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Hard Lessons Learned from 6 Years in Business
120 Plays1 year ago
Listen in as we spill the tea on the 13 hardest lessons we’ve learned from our 6 years as co-founders of Foxtrot Branding. Let us know your thoughts and what you’d like to hear more about in our next episodes!
0:00 Intro
3:30 Weekend Highlights
5:51 Backstory of how we started our business
6:55 Lesson 1: Time off from work is a non-negotiable
9:12 Lesson 2: Rest is necessary for your creativity and mental health
11:10 Lesson 3: Supporting your mental health as a business owner is crucial
14:40 Lesson 4: Running a business is emotional, and that’s ok
18:53 Lesson 5: The biggest projects aren’t always the best
20:53 Lesson 6: It takes time to figure out your service offerings
23:15 Lesson 7: There are pros and cons to running your own business
28:46 Lesson 8: Being a client to someone else makes us better service providers
30:52 Lesson 9: Collaboration & outsourcing is scary but worth it
34:00 Lesson 10: It’s worth investing in education & community
38:39 Lesson 11: You’ll no limit to how much you can learn
39:25 Lesson 12: There’s a client for every designer (the market isn’t oversaturated)
43:08 Lesson 13: Building a business that will last takes time and intention
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Transcript
Introduction to Spill the Tea
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Spill the Tea. We are Cass and Amanda. We're the co-founders of the Creative Studio Foxtrot branding, and we're super excited to be on for another episode of Spill the Tea. Yeah and in these episodes we spill the tea about our lives as designers and business owners and the challenges and for rewards that come up along the way.
Reflecting on Six Years in Business
00:00:19
Speaker
Yeah so in today's episode we're going to be chatting about all of the lessons that we've learned over our last six years of business and there's a lot you know there's there's good things and there's hard things and we kind of just want to talk about all of it really openly.
00:00:32
Speaker
We're going to see as much as we can get through today and just share just share some stories and experiences, and hopefully that helps you in your business journey too. Yeah. We've been going on it for six years now, officially. September is our birthday month, so we thought it would be nice to do a reflection episode to kind of look back. and Love to reflect.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. Share about lessons. Most of them we've learned the hard way, but I'm thinking about anything that I feel like super traumatized by. i feel like i it it and Looking back, I feel okay about it all. you know like There was hard stuff in the moment, but now I look back on it. I'm like, you know I made it through. It only makes you stronger. again yeah like That's the only way you can really like earn your wisdom as a business owner is to go through it. but Hopefully, if there are specific scenarios like we have advice for of don't do this or make a backup of this, for example, like you guys can not make that same mistake. So you don't have the same trauma that we have. Right, exactly. Hopefully we can save you.
The Value of Reflection
00:01:32
Speaker
um So what are we drinking today? I've got my my little cowboy mug from Wyoming. Oh, is that new? It's very cute. No, I've had it for a couple years as my family, my grandpa lives in Wyoming. So we'll go there every couple of years and visit and I picked this one up on there. I always need like the lore behind the cup.
00:01:51
Speaker
The lure, yeah. And I'm just drinking things like lemon ginseng tea. It's like my favorite. It's either that or lately I've been doing green tea with peppermint um tea with it. And it's really good and refreshing in the morning. It sounds so healthy. If I switched to tea in the morning, I feel like I'd be a lot healthier as a person, but I just I really like the morning ritual of coffee. I just have um like an Americano since we have an espresso machine. I just put some water in it. i When I do like a sweet breakfast, I like a not sweet coffee to go with it. And I just had like a ah bar this morning. So yeah, that's what I'll go for like a black coffee. But if I'm having like eggs or something, then I like a like sweet iced coffee to go with it.
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm like, I want to see your mug up closer. I'm sure little mugs like close. So i moment I think we should start doing this. We should, we should take a screenshot of it. Yeah. um i got I thrifted these little mugs and they look like, um they kind of look, they look like they're from the 80s, but they have these like really cute illustrations um of like houses and like little farm animals on them. And Amanda was like, those are a really um common like collectible as part of like a dinner set, right?
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, they have a full set. You can get plates, bowls, mugs, and everything. I had never seen them before. I see them all the time at the thrift store, especially around here where I live. We have a lot of really great thrift stores, and I see them all the time, and they're so cute. Yeah, they make me really happy. They're the perfect little size. I have two of them. One of them chipped immediately, though, which I'm really sad about. Well, you'll find another. You can just thrift some more. They're never-ending. That makes me excited. You can probably get them all on eBay, too. You can buy a whole collection if you really want to. True.
Weekend Highlights
00:03:30
Speaker
Okay. Do we want to do our weekend highlight and kind of share something that was fun from each of our weekends? You want to share about yours? You had like a really fun week. You had a full week. I did. I had a full, I had a full weekend, basically like of a five day weekend because I went to the beach last week.
00:03:46
Speaker
um with my husband's family and it was actually like one of the best beach trips I think I've ever had just like where we stayed it was so nice it was very relaxing um we got to eat at like really good restaurants I feel like the vibes were just good and I had a good time and it was like a really pretty beach area in um South Carolina and I just had a really good time I feel like it was really needed um because it's just been a really busy busy couple of months and it's just going to keep getting busy. So I was really glad I got to do that. Yeah. It looks like you guys had a lot of fun. we're on I'm on her like close friends stories and I'm like seeing all the things you're up to. and One of my friends was like, your close friends is like my TV this week. I was like, yeah you i was like I was very entertained. What about you? Yeah, my weekend highlight. i um I've been hanging out with this group. like there's
00:04:37
Speaker
there's this organization that does like meetups so you can like meet new people and if you're like new to the city. I'm not super new to where I moved to but like, I hadn't put it in a lot of effort to like meet people make friends. But I joined this like workout group and then we've been hanging out. And we had like a girls night out the other night and that was a lot of fun. So long time which you we celebrated my sister's birthday to this weekend. So it was very, very busy, very full.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I visited another friend and we like met up between our towns and got brunch and that was nice too to catch up with her because I only see her every couple months. So lots and lots of socializing this weekend, which was fun. Love a brunch. I love a brunch. I'm a brunch girl. I don't get a brunch like once a week. Yeah. I need a brunch to function. and Yeah. Which was hard. I gotta have my girl time. It's important. It's necessary. We didn't really used to have a good brunch place.
00:05:27
Speaker
um where I live, but now we have a bakery that is actually open on Sundays, especially because there's just not a lot of places open on Sundays in small town in the south. So now there is a Sunday brunch place. Or if they are, it's all like the really big, like, and like chain restaurants and stuff. And it's like, that's not always like the vibe. Am I going to Golden Crow on a Sunday? No, not my favorite. Okay.
Founding Story
00:05:51
Speaker
So back to our topic, we keep getting off on our tangents and everything, but back to our topic, we're going to be talking about all the lessons that we've learned over the years, the good, the bad, the difficult, the easy, all of that. Um, and just to give like a quick, you know, our quick origin story backstory.
00:06:07
Speaker
We met six years ago when I was still in college. Cass had just graduated. We were both kind of freelancing and doing our own thing. We ended up meeting and realized that we had a lot of really complimentary skills and we just decided to start this business together officially. So.
00:06:22
Speaker
after one week of knowing each other, which we tell the story in more in depth another time. um But within one week of knowing each other officially, we started the business together, which is kind of a fun, crazy story, but it all worked out great for us, which is awesome. And yeah, that's where we're at now. Business has been going really well for the last six years. We've definitely grown a lot and we're excited to share with you guys all the things that we've learned.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, spill the tea maybe on a few juicy ones. Hopefully, yeah. Okay, so I think we're just going to go back and forth and kind of like pick a lesson that each of us
Preventing Burnout
00:06:59
Speaker
want to share. so We've got a list here that we're choosing from. I feel like the first one that like I just think of that always comes to my mind when I think of like a lesson that ah a lesson that I've learned over the years would just be how important time off is and like especially just coming off of a week where I did work a little bit when I was gone, but I got to take some vacation time. um I always say like we would I would not be running the business at the capacity that I am if i we didn't prioritize time off in our business. so i just don't I don't think time off is optional as a business owner because if you don't plan it and set those times aside for yourself, you're probably going to be forced into it because you're going to burn out really bad and it's just so necessary. and
00:07:45
Speaker
even as entrepreneurs, like we'll talk about how, you you know since we are putting in the extra work to to run our own business, we want to probably get even more time off if possible than we would if we were employed for someone else. And I just think in America, employers do not give not enough time off at all. Like like two weeks out of 52 weeks is nothing. even That is awful. you know I feel like six weeks is kind of like the minimum that should be for yeah for like good mental health and human functioning. so That is something we've prioritized and I'm really glad that we have because um it just it gives you so much perspective to be able to step away for us like fully from our business and take more extended periods of time off, you know not just even a long weekend here or a week here and there. We have our
00:08:35
Speaker
Two longer breaks in the summer in the winter and I just really need that because as an entrepreneur you get kind of tunnel vision I think sometimes and it just feels for me at least it feels really Overwhelming and I can't really see outside of like this month that I'm trying to get through so I think that's also where like your creativity gets renewed too because It's really hard to come up by with ideas when you're just constantly in the trenches and never taking time away.
00:09:00
Speaker
That's the bigger one for me. I think we both kind of have different benefits that we reap from like the time that we take apart. Like I feel like especially as like, as a creative, just like in general, I think we need a lot of time for our brains to like just totally rest. And that's when like the really great ideas do come through, you know, and that's how I feel about creativity. I feel like I'm not always like coming up with ideas. Like I feel like they come to me. And you have to like create that space for those ideas to come to you.
00:09:28
Speaker
And taking time apart from the business and taking time to like travel or go do something that like inspires you or excites you as a creative person, I think is the best way to like fuel those ideas. And taking that time apart, like um to just like go on some trips this year, I went on a couple like small trips and then like our bigger vacation. And from each of those, I got so much like inspiration that I then use in our like rebrand for our business. And we'll talk about that another time. but Yeah, like that's like it's just so necessary, I think, as a creative and as a business owner. I think your business really reflects what you put into your mental health and your well-being. I think if you
Mental Health in Business
00:10:09
Speaker
are feeling really burnt out and really scatterbrained, like your business is going to reflect that. and
00:10:15
Speaker
yeah how it functions and how it looks but and I can visually see now that we're like rolling out our some of our rebrand like your European like backpacking trip like it's reflected like in our our branding and the colors and like the ideas you had from it so it's very cool to see like the the visual representation and payoff of taking that time off because I know it's yeah a scary thing to do um and you know it even feels a little scary for us because that is time like when we're away where you know um possibly losing same inquiries. We're not able to be there actively marketing. There are things you can do to to get keep things running, but yeah, like that is a risk you take, but I think it's always worth it 100%.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, and if you guys do want some more information on like how to set yourself up for long times of um or just like long breaks away from work, we did do a episode all about that. So you can go back and listen to that. um But I think that's kind of like another lesson we learned. I don't have this written down on the list, but just like just how important it is to like, really take good care of yourself and your mental health as a business owner, like Cass and I are both really passionate about just mental health and um just doing what we need so that we can like not just be productive, but also like be happy and be content in our lives. like you know Even if you own your own business, like work is still work and we don't ever want like our own business to negatively affect our lives. Like Cass said, like if we're starting our own business, we're putting in all this effort, I want to have like an even greater reward than if I were to work for someone else. so like I want to be able to take the time off, I want to be able to pay myself a bonus, I'm not stressed about finances, and like
00:11:51
Speaker
I can put that money towards something else exciting that enriches my life. like That's all really important to me. I have the money to like support myself. We can go to therapy if we need to. like We can have the support we need. And all of that is really important to both of us.
Emotional Challenges
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah and it's like as a business owner you have the flexibility to be able to change things if it's not working for your lifestyle or working for you mentally anymore but you do have to put the energy into doing that and whether that's like just taking the time to acknowledge it and think through it and being like, I've been in kind of like a bad head space mentally. I wonder if there are things in my business that are like causing that or things I could change to get out of that or going to therapy and talking about it. Um, even like just a couple of months ago, I scheduled a therapy session. I hadn't been in a while because I felt like just really overwhelmed by work. Um, and I was just so go, go, go. I wasn't like stopping to think about it. And I was like doing the like
00:12:50
Speaker
having three screens in front of me at all times, like just not even like stopping to consider what was going on or I guess just like accept that I was feeling really overwhelmed. So it was very grounding just to have that session. And I don't even think I had any big breakthroughs. I think my therapist was just like, maybe you should like not have a YouTube video on 24 seven so that your brain could like process some things. Yeah. um I just tend to get in like a tailspin really easily.
00:13:17
Speaker
in my head and I just, it makes me anxious all the time and I just bury it so deeply. I don't like deal with it. So I think you you have to deal with it as a business owner. Like, yes, you have the the option to change things. Whereas if you were employed, you don't have that flexibility. It kind of just is what it is unless you want to search for another job. um But it takes work to Like actually change things for yourself and figure out how you want to adapt things to make things better in your head and make it so that you can feel more peaceful and like just chill and the other aspects of your life. Cause your business will like eat into those other areas and stress you out when you want to be like just relaxing and not thinking about work.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, you have to take really good care of yourself as a business owner. And it's not that easy sometimes. It's definitely hard to like i don't know maintain good like physical and mental health and keep everything balanced, but it's definitely worth the effort. Yeah. And it not to say that it's like...
00:14:15
Speaker
easy when you are an employee or you have a different type of, I don't know, job, but it it's unique. I think and some of the challenges are going to be different because you it does get more easy to like overwork yourself and not set those boundaries of, this is my working time, or you know they're just unique challenges that that come with it. So I think, yeah, you have to be intentional with it, which I do have a lesson about.
00:14:42
Speaker
how the biggest struggles I've had in business have been emotional. like I feel like hands down, eight yes, we've had financial um difficulties or stressful months or times. Yes, there have been times where I just feel like really overworked or feel like I can't keep up, but I feel like the um the emotions are the hardest part for me when it comes to running my own business, like dealing with feeling like I'm failing. like That's been a huge one for me in like the past year that just like keeps coming up. or and It's interesting too when you say that because it's like you'll feel like you're failing even though like our business is like if you look at logistically or like look at the numbers, like we actually are doing really well. and so It's like your feelings are not always reflecting like what's true in your actual numbers, your actual success of your business. you know
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's so true. It's weird how those emotions like really just take over though. And like people will ask me, how's your business going? And I'm like, um, it's going good. like That's how I like started because I just it's so interesting. We have we always talk about this. We have such different like approaches to business. Like I feel like I'm never super stressed about business. But I'm like stressed about all kinds of other things in my life. It's just like, we each have our thing. There's like There's something that triggers different feelings in yourself and like for you it's like business triggers a lot of things and like that's kind of like we're saying that lesson is like business can be very emotional and it's kind of like when people say like marriage is hard like marriage takes a lot of work like also owning a business is a lot of work and it's hard and like it does trigger a lot of things in you that you have to like heal and Because there's all kinds of like, you know, ways you can doubt yourself and how you interact with clients or like, you may um try to like, assess your self worth based on how good of a designer you are or based on how much you're charging or making the comparisons. Yeah, it's like, there's so many different ways you can be triggered in business for sure.
00:16:34
Speaker
Which is exhausting, honestly. And I think that is a unique thing of working for yourself, that you have to deal with all of those like emotional challenges that come up. so i yeah And there's just so many different kinds. like I feel like one will kind of... be like be at the forefront for me just depending on where
Perception vs. Reality
00:16:52
Speaker
I'm at. And I feel like earlier on it was probably a lot of that imposter syndrome feeling or just feeling like I didn't know enough or I wasn't going to be able to provide for my clients, which don't get me wrong. I still get you know a little bit nervous about projects sometimes. or And it's not even founded in reality because at this point I am very confident in what what we offer and you know being able to achieve that for my clients and I only
00:17:17
Speaker
take on projects that I know I can achieve it. i'm I'm not anymore feeling like, okay, I'm going to figure this out as I go. like I don't feel that way anymore. but um i don't i don't That's not necessarily at the forefront for me anymore. like The imposter syndrome, it is more sometimes, I think, the Just like, am I meeting these goals I wanted to or achieving what I want to? And it's it is funny how people perceive your business too. I don't know if that's a lesson and ah in and of itself, but like what you think of your business or how it looks on the outside is probably not how other people are perceiving it. Like yeah if we're having a hard time. Like we'll get comments all the time for people. They're like, it looks like you're doing so well. You're working with like massive clients all the time. Like that's not totally true all the time. I mean, we are doing well, but like, I don't know. People's perceptions are very different of like what it actually feels like. Yeah. And I think that's probably true for every single business owner, no matter what level of success you hit. Like you always feel like a little bit probably insecure or like there are these things you want to achieve, but you haven't, but from the outside,
00:18:23
Speaker
It looks like you know you're you're thriving and you're hitting all the goals. so I think that's that's funny, that just that perception difference of being in it versus how people see it on the outside. Maybe that's another lesson is like the way that, like I don't know, the things you think you're struggling with that everyone's going to notice, like nobody notices. So true. like You really don't need to worry that much about like what people are seeing or thinking because usually it's positive you know and usually they're thinking you're doing even better than you might be. so It's probably fine. You don't need to worry that much. so kind of Along the same lines of like people's perception being different than your own reality, I think sometimes, like like I said, people will assume that we're always working with like super huge clients or really big projects all the time. um But that's not always super true for us. We've kind of like changed and adapted our business a little bit and like expanded our offers. um But kind of the lesson there, I think, is that like
00:19:17
Speaker
Big projects are not always like our favorite thing to do or not always like the best service.
Project Sizes: Pros and Cons
00:19:24
Speaker
I think we've definitely made that better like our biggest service offering is definitely like more profitable for us now. But I think when we were first starting like we would do all these like really huge projects and we like still felt like we were charging well.
00:19:37
Speaker
But looking back, those projects were not always the most profitable. like if you actually you know If you split that money between us two and the business and any other contractors we hired to help with that project, like it wasn't always the most profitable. um So I think like although big projects and like high ticket clients can definitely sound super exciting, I don't think that's like always like the best project or always our favorite.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, just considering like the amount of time that was taking up on our calendar, the amount of and we couldn't take on a lot of other work while we were working with that one client. Which would be fine if you're charging enough for the project that you're doing, but we weren't always doing that, so it's like we're filling this huge time slot.
00:20:18
Speaker
and doing all this work and you're really stressed because there's like a lot of pressure on you, especially for those big projects. like Your clients are really expecting a lot of you and it's just like ah it's a lot to have to like fulfill. It's very emotionally taxing. It's very emotionally taxing and if you're not charging enough, it cannot be as profitable as you're hoping and then you're kind of taking away from your business in other areas.
00:20:41
Speaker
So, it's not always the best. I think it's important to have like levels of services in your business. We've found that that has been like the most like successful for us, for sure. Yeah. i That kind of leads into just how it takes a while to figure out the type of services that you enjoy providing. and Also, that's probably going to change depending on where you're at in life. I know there are some designers that just do like one specific service that's like a set timeline and just do that over and over again. um Whereas for us, I think we do like having the variety in timeline because it kind of keeps things varied for us um and it allows us to work with a lot of different type of business owners. It's not like, oh, like your needs and budget don't fit into the service that we have so we can't work with you. like That was very freeing.
00:21:31
Speaker
to be able to offer timelines that like really varied and and budget options that varied because I really do love getting to work with business owners that maybe are on like a 3K or under budget. like Those have been some really excellent clients to work with, but I also, of course, love doing the bigger ones too. I i like both of them. i think The reason I like both of them is probably because of the smaller ones being less taxing emotionally um and feeling feeling like less of a commitment because sometimes when you're five weeks into like a 10-week project, it's like it's it's a lot. You don't always know how the dynamic is going to go with the client. um It can be stressful for the client as well because it's it's a big commitment and a big investment for them. so It is nice to have those quicker ones where you just
00:22:20
Speaker
Um, you know, take them on and then send them off. And then if you guys decide you want to work together again in the future, you can, but you're done with that initial project. Yeah. And I kind of like that too, just because I like to like mix things up a lot. I feel like I do get kind of bored. I mean, like I still love my clients. I still love my projects, but I do kind of get bored working on the same project for like 10 weeks. And like, I'm so ready to be done with it by the end. And so I really do enjoy our shorter projects because I can just like get really excited about them.
00:22:46
Speaker
get all these great ideas out and then be done and get that, like I don't know, that dopamine boost you get of just being like, ooh, I just finished this project and like I'm so proud of how it turned out. like That's a great feeling and I like having that more often. I think that definitely like just feels better. I don't know, it's nice. And it's probably not something, it's something that would be hard to find probably like if you worked for a company as a designer because I assume like you're working on really long projects when you're in that type of role.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, I do have friends who are like in more corporate design um kind of offices. And it just sounds like such a mess. Like they try to be super organized. I have all these systems, but it's like, it's also ah like corporate. And so nothing actually gets done when it's supposed to be. And there's just so many people involved. And I'm like, oh oh gosh, I'm so glad that we have our own business and like can do it the way that we want to do it. I feel like we're a lot more like productive and effective. um Because we just kind of cut out all of the like corporate like crap you have to do. I don't know.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that I I've not worked for a corporate company, but just from the people around me that do is I think it would suck my soul. Oh, yeah. I know it sounds like in college, but yeah, it definitely I was like,
00:23:58
Speaker
I don't know if this is my favorite. I don't know if I want to work on these types of projects all the time. yeah And it's just that that trade off of like, yes, as entrepreneurs, we don't have to deal with all of that. We can just get stuff done. But it comes with a lot more responsibility and emotional weight, too, because when you are making your own projects and systems, like ultimately you're responsible for all of it. But I feel like it is worth it to me so long as I'm putting in the work to manage those and challenges that come along with it, it makes me feel more fulfilled. And like that is worth it to me. That's more important, I think. Yeah, I feel like no matter. Yeah, I feel like I don't even know if I ever would go work for another company if I if I can manage to you know, like if I can manage to always like do my own thing.
00:24:46
Speaker
I think I would try to because it just like works so much more for my personality and my interests and my strengths. you know like i just I really love being able to like have control over my days and over the work that I do. It makes me a lot happier.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah, it would definitely have to be the right opportunity for me. I feel like it would be really beneficial for my professional growth to work for someone else and i could I could see myself doing it in the future like if if it really was the right situation. And like who knows, like sometimes I know a lot of designers hit a point where they're just like, I just i need to change. like i'm I'm exhausted from you know doing my business and they'll It usually seems to be a ah specific creative role for someone else that they'll transition into. That's not necessarily just like a kind of stereotypical corporate design role. um Yeah, like I wouldn't want to go work for someone else and like just be a designer again. Like I would want some other type of like leadership role, creative director kind of thing. I don't know. Yeah. I feel like it could be important for me just because I did jump into running my own business so young that I don't have that other type of experience. And sometimes I do feel like that that is interesting that if I were to ever go work for someone else, my primary professional experience would be running my own business, which is excellent experience in a lot of ways because it's so varied and I have experience with like a lot of softwares and management systems. But at the same time, I do lack that like,
00:26:12
Speaker
professional work environment experience, which is interesting. Since I have had that experience, I'm like, I feel like I would struggle going back, I would struggle with a hierarchy change of like, not that I struggle with someone else like being my boss, but like, just because of the way that a lot of like corporate things like if I was going to work for someone else, it would have to be another like independent creative studio that like is kind of doing things their own way too because i wouldn't want to do corporate where like i just i do get very agitated by structures of business or things where they're like they're doing all these things one way that don't make sense to me or that seems to make things more difficult like
00:26:50
Speaker
I feel like i'm always trying to think of like what's gonna be the easiest most effective way of doing this like i try to think outside the box like i make things work for my brain and like cast and i have both kind of learned for both neurodivergent like i think cast you officially have an adhd diagnosis i don't have an official like on paper one but i did.
00:27:09
Speaker
and get prescribed medication for it, which has honestly been changing my life. And just because of all those things about me and the way my brain works, I just like don't think I could do corporate kind of work anymore. like I just don't think that would work for me. I think it would, like you said, it suck my soul and I would hate it. And it would just like not so just not click for me.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, I feel the same way. and it just makes me feel like I just feel so much um empathy for most Americans who are in that type of job and like are light a lot of them are neurodivergent creatives and they just deal with it. and i'm like yeah that i just I feel for the majority of people who have to do that and I do feel privileged that I don't because I know a lot of it's like not a choice. like It's fun to talk about, oh, I would like to do this or I'd like to do that. But when it comes down to it for most people, it's like you you have to take the work that you can get you know a lot of this.
00:28:06
Speaker
come to points in our lives where we don't get to have that freedom. so I do feel really lucky that we we get to do this in a way. I think it's good to keep that perspective sometimes. when it When it does feel hard, it's like, well, this does have a lot of benefits that a lot of people don't get to have. I think it really just depends who on like your skill set because there are a lot of people, like I know I have friends who are like, I could never work for myself. like They do need the structure and they need that safety net of like the paycheck's always going to be the same. Their expectations are set for them. like Not everyone once has this desire.
00:28:35
Speaker
to like do your own thing. So I think it is nice that we have the desire and the skillset and the freedom to do that. Like we've been able to to do this for ourselves is really nice. Yeah. Kind of shifting gears.
Collaboration Benefits
00:28:47
Speaker
One interesting lesson I feel like I've learned and been thinking about in the past year is how working with other service providers has made me a better service provider. And we've gotten to, like we've consistently worked with a photographer I'm pretty much since the beginning of our business but we worked with a copywriter this year and we've worked with the Pinterest manager we've always worked with the bookkeeper yeah and it's been cool to get to afford to work with more service providers and hire stuff out.
00:29:18
Speaker
um not only because like you have someone taking care of that for you, but also just to get to be in the shoes of a client. I think that has been really important for keeping a good perspective and making us better as service providers ourselves because you get to remember what it's like to be the one who's in the role of the client. and um Sometimes when you're just having your own process as a designer, you don't fully know what it feels like to be the client and being like added to a project workspace or given to dues. I think it's just good to have that perspective because with some service providers, I would be like, oh, like I'm finding this confusing.
00:29:55
Speaker
or this made me feel like I wasn't looped in or not that we had like terrible experiences, just little things that I think really helped us improve our process because that's just really important to us to give a really great client experience and to have a good project management system. So that's something interesting that I wouldn't have thought about probably earlier on of like, Oh, it's important to work with other service providers for that reason. But I think it really has helped us hone our process and just kept me really empathetic to my clients and helps me maintain good relationships. And like looking back at our client reviews of what people say afterwards of how they felt like the process was really, really streamlined or easier. They felt really looped in. I think working with other service providers has really helped in that area.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a really great great point. like You learn so much from other people. And so it's really nice when you do get to to work with them and collaborate. You learn a lot from each other. Another lesson I was thinking on on that same thought was just that collaboration in general as a business owner can feel really scary, at least to me ah when it came to like working with freelancers, hiring people to help me with like website development, for example, or um just any kind of collaboration. For some reason, I kind of had it in my mind that if I added people like to my workspaces or kind of let them in to see like how my how I was running things or what I needed, maybe people would like
00:31:22
Speaker
judge how I've had things like that nice yeah feeling like maybe I'm not doing things right or if somebody came like I remember getting on a call with a developer to try and like troubleshoot this thing and she was like oh it's really interesting how you use like the Google inspector and I was like Interesting good or interesting i am weird? What do you mean? I don't i think she was she was super kind, but um yeah, just having people like look at how I do things did make me really self-conscious, but the more I've done it and like collaborated with people, every experience has been positive and everyone has been so nice. like For example, when I brought contractors in to help with project management on things, they're pretty much familiar with like every
00:32:06
Speaker
project workspace or like project management software. you'll They'll be like, sure, you use Basecamp. I'll jump into that. Or I'm familiar with all these other ones too. like They're very adaptable. most Most people are when it comes to like hiring people to work on stuff. And then also collaboration, the other way of um becoming a part of someone else's process. like For example, we're hiring our friend Olivia to do a bunch of Canva graphics for us and just graphics for like our business. And that's been such a cool experience um just to get to like talk to her, get her ideas. And it makes me excited to work with even more designers in the future because like truly it's been a good experience, like pretty much every single time. And it's made me feel more confident and connected. And I just think there's only pros to collaboration, even though I felt nervous about doing it at first.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like recently we've really collaborated with several people. We've hired them to make a lot of mockups for our new new site, which is very exciting. um I think by the time this episode comes out, our new website and rebrand will be all fully launched. So you guys can check that out. But we've had, ah we've hired a lot of people to help with like all the graphics and, and just kind of having people to take like an outside look at our brand and how we're wanting to change things, having their perspective has been really great. And I think collaboration just makes like your business and your brand and your work so much stronger. So that's something I'm really excited to work on. Um, as we grow our business, like we've talked about, you know, do we want to like hire more people? Um, do we want to bring them on to like our team, not just like collaborating with contractors? Like that's just something we're exploring and seeing like, how do we want to grow in the future?
00:33:48
Speaker
But like having these experiences, I can see that working with other designers and other service providers only makes the work that we provide or only makes our brand even stronger and better. So I'm excited for all
Investing in Growth
00:34:00
Speaker
of that. So I think another big lesson we learned is that it's definitely worth investing in education and you know improving our skills.
00:34:08
Speaker
Learning from mentors learning from people who've done things before or even just like investing in communities to be a part of with other designers I think that's really really helpful um especially for like having someone to kind of like toss your ideas around with and get feedback on maybe even showing your designs and getting you know other design feedback so you can grow and improve. Cass and I were talking recently about like how getting feedback from other designers can really help like sharpen your like design eye. I think especially when you're a new designer like you can often see like what looks good but you can't always
00:34:43
Speaker
deliver that same quality of work because you don't quite have the skill set to like create that level of work um or like Cass was saying like she felt like you can talk more about this but you felt like you didn't even have like a super strong design eye at first um and so I think that's where like having a community of designers or having mentors, um having educational like communities you're in can just be really really helpful in like sharpening all of those skills.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, as far as the community goes, you're going to have so many questions when you're just starting out and you're not going to find the answers on Google because they're going to be really specific and there's going to be a million different answers to those questions. So I am really glad that we had a business coach for the first couple of years because it was just somebody who was of an experienced business owner who we could ask questions and they would know our specific situation and be able to give us a definitive answer or plan. Or help us find the right answer for ourselves too, like just having reassurance and guidance. Exactly. Or someone who would be like, Yes, I hear what you're going through. That is normal and no, it's going to be okay. Validation. And here's some ideas for what you could be focusing on to either just keep pushing forward or maybe to start addressing that specific problem. And it wasn't like, oh, this is how you're going to become rich quick or like become an incredible designer. And it's not that she had like the exact perfect answer or the solution, but you kind of just like, like you said, if you're going to Google, there's like,
00:36:14
Speaker
a million answers right and it's like having someone know our unique position and be able to give us an answer even if it's not even though if it wasn't always correct it's just nice to have like one place that you're getting like feedback from that way it's a lot less confusing and that was really nice to have.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah, and some for from someone who has that background in business too, I think I would much rather prefer that than somebody who's like jumped into being a coach and like has one year of business experience and like that's it. you know like I don't think you're going to glean as much from that as you would from someone who has been through some stuff and can can can maybe see like what you might face if you were to keep on the same path or you know just just has that wisdom to help you with.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's something we try to like really keep in mind too in our own coaching, because we also have, you know, multiple courses for designers and we do one on one coaching, we've done group coaching in the past, and that's something we try to keep in mind too is that like,
00:37:13
Speaker
We as coaches and guides are not always going to have the one perfect answer for everyone either. And we try to tell them like, you know, this is still your business. Like you can like take it or leave it. Like what we advise you to do. It's still your business and we still want to like empower you to feel confident in making your own choices. I think that's like the the best way to go about being a guide, but I think it's really great that we have that experience of like having our own mentors and own coaches.
00:37:36
Speaker
to help our growth and we kind of get to have that perspective and then we can kind of pass that down to our own students in our courses. um And we've taught now, over six years, we've taught like 500 plus designers, which is crazy to think about that we've even had that many through our programs. But I think our programs and um communities have been really great for those designers. We've seen a lot of growth in them.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah, so like absolutely worth the investments to get that higher level coaching from like our coach and then the other courses we invested in, which also allowed us to be part of those communities in like Slack or Discord or whatever. like We've also just joined paid communities of designers and entrepreneurs.
00:38:16
Speaker
I've been in free ones too like in Facebook and I think those are so valuable in their own right as well because that's where you can get that feedback if you're needing a second set of eyes on something like me and Amanda have had each other which is so helpful but if you're a solopreneur you you don't have a partner so I think it's important to find people who can prove things for you.
00:38:37
Speaker
um Because yeah, as you're honing your design eye, you don't know what to look for, or like what you're missing all of the time. And looking back now at stuff I did in the first couple of years, it's so obvious to me all the things I would change or. Right. We've just grown so much. I mean, we were so young too. And when we started, it's like, you're not going to be an expert designer when you first start. And I think that's maybe a lesson in and of itself is like,
00:39:03
Speaker
we all expect ourselves to be experts like immediately and you're just not going to be. um It takes years and years. And even then, like I don't think you ever actually reach like expert level because you're always going to be reaching new levels. You're always going to be learning new skills and improving. There's not really like an end cap to that, I don't think. It's like an always evolving thing. And there's always going to be clients that are right that are the right match for your skill level where you're at. Even if you are learning web design, for example, like if you're teaching yourself, there's going to be some person, you know, or person starting a business out there that would benefit from you learning web design and building your first website for them, you know, for a really discounted rate or something. So there's always going to be a match. I just think it's important as long as you're being transparent, you know, about your skill level and your experience and charging correctly for that. There's always going to be a match all the way along your growth journey, you know, as you go into being a more experienced designer.
00:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, because I feel like people always ask us online, like they'll we'll all get like, tick tock, you know, comments all the time that are like, do you think the design industry is oversaturated? My answer is always no. Like a biggest lesson here is just like to never think that like, there's not going to be work for you. Because like I said, like, there's always going to be an equal match client for the designer for whatever price point and skill level you're at, they're going to have that budget or that you know that design style they're looking for. like There's always going to be a match. like I don't think you're ever going to run out. The important part is just like marketing yourself well, finding like you your niche like your own um your niche and finding your positioning, and then you're going to find the right people. and Those people may change. like the The type of clients you're going to attract are going to change throughout the years.
00:40:53
Speaker
our clientele has certainly changed and evolved and grown with us. So that's just like a natural evolution of owning a business. And it feels very saturated to us and to you if you're a designer and you follow other designers, but I think that's all you're seeing. Yeah, it feels like oh my god that people have so many choices. But in reality,
00:41:12
Speaker
If you put yourself in the shoes of a business owner who is looking for a service provider, or if you yourself have ever been like, okay, I need to hire somebody to do this. It doesn't feel like there's a huge pool of people you're choosing between. It feels like you have to search quite a bit. It feels like I don't even know where to begin. Okay, I'm going to think of this one connection I had with this one. You can maybe think of one person.
00:41:32
Speaker
you know that you're looking for and you'll start there. and That's how it is when people are looking to hire you and eventually find you. It's like they have this one connection with you at an event or they searched designers near me and you know you came up locally for them or they just happened to come across your Instagram post. like a ah Marketing is actually not like people just being like, I have 10 incredible designers to choose from. It's them trying to find somebody and when they find you and they feel like they connect with you or they've had a connection point in the past, you are very, very likely going to be the person they choose. It just might take some time for the timing to align correctly to where they are ready to invest in your services and you have the the service or the timeline that is the right fit for them.
00:42:17
Speaker
I think that's another reason why it's just like, it's good to have a couple different like offerings, you know, so you can always be appealing to different like different people that you want to work with. I think that's really important. Like in our experience, too, I feel like a lot of the clients who do reach out to us, they'll tell us like they've followed us for a long time, and like we're like the only designer they're talking to occasionally, we'll get someone who says like, they're gonna talk to a couple different agencies, but usually they, they just want to work with us like we're the only designer they know, and the only one they want to work with.
00:42:45
Speaker
And it's not that we're super special and they've just like always wanted to work with us. It's just like you said, like we they just know us. It's just, it's easy. It makes sense where they clicked with us for some reason. They trust us. They trust us. Yeah. And even if we've never met, maybe it's just like they, they really click with our, our content or our design style, whatever it is. Um, so I think it's just something important to keep in mind.
00:43:07
Speaker
Okay, so maybe to do one last lesson that kind of wraps things up. I think it's important to keep in mind that running a successful business is a long term endeavor and you need to have realistic expectations for it.
Long-Term Success
00:43:23
Speaker
And I think when we started our business, we didn't necessarily have any specific expectations except for like, how cool would it be if this business was actually something that paid us enough that we could comfortably live off of? That would be awesome. And the context there was like, this was like a good time for us in our lives. Like we were young, still in college or just graduated.
00:43:42
Speaker
like the town we lived in was very like affordable so it just it we didn't have to think as hard maybe is like i feel like i would have put a lot more like strategy and time and intention into like my exact goals if i if my life was more expensive or if i had you know children or dependents or something i don't have children now but like if i did i think i would think my life is in a different place now where i would put a lot more like intention and thought and also would have a lot more worries nowadays than I did at that time. So I think we were kind of lucky with the timing. But I think the the lesson still stands. Like, it's really important to not overreach like too far. I think you want to set goals that are like, you definitely want to reach, you know, but you don't want it to be so far that it's impossible. And then you just get discouraged. Because then your business isn't going to go anywhere if you're always discouraged and you want to quit and you're burnt out.
00:44:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think you can expect within the first year of whether you're doing it like as a ah freelance kind of thing or even if you're going all in that first year is really just going to be building things from the ground up and you should not expect to have like extremely consistent business and income by the end of year one. That's just not going to happen for most people. So that is why it's important to have some kind of so support plan, um whether it's like you you have a partner who can support you and you can afford to slowly build things up or you're transitioning from.
00:45:09
Speaker
a job or whatever that looks like, just know that it's going to take a lot of time to build that up. and We talked about how clients you know will follow us for years before reaching out. That's just how marketing goes. It is a very long-term endeavor where you make a connection.
00:45:25
Speaker
you know in your first year and they come back two years later, or three years later and they're finally ready to work with you. So it just takes a lot of time to get that snowball going. And I i think in you know year six, we do have a steady stream of inquiries from a lot of different places, from you know building our SEO up, from building our platforms, but it's been a lot of work of just being consistent. So you have to have, I think it's really beneficial to have that mindset of this is going to take time.
00:45:54
Speaker
I'm not going to have unrealistic expectations of seeing this level of success or you know what it's going to look like here, but having those goals that are achievable. And that is where it could be helpful to get some coaching from somebody who has done this before, who can like take a look at your situation and be like, yeah, I think this would be a realistic goal for you to strive for. Because sometimes you just don't no you know if yeah this is your first time doing something like this. Yeah, I think you don't know what you don't know. So it's really nice to have someone who has experience and perspective they can provide for you. Yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
Okay, well we'll wrap it up there for today. I don't know how many lessons we did, but I feel like we did a lot of them. um that was yeah That was nice to take a look back. Hope you guys maybe you gleaned a few things about running your own design business or if you want to start one you're feeling inspired but thank you so much for joining us.
Episode Wrap-Up
00:46:46
Speaker
um We look forward to our next episode and you can find all of our templates and courses for designers at foxtrotbranding.com. We have just rolled out a new website design so super excited for you guys to take a look. We've refreshed our branding it's looking very
00:47:03
Speaker
colorful and fun and I just think true to us and true to our brand. So excited for you guys to check that out. You can also follow us on Instagram at Foxtrot Branding and hang out with us there until our next episode. Thanks guys. See you later. Bye.