Starting from Scratch: What would you do differently if you had to start all over again?
Hi friends! Today on the ol’ blog, I am sharing an little interview I did with Canvas Rebel Magazine about what I would do differently if I were to start my sweet little biz baby all over again from scratch. Or would I even do anything differently?! I love the place I’m at currently so it’s tough to say but I did mention a few things below that would have made for a few less tears and sleepless nights along the way.
Alright, Danielle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today?
Looking back over my path so far, it’s easy to say I would do everything differently because everything is easier and clear as day in hindsight, isn’t it?! Part of me wants to say that I wish I had niched down my offerings sooner because I know that every time I do, every aspect of my business runs better and smoother. I think the caveat there, in an industry that is as multi-faceted as wedding stationery, is that honing in on what you absolutely love (and what you absolutely don’t!) requires you to try out a lot of different offerings and methods of offering them along the way. Rome wasn’t built in a day, bb.
That being said, I can definitely offer a few things that I wish someone would have told me as I was starting out on my stationery journey.
1. Hire a bookkeeper. Before you need one. Have them set you up before you even make a dime. Keep track of every single expense and what project it is for. I know this sounds elementary and silly but if you are anything like me, this does not come naturally to you and it’s better to have someone walk you through it. Open a business bank account but actually use it and keep your business and personal accounts separate. Trust me on this one. When you start to grow, you will be so thankful you set yourself up and don’t have a wild mess to clean up.
2. You will always experience a level of imposter syndrome if you are growing as an artist. There are studies that show that over achievers experience this at a much higher level and it is pretty normal across the board. I think this is because couch potatoes aren’t putting themselves in situations where they are being challenged, whereas an entrepreneur is being challenged constantly on the daily and figuring things out in real time. No offense to couch potatoes!
3. You don’t have to be the best, most prolific artist in your field. But you do need to figure out how to position yourself in your market and attract the right clients.
4. One way to attract the right clients is to only post work you want more of. We all need to pay our bills but don’t post a single thing you don’t want to be hired for again. If you are just starting out and need more content, create for yourself instead. I still do this to this day and it’s always my best work that I get hired for because it’s not edited and overly revised by a client’s vision. This is a two parter because you will also learn about printing and production in the process – always better to mess up on your own project.
5. Never forget, red flags are like cockroaches. You see one, there will be many, many more. Ew. This one took me a while. But if I get that icky feeling before booking, I am now unafraid to be suddenly unavailable for that project. You will fill that spot and it will be with a client that you are more aligned with.
6. Never do any design work without a contract and retainer. While you’re at it, invest in a good client management system that has contracts and workflows. So much easier to set this up before you’re jamming then to wait until your eyes are going to pop out of your head and try to learn it then :)
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?
I fondly recall pressing flowers into handmade paper with my grandmother as a child, obsessing over handwriting techniques in grade school and eventually sign-making and creating invitations for all of my friends and family in my 20’s while I attended Interior Design school. Little did I know, I could actually monetize my passion.
I accidentally stumbled into the wedding industry back in 2015 and spent every spare minute teaching myself lettering, calligraphy, graphic design and marketing. It started as a side hustle while working full time and raising my daughter but grew quickly due to my obsession with all things calligraphy and weddings. I took the leap in 2020 to go full time and opened a creative studio in Costa Mesa where we design, produce and delicately assemble every invitation suite and day of detail for your wedding or event.
I think our focus on elevated customer service, a high level of customization and luxury products as well as being able to work closely with your planner enables us to offer our clients a superior experience all around.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Being in the wedding industry, it has been very beneficial to form relationships with local wedding planners and venues in the area! I love being able to work with trusted vendors repeatedly and knowing what our flow and process looks like together. But I do have to say that the combination of blogging and pinning on Pinterest has seen some really exciting results. We see about 250,000 visitors monthly through Pinterest and are booking all over the country and have even had the opportunity to design for a wedding in Copenhagen, Scotland, and France this year! Could not recommend figuring out a Pinterest strategy more! Especially as instagram falls further off a cliff…
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
The most life changing book for me has to be The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I feel like I picked it up at exactly at the right time and I don’t think it’s coincidental that shortly after reading it is when my business really started seeing momentum. I just recommend it to a fellow entrepreneur friend a few weeks ago and she said she couldn’t put it down until she finished it!
“A good rule of thumb—if your heart is not on the line, the work is not the work you were meant to pursue.”
