Make It

On Building a Creative Career

I enjoyed this article on "Professional Girl Crushes" from the Daily Beast which is where I found this quote from Leanne Shapton, one of the crushees. She talks about how she built her enviable career (NY Times art director, novelist and Elle columnist):

For their part, crushees tend to be appealingly modest. "I've received a few emails from younger women which is nice, but weird since I certainly don't feel like I have anything figured out," Shapton told me. "If they ask for career advice, I try to explain that I didn't really plan a career—I was able to make up my jobs along the way, and I advise them to do the same. I didn't ever decide on a single course of action. But that basically makes you—for a long time—broke, obscure, somewhat unreliable and scattered. Trying to answer the question 'What do you do?' would give me hives."

I find this quote comforting as I try to cobble together a bunch of random work experiences in the hopes of eventually building a creative career I truly enjoy (and that will, you know, pay decently).

Who's your professional girl crush?

Interview with Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter

An interview with Lisa Price, founder of the wildly successful beauty company Carol's Daughter, went up last week on Clutch.

Clutch: Any advice for female entrepreneurs who need that extra boost?
Lisa Price: The most important thing to remember is to always stay balanced and transparent. If you remain authentic while adapting to the changing landscape around you, you can never fail.

Find ways in your community to test-drive your creation. I started with a local flea market run by our church. Use your family and friends for honest feedback. If they love the products they’ll tell their friends and so on. It’s that word of mouth promotion that is so priceless

Check it out here.

Stamped Business Cards

These might be the best business cards I've ever seen. Not only am I loving the huge angled typography spilling over the sides of the card, these are stamped by hand! And you know how I adore rubber stamps! It's such an affordable option for small businesses. You could use this stamp on letterhead, thank you notes for customers, mailing envelopes, retail bags for craft shows, the possibilities are endless. I have plenty of blank cardstock in a variety of colors so I think I'm definitely going the rubber stamp route for my next set of biz cards.

Keep Calm...

The New York Times recently wrote about the ubiquitous Keep Calm and Carry On posters. In the article they explained something I've always wondered about: How can so many different shops offer up the same poster?

On a less romantic note, the design is in the public domain, meaning it can be remade and sold by anybody...Relations among [the various] sellers are not particularly friendly; each complains of copycats selling low-quality versions.

Twitter 101 for Businesses

Via Mashable - a great blog with lots of social media news and statistics - I found out about Twitter's new  guide to using the site for businesses: Twitter 101 for Business. I've written before about how Twitter is a great tool for entrepreneurs, but if you need a little extra nudge to join up, here you go. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/rifferaff

Beauty By The Batch

A new site dedicate to promoting handmade beauty and skin products. Soapmakers: submit your store for their Artisan Directory.

Amazon Buys Zappos, Why Small Businesses Should Take Note

On Wednesday, the CEO of Zappos announced in an open letter to employees that the company will be merging with online retailing giant, Amazon.com. This is of special interest to small business owners because if you've ever ordered from Zappos, read about Zappos or heard about Zappos, you've probably heard customers rave about their customer service. When I interviewed for a job last year and was asked to name a company with great customer service, Zappos was the first one that popped into my brain. They absolutely treat their customers like royalty and, as a result, have cultivated a deeply loyal fan base. Additionally, their executives are incredibly accesible on social media, I once sent a direct Twitter message to the Zappos CEO and received a reply just a few hours later.

This factored heavily in the decision for Amazon to pursue a relationship with them. In the video that Amazon founder Jeff Bazos recorded for company employees, he states, "Zappos has a customer obsession which is so easy for me to admire. It is the starting point for Zappos. It is the place where Zappos begins and ends. And that is a very key factor for me. I get all weak-kneed when I see a customer-obsessed company, and Zappos certainly is that." (See the video and read more about the buyout here)

What this acquisition says to me is that the future of online retail will only continue to grow, with companies like Zappos and Amazon leading they way, smaller business can follow in their wake; as a result, customer service will remain of the utmost importance.

Biz Tips from DVF

The New York Times' Business section had an article about one of my favorite fashion industry entrepreneurs earlier this week. There are lots of great nuggets of wisdom about business and branding in the story, in addition to a fascinating look at the life of Ms. Diane Von Furstenberg.

Ms. von Furstenberg knows firsthand the perils of saturating the market. It is one reason she had to sell her dress business in the late 1970s and it is why today she tells young designers who hope their businesses are bought by a big company: “Don’t wish for that. Just grow yourself naturally. The more you can grow yourself naturally, the more you can control your own destiny.” ...Ms. von Furstenberg says it is crucial to fill a niche rather than to aim to be a brand that is all things to all consumers. Her own specialty is feminine yet comfortable women’s fashion.

Read the whole thing here.

Small Business Spotlight - AwesomeAsAOne

Business: AwesomeAsAOne
Owner: Allegra
What: Fabric zipper pouches

First Impression: Allegra does one thing and she does it well. By focusing on zippered pouches only, she's been able to crank out an impressive number of sales in her first few months on Etsy.

Helpful Suggestion/Criticism: You specialize in pouches, you work with fabric and zippers, so why does your Etsy banner have a close up photo of a leaf? Make a new banner featuring either a photo of your pouches, some interesting photo of a zipper, a pile of fabric, anything that would relate more directly to your product.

Once again, I think consistency of photography would make your Etsy page more appealing. Your pouches are photographed against a variety of backgrounds, sometimes being held by someone, sometimes not. I say pick one "theme" and stick to it. I like this photo of someone holding the pouch in front of a tree trunk. Maybe consider photographing all your pouches in this way. Then when you get a spot in a treasury or on the front page, your photo will be instantly recognizeable as yours, even without seeing the shop name ("hey, that's the shop that photographs pouches in front of trees.")

You have a blurb in your Shop Announcement section about how the name of your shop came to be. This is helpful because the name is unique. However, I didn't realize that was what you were trying to tell me until I finished reading the paragraph since you start out talking about a video you watched in 5th grade. Consider putting a small note at the beginning of the story: "This is the story of how AwesomeAsAOne came to be" so that the first thing a customer reads on your page doesn't confuse them. Or, move the story to your Profile page and instead, put a note on the Shop Announcement saying "See my profile to learn about the origin of my unique shop name." That frees up space on the Shop Announcement section to post info about sales, vacation days, etc.

Alright, time to open it up for comments. Take a look at AwesomeAsAOne and let us know what you think. Am I on target with these suggestions or way off base?

New Gig: Editor of Pad Blog

I'm happy to let you know that- in addition to Make It, which isn't going anywhere- you can also now find me blogging at Pad, the home decor blog of the Clutch Magazine Blog Network. I'm excited to start writing about topics of decor, design, food and gardening that don't really fit in on Make It. I'll be posting there several times a day. Come over and say hi and leave a comment for what you'd like to see.