I’m Official!Since I made my big announcement on Tuesday, I’ve been getting some questions. What’s your plan? What exactly will Inward Facing Girl part two do? Can I help? Since there seems to be some curiosity from my family, friends, and readers, I’m introducing a new column today: What’s Next? In What’s Next I’ll give you guys updates and let you know what’s coming up next for Inward Facing Girl, The Business. That way you guys can accompany me on this exciting/scary/fun/scary/awesome adventure. Sometimes I’ll probably need you to hold my hand, or give me a cookie.
Updates
I’ll begin with the parts that aren’t very fabulous. You know…things no one would ever want to pin. I’ve applied for and recieved my City of Seattle and Washington State businesses licenses. That’s been on my TeuxDeux list since I went to Alt Summit in January. Yesterday I took those business licenses and marched straight into my credit union and opened up a business checking and savings account. See? Who would want to pin this stuff? Snoozefest!
This, however, is totally pinnable. I designed my new business cards this week! They’re square. I mean, they’re cool, but in the shape of a square. I’ll probably get them in the next week or two, but here’s a digital proof of the front and back.
Notice that I didn’t include photography as one of my services. I’m not going to put it on my business card, but I will offer it. I just don’t want people to think I’m a professional photographer with a photography studio and all that jazz 80s music. I want to be upfront about my experience, while still selling myself. How do you do that?
What’s Next?
Okay, this is where it gets crazy. There are so many things to do! Luckily, I have some in-between time before I launch my business, so I can work on getting things ready to go on my official first day of full-time Inward Facing Girl on Monday, July 2nd. This is not a list of everything, just a few things I hope to accomplish within the next week(ish).
1. Update and revamp the website.
First, I need to take a look at what I have now and make some changes. I HAVE to update my Mighty Life List and my Press+ page…especially after yesterday! What happened yesterday, you ask? MY BLOG AND PHOTOS WERE ON DECOR8! I was seriously freaking out with glee! Calm down, back to work Melanie! Also, I have a lot of tabs going across the top and I’m going to have to cut/rearrange/combine some things to make room for a new landing page and my business page.
When that’s done, I need to create a new landing page so that the first thing visitors see when they visit www.inwardfacinggirl.com is a place where they choose the part of the site they’d like to visit. Do they want to read the blog? Do they want to work with me? The choices will be presented (in a pretty way, of course) so visitors can decide where they want to go first.
2. Create a business page for Inward Facing Girl.
This means that I’m going to need to spend some time writing out exactly what services I want to offer, deciding how much I want to charge for specific things, and designing a page that shares this information in a pretty way.
3. Update my media kit and create new marketing materials.
The stats and design on my media kit are out of date. Updating this information is step one of this process, so I will have it ready when approaching sponsors.
Once that’s done I’ll move on to creating new materials – a business tagline that describes who I want to work with (creative/designy/artsy businesses) and a PDF one sheet of services that I offer (including prices).
4. Promoting my business.
It’s research, list making, and email writing time. First, I’m going to make a list of all the people that I know who might have some referrals for me and contact them. Then I’m going to wait. The end!
Kidding. Second, I’m going to decide where I should spend my advertising dollars. What websites, businesses, groups, etc., would be useful for promoting Inward Facing Girl? Speaking of that, are any of you familiar with the CRAVE company? If so, I’d love any information that you have about them. I’m considering joining CRAVE Seattle, but I’d like to hear more about how effective it is in generating referrals before I make the investment.
Whew! I think that’s enough to do for now. If I start to fall behind will you guys promise to be my evil taskmasters? “Melanie! Where’s that media kit?!” “Melanie! Stop wasting time creating yet another Ryan Gosling meme and get back to work!” “Seriously, Melanie…how many times can you watch Gilmore Girls? Loralei and Rory are GONE!”
“What? No…NO! Turn off Felicity!”
