This past year has been momentous for Half a Bubble Out. If you have been following us at all, you know that we checked off 20 years in business. Just writing that causes me to want to pause and simply say thank you to all of you: our clients, friends, vendors, and others who are part of our larger community.
Thank you for the gift of allowing us to partner with you in growing your companies, in developing your leadership, and in managing the day to day opportunities that running a business or leading a team brings to your doorstep.
Decade celebrations are interesting because they seem to make us particularly reflective. They are milestones that we corporately recognize as meaningful. Milestones we want to celebrate with those who made it possible. And oh, how we celebrated!
In January 2022 we launched a brand new logo with a new tagline that captures where we are and where we're going. Half a Bubble Out Leadership & Business Development: Developing the Whole Leader for the Whole Business. (But don't worry, we still do marketing!)
Our team wasn’t content with a one-time celebration, so they devised a plan to give away super cool gifts every month. We had a total of 26 people win these gifts and got to see some epic unboxing videos, like the one of this ice cream maker! A few other of those gifts included:
Gumball Machine
Lundberg Family Farms Gift Basket
Victrola Record Player
Sport Trick Kite
For the months of November and December, our prize winners selected a charity organization of their choice for us to make a donation to.
We donated $250 to The North Valley Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief & Recovery Fund. The Wildfire Relief & Recovery Fund exists to raise money to support nonprofits and agencies providing immediate assistance to evacuees, animals and others impacted by fires in our area of Butte County, California, and surrounding regions.
We also donated $500 to The Jesus Center. The Jesus Center is located here in Chico, CA and they're all about restoration. In response to the complexity of homelessness, hunger and poverty, they work with the community to offer respite, restoration and lasting transformation to God’s children.
On the evening of October 6th we gathered friends, family, clients, vendors, and staff from all over the world (literally) and we had a blast! It was the first time our entire staff, including our remote workers, were able to be together and meet in person.
Michael spent months working with our designer on six banners that carried the history of HaBO and gave a glimpse of the future.
The banners were 12 feet tall and ranged from 36 feet wide to a whopping 99 feet wide, and created a path through our parking lot. It’s hard to explain, but if you want to see a video, we’ve got you!
Our book Fulfilled: The Passion & Provision Strategy for Building a Business with Profit, Purpose & Legacy was a bestselling business book this year in multiple categories on Amazon! We continue to live out all we talk about in this book and desire to help other small business owners do the same.
Amidst all the celebrating and fun that 2022 brought, we had our fair share of challenges. I read on a sign somewhere in Tennessee “Problems are just opportunities dressed up in work clothes.” It made me smile and it rings true.
Running a business has never been simple, and the days we're living in bring more complexity and uncertainty than ever before. Our team has weathered some storms together and continues to work hard to take care of our clients and each other.
As we head into 2023 we're grateful and we anticipate great things ahead. At the 20 year mark we're excited about the opportunities we have as we continue to grow and learn so we can serve our clients well.
We have added some new tools to our toolkit for hiring and leadership development, and keep on pressing in to the ever changing world of marketing.
We continue our commitment to keep growing and learning ourselves, so we can help you continue to grow and learn too.
There's a lot of negative forecasting and talk around the year to come, but here at HaBO we're excited to tackle with you whatever 2023 brings.
We know that as we journey together as a community we can survive in the midst of economic and social challenges, and we can go beyond that to actually thrive and help others do the same.