With the holidays approaching and pumpkin spice lattes making way for yearly planners on the Starbucks promo list, it’s time for some nostalgic reminiscing.

A year ago, I struggled to put a tag on myself and what 3Degrees.asia is about. We’re not a bleeding-edge start-up with a really smart app looking to list within one year and earn a gazillion dollars, though the last bit would be nice. I did not want to go down the floating freelance route either. I wanted to build a proper business but one that would value people (both on the clients and staff side) and deliver real, solid stuff over making a quick buck as is too common in this part of the world.

Where are we, one year forward?

• I’ve learned to focus and delegate. We have done a variety of content work this past year – from organising events to copywriting – but trying to do everything myself was nigh impossible. Working on your own drives home the point that time is money and you need to choose what you want to spend your time on. Do you try to do 50 things in a day or spread it out to a team of experts that you trust?
• Trust is everything. I am very grateful for the support that our clients have extended given that we’ve only just started from sharing what we do to recommending us to actually signing us on. It must have taken a lot to trust a young company and I am forever indebted to all of you. Sending good karma your way!
• Content is king but budget holds veto power.  We love loose purse strings but in the current economic climate, let’s get real. We’ve done some interesting work around fixed budgets and I think that’s where being based in Asia without expensive overheads really, really help. I don’t mean to sound cheap but I do love it when our clients say “your pricing is reasonable”. Would you really rather pay for our new games room or for an engaging bootcamp for your prospects?
• Speak human. Very smart people work in financial services. Unfortunately, not everyone speaks bank-ese. Honestly, would you rather “leverage your earnings potential” or “get a loan”?  As word nerds, we  truly enjoy tackling such copy to simplify, simplify, simplify. Please send more our way!
• Last but not least, appearances matter. We’ve seen too many instances of B2B content falling into the bedtime reading sinkhole. Our editorial training has proved useful again and again in helping clients to lay out their ideas into digestible chunks. Emerging market exchange-traded funds or risk-adjusted return on capital might not be the sexiest topics but you’ll be amazed how some simple editorial tips can make it easier for the eyes and brain to process all those exciting features of your latest product/service.

I still get quizzical looks when I say we do content marketing for financial services. But we’ve had fun this year working on a range of content-driven stuff from organising executive bootcamps to ghostwriting to copy-editing to producing corporate brochures.

And we’re definitely looking forward to what the new year will bring!