Happy Monday everyone! Are we all starting to come out of our holiday fog? I spent a good part of the holiday break reflecting on 2018 and thinking about what I want from 2019 (and beyond), both personally and professionally (and I’m working on a post to share with you later this week). Did any of you do the same thing? This past year felt especially overwhelming, and I definitely felt like I needed the break to just slow down and think about things a bit. If you follow me on social media, it might look like I have everything together, but there is SO much going on behind the scenes that I don’t talk about in public – or at least I haven’t, yet. I’m sure the same is true for you, and it’s also true for everyone you look up to. We all have different circumstances that shape how we build our businesses in this particular season of life. The way I want to run my business now, as a mom of two young girls, is different than the way I was able to run my business before I had kids.
Anyway, if you’re a creative entrepreneur with the same feeling of overwhelm, I wanted to share a resource that has helped me figure out all the financial aspects of my business and eliminate some of the mental and business clutter that was holding me back. I talked about The Blueprint Model a bit last year, which is an amazing twelve week business coaching program for creative entrepreneurs. The Blueprint Model is only open ONCE a year, and the new session is coming up soon! But first, my friend Shanna (the mastermind behind The Blueprint Model) is hosting a FREE mini workshop called “Bringing Basics Back” – with two hours of online training – prior to reopening the doors to the longer coaching program.
When I started Oh So Beautiful Paper I had no idea what I was getting into. I never went to business school or design school, and the blog was just meant to be a creative hobby at the beginning! I never took the time to establish goals, define what success meant to me, or write out a business plan (oops). I had no idea how to price a sidebar ad, much less a sponsored post, and blogging was still so new that there wasn’t really enough data out there to use as a model. I relied on friends to help figure things out and honestly just made a lot of stuff up, but I was never really sure of what my prices should be and it was hard to feel confident in what I was charging. Once I found The Blueprint Model, it taught me to think about things differently and how to price things in a way that matched the kind of life that I want to lead.
I know there is a lot of education on the market today, and I’m honestly so glad that there are online resources that didn’t exist when I was first getting started. If you run a service-based business and are struggling to make ends meet, feel like you’re constantly spinning your wheels, and want to build something that will last the long haul – The Blueprint Model can help you SO much. Shanna taught me the fundamentals, like:
- How to price for profit
- How to be a steward of my finances (instead of wondering where it all went)
- How to not emotionally price and stand up for the value of my work
- How to create systems and routines to reduce chaos and use time wisely
So if you’ve got big plans for your business in 2019, I encourage you to start with Shanna’s Bringing Basics Back Mini Workshop, and she’s going to walk you through her Core Motivators assessment. The week-long (and totally free) workshop kicks off today, so don’t wait! Sign up right here.
