What would possess a wife and mother to leave her full-time job and start a creative agency? A little bit of crazy (maybe) mixed with passion and a whole lot of faith! In fact, everything we do at That’s So Creative, LLC has been a leap of faith. We officially launched in 2016, but the vision began brewing in 2010, when I began freelancing under that name.
That’s So Creative was born out of a heart to serve businesses and help them grow. My desire was to combine my love for design with my marketing savvy. I’m an artist, for sure, but I first realized that I had a passion for marketing while working with small businesses. Working with them made me understand that it wasn’t enough to just design something that looked pretty. I wanted to know what happens after the design and before the concepts are created. In essence, what’s the plan and strategy to make sure that these designs are successful? What’s the business, marketing, and brand strategy?
In 2016, I was working full-time as an in-house designer and social media manager for a large nonprofit when the timing seemed to align with an opening to resign and launch the company. Armed with some business training I had taken earlier, a handful of clients, and a little bit of savings, I took the leap of faith, started my LLC, and didn’t look back. (Well, maybe I looked back a little. Sometimes you must overcome a barrage of self-doubt to make it as an entrepreneur.)
The next leap of faith, as a multi-disciplinary creative, was realizing that I couldn’t be a one-woman army. I realized that the vision was bigger than me and that I needed a team to fully actualize that vision. If my mission is to serve, how do I really serve and show up for my clients? So, the journey toward growth and scaling began.
I’ve often said that an entrepreneur’s personal growth journey is directly tied to the business journey. In the book The E-Myth Revisited, Michael E. Gerber says that most entrepreneurs aren’t really entrepreneurs but merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Ouch! The journey for me meant transitioning from technician to business owner. The journey for That’s So Creative meant transitioning from a freelance business to a business that had systems, operations and marketing in place. Has it been easy? No. Has it been worth it? Absolutely!
Where are we now?
We are continuing on the path of exponential growth and taking many leaps as we go. Right now, we have an eight-person team of experts ready to serve every aspect of your business or organization in the areas of brand strategy, communications, and website development. We have been blessed to work with dozens of businesses and organizations, small and large, and most recently, Cook County, IL. We’ve also conducted a number of workshops to help business owners plan their marketing and brand strategy.
What’s next?
As we continue to expand our business, we want to help other businesses make their “leap of faith”, to take that next step in their journey, with our new Brand Ignitor Program. It’s designed to help newly established small businesses alleviate some of the same growing pains that we faced. Our goal is to help you go from strategy to launch to implementation. Click here to learn more about the program.
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