Day 11: The Value of What I Do

 

Before I started writing this post, I almost talked myself out of writing it.

I thought, "Well, I better do some research first, get some statistics to really prove the value of graphic design. And that's definitely going to take forever. So maybe I just won't, because I'm kind of tired today."

Then I checked my email. Because I tend to do that when I'm procrastinating. And I got an email newsletter from New Zealand blogger Marianne Elliott, titled "The Bravest Thing I've Done This Year." In it, she says,

"I chose to back myself not because I was sure of myself, but despite the fact that I felt insecure, uncertain and afraid."

And it really struck me, because that's how I feel about this whole endeavour, this whole doing-a-crowdfunding-campaign-to-raise-the-money-to-take-a-business-coaching-program. I'm not doing it because I'm 100% totally certain of success. I'm doing it despite all the doubts and fears that come up for me every day about this being a crazy idea. I'm writing a blog post a day for it even though it's not easy, even though I don't really have the time, even though some evenings I'd rather not.

So then I decided, well, I can just speak from the heart about the value of graphic design! I don't need to show statistics about the return on the dollar of a logo, or a Facebook post, or clever website copy. Those statistics are important, yes. But it's not, deep down, the reason I do design. Or that I write. Or that I use social media.

I do it because it connects me with my readers, who are other human beings. And I love connecting with human beings.

I do it because images and graphics tell stories too.

I do it because "I Heart CB" is a declaration in bold black, white and red, powerful as any language.

I do it because cards are fun to send in the mail.

I do it because words are my passion and have been since I was a little kid.

I do it because it's just damn fun to dance and share videos of that.

I do it because I feel compelled to tell my truth, and to read the truths of others.

I do it because an identity for a company or a product, when done right, is a beautiful thing.

And all that I have learned through my years of experience blogging and designing is what I offer as a service. That is my value. And that is what you get, if you hire me for a project.

You can see my portfolio here on my website. And you can check out the Design Credit perks on my crowdfunding campaign here. And if you have any questions at all about working with me or about whether your project would be a good fit, just email me and we can talk it out: leahcnoble@gmail.com.

And, now this post is done! I could so easily have talked myself out of writing it. But I'm glad I didn't, because although it's different than what I had imagined I would write, it's also real, and written, and done.

Day 10: It's Business Time, the details

You might be asking, "So, just what is "It's Business Time" all about, anyway?"

And, "Why is there an egg in that photo?"

(Well, the rest of this blog post will answer the first question. And the answer to the second question is, I've been "spring cleaning" old files on my computer and I found this one from a Pysanky workshop I took a couple of years ago with my mom. I thought it would be a neat, random illustration for this post, especially since Easter is just around the corner.)

Anyway, here we go: the details of the program that I'm crowdfunding in order to take. (The campaign, by the way, hit 50% today!) This post will just be about what the program offers; I'll answer some Frequently Asked Questions in a later post (questions like, "why are you going off-island for this expertise?").

Who is offering it? Three very legit, very awesome entrepreneurs who live in the United States. Their names are: Tiffany Han, Michelle Ward, and Erin Cassidy.

Can I see a video about it? Yes, here.

How long will it take? 6 months.

When does it start? April 6th.

Will you have to travel? No. Lessons and coaching are delivered via the Internet, either through email, Skype, or online conferencing software. There is also a private Facebook group.

Is it an accredited program, like an MBA? No.

What do you get for your money? In a nutshell, I get structure, coaching and branding from the three women running the course, as well as the support of the nine other participants.

But to get real specific, here are all the goodies of the course, as written by Tiffany, Michelle and Erin:

• A weekly email lesson (delivered on Mondays) designed to help you uncover, design, and articulate your dream business
• A weekly group call (every Friday at 10am PST) with Tiffany and Michelle where we’ll give you personal feedback on your homework assignment and address any roadblocks or next steps
• A private facebook group for ongoing support and community-building throughout the course

• A private coaching session with Michelle (to occur from April-June) to get crystal clear on your meaningful business idea
• A private session with Tiffany (to occur from July-Sept) to clarify and articulate your authentic business brand
• A private website and visual brand orientation with Erin (to occur in September) to walk you through your new online home
• A private call with Erin, Michelle, and Tiffany (to occur in September) to formalize your next steps and solidify your “out of the nest” action plan

You also get a full branding package that includes:

• A custom type treatment logo design
• Color palette and font family tailored to fit your brand’s style.
• Style guide with all the details for your design.
• Logo files in all the popular formats, so you’ll be set for web and print. PLUS editable AI and PSD files in case you need to make changes down the road.
• A custom 3-page Squarespace website that includes:
  • A customized template design
  • Your first 3 pages set up and ready to go (complete with photos chosen to match your branding)
  • One contact form
  • A newsletter sign-up box
  • Mailchimp integration and customized mailchimp header
  • Social media buttons linked to your accounts
  • Free domain registration with an annual Squarespace account
  • One free year of hosting
  • Squarespace’s intuitive, easy-to-use content management system (CMS), Search Engine Optimization, and built-in website analytics
  • Training / instructions for making changes to your new website

And here is the Curriculum, again written by the three program leaders:

First: We start where you are and with what you already know and we’ll lay all of your Big Dreams on the table and start to make sense of how they fit into the big picture of your life and what you want for yourself.

Next: You’ll design your personalized Career Compass to serve as a guide in your biz journey and craft your first offer – and get your first guinea pig client! (Don’t worry! It will be fun!)

Simultaneously: While you’re learning All The Things from your guinea pig client, you’ll be developing your mission statement and putting all of the pieces together.

Then: We’ll move into branding your big vision – how do you talk about what you do so that your Ideal Client will listen?

While: At this point, Erin will be crafting your logo and you’ll be starting to write the copy for your new custom website.

****

Sounds super rad, right? Well, I'm so excited about it! And I'll be sharing what I learn, as I go along through the program, so do stay tuned to this blog to learn with me. I'm also going to be working with a Business Counsellor at Business Cape Breton, as well, to work on creating a business plan as I go through the course.

The IndieGogo campaign is here if you haven't yet contributed and you'd like to, and as always, feel free to leave a comment! I love hearing from you.

xo Leah

Day 9: My first vlog ever

So I recorded my first vlog ever, yesterday evening! You get to see a bit of my home office in the background. I want to share more of my office here on the blog, in the next little while, too. The vlog is only 2 minutes long, as I needed to keep it short in order to make the upload time to YouTube nice and short.

Anyway, it was fun! I like vlogging and I'll do more of it for sure. I'm going with YouTube as the platform for now, though that may change that down the road...we'll see. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Did I talk too fast? LOL.

Here is the article where I got some of the stats I quote in the video.

And here is my IndieGogo Campaign, now on Day 9, and at 48%.

Day 8: Into The Middle

Hey hey and welcome to Monday! I hope you had a terrific weekend. I did; it was nice to take a break from social media, and to spend time with my partner. We slept in, we took a walk, we napped on the couch. We also cleaned up around the house, shoveled snow, and made food. Balancing out a busy work-week and social life, with rejuvenating downtime, is so important.

So yeah! Here we are. It's Monday, one week after I launched my crowdfunding campaign, "It's Business Time for Leah". According to the research I've been doing, crowdfunding campaigns have a predictable pattern to them, one that looks a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge. They start strong with a spike of early adopters. Then there is a middle phase of slow progress. Then at the end there is another spike, people who want to help you reach the goal before the end of the campaign. (I got that from this article.)

So this is the middle. This is the slog, the part where people are most likely to give up on their campaign. And I can understand that now, because the first few days of the campaign the total climbed so fast, it was addictive to check it! But the last few days, while there have been some contributions, it's slowed down quite a bit.

So now the ball is in my court. And I sure as heck am not stopping now, so I've been asking myself, what am I going to do now, to go beyond just telling people about the campaign, and to write content that will actually have value to those reading it?

For example, I want to tell you why women-led small businesses are super important to the local economy, and to the economy in general. I want to talk more about the program I'm going to take, and how it's going to help me create the business of my dreams. I want to talk about the value I provide to businesses, through my skills, and what you will get if you buy Design Credit from me. And I want to tell you what I've learned about starting something before you feel completely ready, and how I think that's led to my own successes.

So that's what this week's blog content is going to be all about: answering those questions. Stay tuned! The campaign itself is here, and as always, I love hearing from you.

xo Leah

Day 5: zzz...

I got home from work tonight and crashed on the couch. Like, full-on nap. Work today was busy -- there was a Bowl-a-rama happening-- and the week has been very, very full. I knew as I was driving home that the only thing I wanted to do was put on comfy pants and take off my bra, get my pillow from the bed and curl up on the couch, where I was 99.99% sure Adam already was. And that's exactly what I did.

The crowdfunding campaign I'm running is at $3, 235. That's 45% of the goal. According to this article about the typical crowdfunding campaign, I'm doing well! Now is the middle part, which will take the most work, and where some people give up on their campaign because it seems like it's slowing down and won't ever pick up again. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I'm planning to spend several hours doing some work on campaign stuff. I will also likely take the weekend off doing social media and spreading the word. That way I'm nice and rested when Monday rolls around again, and everyone gets a break from hearing about it!

Have a good weekend, my dears!

xo Leah

Day 4: 44% and about the Friday Dance Parties...

I started drafting this blog post last week, before the thought of doing crowdfunding had even crossed my mind. Then when I came back to my Drafts folder today to see what I could write about, I remembered that I made one of the perks of my crowdfunding campaign be a dance party! (That's right: for $75, I'll come to your workplace and get everyone moving to the beat! It will be the best. Go buy it right now, I'll wait.) If you're not familiar with Friday Dance Parties, basically, I've been going to Doktor Luke's Cafe on Friday mornings at 8 am and getting Missy Lebans, the owner, to crank the music, while I dance with friends, and she records it using the video function on my camera. Then I post it to Instagram and Facebook. Here is the first one at Missy's cafe.  It was on January 30th.

Since then we've done three more: one, two, three. (The last one is probably my favorite so far.)

Anyway, I got to thinking, "Just how is it that I started doing these dance videos?! Why do I have this drive to look like a fool and then post it on social media?" And like most things, it starts in my childhood. See that pic at the top of the post? I was always a zany kid who liked to dance and be a little nuts. (I firmly believe that whatever you loved to do as a kid is what you should be doing as an adult. I also used to make books and magazines, but that's another story for another post.) Then there was High School. This is me at the Safe Grad celebration. With a balloon hat on my head. Totally sober. This is a page from my scrapbook of the year after I moved back from Australia. That's me on my way to the music festival Evolve (with probably the worst hair of my life) where I would dance literally until the sun came up, again totally sober. (I swear! I did drink, and do, but that particular festival I didn't have more than a couple of beers.) I really just loved dancing. Then there were the parties I would throw during the years that I was in college in Fredericton, but here on Cape Breton at Christmas break. I'd invite my Sydney friends and my Baddeck friends, my Mom would kindly go stay at her boyfriend's place, and we'd all dance til late in the evening, and then my brother and I would make everyone breakfast the next day. I love to make people feel welcome, and to have a good time.

A few years later, when living in Baddeck again, I was a driving force behind something called "Friendsday Wednesday," which was an informal dinner party once a week for young people in the area.

But my love of dancing + bringing people together didn't really come to fruition until this year. A perfect storm had to happen. I'm talking The Internet + Alison Faulkner + morning routine. Oh, and Missy Lebans.

You see,  a while back I started following Alison Faulkner on Instagram. Her videos on Instagram are silly, totally sober, and super fun, and if I ever reach her level of epic dance-queendom, I will be able to die happy. I would watch her dance videos and go, "WOW, that woman is BRAVE. I love it! I wish I could be as brave as her!" Then one day last year I took a chance and posted a video of myself dancing. In my kitchen. And it wasn't as hard to do as I had thought. In fact, it was really fun.

Then I started sharing just a fun dance song on Facebook on Fridays and calling it Friday Dance party and tagging friends. Sometimes I would take a video of myself dancing at home and share that too.

Around the same time, enter.. a new job in Sydney, and driving by my new favorite coffee shop every morning, and stopping to see my friend Alyce. Being there at 8 am quickly became a habit. Missy and Julie are wonderful people, too, so grounded and hospitable and fun. I forget exactly when and why I got the idea to do the first one -- likely an extension of posting a music video to Facebook, and badgering Alyce to dance in it with me. But when we put the first Friday Dance Party video up and people loved it, well, you don't need to tell me twice! Attention? Dancing? Inclusion? Goofiness? I'm in!

So far they're happening at Doktor Luke's Cafe at 8 am on Friday mornings. But I would love to do an afternoon one (I don't want to be "sleepist" after all, and discriminate against people who don't get up that early!), or a street one, or ... one at your business for 75$ And that's that! You can follow me on Instagram or be my Facebook friend if you're not already, for all the Friday Dance Party goodness, and you can also help fund my dreams of having my own business over at my IndieGogo campaign. I'm already at 44%! I hope you're having a great week. I certainly am! xo Leah

Day 3: Take A Breath

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Today was a really gorgeous day here on the island. Well, I should say, here in North Sydney and Sydney, because the island is pretty big and I was only in one little part of it.

But, yeah, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and even though there is still a couple of feet of snow on the ground, it felt like spring.

I had a fairly busy day; though not as busy as the last two have been! It's only Wednesday and it feels like an entire week has already happened since Sunday night when I launched my crowdfunding campaign. 

I woke at 6:30, which is usual for a weekday. Adam is out the door by 7, and we spend that half hour wiping sleep from our eyes, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, and making his lunch. He leaves at 7 and drives to the job site (he's an electrician and works here in North Sydney), and then I do a few things and get ready for work and leave the house anywhere between 7:30 and 8. This morning I wrote up two estimates for potential clients, and had a mini dance party.

Then I went to work. I work at a place called the Horizon Achievement Centre, in Sydney. It's an organization that provides vocational training to adults with intellectual disabilities. I've been working there since August of last year. I do a variety of things there: design, copywriting, teaching drawing, and working on a database re-design. It keeps me busy!

When I got home from work today I thought about going for a walk, but decided instead to do the dishes. There is something really therapeutic for me about that. (Well, sometimes. Other times it's a pain in the arse.) Today it was therapeutic. Now that the campaign is launched and has gotten to 44%, my head is a-whirl with ideas for what to do next to get to the total goal, but I also feel like I'm not sure where to begin, and like things have piled up a bit over the last few days. So taking time to clean out my space is good to help me focus.

What do you do to help yourself focus, or get clarity on a big project?

Now we're off to a wake, and likely our dinner will be take-out. But at least my sink will be clean!

xoxo Leah