by Mel | Oct 3, 2017 | Blog |
My journey to becoming an entrepreneur came from a variety of reasons. I have always loved creating. Be that drawing, art scrapbooking, digital, making candles and notebooks and more over the years. It fed my soul and a way to connect to my inner self, to get out of my head and into my heart. So I decided to enrol in a graphic design course part time while working.
Working as a Kindergarten teacher at the time, I found myself in a conundrum of needing more flexibility and time to be able to attend IVF appoints, with a less than accommodating boss who just did not understand that specialist appointments scheduled, I had little choice over what time I was given. So one day I woke up and decided it was all too hard, after many sleepless nights, anxiety, teas and fears of the reaction from boss about another appointment I needed time off for, I bit the bullet and handed my resignation in. I CHOSE ME for a change rather than pleasing others.
So began my entrepreneur journey, and the many gifts to unfold upon this journey to date. I won’t lie, it has been a hard fought out slog to date, when you are trying to birth and create something special in multiple areas of your life and not being able to give either 100% priority. Building a business doing what you love helping and supporting people to create beautiful visual brands, as well as taking on the very lonely, emotional and physical toll that IVF brings, finding balance was hard.
The emotional and physical rollercoaster of infertility, led me to look into alternate methods of healing thyself, and with that, I entered into a whole new world of energy and intuition. I became fascinated and learned many skills, had many AHA moments and realisations that I am an Empath, Natural Healer and highly intuitive, I just had never truly understood before the syncronisities and knowing I had over the years. So I began to hone these skills, embrace them and trust.
I am still on my journey of infertility, spirituality and creative bliss, but I am now beginning to see how all my experiences and skills come together to help me best serve the gorgeous people around me.
Through my infertility journey, although not successful to date, I completely understand how much family is a precious gift to be cherished and that you want to have time and flexibility in your life to spend with those you love. You don’t want to be spending countless hours doing things that you don’t enjoy or waster your time. Through my spiritual journey and connection to the animal realm, I have learned that I am able to intuitively connect with my clients, to really help them pull out the key elements of their business and help them to create stunning visual elements to enhance their brand.
I am on an ongoing Journey as we all are, embracing who I am with my intuitive and healing abilities, my connection to the animal world so that I am able to serve the divine people around me, my tribe. To be able to give them more time, flexibility and space in their business to be the powerhouse creators they are in their zone of genius and do what they love, instead of spending countless hours on things that they don’t or time better spent on something else. I love supporting my tribe with their business, creating visual elements, helping with tech, being their cheer leader so that they can focus on bringing their message to their world.
by Mel | Sep 13, 2017 | Blog |
Using specific colours in your branding to invoke a particular feeling in your clients can help you to connect with your tribe.
Colour plays such a crucial role in our everyday life and how certain colours make you feel as well as the colours we associate we certain products or feelings.
When you are looking at creating a brand or any marketing collateral for that matter, its important to look at the colours you want to use to create the desired feeling you want your clients/customers to feel when engaging with your content.
As you may know, many people associate the colour green with health and wellness, eco friendly, earth conscious, nature, natural, peaceful, quiet, serene.
I love working with colour and helping people to choose what colour or colours to use within their brand and branding collateral. This really is based upon a myriad of things. Firstly what are you drawn to, although this may not necessarily be the ideal colour to connect with your target market.
Do some research on your target market, who are they, what do they enjoy doing, what is their potential age brackets. Because also different target markets may be drawn to different colours as well, so keep that in mind when you are creating your colour palette.
What is your industry? Is it health, wellness, finance, children, masculine or feminine dominant, creative, healing, marketing, spiritual etc. You need to really feel into your industry and how you want yourself and your business to be portrayed within the world.
Want to know more about how colour attracts your tribe, Contact me today.
by Mel | Aug 21, 2017 | Blog |
Hi Everyone,
So many people come to me looking for logo designs for their business. But did you realise that your logo, whilst being the most visual and engaging aspect of your brand/branding it is not the sole focus of what goes into your brand to create your branding.
I was speaking with a potential client the other day looking to have a logo done for her new business. However, she was really unsure about what she was wanting at all, except that she wanted black and white. She was struggling with what to come up with, she knew what her business is and what she will be selling, but unsure of the rest. So I gave her a few suggestions to help her get clarity around what she may be looking for. So I though if she is struggling with how to really understand how she wants her brand to feel, maybe some of you are too. So I thought I would share the couple of tips I gave her, so that she could have a better idea of what she is looking for before going to the designer. So therefore,
A couple of tips to consider before you go to get your logo done, so that you are super clear on what it is that you are looking for, it also gives your designer a much greater insight into the people you are ultimately wanting to engage and build a business relationship with.
Firstly, Get clear on your target market, who are they, where do they hang out, what type of people are they etc.
Secondly, make yourself a list of words that encompass what your brand is all about, how you want it to feel. Eg elegant, luxurious, fun, colourful, healing, upmarket, etc
Thirdly, make yourself a moodboard, research the internet, look for pictures that inspire you, or you are drawn to that you think and feel fit the brand that you want to create for people, look for colours that you are drawn to and create yourself a possible colour palette that represents the brand you want to create. You may want to look at fonts that you like etc, even look up inspirational logos.
Fourth, you can also look up brands that you admire and use these as examples to provide to your designer for the type of feel you are looking for.
These 4 things can help you get a feel for the type of branding you are going for and provide your designer with a much clearer direction when you are ready to have your logo designed. Most designers also provide this kind of service for additional costs, but if you are on a tight budget, this is something you can do yourself to help you get clear and save you some time and money.
If you would like to chat more about anything I have written here, feel free to contact me. I provide free 15 min chats and I also provide an hour clarity session where we can brainstorm your ideas and I can help you get clarity around what it is you aspire for your business.
by Mel | Aug 7, 2017 | Blog |
I thought that I would share with you all my letter to my ideal client, this is a great way to gain clarity around who your client is, what their characteristics may be, what they may be looking for from your service. I found this exercise extremely helpful in refining and honing my avatar.
Dear client
You are amazing just the way you are with the gift you want to share with the world. We all have a gift, a purpose or something we want in life and we all deserve to be visibily seen.
You deserve a brand that encompasses the essence of you and what you stand for as well as like attracts like and this is how you connect with your tribe. You deserve a brand that authentically represents your message and aligns with your true nature and captures the essence of you.
You are enough, you are compassionate, caring and truly want to make a difference in the life of others through sharing your visual message and sharing your gift with the world. You want to help people work through the blocks that are holding them back and provide a supportive and nurturing environment where they feel safe, secure and supported, a space where they feel comfortable to be vulnerable and open up.
You are passionate about your work and are just unsure how to make it look and feel like you so that it resonates with your target audience. You want someone who values you, respects you and most importantly understands you, with open communication and an open heart to help you navigate what your visual branding should look like so it is truly you.
Until next time
Mel
by Mel | Jul 20, 2017 | Blog |
I went to a wonderful and inspiring workshop on Sunday called The Art of Presenting run by the lovely Andrew Eggelton from The Playroom by Andrew. It is a workshop for presenting to camera for entrepreneurs.
I had been thinking about this workshop for quite some time, building up the courage to do it, since video is so far out of my comfort zone . So much resistance came up for me around this workshop even though I felt the need to be more confident and authentic on video sharing my message and what I have to offer, because lets face it, it is the like, know, trust factor and everyone wants to SEE YOU!!!!!!
I eventually threw caution to the wind and attended, nerves, doubt and all, as this truly is where magic happens, outside of your comfort zone.
There was a group of around 12 of us, we all entered into the unknown territory, for one reason or another, whether it be to sharpen our presenting skills or completely starting out like myself and wanting to know how to convey or get my message across and gain clarity around what I am sharing. We all walked in a bit like nervous teenagers or school kids, not knowing what to expect and the nerves of knowing we needed to get up and speak in front of people we did not know and TELL OUR STORY. Andrew was fantastic at helping us feel at ease and comfortable and took the time with each and everyone of us to help us explore and extract what OUR STORY WAS!!!!!
The Art of Presenting is basically bringing back play and using OUR STORY, because we all have one right!, that shapes who we are today and what we are doing, whether that be business or personal, to share our authentic and vulnerable message to the world. We all have something to share and contribute and sometimes, we just need to get out of our own way, get some clarity around how to present that story and what that story actually is.
Andrew, has a unique and gifted talent to take those in his workshop under his wing, gently guiding and suggesting ways to use your story, or even find what YOUR STORY is and incorporate that into the message you are trying to share with others. He has a kind and generous soul, who thrives in seeing his workshop participants find their voice and what they stand for authentically.
If you want to take your message to the next level, or just want to find out how to start, I highly recommend attending one of his workshops. You will not regret it. You can check out his website at www.andreweggelton.com
Some tips I took away from this workshop are
- Be You , you are who people are wanting to buy from
- Take perfect, imperfect action
- Slow yourself down when you speak so that you get to choose the right next word (as andrew says it’s a slow dance between your mouth and your brain)
- Show up authentically – you don’t have to be preened, have make up on, or whatever to do a live, people don’t care, they just want to see you
- Share your story – you are so worth it
Have an awesome day everyone
Love Mel
by Mel | Jul 3, 2017 | Blog |
Hey Tribe,
I have come across this problem numerous times lately when speaking with clients. I have had potential clients coming along and asking if some minor changes can be made to their logos or marketing collateral such as a transparent background on their logo or a colour change.
The first question I always ask is: Do you have your original files, and eps or and editable version? The answer to this of late is NO i only have a jpeg or a png.
When you are having graphic design done please ensure that you ask for a range of file types, or what it may cost you to get the additional file types in some cases. You should always get your graphic design work in either an editable pdf or EPS file so that you can always have your design work modified down the track. Jpegs are good but are not the ideal version to be getting as I find these pixelate when you try and enlarge the image. A PNG is a must and get this file as both a transparent background so that you can place your logo on a background colour without having a white background. You may also choose to have your logo placed on a black or white background of other means as well.
As a recap when you get your design work done these are some of the file types to ask for from your designer at the completion of the project.
PDF PNG (transparent background and with a white background)
JPEG
EPS (editable source files)
Love
Mel XX
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