4 Ways to stay connected & fulfilled with your business
Running a business is hard, isn’t it? It is even harder when you have fallen out of love with it!
You have found this blog (hi! 👋🏻) so I am going to assume that you are also a female entrepreneur! We are a force to be reckoned with, right? As a fellow woman in business, I really believe we have something very special in common... a unique drive to do what we love. It’s a wonderful thing isn’t it? BUT what do you do if you find yourself not loving it so much any more?
Read on for a little bit about my journey and why I decided to pivot my business to to try and get more fulfilment from my work. Then read on a bit more to see my tips for keeping your business love affair alive.
It all started many moons ago (2001) when I graduated from Southampton with my Graphic Design degree. I managed to land a job at a small, local graphic design agency and after 4 years of fab, hands-on experience it was time to move on. I applied to lots of different jobs but actually found more success as a freelancer. I landed lots of work including jobs for NSPCC and Tempur, who I went on to work with for many years. In 2005 I joined forces with a friend who was starting a print management company and I took on the design arm of the business. Our clients consisted mainly of corporate marketing departments and pharmaceutical companies which naturally attracted more of the same. It wasn’t really the direction I was expecting my work to go in.
A few examples of my work…
After 10 years, we wanted a bit of a change and so in order to do something less ‘corporate’ and more ‘fun’, HelloParty.com was born. An online party shop selling unique and stylish party supplies. It was supposed to be a little side project to keep our spirits up but it turned into much more!
In 2018, my business partner had to retire due to ill health so I kept both businesses on on my own.
I have learned a tremendous amount about the eCommerce world, web design, photography, social media, online advertising and more but the most important thing I have learned is what I don’t want to do!
Hello Party has been a wonderful passion project which I have absolutely loved but, (you knew there was a but coming, right?) it has got too much for one person to manage. I had to think, do I want to start employing people, looking for new premises, a warehouse? I was at a crossroads.
My heart sang when I was doing all the creative tasks. Crafting the branding, the visual identity, the social media content, the graphics and taking photos, but the day-to-day tasks of packing orders and managing inventory are not my favourite things to do! I concluded that graphic design is what I should be concentrating on. That is my calling. That is my passion.
So here we are. By listening to my intuition, I find myself going back to my roots. Although I never stopped designing as I have been running both businesses side by side, it’s time to re-focus.
The reason for starting Hello Party, for wanting to do less corporate and more fun work, is the same reason I am starting Hello Designs. It taught me that I still need to be a designer, I just need to do the right design work! Running Hello Party made me realise that my forte and my special blend of experiences has put me and a unique position to help fellow women in business, particularly in eCommerce, produce beautiful and meaningful visual identities and websites for their brands.
So... drum roll please... I am delighted to introduce you to my new brand, Hello Designs…
Crafting this new brand has been the result of lots of soul searching and it has been a joy. I now feel like I have a brand I am proud of and that gives me the confidence to get out there and know that I am doing what I am meant to be doing.
So if you are going through a love-hate phase with your business, here are my top tips to stay connected and fulfilled:
01 | Create work that brings you joy
Think about the work YOU want to do and do MORE of that, even if it’s not always for paying clients. Especially if you are in a creative industry. I know that sounds obvious but when I started out, I did the work that was there and that I could get, which had a chain reaction of just getting more of the same type of work and I ended up doing it for 17 years! If I had spent time building a portfolio of work that better reflected my style and personality, I probably wouldn’t have got so lost in the corporate world.
02 | Your mission
When starting your business, or you feel you are at a crossroads, really take the time to think deeply about your mission. Why are you doing what you are doing? This will always lead you down the right path. I highly recommend you watch Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/2Ss78LfY3nE for inspiration. Really, the only reason I had for doing what I was doing, was because the work was there. This might be enough for some people and that’s great, but my heart wasn’t in it. I know I can produce better work if I actually CARE about what I’m doing. Which is why I reflected on my mission and pivoted to aim my business at fellow females who are building businesses from what they love to do too as I know how hard it is to run a business and I want more women to succeed!
03 | Listen to your intuition
Trust it. You’d be surprised, you probably already know what you need to do. I had been thinking about re-branding my design business for a long time but it took a couple of years to act on it. I wish I’d listened to my heart earlier.
04 | Is your branding holding you back?
My corporate brand did not fit with me so I hid away from it. I never talked about it with friends, if people asked what I did, I would say, I’m a graphic designer and leave it at that. Although the branding reflected who my clients were and I was successful at attracting more work, it wasn’t the work I wanted to do. This is the biggie for me. This is where the change in my business has come about because now that I have a brand strategy and a visual identity that is compatible with my mission, I feel more connected with it and therefore more confident. I know that I will be shouting about it to whoever I meet and will take the chance on opportunities I wouldn’t have even thought of doing before. This is the power of brand strategy and brand identity design and why it is one of the most important investments you’ll make in your business.
Now I have this newfound confidence in my brand, I’d love to do the same for you and yours! If you need to take your business to the next level or you’re just starting out, get in touch! Let’s work together. I can’t wait to help your brand shine.
I hope these tips help in some way. If you have any of your own do let me know!
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