It’s been a minute since I posted here.

I could tell you that I traveled the world, worked on some big secret project, or had another baby. All sound like exciting, legitimate reasons for disappearing for 5 months.

But the truth is that I needed a break from all the noise.

We live in a world of constant notifications, influx of information, posts, tweets, videos, ads, emails, and texts.

Our lives are spent looking at screens, whether we’re working on a computer, watching TV, or staring at our smartphones for an average of 5.5 hours a day (that’s a true statistic, by the way).

We’re “digitally caffeinated,” wired on the messages, entertainment, and information that are always at our fingertips.

And as a business owner I felt the pressure of not only keeping up with the noise, but contributing to it.

With the increasingly louder “hum” of the digital world building in the background, I was also trying to figure out what life looked like not only as a business owner, but as a new mom and a pastor’s wife.

I needed time to get my priorities in order, find a new rhythm, and gain some clarity about what Elle & Company would look like in this new season.

So I went dark.

You can do a killer job on all of the steps we’ve covered over the past 3 weeks.

But if your photos are amateur or inconsistent with the rest of your brand, your brand will fall short. Every. Single. Time.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

Your colors are all set! Now it’s time to dive into fonts.

But finding, choosing, and pairing fonts for your brand isn’t as simple as grabbing Comic Sans and Baskerville from the list of included fonts on your computer and calling it a day.

Actually, please don’t use Comic Sans as a brand font. Ever.

Today’s action step and blog post will walk you through what to consider and how to go about choosing fonts for your one-of-a-kind brand.

This post is part of Elle & Company’s 4-week Brand Challenge. Click here to see more details, sign up, and access the free workbook.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I always start out the year with high hopes and great aspirations (as evidenced by my last few blog posts and emails).

I love planning and goal setting, but it’s often the easiest part of the process. It’s fun scheming up ideas and making plans; it’s much harder to actually take action and bring them to fruition.

So in today’s post, I’m following up on my goals and plans from last year and giving you a transparent look at how they panned out.

The New Year marks a clean slate. It’s prime time for planning and goal setting, and while you may plan and set goals with good intentions, you won’t be able to carry them out if you aren’t productive. So in this first Ellechat podcast episode of 2019, I’m sharing 7 of my best productivity tips to help you start this year off on the right foot and actually make progress toward your business goals.

It’s that time of year!

Tomorrow marks the start of 2019 and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the fresh start and clean slate that January 1st brings.

I’ve tried my hand at many different goal-setting planners, journals, and apps for both business and personal use in the past, like the Best Self Journal, Cultivate What Matters PowerSheets, and the 5 Second Journal. And all of them worked well for the season I used them in.

But this year I’m paring down and taking a slightly different approach to setting goals, mapping out my time, and keeping up with my schedule.

I know there’s nothing magical about January 1st.

But every time December rolls around, I can’t help but look forward to the fresh start that a new year brings. Especially this year.

2018 was a year of many firsts for us with having our first baby and buying/renovating our first house, and I underestimated how long it would take to get into a regular rhythm for Elle & Company.

Now that my son is 8 months old and we’re all moved into our house, I finally feel like we’re reaching a new normal. The new year couldn’t be coming at a better time.

But before I dive into some exciting new ideas and projects, there are 7 things I’m doing to tie up loose ends, cap off the year, and start 2019 with a clean slate.

Hi! My name is Marisa and I am one of Lauren’s assistants. I graduated with my degree in Public Relations and Marketing in 2015. I currently work full time as a Communications/Marketing Specialist in higher education (at my alma mater) and work for Elle & Company as the Content Marketing Manager part time.

Like you, I used to avidly read the Elle & Company blog.

I first stumbled across Elle & Company in the Fall of 2015 when I was researching SEO for Squarespace.

I came across The Truth About Squarespace SEO blog post and instantly become obsessed with reading all of Lauren’s blog posts and soaking in her colorful graphic design style all over her website.

As I continued to devour blog posts, I came across 20 Business Tasks You Could Be Delegating and I thought to myself, “Hey! I could do/have done all of this stuff.”

In a moment of bravery, I reached out to Lauren, pitched myself, and asked her if she needed an assistant. At the time, she had just hired her first assistant, Jenny, and wasn’t looking to hire someone else so quickly.

So I continued to read her blog posts and newsletters, I subscribed to the Library, and I tuned into Ellechats when I could.

About a year went by and Lauren had just launched her Freelance Academy course for the first time and I wondered if she could use any extra help. So I emailed her again, thinking it would be a long shot.

But to my surprise she emailed me back within an hour with the craziest story! She had been meaning to reach out to me for weeks to see if I might still be interested in the assistant position - she even had the email sitting in her drafts folder but had been too busy to push send.

Before I started freelancing for Elle & Company, I was so curious as to how Lauren ran things behind the scenes and always wished she would share more “intimate business details”. Now that I’m on the other side, I constantly see requests from readers for this very thing. So today I’m taking you “behind the scenes” to talk to you about Elle & Company from my perspective.

There are a lot of great tools and apps out there to help you manage an online business. So many, in fact, that it can be hard to know which ones to use!

And that’s probably why I receive so many questions related to the tools and resources I use and recommend for starting and scaling an online business.

I’m a big fan of sharing tools that work and don’t work for me. But nonetheless, I’ve curated a list of my most highly recommend tools and resources for an online business so you can view them all in one place.

In all transparency, I do receive compensation for mentioning some of these resources and any commission I earn comes at no additional cost to you. But I never recommend tools that I don’t use, love, and believe to be extremely beneficial for starting and scaling an online business.

Have you ever been scrolling through Buzzfeed or Facebook and got sucked into taking a quiz about “Which Friends Character Are You?” or “What City Should You Actually Live In?”

Quizzes can be addicting because when taken, with a grain of salt, quizzes can give you insights about yourself. And we love learning more about ourselves and our preferences.

So it’s no wonder that businesses are now creating quizzes similar to those found on Buzzfeed and Facebook as a means for generating leads, driving traffic, and segmenting your audience.

I recently jumped on the quiz as a content upgrade bandwagon and created my “Which Squarespace template is right for you?” quiz. I used Interact to create it and in this post, I’m taking you behind my screen to show you how I did it.

There’s been a shift happening in the creative industry. Maybe you’ve noticed.

Less and less people are interested in courses and online workshops.

It might be because they’re overdone, or it might be because people believe they can find the information for free through blogs and other resources. But whatever the case, courses are dying down. So where does that leave us?

Software as a service (SaaS) is the new wave of passive income, and many people have already gotten on board. Including Sai Hossain, the CEO & Founder of Crowdcast.

In this week’s Ellechat episode, Sai is joining me to share how he came up with Crowdcast, how he brought this platform to life, and where his business is headed in the future.

I’m back!

After a restful 3 months of maternity leave with my baby boy, I’m slowly easing back into the swing of things with Elle & Company.

And as you may have noticed, things look a little different around here!

There are all kinds of website and content updates to share, and many of you have asked me what my plans are for running a business while staying home with a little one.

I’m excited to fill you in on all of the above!

We’re a little less than 2 weeks from our baby boy’s due date! 

And while I’ve shared about my pregnancy a little bit on social media and in my newsletter, I think this might be the first time I’ve mentioned it on the blog.

I’m thrilled to embark on this new chapter and plan to take 3 months off to soak it all in and adjust to life with a little one.

I have exciting plans for my return (like website updates and a new Squarespace series!), but I wanted to share how I’m preparing for some time away before I disappear for a few months.

I took a break from my business in December.

And I had a realization.

What I've been doing up until this point has gotten my business to where it is today. But it won't get my business to the next level.

So I decided that I wanted to do some things differently. 

I’m sharing a sneak peek at what’s coming up for Elle & Company in 2018 and the big changes I’m making to my business. 

These changes aren’t a step-by-step plan at what you should be doing. Instead, they’re a preview of what you can look forward to. I’m going to be sharing why I’m switching things up and making adjustments so that you can utilize those lessons in your own business.

This year will definitely look different, but I’m excited to share my plan with you. 

She’s mastermind behind the popular PowerSheets goal setting planner and the author of two books, Make It Happen and Cultivate.

She’s the business woman behind Cultivate What Matters, but she’s also a wife and a mom to three small kids. 

She leads a growing team of talented women, she’s in the process of writing her third book, she just started homeschooling...and somehow she manages to keep it all together!

There’s something about business owners who not only balance #allthethings well, but who are intentional and purposeful in what they do and why they do it.

So as I was thinking about prospective Ellechat guests this fall, Lara Casey was easily one of the first people who came to mind.

Last week I shared about my seemingly crazy experiment of deleting 7,000 subscribers from my list.

Long story short, it’s good to clean out your list every so often to make sure your emails are landing in the inboxes of people who want to receive them. 

But once your list is “clean,” it’s time to take the proper measures to make sure your list is effective.

Email segmentation can be the primary difference between a list that converts and one that results in low open rates and a lack of engagement.

It isn’t enough to simply build your list; you have to be smart about how you organize it and use it.

Thankfully, ConvertKit makes segmentation a breeze.

For most service-based businesses, a portfolio provides proof that you’re the right person for the job.

Whether you’re a graphic designer who’s showcasing brands and websites, a photographer who’s showcasing weddings and engagements, or a coach who helps entrepreneurs take their businesses to the next level, you need a portfolio to showcase your past work and build trust with potential clients. 

But how do you create one?

You might have clicked on this post thinking I was going to talk about photos and layout. And while those are important to the overall look of your portfolio, I’m not going to cover that in this post.

Not only is that a no-brainer, but every other portfolio post puts the primary amount of attention on photos and many of you reading this offer non-visual services like coaching and consulting. 

I wrote this post with the hope that you would begin to think differently about your portfolio. 

So instead, I’m sharing 5 ways to strategically build your portfolio that everyone else isn’t talking about… yet.

I know the title of this Ellechat sounds crazy. We all try so hard to grow our lists; why would I ever delete over 30% of my subscribers?! 

No it wasn’t by accident. It was a strategic move that’s actually helped my list and increased my engagement. And I have the stats to prove it.

I’m shared those stats, along with the reasoning behind this seemingly crazy move, in this week’s Ellechat.
 

Online content libraries are a great way to bring in recurring passive income each month. 

Subscribers join your library for a monthly fee, have ongoing access to all of the resources, and you receive a steady monthly payout - all without doing too much extra work, other than adding a couple new items each month.

Online libraries are also a fantastic incentive for people to subscribe to your list if you’re hoping to give the content away for free.

But as with any new digital offering, it can be a headache trying to figure out how to set  up a new content library from scratch.

I remember all too well. Three years ago I setup my own online subscription library (creatively named The Library), and here’s exactly how I did it. 

Pricing, branding, finding clients, bookkeeping, marketing - there are many hurdles to starting a business. But one of the biggest hurdles can often be ourselves.

Are perfectionism, procrastination, and comparison holding you back from launching and building your creative business?

If so, I’m sharing how I’ve learned to deal with all of the above in the last 4 years since starting Elle & Company in this Ellechat.
 

The key to freelance freedom lies in the ability to book clients in advance.

By having a waiting list of clients who are chomping at the bit to work with you, you’re able to knock over a bunch of hurdles that are standing between you and your biggest goals. 

• Want to make more money so you can quit your day job and pursue your passion full-time? Book clients in advance.
• Want to bring in a stable income and have better job security as a service-based business? Book clients in advance.
• Want to pursue your business on your own terms instead of working 12+ hour days? Book clients in advance.

But how do you get to the point where you can start a client waiting list? And how do you manage it after you started it?

I’m sharing what I’ve learned from creating and managing a waiting list of over 250+ prospective design clients in this post.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “webinar"?

Due to either tuning into a webinar or trying to host one yourself, you probably think of an hour-long live video stream of helpful information....that eventually ends in a sales pitch. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that the only way to use a webinar for our business is to sell. (And I don’t know about you, but that’s annoying from an attendee perspective and overwhelming from a host perspective!)

But webinars don’t have to be used solely for promotion. They don’t have to be hosted once in a blue moon. And they definitely don’t have to be salesy.

A non-salesy weekly webinar series can not only benefit but transform your business.

Running an online business has numerous benefits (less overhead, more flexibility, the ability to work from home, the potential for passive income).

But it comes with its own share of struggles. The biggest one, I’ve found, being a lack of community and interaction with other people.

We’re unable to see the faces of those who are reading our posts, tuning into our webinars, and following along on social media. It’s more challenging to get to know people when you aren’t seeing them and interacting in person.

But all hope isn’t lost!

The internet actually allows us more opportunities to build and foster community around our businesses; we just have to know where to look for them.

So you launched your website.

You spent a bunch of time perfecting the design, layout, photos, and copy, and you even have your blog up and running.

You check your analytics to see how many people are flooding into your site day after day, but the numbers are few. Where is everyone?

It’s easy to get discouraged. Especially when a higher number of visitors has the potential to open doors down the road, whether it’s a sponsorship opportunity, collaboration, job offer, book deal, or a new client.

But over the years, I've discovered 12 proven ways to drive traffic to your website today, and I'm sharing them all in this post.

There are so many plates that you have to keep spinning when you run a business, from keeping track of client projects to marketing and promotion to administrative tasks and everything in between.

It’s impossible to keep up with all of these tasks from memory. 

And as much as I love traditional paper planners, it’s difficult to keep up with them all in there, too, especially if you have a team.

That’s where a project management system like Asana can be life changing; it acts as a homebase for all of the tasks involved in running your business.

But just like any app, it takes some time to learn how to use Asana effectively.

So today I’m inviting you behind the screen to show you exactly how to set up Asana from scratch.
 

One of the hardest decisions when running a business is determining which apps, tools, and services are worth worth spending money on.

Especially when you’re just starting out on a tight budget. 

Is there a cheaper option?
Am I really going to use this?
Is this a reasonable price?

I’ve seen a lot of questions about business expenses and apps worth spending money on in the Elle & Company Community, and after almost four years of entrepreneurship, I thought it would be helpful to give you a sneak peek at what I spend money on each month for my business.  

I’ve done a lot of paring down over the past year to the essentials, and I believe these expenses are worth every penny!

In the throes of designing, launching, and growing your business, it can be hard to find clear-cut direction.

Blog posts and webinars are helpful, but it takes work on your part to apply the content and personalize it to your business.

Courses dive deeper into content, but you’re often one of many students taking part.

Mastermind groups and Facebook groups are great for gaining feedback, but others in the group don’t have the time to sit down with you and come up with a customized plan for your business (let alone hold you accountable to all the steps).

But business coaching is the best of all worlds. 

There’s plenty of talk out there about marketing your products and services, but a lot of expert launch strategies involve intense email sequences (that often overwhelm your list), pay-per-click Facebook ads, lots of bonuses, product bundles, and so on.

And while they may be helpful for some, these strategies can quickly get complicated and overwhelming for most creative business owners, especially those who are a one-man team.

Launches don’t have to be complicated, salesy, or manipulative.

If you’re preparing to launch a new offering - whether it’s a service or a product - you’ll walk away from this Ellechat with a new perspective on launches and gain some tangible steps for successfully promoting your new idea to your audience. 

So often in business (and really, in life) we look to the experience and expertise of others. 

We want to learn from those who’ve gone before us in order to avoid their mistakes and chase after the things that worked for them.

Especially in times of doubt.

I rounded up 50 quotes from successful business owners and shared them on the blog a couple years ago, and I’ve referred back to them regularly.

So I thought it was about time to round up some more.

If you need a little extra motivation and encouragement, these quotes from successful business people who’ve gone before us should do the trick. 

Creative entrepreneurs play many roles and wear many hats.

So it’s inevitable that at some point, you might consider lessening your load and delegating tasks by bringing on the help of an assistant.

Whether hiring an assistant is in your near or distant future, you probably have a lot of questions.

• When is the best time to bring on an assistant?
• How do I find the right person?
• How much do I pay them?
• What are some best practices for training them?
• How do I maintain a good working relationship?

To be honest, this is a topic I'm still exploring, but I have a lot to share from my experiences of hiring 2 part-time assistants in the past 2 years.