Braid Blog
The One Question We Always Ask Creative Business Couples
February 21, 2013 Tara

Tara here. We’ve been working with a lot of creative couples lately – as in married people or couples in serious relationships, who’ve turned their common vision into a business.

Yes, they’ve done this to themselves on purpose.

Does that sound cynical? Well, if you already work with your plus-one, you would most likely say that it’s very rewarding, but it’s also no picnic. But, if you don’t work with your mate, you might fall into two camps:

1.) Whew! Glad That’s Not Me!
I have this bad habit that’s probably speaks to a cynical underlying flaw of mine. When I first meet couples who work together I think “oh man, hee, hee, hee, I’m glad that’s not me!” Partnering with my sister is about as close as I can come to co-leading a career endeavor with someone I’m related to be it by law or DNA.

Or you might fall into this second state-of-mind about the whole idea:

2.) Aww! I Wish That Was Me!
I don’t have a real insight into this person. Other than, well – you want to work for yourself, you want to build it with a person that’s in this life thing with you anyway, so wouldn’t that be cool to have each others’ backs and make this thing happen together? Okay, so maybe I’m not such a cynic. I can relate.

Plus, I’ve gotta give kudos to the couples we’ve worked with who have already waded in, and are making it work. We’ve recently shared stories of creative entrepreneurs Matt, Sara & baby Stella running a local family market in downtown Oklahoma City, and Laura & Ben providing video and consulting for art organizations in Twin Cities.

However, if you’re in the very first steps of figuring out your strengths, weaknesses, and working style – it can feel pretty unclear how this new kind of partnership is going to pan out. Usually the big picture dreams win out over the uncertainty. And that’s how it should work. Those kinds of long “what if” and “wouldn’t-it-be-amazing,” conversations are the ones you get excited about, or you wouldn’t be trying this in the first place.

But put the dream aside for one second. Here’s the number one question Kathleen and I always end up asking our creative couple clients:

question for creative business couples

Forget the Dream for a Minute. Think About Your Day.

1. Where are you sitting? Literally? Do you have your own space?

2. What are your roles when it comes to the daily stuff?

3. How do you each serve your clients/customers?

4. How do you each contribute to growing the business?

5. Who is the hot spark & who is the slow burn? What’s that?

If you haven’t quite solidified every single aspect of your respective roles in the partnership, or, for that matter, the personal brand you both bring to the equation, that’s okay. I can’t imagine any duo having it all set in stone. But if you can get all your intentions now on the same page then it’s going to be easier to let the rest unfold a little more willy-nilly. You may get some paper cuts, and some hurt feelings, and maybe even some big blowouts along the way, but if you can keep going back to the division of roles, and the shared business dream – you can keep the vision from getting scrapped in the process.

Do you work with your spouse, a sister or another other? Do you wish you did? Do you thank goodness you don’t?! Tell us on Facebook.

Creative Business Visioning
A Personal Brand Exercise For Sharing Yourself Online
February 13, 2013 Kathleen

I’ve got a worksheet for you try out today, the Online You Sharing Spectrum. We developed it while working on our Personal Branding Braid ECourse – but I’m sharing this one exercise out of all the others – well, partly as a sneak peek into the course, but also I think this exercise in particular really helps creative entrepreneurs work through two things I’ve been noticing from our clients more than ever lately:

1. They all have this deep desire to more accurately and authentically share who they really are 
2. But they’re scared

It can be confusing and overwhelming knowing what to share and how to share it when you’re at a dinner with friends – much less when you have the entire world at your fingertips. But I think nothing is more beautiful or powerful than getting to create an online space that’s so perfectly you, where you can capture, shape, and share who you are and what you’re all about. 

I do believe getting clear on your boundaries and creating within your limitations will make you more comfortable, and creative, with genuinely sharing who you are online.  Read on for the downloadable worksheet to start defining those boundaries, along with takeaway tips to begin more confidently sharing within those parameters. 

Where Do You Fall on the Online Spectrum?

Online Spectrum Worksheet

Downloadable Worksheet PDF: The Online You Sharing Spectrum

Straight from our Braid ECourse Personal Branding: Blending Who You Are With What You Do, from anonymous, to all out there – see where you land on the sharing spectrum now, and where you’d like to be in the future. Then list out some specific boundaries – the things you absolutely will not talk about online, the things you’re perfectly comfortable posting about, and finally the things you would like to talk about but feel a little scared. 

8 Tips on Sharing (and Shining) Online
You might even consider reading through these before you fill out your worksheet if you’re feeling stuck!

1. Sharing takes practice. Start small. You’re not immediately going to feel comfortable putting much of anything out there if you’ve never done it before. So test the waters with a Tweet or Instagram pic. Touch on topics before you dive into a full-blown essay on it. Sometimes a photo and one sentence will say more about who you are than a novel. 

2. Find your tone. Lots of people tell you to find your voice but I’m betting you already have a voice. I think you should focus on finding your tone. Is it sarcastic, dry, sweet, rough around the edges, funny, serious, sincere, vulnerable, bold, sassy, quiet? 

3. Learn how to listen. The great thing about sharing online is the instant feedback you get from your community. That feedback can come in the form of enthusiastic comments, “likes”, or even chirping crickets – those responses are valuable for helping you assess and calibrate what you’d like to share more or less of accordingly. 

4. Your corner of the internet will evolve and change as you evolve and change. I think part of the fear of sharing online is how permanent it can feel when you hit that “publish” button. I find fascinating about the internet is how ephemeral and temporary, yet archival, it is. 

5. It doesn’t always have to be deep. One of my most popular posts, to date, over at my personal blog was about my armpits. But guess who else is blogging about their armpits? No one. So even the little stuff can reveal lots about you and have readers thanking you for “keeping it real” without getting too terribly deep. 

6. Your goal is to attract or repel readers. I think we get most scared of sharing when we are afraid of offending someone. But if you’re everything to everyone you’re probably watering down who you really are and what you really have to say. Jasmine Star won me over at Alt Summit when she said this about building a personal brand: “My goal is to either attract you or repel you”. When you share your authentic self (the big stuff and the little stuff), the online tribe you were meant to have will not only be attracted to you and like will feel like they belong in your space.

7. Share elsewhere. You don’t always have to share in your own space. For example, I’ve felt the urge to write about my starter marriage – but my blog, a place where I celebrate the life I have created with my husband Jeremy, is clearly not the appropriate venue to talk about a failed relationship with my ex. So I’ve considered writing about the topic elsewhere – at a place like The Equals Record – a blog full of contributors who dig deep into the more complex issues of life. A place where a conversation about getting married (and divorced) young would be appropriate. And on the flip side – if I want to indulge in my consumer side I can curate a gift guide with a blogger like Meg Biram.

8. Be consistent. At the heart of any brand is setting expectations and then delivering on that promise. What do you promise to share? How often? And where? 

Lastly, here are some rad bloggers who all share who they are and what they do in very different ways (from private to all out there): 
• Danielle Krysa of The Jealous Curator – I didn’t know the author of The Jealous Curator was a woman until she emailed me on my birthday with a list of reasons why she was jealous of me. We’ve been friends ever since. But even before we got to know each other I learned a lot about Danielle just by getting to know what kind of art she liked, and why she liked it, every single day. 
• Sandra Juto – Sandra shares daily details from her walks, fika (that’s what Swedes call their coffee breaks) and work. She keeps her words brief but you feel like you’re in her whole world when you go to her blog. 
• Liz Fabry of EXACTLY – Liz is our Braid brand director and her blog captures the minimalist beauty (and mystery) that she exudes in real life. People live for her Weekend Breakfasts series – and on that note sharing what you’re eating is always a brilliant way to connect. 
• Megan Gilger of The Fresh Exchange – If you are wanting to share more and on a variety of topics Megan is the perfect example of how to do that with style and grace. She’s really great at keeping it real and making us all feel like we’re in it together but what I really admire is how she captures her content offline and then brings it to us as a beautifully packaged gift. 

Braid ECourse Personal Branding

If you want to know more about personal branding check out our Braid ECourse Personal Branding: Blending Who You Are With What You Do. This $75 ECourse is in session from this Friday, February 15th – 24th. You have through tomorrow to register! Pssst... Check out our guest post over at Freelancers Union for more personal branding tips and a discount on the course. 

Brand Exercises, Personal Branding
Capture, Shape, and Share with Instagram
February 07, 2013 Kathleen

(If you’re reading this post through an RSS feed or email be sure to click through to watch the video.) 

You guys may already know that we’re huge fans of Instagram. But lately we’ve found ourselves recommending it more and more to our creative entrepreneur clients. Instagram is an awesome way to visually connect with your friends, network with potential dream customers or brand advocates, and “show your tell”. But it’s also a great way capture, shape, and share who you are, and what you do – in a consistent, curated, behind-the-scenes of your life and work kind of way. 

Instagram is great for creatives like life coaches and consultants who aren’t necessarily photographers or designers, but still want to show of their goods, and their personal brand in a visual way, and look good doing it.

So this is how I, myself, and Braid’s creative entrepreneur clients, are using Instagram to capture, shape and share their business and personal brand. Now “capture, shape and share” is a three step approach I talk about a lot, especially when it comes to my blogging strategy (for both my personal blog and the Braid blog.) But really, you can just as easily overlay those three principles to a platform like Instagram – like a microblog approach I mention below (but with less writer’s block). 

Capture Instagram

CAPTURE
• Capture the Details: Instagram gets me thinking about capturing the small brand experiences I encounter – from a hand stamped placemat in my favorite restaurant to the way a lemon rind and oversized ice cube sits in my whiskey. 
• Capture Inspiration: Instagram is a great tool for visual note taking on the fly. For example, I’ve used Instagram to scout locations and capture test shots for brand videos.  
• Capture the Process: Instagram is an awesome way to share the behind-the-scenes process and tools you use to create for your clients. 

Shape Instagram

SHAPE
• Shape the Image: One of the things I love about Instagram is the ability to actually shape the final photograph with different filters (though, I prefer “rise”) and tilt-shift blur options. I also like to go in and add typographic overlays or multiply color over my images in Photoshop when taking my Instagram photos to my blog. But even if you’re not a graphic designer, filtering your images through Instagram is a great way to create consistency with the images you’re sharing. 
• Shape your Point-of-View: Go through your entire collection of Instagram snaps and start to find patterns. What colors do you capture a lot? What subjects? Do you consistently shoot from a certain angle or point-of-view? You’ll notice that the Instagram with the most followers (like one of my favorites, A Merry Mishap) have a consistent point-of-view. 
• Shape the Story: You can include a description with your Instagram images and treat it almost like a daily microblog. I often use Instagram to capture images I will later craft an in-depth blog post around later.  

Share Instagram

SHARE 
• Share on Instagram: One of the things I like about Instagram (vs. other camera apps like Hipstamatic – which are awesome for photo editing, as well) is the built in community designed for sharing. Just like Twitter you can explore hashtagged topics – one of my favorites is #WHP. #WHP stands for “Weekend Hashtag Project” where Instagram challenges users to capture a topic or theme like “birds on a wire” or “from where I stand” and tag it. It’s so cool to see what everyone else comes up with. Check out Instagram’s blog or follow @Instagram for interesting users and hashtags to follow and participate in. 
•  Share Elsewhere: You can also send your Instagram photos out to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr as you post them to your Instagram feed. This is a great way to flood all your social media platforms with beautiful, and consistent, images that share you and your brand. Different audiences may be following you in different places but you can add more information or tidbits to avoid becoming redundant if you find you have the same followers across your social media platforms. 
• Share in Real Life: One of my favorite new companies, Artifact Uprising, is designed to easily get your photos m your phone to print books and calendars. You can also use Pinstagr.am for miniprints, posters, and stickers. You can decorate your office or use these prints as self-promotional materials to send to your favorite dream customers. 

Are you using Instagram to capture, shape, and share your business and personal brand? Let us know your Instagram tips, advice, or insights on our Facebook page. P.S. You can follow my Instagram account here. 

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Our Braid ECourse Personal Branding: Blending Who You Are With What You Do is open for registration until February 14th. This $75 ECourse has 3 lessons loaded with tips, advice and our philosophy on defining your personal brand, thriving in the overlap between personal and professional, and sharing that brand online and off. All of that content, including worksheets and videos, will be available to you while the course is in-session from Feb. 15th - 24th. Register and find out more here.

Braid How-To's, Videos