Creative Innovation That Converts

Speaker 1: [Music] visual communication is one of the most powerful and vulnerable ways to communicate with people and get them to take action there's so much emotion wrapped into it and as human beings we are making emotional decisions to help us find and solve problems and solutions hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the Sheed experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in thank you for joining us Ariel you are the owner of by Ariel a brand design and marketing agency we're always thinking about how to best Market our ourselves Our Brands and our businesses what led you to start your business and walk us through how you work with clients a lot of us we fall into entrepreneurship that we love it but we didn't necessarily come out of the gate thinking that would be our path a couple

Speaker 2: years after I graduated college I was working as an admissions counselor in higher education and I thought I enjoyed it I thought I loved it and I was living in in La at the time there's always creative things happening in LA and so I went to a Meetup that was a room full of other creatives and the woman who was hosting the Meetup owned a creative agency and so in conversation with her I got to know a little bit about what she did and I think three months later she reached out and I ended up working for her as her administrative assistant and that opened up my eyes to the world of Entrepreneurship I think I saw for the first time that I had everything I needed and I could teach myself everything I needed just by observing others and learning through the University of Google to do my own thing and it was so exciting to me obviously overwhelming but saw for the first time that it was possible and then three to five years later I had gathered a lot of expertise and knowledge working under her and I really felt why am I working for someone else I can do this myself and I can create the that I want and the freedom that I want and this felt like the most exciting and challenging in the

Speaker 1: best way to do that I love that so much and isn't it so fun how much we can learn online and all of the new platforms that are at our fingertips so

Speaker 2: fun oh yeah because once you realize that the possibility just becomes

Speaker 1: endless so tell us how you work with

Speaker 2: clients we primarily work with clients in a very custom capacity I say that we turn Brands into industry icons it's so much more than we're designing a logo for you we are creative directing your identity we are telling the story of who you are and what you're doing and why it's so Innovative in a

Speaker 1: visual way visual communication is one of the most powerful and vulnerable ways to communicate with people and get them to take action there's so much emotion wrapped into it and as human beings we are making emotional decisions to help us find and solve problems and solutions wrapping a visual identity around your brand your offer what you do is a way to completely catapult and elevate your impact and your reach a lot of our clients are carving out new places in their own markets they're solving a problem that doesn't exist yet or finding a new way of doing something and they really are becoming an icon in their industry and so our services come around them to build out the visual experience of their brand across

Speaker 2: platforms and it's so great that you do that for business owners and personal Brands because sometimes we're so in the weeds of what we're doing we know what we want but it's easier if someone comes in from an outside perspective and helps

Speaker 1: to execute on that absolutely even as someone who does this for a living it's really hard to do it for yourself and a lot of times you do need an objective person creative partner to look at what you're doing and say this can have mass impact if we wrap it up and communicate it this way and that's one of my favorite parts of what we do is getting to transfer this Mass Vision to the CEO to the brand for what we see as an outsider is actually possible and sometimes we make it more complicated when it could be very simple absolutely when you're in the weeds of it if you're easy to over complicate it it's also easy to think small it's easy to get stuck in what your own belief in yourself is we only know where we've been and so someone objective to come in and say no this is where you could go and here's the exact path to get there can also be really expansive I love the

Speaker 2: topic of negotiation because we all do it in one way or another in our lives and business when you were negotiating fees with clients how do you suggest to start and go through the negotiation

Speaker 1: process I believe in setting yourself up as a service provider as the leader of the project and setting expectations and boundaries from the very beginning before talks of pricing and investment NE negotiation come into play I like to walk into a discovery call sales call with that client already feeling like I'm the one in charge I'm the one crafting a process and thinking through how to get them this promise transformation and I want them to trust then that my process my pricing everything I'm pitching to them is correct is the vehicle to get them what they want by the time we're having those conversations there isn't a lot of negotiating happening a lot of it is forged in the priming of that conversation even that expectation that you are the leader of this project and that your system and process and investment that covers that process is correct and non-negotiable I think it just flows into the actual project and especially with a creative service oftentimes graphic designers brand designers get a lot of push back clients can steamroll the creative Direction and so setting those expectations up front allows for you to be the leader of the whole process which ultimately results in a better experience for the client and better result because we all do our best work when we are the ones leading the Creative Vision when you feel good about what you're making then you can really

Speaker 2: help execute on the client's Vision yes exactly absolutely and they at the end of the day what we were talking about earlier they are hiring you to come in as an objective third party and be an expert in this way that they can't do themselves I have hired service providers who made me feel like I needed to take control of the project because they weren't being the expert for whatever reason for not wanting to stop on my TOS i w want them to take the lead as this client I want to be led through this thing that I struggle with and so I think we forget a lot of times that clients are hiring us to be the leader over this specific thing in their

Speaker 1: business I really like that you say that and business owners appreciate that too because we're busy leading everything else you know if we hire someone to lead something yes please exactly we move at such a speed and there is always the ability to be easily distracted how do you suggest that we make and maintain space for creative thinking oh this is a

Speaker 2: really difficult practice to master especially as an entrepreneur because as you just said there's always something to do the to-do list is never done there's always more and as a business owner and a creative it is so important to take time for just creative exploration this looks different for everyone and if you are a designer if you are a creative I think this is so critical to how the level of your work that you're producing as well so it's not just for your own mental health it's actually for the level and quality of work you're producing for others I recommend figuring out what those things are that fuel personal inspiration for me in this season of Life they're actually pretty simple I love reading fiction books my brain is always going a million miles an hour and I'm always strategizing reading a fiction book allows my brain to fully focus and in a different way than watching a TV show like when you're watching a TV show I'm usually on my phone I'm like multitasking in five different ways just to keep my brain stimulated but when I'm reading a fiction book it's stimulated enough to allow my brain to now conceptualize new creative ideas so that's been a practice that I've started implementing and again it can be like 30 minutes a day it doesn't have to take a

Speaker 1: ton of time it's interesting that you say that because I have twins and they're nine now but I was always so tired by the end of the day that I just would watch a show but I've started to read again too and I'd love to know what

Speaker 2: your favorite books are oh my gosh okay so like I said this only works with fiction books I love a good self how

Speaker 1: business book as well but if I'm truly just trying to shut off my brain and be inspired yeah I can't read those at night my brain will keep going if I read those won't wind down oh my gosh yes so I very quickly powered through most of lean Mori AR's books but there's one she wrote It's called what Alice forgot and it was so good I love when a book can also sneak to your soul and has some big life lesson wrapped into it and that one was very much about taking nothing for granted and that life could change the drop of a hat and again as business owners life moves really fast and you're constantly moving forward it's very easy to be looking to the next thing and working towards the next thing next goal the next Milestone but it's very easy to just be in the moment so that book was really wrapped in that principle I loved

Speaker 2: it what is your favorite part of owning a business and what does having the space to be creative mean to you I think

Speaker 1: my favorite part of owning a business is the everchanging constant challenge which is also my least year part of owning a business I haven't been bored for the last six years not once and that is so exciting to me being bored is one of my worst fears honestly and it's such an inspiration because for me when she built it I wake up every day just ready to dive in and do it and that you have found that for you too and that's an amazing place to be oh yeah it's so exciting and like I said it's not easy it's actually really hard but it's so exciting and the challenge in the best way far out ways the hard there's always that 20% of things we don't love doing but as long as you have that other

Speaker 2: 80% so worth it oh yeah absolutely and just to get to create the life you want and Entrepreneurship does come with a lot of work and a lot of hustle and a lot of problem solving and a lot of growing pains it just bleeds into life but with that there is the ability and freedom to design your own life and that's really cool yeah and it helps so much when you love what you do absolutely magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live

Speaker 1: your Joy each day okay when work is also what you love it's hard to separate the two and it's also hard to separate the emotions of the two like work is sometimes stressful sometimes anxiety inducing but sometimes really there's lots of highs and there is joy and so work for me is joyful so that was a hard question for me I thought a lot and I was like what do I do besides work and it's hard for a lot of women I started scheduling things in I'll schedule a workout in or I'll schedule in I'm going to go get a massage because I'll just work or schedule in a longer run than I normally would but so many women that I talk to have to do it intentionally to make sure that we make that space for ourselves but I also understand when you love what you do it's so hard to put it down it really is because it's your happy place too absolutely what's helped me is to give myself harder deadlines and boundaries and to not have email on my phone and so that when I'm working I can be working and when I'm not working I can somewhat shut that side off which allows me to do all these other things be with my husband be with my dog be with my family go out to eat I love to travel too but I've been realizing that having more weekends at home having more months where we're not taking a trip also brings a lot of Joy the downtime

Speaker 2: the downtime yeah it's been so fun to talk to you thank you for joining us tell us how and where we can find you

Speaker 1: yes of course so you can find me at by ari. Co and also I love chatting with people on Instagram feel free to DM me on Instagram too at by Arial

Speaker 2: Co thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at she builted on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave [Music]