If you’re like us, you’re already thinking about ways to reinvigorate your client-facing materials and think through your marketing strategies so that you can hit your targets in 2026. We love this time of year—when the enthusiasm is on the rise and the appetite for strategy is strong. If you have dreams of a brand refresh or a website renovation this year, don’t neglect strategy! Give yourself the space and time to work through your ideas.

As it turns out, sometimes you must go backward to move forward—a process that feels undeniably inefficient. This phase of business can’t be rushed. This year we learned, often impatiently, that progress meant making decisions, undoing them, and occasionally remaking them, each time finding a bit more clarity. If you had asked us when we started Cowbird, “Will it take you four years and change to begin to understand what it is your business provides,” we would have laughed and laughed. But now we know better.

The new year offers a ripe moment to implement lessons we’ve learned from the previous year and to set new business goals. In 2025 we’re front-loading concepts like setting boundaries, establishing transparency with clients and building a more scalable, sustainable small business. 

It is our habit to take the winter months as a time to reflect on our year, to clarify our materials and fine-tune the strategies and the structures we’ve built. This year, we’ve learned many things the hard way, including what happens when clients are left to their own devices; the thing all small business owners should keep in mind; and why small projects do not equal simple projects.