The other day Instagram was down and every entrepreneur I know went into full panic mode and I realized how much we truly have invested in one platform. I mean don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the ‘gram, but it got me thinking… what if instagram disappeared tomorrow?

One of the first steps in my branding and web design process working with clients is one of their favorite parts of everything- creating a brand vision board on Pinterest. I do this to see what they are naturally drawn to so I can make sure the brand I design for them matches both the things they feel authentic/resonate with them alongside with things that they feel inspire them.

A question I get asked ALL the time is how (and why) I got into entrepreneurship. It’s always, for some reason, a question I try to avoid answering- because it is SO much harder to explain than what people expect. Today, I promised myself to sit down and write down my thoughts to really explain where I came from and how I got where I am today.

As a lot of you know- I’ve been on the go most of the last couple months. Between traveling to Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, California, South Carolina, and now Florida in a few days- my entire life has been out of a suitcase. BUT, by the grace of God or the universe or whatever you believe in, I’ve been able to continue to successfully run my business while being gone. Here’s how I did it:

It’s my 24th birthday today, and I was getting ready to write a blog where I talked about all my goals for this upcoming year of my life- then I was like, but wait, what about all of the damn accomplishments this year?!

I have this flaw- it’s called striving and never arriving. I always am too busy trying to do more, be more, make more, rinse & repeat that I sometimes (usually) forget to look at what I have created, how far I’ve come, and how amazing that feels.

This is a blog topic I’ve found myself continuously adding and erasing on my content calendar. I always preach authenticity and try to show you guys the real me… but, admitting your flaws and short-comings and failures can be really hard. As someone who really believes in trying to showcase real life through business and all the struggles that come with that, I decided today to sit down and actually write it and be totally transparent and real with you guys.

I remember when I first started in the business world- I had just hired a business coach when we talked about creating an avatar for my ideal client on one of our first calls. Uhm, ideal client? My ideal client was anyone who would pay me over $7 an hour. Seriously. I knew I had built the blueprint for a successful business but also had NO IDEA how to actually make money by getting clients.

As entrepreneurs who are always wearing 5,000 hats, there’s always so much more we could be doing to keep growing our businesses. I have found some incredibly helpful tools this last year that help uplevel my business and really save me time and money (and when you’re an entrepreneur, you know time IS money!)

Here’s a list of my favorite tools and resources that I use every single day:

Something I get asked a lot from clients, friends, and even strangers is “What makes up a good logo?”

I work with so many creative entrepreneurs who find the absolute most beautiful hand-illustrated super-freaking-intricate logos and send me examples of them when they want something designed for their own brand…

I learned a lesson back when I was working in the corporate world and went through the branding process with my old company (I wasn’t doing the work, I was just the director of marketing that helped make some of the big decisions). This was a HUGE branding project, we’re talking an almost six month timeline with a six figure price tag.