The idea of selling your creative business may seem completely crazy. Maybe you left a corporate job to start your business or maybe it’s been a dream that’s years in the making. You have passion for your business, and your soul is in every detail.

This is exactly how I felt about my first business. I started and ran a wedding blog for five years, and boy, did I love that thing. The first two years all I thought about was blog posts, SEO, photo shoots and advertisers. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, but I will never forget the day I realized that I was making as much on my blog as I was at my 9–5 job. I poured my heart and soul into every single post, and it always rewarded me for my efforts.
As life moved on and I got busier, the passion for my business waned. I still loved my blog but it was not as easy to put the time in, and as it grew it needed more and more from me. I never considered selling until someone suggested it, and I was a little shocked. Even though I had two employees and was making a solid full time salary, I couldn’t imagine who would want to buy my small little passion project. The business was so much a part of me, it also totally freaked me out to think what I would do if I sold it.

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.

Have you ever had an email subscriber hop on your list … just to grab the freebie and peace out once you send a weekly newsletter?  

Yup, it happens to us all. Which stinks, because you’re just burning the midnight oil to build your list for your upcoming pitch or offer, and it just stays static at a plateau.  

What if I told you there was a little hack to getting those folks to stick around AND fall more in love with you and what you have to teach in the process? 

There are obvious benefits to leading a healthy lifestyle — you’ll be healthy, look toned & strong, and maybe even hit your happy weight. But those are future you problems. All present you really cares about right now is building a sustainable business.

You could use those benefits, but not as much as you could use the benefits of making a full time living as a boss babe.

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.

Marketing can do pretty amazing stuff for your business. But the one part of it that's not that cool is customer profiles. And that's especially true if you're starting a brand new blog from scratch.

What's a customer profile anyways?

Customer profiles are semi-fictional representations of the people you want to reach. These profiles, also known as buyer personas, include details such as:

• Who you want to reach
• What they do for a living
• How old they are
• Problems that they face daily that might impact their decision to buy things.

March already feels like decades ago, but so many important things happened that set us up for success in April that it would be a shame to just skip over the nitty gritty details. Inside this income report you will find out exactly what we have been investing in and spending time learning about behind the scenes, as well as our brand new tool to help automate some of the processes.

Why do we do income reports?

In an effort to be as transparent as possible in our own business, we have chosen to make 2017 the year in which we showcase the good, the bad and the ugly. That means we talk about money on months when we bring home the bacon and on months when we’d rather not discuss finances. We hope you learn a LOT from these reports. Replicate and tweak our strategies to use in your own business. Get inspired, learn from our mistakes and grow your own online business.

The day I discovered Kiwi for Gmail was the day I realized there really was actually a better way. If you are anything like me, you are constantly switching between different Gmail accounts, trying to figure out where you saved your last Google doc and just wishing that, for the love of all things bacon flavored, it would stop logging you out when you didn’t ask it to. Kiwi for Gmail is a simple application that allows people to utilize Gmail + the G-Suite right on their desktop… sweet, seriously.

Quizzes are so hot right now. Think of all those quizzes from Buzzfeed that fill your night. Wondering what kind of Starbucks drink you are. Finding out what type of home you should buy based off how you would make a burger. That stuff is deep.

Well, let’s use that quiz fever for good, shall we? Let’s provide value (gasp!) and grow our lists at the same time (double gasp!). Earlier this week we debuted our first quiz, Find Out Your Productivity Spirit Animal. Today, we’re walking you through how to make your very own quiz step-by-step.