Ep 005: How to Build a Creative Business That’s Aligned With Your Life

Ep 005/ How to Build a Creative Business That’s Aligned With Your Life

00:00
Welcome to The Shannon Acheson Show, real business talk for real life.  I’m Shannon, creative business coach, digital product lover, and your strategy sidekick.  I’ve built a business that fits my life, and now I help other women do the same.  No hustle, no fluff, just smart, honest conversations about building a business that works for you.  Let’s dive in.

00:29
Okay, here’s the deal. After every guest episode, I like to pause for a sec to pull out the good stuff.  The moments that made me nod, scribble notes, or rethink something I thought I believed.  There’s always something they say that sticks with me. A tip, a mindset shift, a smarter way to do something.  And I don’t want these conversations to just sound good. I want them to help you build a business that actually fits your life.

00:58
And I figure if I needed to hear it, maybe you did too. So this episode, it’s just that, the gold, the stuff you can actually use. Short, punchy, and straight to the point,  so you can take what you need and run with it.  In my last interview with my friend Courtenay Hartford of Creekline House, we talked about  how to build a creative business that’s aligned with your life.  And so in this episode, I’m gonna share

01:26
five key points that I took out of that interview with Courtenay.  Things that really impressed upon me,  reminders that I already knew, but also sort of things that  were a little bit eye-opening. And I really hope that it’s, there are five things that you can at least take one thing out of it. So  the first thing is number one, don’t overthink, just start.  know, Courtenay didn’t wait for a business plan or sort of a five-year vision.  She just started sharing.

01:54
She took photos, she blogged, she said yes to the next right thing.  Again, another theme in these podcast episodes is the next right thing. You don’t need to have  the whole picture in front of you.  That sort of snowballed for her into a full blown business with two 50-50 parts, her blog and her styling and photography business.  it can be really easy to stall out, especially in the beginning  or when you’ve hit a wall,  waiting for,

02:23
clarity or waiting for the whole picture of what something looks like.  But sometimes,  often, clarity comes  after you move, after you take a step.  So don’t overthink something. If you’re at a place in your business where  you don’t know what the next move is, either you’re just starting out and you’re not 100 % sure, take a step.  Look into something.  Buy a URL that fits.  know, whatever it is, take a step.

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even if you don’t know what comes after that, just start, don’t overthink it.  You can always make a change or pivot later as sort of the path becomes a little bit more clear to you  that you should be on in your business.  If you’ve been doing business for a long time,  definitely  just take the next step. If you sort of feel paralyzed and don’t know what to do, just choose one.  If it ends up being the wrong thing, all of you wasted a little bit of time, but you’ve learned something more than likely.

03:22
and you’ve made some progress because you moved, you didn’t stay at a standstill.  So don’t overthink things, just get started.  The second thing I took away from my interview with Courtenay was to think outside the box  and fill a real gap or a real felt need.  Her  second business, Art and Spaces,  is from the outside it looks a bit like just a photography gig. Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all,  but the thing is is that it solved a problem no one else was touching.

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Courtenay had looked around for a while and sort of,  know, she’s an observer of things and she loves design and things like that. And she noticed that a lot of businesses in her area, know, cabinet makers and  maybe even realtors or people who were doing renovations, contractors, things like that,  they were doing beautiful work and she knew it was beautiful quality work,  but the photos that they shared of those things just didn’t share that, right? Like there is a difference  between

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a well-angled, well-lit, well-styled photo and just a photo that someone who doesn’t have any experience with those things clearly has just snapped. And so she did something that no one else was doing and she combined home staging or like after construction staging with photography into one package. So, know, typically those things are two very separate things. Someone’s a designer or a decorator or a stager.

04:48
and then someone else is a photographer and combining those two things or pairing up those two things and trying to get those set up for a contractor or a realtor or whoever and scheduled can be really complicated. So Courtenay put those two things together. That way she can also, I don’t know how much you know about photography, but after blogging for 15 years and running my own website and taking all my own pictures pretty much.

05:15
and  having things shared in magazines, the angles matter too, right? So like she needs to move something to get the  right angle for the picture. And so she combined those two things into one package.  It was  a felt  need. It was something that those businesses needed. And now those businesses oftentimes are repeat customers for her.  So she filled a need that didn’t have an exact sort of box to check at the time.

05:43
So she did that. And so sometimes  the best offers are hiding in plain sight. If you just look at what’s needed for your ideal customer or your niche  and think outside the box a little bit, you don’t have to do it  the way everybody else is doing it. The third thing that I took away from Courtenay’s  interview was that consistency matters,  but so does how you define it. So  always,

06:10
in anything, if you wanna get better at it, if you wanna make progress, if you wanna make money, consistency matters, right? So in blogging, that is consistent sharing all the time, consistent writing. Whatever that looks like for you, be it three, four, five times a week or once a week, consistency matters.  People want to know when to expect what from you.  However,  that can look different for each person.

06:37
Courtenay says she works all the time. She loves what she does.  Writing and editing happen sort of all the time. Not round the clock, but  she’ll write and edit in the evening  or on the weekends or things like that. But the public facing stuff that she does, so the appointments that they make  on the one side of their business,  that has boundaries.  She hasn’t said, I’m willing to work whenever  you can schedule me between this time and this time.

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So showing up with consistency doesn’t mean a rigid  timeline or showing up only between nine to five.  It also doesn’t mean that you have to leave yourself open to all the things. Make it work for you. You define what that looks like. It means being intentional with what gets your energy and when.  OK, the fourth thing is show up polished, but also personal. Depending on what your business is,  people want to know you’re a professional, right?

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They wanna know that you know what you’re doing, what you’re talking about, what you’re sharing. Courtenay has nailed this balance because she knows when to share high res curated images.  So I’m talking specifically about her business.  her blog, is Creekline House, which is about her home,  but then also Art and Space is her other business. And so she knows when to share those high res curated, beautiful images  and when to snap just a casual iPhone photo.

08:04
her audience needs to see her skill, but they also need to see sort of her and a bit of sort of almost behind the scenes.  Professional doesn’t mean distant, not anymore, especially not online. Again, depending on your type of business, if you’re in finance or something like that, it might be a little bit different. However,  most of the people I’m talking to are creative entrepreneurs. And so you kind of  need to find that magic in the mix of curated and polished.

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and also casual and behind the scenes, because  your people want to see both sides of you and both sides of your business.  Finally, the fifth thing that I took away from my interview with Courtenay was your dreams might come true, just not how you expected.  So we talked a little bit about this  in the interview. Courtenay dropped out of design school. She got most of the way through and then, you know, life happens and  she needed to drop out. So

09:01
But now  she styles homes basically for a living. She is in the design world.  She does her own house. She does the houses  and the places where she does photos for her other business. You I thought I’d be a teacher or an interior designer. Those are things I really, really wanted to be when I was younger. In the end, I ended up homeschooling my kids and teaching online through Homemade Lovely  and teaching design through Home Made Lovely as well. So…

09:30
those my dreams came true. They just didn’t look how I thought they would. So it’s really funny how life works out.  The dreams can show up. They just might be looking a little bit different than you thought.  So those are the five things I took from my interview with Courtenay. Don’t overthink. Just start.  Think outside the box and fill a real gap, even if it doesn’t look like you thought it would.  Consistency matters,  but  it matters how you define it for your life.  Show up both polished and personal.

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and your dreams might come true,  but they may not look.

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Okay, that’s it for today. Just a few takeaways to tuck in your back pocket or to try out this week.  If one of them hit home, I’d love to hear.  Email, DM me, or leave a review.  And if you haven’t listened to the full interview yet, go back and hit play. It’s totally worth a listen.

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That’s it for today on the Shannon Acheson Show. If you found this helpful, follow the show and share it with a friend.  And hey, if you’re not sure what kind of business actually fits your life,  take the free quiz at ShannonAcheson.com.  It’ll point you in the right direction.  Thanks for listening. Talk again soon.