We’re getting into the final weeks of 2022, and you know what that means: end-of-year recaps.

Who doesn’t love a year-in-review? It’s a great way for people and businesses alike to look back at the last twelve months and reflect on everything they’ve done and what they’re most proud of accomplishing.

Plus, a year is a long time. It’s easy to forget things that happened back in January or February, so little reminders are nice (did anyone else find surprises in their Spotify Wrapped?).

And we wanted to join in on the fun. Not to toot our own horn, but we’ve put a lot of hard work into The Manual this year. We’ve poured our metaphorical blood, sweat, and tears into articles, our podcast Organize Chaos, and our weekly newsletter to produce quality content for entrepreneurs and small business leaders looking for news, inspiration, and advice.

So, here’s our list of the very best of what The Manual had to offer in 2022:

The Best of Organize Chaos

Have you heard of Organize Chaos? If not, you’re in for a treat. Throughout the week, our founder and CEO Chris Ronzio covers anything and everything about small business and entrepreneurship. He also conducts interviews with some of today’s most influential business leaders, who offer their own stories and experiences about what it takes to run a successful business.

And while we’ve produced a bunch of episodes in 2022, these three stand out amongst the rest:

It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work

Back in April, Chris interviewed David Heinemeier Hansson (AKA DHH), whose accomplishments include creating Ruby on Rails, co-founding Basecamp and HEY, and becoming a New York Times bestseller for his book “Rework.”

Startup culture can sometimes place a high emphasis on the hustle, sacrificing everything else to chase growth for your small business. Chris and DHH talked about the craziness of hustle culture and why embracing calm can help you build a more intentional, long-lasting business.

👉 Listen to the episode here.

Why Hourly Billing Is Nuts!

Chris also had the opportunity to chat with Jonathan Stark, the author of “Hourly Billing Is Nuts” and the host of “Ditching Hourly.” Jonathan is on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing.

Because according to Jonathan, experts don’t bill hourly. There are better alternatives out there, and Chris and Jonathan ran through the process and framework of evaluating clients and having the “why” conversation to determine your value pricing.

👉 Check out their chat here.

2022 Trends, Scaling The Hustle, & How to Make Your First Million

Heard of The Hustle or Trends.co? Then you might know their founder, Sam Parr. Chris talked with Sam about what’s involved in building a huge audience, as well as what he might do differently if he tried building his first million dollar business in 2022.

Sam provided a ton of tips and tricks for monetizing what you’re doing, along with a deep analysis of the trends that defined 2022. And while we’re technically at the end of the year, there are still plenty of insights that are valuable for any entrepreneur.

👉 Find out what else Sam had to say.

Organizational Chart: A Guide To Building Your SMB's Org Chart

Here at The Manual, we’re big advocates for organizational charts and their importance to businesses, no matter their size. One of Trainual’s biggest features revolves around building your SMB’s org chart (and a supporting role chart).

That’s because org charts help you communicate team changes to your employees, prevent turnover, outline growth paths, and well, the list goes on.

But building your business’ first org chart can be a daunting task. Good thing we’re in the business of making difficult tasks easy — so we wrote a how-to guide for building your SMB’s org chart.

👉 Here’s how to get started.

5 Women Entrepreneurs On Running A Startup

For International Women’s Day back in March, we wanted to highlight the highs and lows of being a woman in the small business space. And luckily, we were able to sit down with five amazing women, each at their own stage in the entrepreneurial journey.

From their experiences as business leaders to the challenges they faced, these women had a lot to share including some stellar advice for fellow female entrepreneurs (so much so that we just had to write a second article on the topic).

Here at The Manual, we’ve had the opportunity to speak with a lot of successful business leaders — but these interviews are some of our favorites.

👉 Explore these women’s experiences.

SMB Strategies for Dealing with Rising Inflation

Inflation: one of the biggest news topics of the year and a massive thorn in the side of almost every business, big and small. The monthly inflation rate in the U.S. reached a high of 9.1% in June (eep!), and while the rate has been trending downward since, inflation is still causing headaches for a lot of business leaders.

We wrote a few different pieces about inflation this past year (stagflation, too), but our article on SMB strategies for dealing with this issue still holds up.

Inflation still got you feeling blue? We’ve got an article for that.

👉 Learn more about inflation strategies.

How to Build a PTO Policy for Your Small Business

Employees are the driving force behind business success (love you!), and they deserve to take time off when they need to. That’s why businesses need a clear paid time off (PTO) policy in place.

Plus, having a PTO policy helps reduce unscheduled absences, and employees who enjoy PTO throughout the year are less stressed, healthier, and more productive.

But each business has to build its own PTO policy based on its specific needs. So, to make life just a little bit easier for you, we explained how you can build the best PTO policy for your small business — with a template, to boot (because who doesn’t love a good template?).

👉 Check out the article (and template) here.

Guide: Building an Employee Handbook

There are some universal truths: The sky is blue, water is wet, and employees need to be trained. And one age-old tool for employee training is the employee handbook.

The employee handbook houses all your how-tos and need-to-knows in one place, which means they can get pretty meaty in terms of content. But documenting all that information can be a long and daunting task.

Do you know what might help with that? A guide to building your employee handbook. And to make things even easier — more templates!

👉 Get started on your employee handbook.

The Best Credit Cards for Small Business Owners

More than 80% of Americans have at least one credit card, which makes sense — not only do they make it easy to track your transactions, you need them to establish your credit (in other words, the measure of your trustworthiness to pay back any money that is lent to you).

And it’s just as important for business owners to have business credit cards. So, for small business leaders looking to get one of their first business cards, we compiled a list of the best credit cards based on their benefits, best uses, and financial prerequisites.

👉 Find the best credit card for your business.

How Your SMB Can Harness the Power of TikTok Before It's Too Late

TikTok is becoming one of the most popular social media platforms (if it hasn’t reached the top spot already). With over 1B monthly active users, TikTok is no longer just a social media trend for the younger crowd. Now, it’s a full-fledged marketing tool for businesses of all sizes — and it’s not too late for your SMB to jump on board.

But getting your business on the platform can seem intimidating at first — especially for the TikTok noobs amongst us. That’s why we developed a step-by-step guide for getting on TikTok, along with the tips and tricks you need to know for building a presence there.

👉 Start your TikTok journey today.

The Top 11 Takeaways from Playbook 2022

Every year, we host the biggest and best small business conference, bringing together some of the hottest business leaders to share their experience, wisdom, and advice on everything you need to know about running and scaling your business.

At Playbook 2022, we hosted the likes of marketing mastermind Seth Godin, the track stars-turned-business leaders Allyson and Wes Felix, and Drybar co-founder Alli Webb. And while we do have individual articles dedicated to each Playbook session, we also compiled our top takeaways (for those who only have time for a TL; DR).

👉 Read our top takeaways.

2023 State of Small Business Knowledge & Training Report

AKA, our pièce de résistance. We work with a ton of small and medium-sized businesses across a host of different industries, and we’ve noticed that they face a lot of the same problems. While some find it difficult to deal with these constant hurdles, other businesses seem to have it all figured out.

We wanted to understand what they’re doing differently — and thus, Trainual’s 2023 State of Small Business Knowledge & Training Report was born. Nearly 600 SMB leaders in over 20 different industries were surveyed for this report. We collected data on the state of small businesses over the past few years and where they landed in 2022.

After months of work, we’re finally able to share what the teams with the highest revenue, performance, and retention all had in common.

👉 Read the full report.

We look back at 2022 with pride, but we’re even more excited about what’s in store for 2023. So, keep your eyes peeled for future articles, podcasts, and newsletters coming your way. We promise that we’ll continue to provide the valuable content that every entrepreneur and small business leader needs to succeed.