“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” - Benjamin Franklin

When you think about the client process, images of drafts, revisions, and the finished product may come to mind.

And while those are crucial components, there are a lot of steps that need to happen before the client process begins in order for things to run smoothly.

I’ve found that the onboarding process sets the stage for the rest of the client project. How you handle inquiries, meetings, contracts, and invoices can make or break the entire process; it sets a precedent.

So today I’m inviting you inside of my client onboarding process that’s been tweaked over these last three years. 

My hope is that while you may not follow it to a T, you might walk away with a step or two that helps make your client process run smoother.

There’s always more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.

And while I’m pretty transparent when it comes to sharing my business systems and strategies, there are several things that have gone unshared on this blog.

It isn’t that I’ve been purposely keeping them from you; they just don’t often come up in conversation.

So I thought it would be fun to switch things up in today’s post and share 10 things you probably didn’t know about Elle & Company. 

Whether you’ve been following along with this space for years or you’ve just stumbled upon it in the last week, you might find some of these surprising! 

Call me crazy, but I’ve always looked forward to the “back to school” season at the end of August. 

While it usually means that summer’s coming to a close, it also means there’s a fresh new season on the horizon. A “second New Year,” of sorts.

Because I don’t know about you, but summer is usually a lot crazier than I expect it to be. 

A couple vacations, a couple bouts of car trouble, and a big move has kicked me out of my normal work week routine, and I’m longing for routine and consistency.

Surely I’m not the only one!

In an effort to get back on track,  I rounded up my favorite tips and strategies for scheduling your workday, staying on task, and setting better boundaries to maintain a realistic work/life balance.

If you’re hoping for a fresh start to your business this fall, this post is for you.

Whether you’ve been in business for 2 years or 2 minutes, you know that being an entrepreneur requires a slew of skills. 

You have to be a salesperson, a marketer, an accountant, a project manager, a designer, a social media expert, a researcher, and a copywriter - all while being an expert in your particular field. 

And you’re probably willingly (yet hesitantly) diving into all of those roles because you have a product, service, or idea that you enjoy and believe in.

But in order to get clients and customers to pay attention to you and purchase your great product or service, you have to be able to communicate about it. You have to write about it in a way that’s genuine and persuasive.

Emails, blog posts, headlines, bios, sales pages, social media updates - being an entrepreneur means you’re constantly having to write new copy for your brand and your business.

But here’s the thing: Most of us aren’t trained copywriters. 

We haven’t had a copywriting pro sit down with us one-on-one and teach us how to write in a way that’s concise, compelling, and personable.

And if you’re anything like me, you might also have some serious resistance to promoting yourself and selling your products. 

But copywriting doesn’t have to be quite so painstaking and overwhelming. 

These 10 simple copywriting tricks will help you clearly communicate about your business in a way that resonates with people and encourages them to take action.