade around you when you’re sick? Now I know.) Just keeping it real. Like I said earlier: Highs and lows. They often arrive in close proximity. I try not to let either define me or go to my head.

2023 Comma Retreat: In November, we brought the team together (both in person and virtually) for our 2023 Comma Retreat in color-FALL Park City. Paige, our team support manager, worked so hard to prepare this event, and she did a fantastic job with all of the details. We awarded more Bucket List Grants for team members, learned from each other, and attempted a human pyramid. Why not?

Comma ABCs complete! Years ago I set the goal, and in 2023, we finished our ABCs. We signed contracts with a K client (Kudosy) and Q (Q for Quinn.), and in November 2023 we officially signed contracts with clients starting with every letter of the alphabet. Thank you to so many marketers and business leaders who have trusted us with thousands of pieces of content in the past seven years. Your trust in Comma is so appreciated.

Cheers to our Comma-unity: We met on Zoom in matching plaid shirts for our annual Holiday Comma Catch-up. I appreciated Paige’s efforts to recognize and celebrate our team’s unique strengths in a creative way, with personalized awards like “The Tech Translator” for Andrea, “No Ego Amigo” for Stephen, and “Conversational Champ” for Emily.

Lows

Proprietary AI tool for Comma? Coming full-circle from the start of the year, in November I was approached about acquiring a writing AI software. It’s well-branded and built by a respectable marketer who was one of the first ChatGPT testers. The prospect of having our own proprietary AI tool was both enticing and terrifying to me. It would have been the biggest investment so far in seven years of business ownership, and I swayed back and forth for weeks on the decision. 

After evaluating, learning, stressing, and getting input from my advisors, I ultimately decided not to move forward. My reasons are my own. I also want to say this wasn’t necessarily a “low” because it was learning experience in making a big business decision. (And if you’re reading this, seller, I wish you well.)

Unmet goals and missed Inc. award: We set a new annual revenue record, even in a tough year for agencies, but did not get close to our original revenue goal, or the adjusted goal No. 1 or No. 2. It’s felt like a stretch the entire year, with budget freezes rampant and economic uncertainties for so many. Win some, lose some, and try again in 2024. Also, realized I missed the opportunity for Comma to be on the 2023 Inc. Rocky Mountain Regionals award. (We would have been No. 20 if I had paid closer attention to the requirements and applied! Shoot.)

Whew. If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading and caring. Truly. It’s been a big year, professionally and personally. And the value of a year cannot be summed up with a bottom-line number or top-line revenue. It’s about the relationships and lessons along the way. And we’ve experienced Comma-bundance in so many ways.

Happy holidays to you, wherever you are in the world. I wish you a happy, healthy 2024.

Warmly,

Crystalee Beck

Comma Founder & CEO

P.S. Need content help in 2024? We’re heading out on our Comma Winter Break December 22 - January 1, but you can sign up for a time to chat with us in January. If you’d like to join our team, check out our Careers page.