Hey APW,
Somehow… seriously don’t ask me how… we’ve reached the halfway point in 2020. I don’t know how many of y’all deal with anxiety, but I sure do, and typing that sentence has caused me to need to pause for a bunch of deep breaths. We started out on a roll back in January and February. Then March showed up, I lost April completely, May started to feel like it would never end, and June has been a whirlwind. Then boom, here we are. 2020 is halfway over, I’ve reached exactly zero of my personal goals I set back at the end of last year, and it’s utterly impossible to see what the future holds… but also, for what it’s worth… yay for us! 2020 hasn’t been easy on anyone and if you’re here reading this, then you’ve survived. Good for you. Good for all of us.
A thank you
APW, and our staff, has been on quite the adventure through it all. If you’ve been following along, you might remember that when the pandemic hit we rushed to launch HotlineRing.com. Turns out, folks aren’t in a place to even hire a low-cost planning consultant, when the world has put weddings on pause. We still believe this is going to be a game-changer offering in the future, but for the moment we’ve retired it and moved on to new projects. If there is one lesson that 2020 has for all of us, it’s to not get too attached to any one outcome, and to live in the experiment. Then, as money dried up and it became clear that we were going to be approaching recession level business changes, we had to face the fire and decide what the heck to do. Meg was featured in some articles because she took the most badass leadership approach and stopped paying herself to save her employee’s (hi, that’s me!). Oh, and my stellar human coworkers also rolled back their raises and salaries to ensure my employment. Then we got PPP, everyone got paid for awhile, and now PPP is over for us, but in the meantime, money has started coming in… a little at a time. Which is plenty to be grateful for. (Meg is back to not being paid, but we’re hopeful that won’t last too long.)
Somewhere in the middle of it all, someone suggested to Meg that she start a Patreon. Ya know, to ask the readers and the audience—the ones who love visiting the site each day, for help. And y’all showed up. I can say, personally, that your contributions have meant that I didn’t have to worry about losing health insurance over the last few months, which is no small thing when you’ve got mental health stuff, and/or are just a human in the world in the midst of a pandemic.
So… THANK YOU. Like, seriously, from the bottom of my heart (and all of our hearts), with all I can offer… THANK YOU. Thank you for your $3 donations, and your $20 donations, and everything in between. Thank you for sending us good vibes, for being readers of the site, for coming back each day for whatever we have to offer you. You all are what make the APW Community what it is, and we truly cannot thank you enough for being here with us through this season of business and life.
Now for a quick plug
If you’re not already a member of our Patreon, can I gently suggest that you join us over there? We host a monthly community meetup for folks at the $20 a month level and up—where Meg and I get to actually connect with you all face-to-face. We chat about the world, weddings, what’s happening wherever you all are (which is all over the place), and just generally remember that we’re all people and all in this together. It’s a thing I look forward to each month… and we’re hosting June’s TODAY at 4:00 pm PST. So, you’ve got time. Go, join Patreon at $20/month, and meet us online at 4 pm PST. It’s BYOB, sorry. But you can also feel good about your money going to directly support the small but mighty staff here at APW.
What’s Next
Also, Meg is knee-deep in the planning and preparations to launch her business training programming. You might have seen her hint to it and give some little previews on her Instagram. Let me just tell you… you don’t want to miss this. Hop over to her site and get on the email list so that you’ll be first to know when you can learn all about entrepreneurship from someone who literally has done it… like, multiple times over more than a decade. She’s got a gift for it, and you really don’t want to miss out. Click here. (P.S. She is currently offering one-on-one coaching, too, if that’s your thing.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you
Thank you all, again, so much for being here in our little corner of the internet universe. We’re so glad to have you, and hope we can keep bringing you smiles and knowledge and fun and tools and so much more, for years to come.
xo,
Alyssa
