business insights
I’m officially building my first Al app. No code. No hoodie-wearing co-founder. Just me, my idea, a no-code tool called Lovable.dev, and two years of quietly training an Al on everything I know about marketing, messaging, and digital products.
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100 Profitable Digital Product Ideas
Plus, a totally free challenge to kick you into action and get this baby launched.
How to Use Stock Photos to Make Your Brand Stand Out
You know those images of desks with perfectly-placed items like a laptop, mug, a few pens, and maybe a pair of glasses? That, my friend, is a stock photograph, and that one simple image can make a world of difference for your brand.
Stock photography isn’t a new thing. You’ve probably seen tons of memes from popular older stock websites, such as the infamous Shutterstock, Alamy, and iStock, who are most recognizable by their watermark slapped across images. Any class presentation where you needed to Google image search for a photo representing something, you’ve run across some stock photography.
These days, though, that term has been recreated in a way. Photographers aren’t just shooting scenarios where the models are overly enthusiastic with their expressions anymore, they’re giving a new meaning to stock photography and, in turn, giving an amazing way for brands to add more flavor to their business.
But in what ways could you be using stock images to help your brand pop?
Today, we’ll be giving you some ideas for how you can use them in your business, and we show you some examples, too.
We even have 90 stock photos for you, so stay tuned for the end!
How to Give Clients the Ultimate First Impression
“Gaining clients” can be a foreign, uncomfortable phrase to most new service-based businesses.
It’s new territory– hell, a new world– trying to navigate how to gain clients. You almost feel like you’re missing out on something that everyone else knows except you.
The thing is, this isn’t like the krabby patty secret formula.
It doesn’t have to be difficult. If you’re finding that you aren’t getting any leads, what you could do is reevaluate what kind of first impression you’re giving, and it all starts with one thing:
Your client introduction packet.
Communicating Your Brand Messaging Through Your Packaging
When you set up a product-based business, you spend a lot of time thinking about the product itself. You’ll devote time to planning how to market and communicate it to potential customers. But often, packaging is last on the to-do list, because it’s seen as a practical way to protect and ship, and nothing more.
5 Things to do Before You Pitch (prepping your biz for publicity)
You've watched your friends, colleagues and competitors land guest blog posts, podcast and television interviews and features in your favorite magazines. (You know, places like The Huffington Post, Being Boss and, ahem, this here blog.) They’re getting featured and getting the chance to grow their audience, boost their revenue and earn the kind of credibility you crave.
You want to have that experience – and that success – too. So you jump straight to working on some pitches of your own and end up missing a crucial step in the process of getting featured. (Don’t worry – almost everyone does.)
How to Humanize Your Business through Copywriting
Do you know how many online businesses there are today? About 1.2 bazillion* (*extreme hyperbole). Or at least, it feels that way, doesn’t it? There’s no doubt that the online business world is full to the brim, and more new businesses keep popping up every day.
With the glut of online businesses out there, you need a way to stand out and to connect with your potential clients and customers. You can’t simply say, “I’m a graphic designer” and have clients flock to you, because there are about 3.4 million* (*yep, hyperbole again) graphic designers out there.
So, what can you do about that? You can humanize your business through the very thing that you share all the time: your copywriting and content.
Putting Personality into Your Branding
With the huge influx of new solo or small group entrepreneurs into the world, the realm of branding has shifted. Where “personal branding” used to refer to the act of dressing up your personality, packaging yourself as a commodity in order to climb the corporate ladder, it now means something very, very different. Now personal branding refers to bloggers, solo photographers, freelancers, and all kinds of entrepreneurs and how they market themselves and their products or services. Furthermore, as these talented and capable people begin to brand themselves, a trend of DIY personal branding has taken over the blogosphere and social media marketing genres.
There is nothing wrong with DIY branding, particularly in the creative sector. After all, branding is something many creatives learn by trade and doing it in-house can save a lot of upfront cash for a new or small business. However, there is an unfortunate downside to the the DIY approach, especially in today’s post Pinterest world. Too often creatives, bloggers, and infopreneurs build a brand from shallow trends in their niche. Driven by the time stresses of the #sidehustle, or the ever-present comparison game, they abandon the core concept of authenticity and originality in branding and clamor to make something, anything so that they can launch their endeavors and build their businesses.
5 Steps to Build an Authentic Brand You Love
Building a brand that’s authentic and that you love could be the difference between having a successful business and one that’s not. Why? Because having a brand that’s authentic means being more in tune with who you are and where your passions lie as well as the needs of your audience. When I started my business as a branding strategist and designer 10 years ago, I wasn’t authentic at all. I did what I thought I needed to do. I offered a limitless amount of services, I talked about everything that I did, and I left “me” out of the equation. As I progressed in my career, I came to realize that I was making a huge mistake that was basically limiting my success.
So, I made a shift in the way I communicated with my audience and with myself, understanding my passions and being unapologetic about doing what I love. Here are the five steps you should follow in order to build an authentic brand that you love.
How to Create Your Own Branded Patterns in Canva
Branded patterns are such a great way to make a statement with your visuals.
You can get some gorgeous patterns on Creative Market and Etsy, and Rachel from Haute Chocolate includes some gorgeous options in her monthly Graphics Pack.
5 Ways to Successfully use Stock Photography on Your Website
Many of my website design clients aren't photographers, but they know they need great photos to make their website design pop. The trick isn't finding stock photography (it's all over the internet), but finding the right stock images and making them work for your website. Here’s the thing: if you use the wrong images on your website, you’re going to run into problems.
What is Intentional Design and How it Can Benefit Your Business
When it comes to building websites, many people place most of their focus on aesthetics. While it’s important that a website is attractive and grabs visitors’ attention, intentional web design goes beyond just looks and takes into account multiple factors that impact your website’s performance. When you hone in on things like your goals, SEO, etc. and consider them along with your web design strategy, it’s possible to create something that’s both stunning and that drives results.
In this post, we’ll be breaking down the importance of strategic and intentional website design and sharing a look at our design process and its effects on our clients!
Top Website Design Trends in 2023
The main point of design trends is to break expectations. We want an element of surprise, whether that’s through color, shapes and patterns, animation, or overall layout. This’ll be reflected in the trends we’ve noticed that we’re going to break down for you in this post, but don’t let these trends intimidate you– there are a lot of ways to add in that organic surprise that feels really true to your brand direction.
10 Must-Know Canva Hacks for Creative Small Business Owners
Even though we have backgrounds in design and using fancier software, Canva has taken care of the majority of our graphic design needs for the past 7+ years. We have no idea how we would function without it since we use it to design our social graphics, Shop templates, presentation slides, podcast graphics, and so much more.
In our experience over the years we’ve been using Canva, there are at least 10 must-know hacks every creative small business owner needs to know!
All the New Canva Features that Released in 2021
You don’t need to have been a long time follower of Boss Project to know that we absolutely adore Canva. We use it for so many different purposes in our business, and we have for years! It’s the perfect tool for business owners who want to make quick, beautiful graphics without needing a design background.
This year, Canva has dropped tons of amazing new features that have been absolute game-changers for how you create graphics. We also know that this year has been a time of major comeback for so many business owners, so we wanted to give you a recap of all the new Canva features that were released in 2021!
3 Reasons Why We Use Canva
Canva is hands-down the most popular graphic design tool we see used almost every single day by creative business owners. It’s the perfect tool for beginners, people who just want to make a quick graphic, and anyone who values ease-of-use and a moderate amount of tools without having to use and learn robust software.
Here at Boss Project, we definitely fit in with that crowd! Although we have professional designers on our team that are trained in those robust softwares, nothing beats using Canva to whip up jaw-dropping graphics for all purposes.
In fact, there are 5 main reasons why we use Canva (and why you should, too!), which is what we’re going to cover in this blog post!
The Ultimate List of Canva Resources to Create Beautiful Designs
Canva is the ultimate graphic design tool for small businesses. It has a user-friendly interface, is super easy to use, and takes almost no time to get the hang of. We use it almost every single day to create designs for our business and will likely continue to use it for years to come, no matter the fact that we have professional designers on our team. That’s just how good it is!
Because we love it so much, we have a million and one resources out there to help you get to know Canva and begin using it for different purposes in your business. So with that said, enjoy this ultimate list of Canva resources to get you creating beautiful designs ASAP!
Welcome to My Blog
Hey, I’m Abagail Pumphrey!
You know when you are so deeply passionate about something you can’t help but share it? That’s how this blog has felt for the last decade. I’ve written about my latest strategies, tech how-tos, experience with scaling and so much more. I hope you find just what you’re looking for. We’re here to help!
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