103: Meet the Mark Makers 2023

Do I have a fun episode for you today. I get to introduce you to the 2023 Mark Makers mastermind. Many of us have spent many, many years together and so we just wrapped up our second in person intensive. So we do two intensives a year, they're in person where we get to spend the better part of a week together. It's about three days that we come together to mastermind. And so this is what everyone did on occ occasion. We do this thing called smiteys. So a smitey is something small but mighty. Something small that you are doing in your business. It's almost like a hack, like a life hack or a business hack. Something that's been small but incredibly impactful. And so sometimes we go around the room, it takes a, you know, a couple of hours to go around the room and hear everybody's smitey. But this time I invited them to do that for you in this podcast instead. So everyone shared their smitey mighty for you all. So you get to meet everyone, hear their small but mighty hack or trick or tip that they're doing in their business or their life right now. And I hope that it is just so fun and also inspiring with a ton of takeaways for you. Now we are linking all of the mark makers up over in the show notes for today's episode. You can get that@PropriationalCreative.com and go dive into these incredible ladies worlds. They're all running insanely beautiful and successful businesses, but most of all, they're all full of a heart to serve. Okay, so let's dive into the 2023 Mark Makers Smitees. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. Hi, I'm Mindy Young from Indie Bloom Design and my smighty or small but mighty thing that I've been doing in my business recently is I've been using manychat and it's been so helpful to be able to direct message my customers and be able to start conversations with them and get them interested in things that I want to link them to. So you no longer have to say link in my bio to this product or to read more information. You can instantly trigger a word for them to comment and manychat will actually direct message your customer and give them the information that they are wanting. And this has been so helpful in being able to increase my conversion rate and also be able to start conversations with my customers where you're in their DMs and personally getting to know them better. So this is something I've been doing and it's been helping so much. I recommend that you go look up manychat if you have not used it before and see how much it will help improve your communication and being able to link your customers directly to the products that you want to have them download or get access to. And it will just speed up your process and everything that you're doing. Hi, my name is Aubrey Davis. My company is called ABC Modern and I'm an interior designer that specifically helps people remodel their homes. My smitey is an online whiteboard called Miro. You can find it@miro.com I'm not an affiliate for them. It's just a thing that I like to use quite a lot. You can use Miro to do anything that you could do with a physical whiteboard or pin board in a room so you could pin pictures on there. You can write text, you can do charts. I use it for calendaring out my year. I use it for collecting inspiration images, and I use it for mapping out a flowchart of a system that's in my brain. My name is Jenna Blackburn and I'm a surface designer and illustrator. And I also help creatives find their signature styles and put their beautiful portfolios together. My smitey is drawing every day, even if it's just for five minutes. I have found that sometimes I don't feel inspired to create. And I think, well, I just. I guess I'm not going to draw today. And so I could let weeks and months go by without creating and that I feel rusty and I'm like, why am I not inspired? And then I realized that I actually have to start moving my hands. I have to start drawing for the inspiration to come, which is super counterintuitive. So I just try to keep my hands moving every day, even if it's just for five minutes, even if I just draw the same thing I drew yesterday. Sometimes I just draw flowers every day and they're the similar flowers and that I drew yesterday because I can't think of anything else to draw. But I just keep my hands moving and it's meditative and it just keeps me from getting rusty so that when I do have inspiration, I'm ready to go. And I've created so much artwork in the past 90 days or so since I started doing this and it has been just so helpful for my creativity and it's just a really small thing that I've been doing. Sometimes it's only for five or ten minutes. Hi there, I'm Cynthia Oswald, an artist and brand strategist dedicated to transforming creative passion into impactful design. Over the last year I've become increasingly aware of how distraction is stealing my attention and my ability to work efficiently. I've implemented a couple of things that have really helped me. First, I love using Dropbox Paper to create weekly to do every Thursday because I have a four day work week. I create a checklist for the following week and cross reference my personal calendar with my work calendar and any client projects I might have. And I just make sure to add any to DOS or appointments. This enables me to be aware of any bottlenecks that may be coming up and prevent them ahead of time. What I've also done that has really helped me to gain focus is to turn off all notifications on my phone during work hours. Of course I leave any family or important contacts enabled, but this has been game changing for me. It's really helped me to gain back a lot of my time and focus. I hope there is a nugget of goodness in there for you. Hi, I'm Elizabeth from Elizabeth Stuckey Design. I am a wedding invitation designer and an educator for aspiring stationers. My smitey is Weekly Brain Dumps. So when you start to feel like you're drowning in tasks, I encourage you to take out a journal and write down every single thing that is weighing on you. Business, personal, everything. Organize your lists based on priorities. Estimate how long each task will take you and organize them into your schedule for the week. You will realize that you do actually have the time to get them accomplished and now you can focus only on the task at hand, trusting that the others will get done in their time. This is such a powerful task for me because it allows me to just stop thinking about all of the things that are floating around in my head and really focus on what I have assigned for myself just that day, just that moment and trust that I will get to the rest when I have that time. Hi, my name is Sarah Rafferty and I own Atwater Designs. I'm an artist and a mentor to other artists who want to make a business with their art and a small but very mighty thing that has happened for me in my business this year is my dedication to my morning routine, which has really turned into a daily ritual and rhythm. It starts with moving my body and then a short meditation and then coffee and usually reading a little bit before before looking at my phone or any kind of device. So my day feels much more proactive and less reactive. Hi, my name is Christa Elvy and I am a designer, artist and horticulturalist and I'm also the founder of Plant Pals, which is a houseplant care education business where I teach you how to turn your plant into your pal. And my Smythe is keeping all of my social media content ideas in my notes app on my iPhone. So I don't know about you, but when I sit down to create social media content or a blog, coming up with ideas on demand is hard. But I have my best ideas when I am out walking my dog or in the shower or while I'm cooking dinner. So I just keep an ongoing notes app page where anytime I have an idea for a post or a blog, I just write it down. And then because I don't like sitting down to create content each day, I much prefer prefer to batch all of my content. So when I go and sit down and plan out my content for the month or the upcoming week, I already have a ton of ideas that I can pick from. And the great thing about that is that I never have to have that stress of oh, what am I going to post today? I can sit down and pick through the ideas that I've already had and then I can organize them because you know, maybe some of the ideas are good for a carousel and some of them are good for a reel. So then I can organize those ideas and then batch them by the different types of of posts or reels that I'm going to make. So I hope that helps you and Happy Content making. Hi everybody. My name is Ashley Padji. I run a company called Ash Cascade Design. I'm a surface pattern designer, illustrator and educator from Oregon. I'm also a mama to two beautiful daughters. My biggest struggle over the last year has been balancing business life with mom life and just feeling the overwhelming responsibility of taking care of my family and also progressing my business. And one very small, but I feel like mighty thing that I have done in the last year is trying to take off some of the load of the daily task of making dinner for everybody. And the way that I have done that and also spread the responsibility out is by having a really meaningful Sunday dinner where my husband and I and even our daughters will help in the preparation of a really, really big meal that can last us a few days, whether it's. It can last for lunches throughout the week or even the next couple days, dinners. And, you know, my husband's in charge of maybe shopping for it, and then we cook it together, whether it's a crock pot or just a really big thing. And so it's a meaningful time for us to spread the responsibility of cooking and meal preparation and all that kind of thing. And it makes me feel supported in that effort throughout the week. And I come back on Monday night and I'm like, oh, thank goodness I don't have to think about what we're all gonna e tonight and maybe even on Tuesday night, too. And so that is a really small thing. It helps me to feel supported. It helps me to feel like I'm also being really nourishing to my family. And it also helps them to understand what really goes into cooking and prepping meals for our family. And I think it helps them to be a little bit more appreciative throughout the week of all the times that I am providing for them. So that is my small but mighty bite. Hi, everyone. I'm Carissa Bordelot. I'm a surface pattern designer and a cpa. I own my own accounting firm, and I want to get a little nerdy with you guys and give you my small but mighty tip. It's not intimidating. It's something I use to stay organized. I've experimented with a lot of different tools to stay organized. And what I always go back to is an application called Airtable. You might already use it yourself. So for my CRM, my customer relationship manager, my SOPs, I hold my processes in there. I also hold my lesson content, my nurture sequences, and it just keeps things nice and organized. And it's easy to plug into this data through APIs. So the reason I love this so much is because of three things. Number one is the interface designer, so you can build your own dashboard with these data points and make it look all nice. And so when you go in, you don't just see a spreadsheet also automations. So I use automations for like some auto emails. If I finish a deliverable I can automatically send it to my clients and also the extensions that you can plug into airtable. So one I use is called Data Fetcher. So you can kind of like scale chatgpt if you've ever heard of that. So with some of the content that I've generated, I can scale summarize the content, I can pull key tasks out of the content and also I can create PDFs and just templates at scale. So if I like a certain template I can plug in my data into different areas of those PDFs or those Google Docs or whatever you want to use. So it's a pretty powerful tool and I didn't know a lot about it other than it was a robust spreadsheet. So I hope you can give it a try. And if you need any help with it, feel free to reach out. You can find me@carissabordelot.com hello there creative professionals. This is Alicia Wilfert of Yoke and Abundance. I am a life coach that works with women in life transitions and my small but mighty is around a book that I read this year. This is probably one of the most incredible personal, personal development books I've ever read. And as a life coach you can imagine I have read many this book. I can't believe I didn't hear about it until this year. It's called the Art of Possibility and there are many takeaways from this book, but the two takeaways that stick out to me the most. First is the reminder that this life we're living, any rules we have put on ourselves, they're all made up. So why not make up rules for yourself that serve you instead of make you feel bad? What are the rules? What are the conditions that you have put on yourself right now that aren't serving you? There are probably a couple. I know I definitely had some, so why not look for the possibilities and play by new rules? That's the first takeaway from this book that was so good and another one really helped. I work with a lot of women who comparison is tough. And you know, that can be tough for me too sometimes. And I think when we look at all of the ways that maybe we don't stack up or that we don't feel good or, you know, just aren't stacking up in any way, think about how can we be a contribution instead? How did you show up today and how were you a contribution? If that's always at the forefront of our mind. Then we always win. I hope those are helpful. Talk to you soon. Hi, I'm Jenny, sewing pattern designer and membership host at Clover and Violet. And my smitey is that I use multiple inboxes for different parts of my business. So for example, I have one inbox for purchases and customers, a separate one for my membership, and then another inbox for contacts and collaborations. And so these are titled different things like, like jennyloverandviolet.com membership@cloverandviolet.com etc and this helped me keep things organized before I had an assistant. And then when I did hire an assistant I was easily able to hand off some inboxes to her while keeping others that I would answer personally. So that is my smitey. Hello, this is Tessie from Tessie Fay Design. And my smitey is I have figured out a way to transition. This has been a huge game changer for me because when we think about our work day, there are so many times when we are switching tasks we have to put on one brain instead of another brain. Or especially this has been helpful when I'm transitioning from the end of my work day into going back to my family and being present for them. So I learned this from Brendon Bouchard. So it's not an original and I've tweaked it a bit for my own needs. But since I've been doing this transition, I've been amazed at how quickly I can focus and show up in an authentic way in my next activity. So this is how it works when you're ready to transition. For instance, from the end of your workday into going back to my family, I would sit down on my couch and breathe in and think about something that is on my mind, a loose end that I'm worrying about. I breathe in and think of it and then as I breathe out, I say the word release. I say this in my mind, not out loud. And I just keep doing that again and again, breathing in something that is on my mind and then breathing out and, and saying release. And I keep doing this as long as it takes. Sometimes it only takes 30 seconds or a minute. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes to get through all of the things that are on my brain that I'm worried about, all of those open loops that haven't been closed. And I keep just breathing in and saying release until I start to feel a calmness inside my body. Once I feel comfortable and nothing else is coming to my mind And I have released least everything. Then I sit there quietly and I set the intention for the next activity. So if I'm going into my family, I might say, Tessie, you're about to walk in and greet your children after school. When they talk to you, you are going to listen to them fully and be engaged. And whatever it is, it can be whatever intention you have. And you set the intention for how you want this next activity to go, how you want to show up, and then you go into the next activity. And I cannot tell you what a difference this has made for me. Just having that moment of transition to really release the previous task and then walk into the next task with a clear mind and confidence and, and it has helped me to feel more calm and get into my work more quickly or be more present with my family. Hello, I am Kara Cummings and I am a botanical artist and educator from Ann Arbor, Michigan. And my smitey is that when I start my day I spend a little bit of time creating a beautiful space on my desk. And so because I'm a botanical artist, I depending on the season I will go outside and collect some flowers or some things that I find inspiring and create a beautiful space for myself. And whether I have to do computer work that day or I get to paint or I'm teaching a class, I am surrounding myself with the things that I find the most inspiring. Hello, I am Peggy Dean. I am an artist, author and educator for creatives. And my smitey has to do with delegation because I think that the sooner that we can release some of these daunting tasks, like the sooner our energy is lifted and we're able to focus on the things that actually are impactful to our business. So what I end up telling the members of my community that the flock is the best way to start this process isn't to try to find a part time or a full time person. Instead it's to give yourself a solid month and keep a notepad nearby. And as you're working on your tasks, whether it be busy work or the bigger projects, whatever it is, when you feel in your body resistance, muscle tension, things like this, that can cause significant detriment to our process, just, just write it down and then that's it, that's all you have to do. You don't have to think about anything that goes along with it. It's just the task itself. It's written on paper. And then after that month you can review that piece of paper and identify the top single thing or three things and then you can start to think about how can I delegate this? And this was eye opening to me when I did it and realized like, oh, I didn't think that I had enough for somebody to come in and help me. And as it turns out I have two full time jobs. Helps to get people so you don't have to go into delegation right away, but those quick, easy tasks, like that's a great place to start. So that's what I've got for you. Hi, my name is Jessica Swift and I am an artist and surface fabric designer in Portland, Oregon. And my small but mighty hack, my smitey, is that to trick myself into thinking that I've already started a project to kind of eliminate that fear of the blank page or just the fear of getting started is that at the end of my day I will often create a blank file. So it's usually an Illustrator file for me. I'll set up a blank document and I'll give it a name and I'll put it in a folder that is also named. So this is what I often do if I'm starting a fabric collection and then I can come in the next day and I already have my file and I already have my folder that will contain all of the files in my collection and and my brain thinks that I have already started. And so I have eliminated for myself that fear of getting started just by doing that first teeny little like stupid simple step of just setting up the file and the folder for myself where everything will go and then I can just get started without all of the hemming and hawing and procrastinating and being afraid that often comes with starting something brand new. So I hope that's helpful. And yeah, that's my smitey. Hi, my name is Lissy Teehee and I am an artist, illustrator, art educator in the art and design space online. My small but mighty has to do with creating videos. I love video production. I have edited videos for a long time, but I have always used really robust programs which I totally enjoy. But I know they take a long time to learn and I also don't have nearly as much time to create videos for Instagram and for my education and just different places that we send out videos. So this year I've used two apps that I absolutely love and I want to share them with you. Caption is one app that I really like. It has tons of capabilities. It can actually cut your video into really coherent. It can cut your video for you. You can add captions, you can do touch UPS and everything. And it's just one way if, especially if you're not really comfortable on camera, to quickly edit it to make you feel comfortable. And you can also add captions and do everything you need to do for social media. The other one, I would say that one is more for short form videos. So like 30 seconds or less. If you have long form videos that you want to cut into different pieces of content, go to getmunch.com and that app takes long form videos and scans it and cuts it into really coherent pieces of content. So if you just sit down at the mic for 30 minutes or the camera for 30 minutes and you just want to talk or teach, it will quickly cut those videos into more short form videos for your social media or whatever. And then we'll also summarize your videos and just do different really cool things. It has a lot of AI capabilities and both of those apps have saved me so much time in editing. I'm still very happy with them and I can always still edit other videos in some of the more robust best programs. But this has helped me so, so much this year. Hello there fellow creatives. I'm Kimberly from Mellow Ground and my goal there is to guide you through reimagining your products and business models for the sustainable future we all want and to leave everything better. In today's fast paced world, where distractions are a constant battle, finding focus can feel like a Herculean task task. And it is, admits this chaos that I've discovered my small but mighty hack for the year that's helped transform my productivity and well being. And that is the app Flown. It's been a lifeline with task initiation and transition, making those smoother and less jarring. And for those of us who struggle to navigate the complexities of neurodiversity, I've found its essence lies in creating spaces of focused, deep work, drop ins, power hours or goal setting. The standout feature for neurodivergent users is Flown's virtual co working sessions. These sessions, or flocks, provide distraction free environments crucial for those of us who find the process of starting daunting. The collective energy of working alongside others in these flocks, known as body doubling, offers both a sense of community and a gentle push towards initiating tasks. Flown is also more than a productivity tool. It's a compassionate ally that respects our unique challenges and harnesses them into strength, allowing us to work in a way that's not just more efficient, but also more in tune with our intrinsic nature. In addition, you can add on tailored coaching and sprints. Take guided breaks so you don't fall off task or pick up a creative quest for thinking differently, which aligns perfectly with the neurodivergent brain's affinity for novelty and innovative approaches to problem solving. Even more excitingly, if you're in the UK and eligible for the Access to Work grant, it can help pay for access to the app and coaching and they'll even walk you through how to apply. There's a 30 day free trial to see if it's right for you before you commit. In a world where time is our most precious commodity, Flown helps us reclaim it not just to do more, but to be more more creative, more productive, and more aligned with who we are and how we like to work. Hi, I'm Ali from Three Turtle Penguins and I specialize in creating unique repeat patterns using hand carved stamps and teach and empower creatives around the world to do the same. And this year I made a significant change in my business. Instead of my usual live online workshops for the Repeat Patterns Deep Dive course where I teach all about designing and carving hand carved stamps and block printing stunning repeat patterns, I transition to a pre recorded course. And now let me tell you about my little secret weapon. Moist Mighty. It's not what you might expect. It's an app called PromptSmart Pro. It's definitely small, but super mighty. While I'm okay with just talking freely in my short videos and live sessions, when recording longer content like an entire course, I need to stick to a script. I learned that the hard way this year and it was tough trying to read from a teleprompter while facing a camera without sounding like a robot. Not my thing. And that's where this app came into play. Like unlike traditional teleprompter apps that scroll at a constant speed, this app follows my pace so it slows down when I slow down, it pauses when I pause, and it also picks up when I speak faster. And it was such a game changer. Suddenly my on camera speaking became so much more natural. These small mighty changes can truly make all the difference. And for me this year it was PromptSmart Pro. Small but Mighty. Now it might sound like an ad, it's not. But I'm just really in love with this app because it made all the difference this year. I hope this episode was so fun and full of takeaways for you. Again, head on over to professionalcreative.com to dive into these ladies worlds and get to know them a little bit better. And if you are interested in joining my mastermind. We have applications opening soon so they are opening in early December. You can find out more details over at bonniecristine.com forward/mastermind. If you are doing six or seven figures in your business and you have a heart to serve and you're serving in the creative space, we would love to get to know you better. Okay My Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world and remember there's room for you.