Arianne Foulks « oh my! handmade goodness

Arianne Foulks

How Attending Altitude Summit Helped My Business

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Are you thinking of attending an event targeted at people in your field of business? Perhaps a conference, a camp, classes, or workshops? Waiting to see what Jessika’s brewing up so the Oh My community can meet? Besides having a fun time at business events, how do you determine which will be good investments?

l-r: Arianne Foulks, Alyssa Yuhas, Christine Castro Hughes, Laurie Smithwick
image by Brooke Dennis on the Alt Summit 2012 Flickr stream

When the internet started buzzing about Altitude Summit (a conference primarily for design bloggers) last fall, I pricked my ears up and started thinking about it. Although I’d never attended an event like it before, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and ended up convincing three of my Aeolidia teammates to pack up and share a luxurious room at the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake City with me.

Chris, my business partner and husband, thought if I was going to invest in the conference for business purposes, I’d better make it worth my while, so he insisted I send an email to Alt offering to help out. Public speaking is not in my self-created job description, but I sent that email off, heart pounding. I ended up speaking on a panel with three very talented folks regarding Web Design: Dos and Don’ts.

I was pretty sure that attending Alt was going to be fun, but the cost of attending adds up. Would it be worth it for my business? We were going to Alt as service providers, not as their target audience. We hoped to meet, greet, and network, but were unsure what the return on our investment would be.

Less than a week after going to Alt, I’m confident that it was a good business decision, and here are some reasons why:

I finally got to meet my team!

I have nine full time designers and developers at Aeolidia, and aside from the pals in Seattle, I’ve never met them, and hadn’t even talked to them on the phone. Alt Summit gave us a time and place to meet up and get to know one another. Aside from just having a fun time chatting with Lauren, Meg, and Zoe, Shoshanna and I had some invigorating and useful business conversations with them as well. It has been great and pretty easy with us all working remotely, but I can see now that it would be nice to have everyone right there with me to bounce ideas off of. Meeting in person was valuable and I expect it to strengthen our team. If you have a chance to meet people you work with, definitely do it, do it, do it!

I am more firmly established as an expert in my field.

We have been pretty much keeping to ourselves, designing and building nice websites, nose to the grindstone. Before this, we didn’t have much to put on any kind of press or publicity page on our site, but now we have this bit of recognition to add to our testimonials and portfolio as a reason to trust us. Contributing to an event like this reflects well on your business.

I have a better understanding of what our clients are looking for.

Since this conference was geared toward an audience that we want to speak to, we could look at all of the panels, roundtables, and classes from the point of view of our potential clients, and learn more about what they’re interested in and concerned about. I took good notes on the panels and will be sharing those as blog posts, newsletters, and plans for our clients. It’s easy to think of everything from your own perspective, but extremely helpful to get into your clients or customers’ heads when making business plans.

I met colleagues.

It was so much fun talking with other web designers and people I’ve been planning and collaborating with. I also got to introduce myself to people I admire. Talking to the people I already know online helped me feel more connected with them and will likely make it easier to collaborate with them in the future. A cheery “hello” to people I don’t know makes it easier to approach them going forward. Don’t think of others in your business as competitors, but instead as colleagues who you can learn from and share connections with.

I made plans with clients.

A few of the business owners we’ve worked with over the years were at Alt, and we got to talk with them in person about how their sites are working now, how they want them to work, and what plans they have. It’s always more personable to chat with a client in the flesh than to send an email, but we don’t often get the chance to do that. Speaking personally to your clients or customers is a great opportunity to both review and plan.

I got to chat with potential clients.

I also talked to a few people who are planning to work with us in the future, and it was exciting to hear that we’re on at least one person’s 2012 goal list. Apparently, Shoshanna introduced herself in her watercolor class and found a fan! Again, back to that “nose to the grindstone” thing, I truthfully didn’t understand how far our reach is at the moment, and it feels very exciting to know we’re being noticed and to make plans for being seen even further. Having all your hard work validated can push you to do even better.

I was motivated.

This conference, in particular, was extremely motivating to me. In part because of the panels and keynotes, but it also felt great to be surrounded by creative people who were planning out their own lives and trying to make things that are the best and the most beautiful. If you’re like many creative people, you probably spend a lot of time surrounded by people grudgingly heading off to their 9 to 5 job, or family members who are worrying about your own financial security. It was inspiring and validating being around so many people who that was not the case for. The right people and atmosphere can energize you to dream big for your business!

I got out of the house!

Let me tell you, I spend a lot of time in my house. Which I love. Perhaps I love it a little too much. Knowing that there is a real world out there composed of all the people I’ve been emailing, chatting with on Twitter, and working on projects with is a breath of fresh air. Dabbling into that world for a moment makes all the tweets and blog comments and whatnot more real to me. Introverts! Fight your inclinations for a moment and stretch your wings a bit.

This all sounds pretty great, right? I would recommend finding places to meet with your community, or making places to meet. On the airplane back, I read an article in Uppercase magazine about various design camps that are worth looking into. There was talk at Alt about all kinds of group meetups, from people wanting Pinterest meetups to BurdaStyle’s global meetups, and other community projects. Of course keep an eye out for Jessika to bring the Oh My! community together. I hope to do more things like this in the future, so if you see me around, please do say hi!

Six simple ways to refresh your site without redesigning

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Whether you’re the resolutions type or not, it’s hard not to think of each new year as a great time to make improvements and plans for your business. We always get lots of redesign requests at Aeolidia in the new year, as well as people wanting to start with something new.

Maybe a redesign isn’t in your budget right now, or your site is looking and working just fine, but could use a bit of sprucing up. Here are some ideas for improving your site without doing a full redesign.

Spruce up your content

Add photos or wide banner graphics to the category pages of your site. You can use this area to feature certain items or show the items “in action” or just make nicer looking titles for each category. Most website software will allow you to add images and text to category pages.

Category page banner example - Olliegraphic

Work on your product descriptions. Could you adjust your text to make it so your customers just have to have the item in question? Here are two great articles from the Oh My! archives:

Improving Your Product Descriptions and Product Listings With Personality.

(read more…)

End each day with an empty inbox

Monday, November 21, 2011

How to empty your inbox

Email! It is great because it’s there when you’re ready for it, and you don’t have to spend the whole day gabbing on the phone to get things done. It’s also terrible, because it piles up and gives you attacks of guilt and anxiety. Has it been a while since you’ve seen a beautiful blank white inbox? Have you ever?

My empty work inbox!

I’ve spent years and years answering email as one of my primary occupations, and I am here today to share my system for you to use to empty your inbox and keep it empty.

Now, you’re going to need to get serious! If you have hundreds of emails in your inbox, pick a day this week to do nothing else but tackle that inbox. Then, your goal is to get down to zero every day, so you won’t get stuck with that monster box full of email again. Here is what to do on day one, and again every day.

Separate email accounts:

I have a separate Gmail account for both my personal email and my “wanted junk mail,” such as newsletters and confirmation emails, etc. My main Aeolidia email only contains messages from my clients and team members, and nothing that’s not business oriented. This way, I can do work email without being distracted by friendly emails, Twitter notifications, and awesome sales at Anthropologie.A separate account makes sense for me, because we use helpdesk software to manage our Aeolidia email. If you don’t have a special setup for your business email, you’d likely be better off setting up a separate email address for the same account that you can then filter to a folder or archive and tag to read later.

Filters:

There is email that I want to get, but that I don’t need to see in my inbox. For instance, email notifications from social media sites. In Gmail, I set up filters to skip the inbox and file these things under a label. Then, when I’m all caught up on work, I can click on my “Twitter” label and see all the notifications at once, instead of having them pile up with real email.I would also recommend ruthlessly unsubscribing from any newsletters that you don’t find valuable or enjoyable.

Email statuses:

For my work email, I separate everything into four types of emails:

Active: all new email.
Pending: this is email that I can’t answer yet (usually I’m waiting for more info).
To-do: this is email that I’ve read and made a plan for.
Done: all done emails are filed away and moved out of the inbox.

Most email programs allow for some kind of label, tag, or star system to help you with this.

Saving information:

Your inbox is not the place to store information. If I need to save necessary info from an email, I copy that info over to Evernote, my Google calendar, my address book, or wherever else is appropriate and then file the email away. Not only will your inbox be clean, but it will be much easier to find that info again when it’s in the proper place!

Work through your inbox in order.

Start with the oldest email, then go through one by one until you get to the newest. This has two great benefits.

you get the old ones out of the way, assuaging your guilt and getting a response to the people who have been waiting longest, and
this way you don’t end up blasting through the easy emails and saving the hardest for last. It can be very discouraging to be “almost done” with your email and find that you’ve saved all the huge and/or annoying emails in a big awful clump.

I do make an exception to this rule if there are groups of email I’m going to do the same thing with. Sometimes it’s best to grab all the email that needs the same answer and do them at once, grab all the ones that you’ll be entering data into the same spreadsheet for, etc.

If I have other tasks to do on a given day (and I always do), I prioritize by answering all emails from the day before, then doing some of my planned work tasks, then getting back to the people that wrote me in the morning.

Form letters:

These have a bad reputation, but they are a life saver. People don’t like to feel that they’re receiving a form letter, but doing the same work over and over again yourself isn’t efficient.If I find myself writing about the same thing twice, I just copy it from my first response, adjust it to fit most situations, and save it as a form letter in my email program. The next time someone asks, two clicks and that email is out of my inbox, and the person who wrote me has all the info they need.

Gmail Labs "canned responses" feature

Don’t psyche yourself out!

Oftentimes I let an email sit in my inbox for too long because it looks hard to deal with. Many times, when I finally get around to it, I find that it only took ten minutes or so and was not as arduous as I’d thought. Instead of skimming, shuddering, and moving on to the next email, grit your teeth, find out what you need to do, and process that email!

Delegate:

You’re out of luck if you run your business solo, but if you have a partner or a team, and you’re shouldering most of the email load, you may find that you can pass certain things on to another person to help out with.

Postpone with notice:

If you’re getting to the end of the work day and see that you’re not going to be able to clear your inbox out, write everyone you can’t get back to that day. Let each person know you received their email, and give them a time frame for when you’ll get back to them.This is a great thing to do, because it relieves some of your burdened feeling, you know you won’t be getting any “nag” followup emails before you can reply, and you come off looking prompt and professional, without having done any major work.This is a perfect form letter situation – just adjust the date, or have it say “within the next two days” or “by the end of the week.”

Schedule:

Sometimes an email needs more than a reply, it needs you to do some work. For anything that’s not quick, put it on your calendar with all the notes you’ll need to complete the task, send a reply telling them when the work is scheduled, and get that email out of your inbox.

Be done!

When you’ve cleaned out your box, or it’s after your official work hours, close your email for the day. You’ve worked hard; you deserve a break. You also don’t want people to start expecting you to reply to them any time of day or night.

Put the info on your website.: If people ask you the same questions all the time, there must be something that’s not clear on your website. Prevent these emails by having a great FAQ. If people are emailing you before reading the FAQ, put the most important things right on your contact page, or put links to the most common questions right there. Make it so people will have to see the answer before they can send an email to you.
Autoreply?: I have mixed feelings about these. Don’t bother if your autoreply just says “we received your email” – this doesn’t help anyone, and isn’t particularly reassuring. I can see an autoreply being useful if it explains when you’re likely to answer, but ideally, you’d answer all email within a day or two and not need this. I always use an autoreply if I’m going to be away from the computer for more than a couple of days. My “away” autoreply says when I’ll return and who to contact in my stead for urgent issues.
Modify your process.: Are you doing too much work overall? Being diligent about email but still never finding yourself caught up? Maybe it’s time to automate certain tasks, or hire an employee. If your business is successful, it’s likely to start being more work than one person can handle. If you can’t make your regular tasks go more efficiently in any way, you may need some extra help. Don’t fret – this is a good thing!
Just say no.: Just say no to things that aren’t worth the time and trouble. Doing little favors and tasks for people will take up your time and fill up your inbox.

What do you think?

What do you think? Would my system work for you? Do you have any other tips to share? If you have questions about the technical aspects of setting up any of these solutions, please post a comment to let me know, and perhaps we could have a followup article that gets into the nitty gritty.

P.S. I was inspired by writing this article to clear out my personal Gmail inbox today! I am kind of lazy with this one, since there’s no urgent work email in there, and it’s a beautiful feeling to see that “No new mail!” message.

How often do you see this??

Interview with Lauren Hardage of Aeolidia

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Hello hello! Join me today for an interview with Lauren Hardage. Shoshanna and I were happily working along as Aeolidia, and one day Lauren emailed me checking in to see if we’d like to hire a web designer. I hadn’t considered adding anyone to our team, but I’d admired her work for years, so I went for it! Best decision ever! Not only does she create amazing sites (that I consider to be the essence of the Aeolidia aesthetic), but she was able to pick up all my design slack during both of my pregnancies and maternity breaks, and has turned out to be a great person to bounce ideas off of as well.

Lauren Hardage

Tell us a bit about your start in graphic design and Wise Rabbit on Etsy.

I started out selling woodblock prints and cards on Etsy when it was only a few months old. In the banner area, most of us newly minted sellers would just upload a product photo in the whatever dimensions and hope for the best! Maybe if you were really professional, you’d figure out how to squeeze in a pixelated shop name over the image. (Fancy!) As I spent more time learning about the community, I noticed that there were a few sellers with pixel-perfect banners and avatars, making their products seem about 100 times more legit than those of us with sad looking graphics. One night I stayed up with the Paint program open on my little laptop all night and churned out something like 80 banners! Once I started clicking around, I was just hooked. I felt all the same satisfaction as when crafting with wood, paper and ink, but with an even purer and faster translation of the layout in my mind’s eye to a visible result.

Some of Lauren's Etsy banners

Best of all, I knew that there was a distinct need for this type of work on Etsy, and I became intrigued by the idea of serving businesses rather than consumers. I was so inexperienced and timid — my first custom banner listings were for $4.99! Fast forward five years: I’ve had the luck and privilege to work with hundreds of clients, collaborate with brilliant colleagues, develop my skills and tools, and stay busy all day long doing what I love.

How do you get started on a web design project? After you’ve read up on all the client’s info and preferences and you sit down and roll up your sleeves, what steps do you take?

First I set up a new Photoshop file that includes a folder of goodies I’ll likely need for the design. (Things like layers for the site body in various widths, placeholder text in web safe fonts, cursor graphics to show sample mouseover actions, standard copyright text, etc.) Then I pull all of the project assets into that file and hide it away in a folder, to draw from throughout the process. Sort of like getting all of your ingredients in place first, so you don’t get halfway through making cookies and realize you have no vanilla. The worst! (Fun fact: I recently read on a favorite blog that the name for this approach is “mise en place” — see here). I love this.

Lauren's work space

Next I re-read any design direction and inspiration, and review the graphics I have to work with, which usually gives me some kind of visual anchor to start with. From there its just a domino effect of one design element leading to the next, until the site feels attractive and balanced, and all the objectives are fulfilled. The most fun and also most nerve-wracking part is “the reveal” when you send a first look at the site concept out to a client and are waiting for a response! Knowing how much blood, sweat and tears the people I work with put into their businesses, it feels really special to be a part of getting their work out to the world — and I want them to be thrilled with the design.

While I’m working, I LOVE listening to old time radio shows (The Whistler is a great one!). There’s something about those old continental accents and quirky turns of phrase, along with the elegant, slow-paced plots that I find totally appealing! Good hot tea (black, please — in endless supply, please) is also essential. A sleeping dog in the house is preferred, though optional. If the dog is dream-running and making any cute sleep shnorfels, this is ideal.

Cute Shnorfeler

When you have a case of designer’s block, how do you clear your mind and get inspired again?

I usually go for a long run to clear my head… Just kidding! I wish I was that person. If I am really having a hard time getting started, I’ll look through my set of bookmarked site designs and illustrations that have caught my eye. Within the first few minutes, I will find an interesting color or font to light on, which gets me back into Photoshop. But this only happens a few times a year; a bigger problem for me is when I’m plugging away, but notice that I’m spending way too much time on each task. When I start to get that flat, grayed-out brain feeling it usually means that I’m not working efficiently and I need to take a break and do something different. Things that make me feel more like myself are: getting out of the house to a coffee shop and writing up some Morning Pages (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron), people-watching, planning dream trips, interrupting my sister at work with persistent texts, pondering my list of life and yearly goals (this always makes me feel like kicking butt!), power napping, and if I really need a boost, I’ll hit up the local beauty school for a $12 never-know-exactly-what you’re-going-to-get haircut! That one really puts you in a new frame of mind. This month, in an effort to feel less like a cartoon floating brain in a jar — I’ve started taking a rowing class down on the lake a couple times a week. Truth!

Do you have a project in your portfolio that was a dream project to work on? Tell us a bit about what makes you proud of it.

I really enjoyed working with Suann Song of Simplesong Design. She brought a beautiful, timeless logo to the project, had some exceptional product photography for me to work with, and knew her business so well, the site really designed itself. I guess I’m proud of it because I really admire Suann’s work and style, and am pleased to have been able to create something that I think complements the work well. I also like it because it’s pretty minimalist and spare, without losing any warmth or texture.

Simplesong Design

What can clients do to make a project go smoothly and get the beautiful site design they’re looking for?

What a good question. Here are some of my biased ideas:

Do bring great content to the project. Starting with beautiful, consistent product photos is the best of all. Images that make your work shine will not only make a more beautiful site, but will do a lot of the talking for you during the design process. If your designer is able to glean a lot of information about the best look and feel for your work from the photography, it saves you from the pressure of having to articulate exactly what you want.
Do link to site designs that you adore, but don’t ask your designer to reference any specific elements too closely, and don’t fixate on one site inspiration in particular. Keep exploring and have an open mind. There will be an end result for your project that’s totally unique!
Do trust the process! Many projects reach a foggy point in the middle somewhere, where you’re over the initial surge of enthusiasm, but you still feel far away from the launch. Don’t feel discouraged or start doubting your choices; this is temporary. Stick with your intuition and keep moving forward. The launch will feel sooo good!
Do keep your visitors firmly in mind when you’re planning the site and giving feedback. It’s tempting to treat your website as a sort of brain-dump for your whole artistic empire! But remember to think about what is really relevant to your visitors and your business goals.
Do give your designer impressions of which parts of the mockup you like/dislike based on how they meet your stated goals, but don’t send a punch list of very specific change requests. Leave the designer some executional freedom to offer solutions that you may not have thought of and do the work you’re paying them for! Chances are that the end result will have better flow and functionality if the revisions are filtered through your designer’s experienced point of view.
Do err on the side of keeping the design simple and intuitive! When in doubt: leave it out.

(Doesn’t this remind you of Goofus and Gallant from Highlights? Gallant has great photography…!)

Do you have a schedule for work – i.e. work hours, scheduled time off, etc.?

Well, no! As much as I love planning and organizing in general, I have never been able to implement a routine for myself. I am always looking for tips and tricks to achieve this and subscribe to many blogs with this theme! Right now my philosophy is just — go as hard as you can! Since we don’t have kids, I have the luxury of being able to work late and catch up on sleep whenever. zzz

You work with your husband as a design and coding team (see Hardage & Hardage). Do you have a system? Have you learned anything valuable about working and living together?

Yes, tons! When we started working together full time, I was worried that that we would quickly kill each other being in the same smallish apartment all day with no reprieve. But instead it’s really been a dream come true. We are lucky! We buoy each other up when we’re having a hard day, and motivate each other if we’re feeling lazy or draggy. We are both believers in the idea that you have to have big blocks of uninterrupted work time to get deep into a project (see Why You Can’t Work at Work). We use what we call “Code Blue” when we really need to focus. Code Blue means totally quiet, no quick questions, no sign language, no talk at all until a set time. If you want the other person to change the thermostat that’s right by their desk, too bad, you have to get up and change it yourself! Let them work!

Lauren's business card designs through the ages

Also we have little rules like “No Ghosting,” which means no gazing over the other’s shoulder at what they’re working on — it’s annoying! Best investment yet: noise canceling headphones. A private office space on your head if you don’t have the square footage. This works great since Zak likes working to music and I can’t. (Wow, our office sounds strict and quiet and boring!) Another thing that we’ve found helpful is ordering lunch out when we want to have a strong work day. It’s a splurge since our kitchen is about an arm’s length away from the office, but it’s worth it — it feels like a treat and no one has to stop to do prep or cleanup. For short business meetings about specific current projects, we take the office outside and talk while walking the dog. Big picture talk calls for a “business lunch” at Pei Wei. Another lifesaver: take a separate weekday off every once in a while. We used to stress about making all of our time off time together, but now we love taking personal days to relax and get errands done, leaving the other with the office to themselves for a while.

How a logo is born

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Hello hello! Arianne here. I just took an extended maternity break from everything, including blogging, but now I’m back in action, and ready to take part in our handmade community again! As soon as I got back to work with my web design company, Aeolidia, I jumped in with both feet, and found a bunch of talented new designers and developers to add to our team, and we’ve been hard at work on lots of great new client projects.

I have really been enjoying watching the logo process on some of our recent projects, and I thought it would be fun to follow one project through from start to finish to see how a logo is born. If you’ve been thinking about having a logo professionally designed for your business, you may be understandably curious about how a designer can take your words and ideas and translate them into a logo that represents your company, is unique and memorable, and that appeals to both you and your ideal customer.

Our designer and illustrator, Tracy Bishop, created the logo identity for a new fabric shop, Lucky Lantern. We have a set of standard questions we ask that covers a bit of everything: what’s unique about your business, who your target customer is, what you want people to think about your business, what types of design you don’t like, and what other identities inspire you. Michelle from Lucky Lantern gave us a lot of information about her business, her inspiration, and some color and font thoughts. Here are a couple of snippets from that conversation:

Our business personality is fun, stylish and elegant. The logo should appeal to a wide range of people, but mostly to females who are mid 20s-50s. These females are home sewers and have a middle to high income. They sew for themselves, their family and some sew for their craft business.

I would like the logo to be quite contemporary with complimentary colours. My preference is for bright colours. I would like a font that is easy on the eyes and doesn’t make it hard to work out that it says “lucky lantern”.

Tracy spent a while working on sketches and ideas, and for the first round of logos, presented three options. Each option had a few font choices as well.

Round 1

Michelle really liked concepts #2 and #4. For #2, she liked the colors, the stitching, and the layout, but didn’t like the tops of the lanterns. On concept #4, she liked the layout, the happy faces on the lanterns, and the style of the lanterns, but didn’t like the colors. Michelle and Tracy both agreed that “font A” (the one you see in concept 3, above) was going to work the best, with Tracy commenting, “I really thought that it was a nice combination of simplicity, friendliness, and elegance.” Tracy was inspired, and submitted new ideas for both, as well as three related concepts to look at.

Round 2

At this point, Tracy had explored enough ideas and variations that Michelle was able to pick a single favorite to go forward with (2b, the red and blue “happy” lanterns). With the logo decided on, Tracy had a few ideas about how to incorporate the needle.

Round 3

Michelle’s favorite was #2, with the needle sewing under fabric between the words. We all liked the open feeling it gave the logo. Now came the time for Tracy to narrow down the exact look of the final logo, and make sure everything was just right. In this stage, adjustments were made to letter spacing, line height, and the look of the graphics. Tracy made sure everything looked polished and lovely, and then she provided Michelle with the final files.

Ta-da!

Tracy sent the final logo as vector files, which can scale to any size without losing quality – this means the logo can be printed super small for return address labels, or gigantic, for a craft fair sign, and look nice either way. She created a version of the logo for black and white printing projects, and also included versions with and without the tagline.

For this project, she created a PDF branding report, which is nice to have when you’ll be designing your own business cards, or taking your logo to a web or print designer to work with. The branding report includes a full color scheme with RGB, CMYK, Hex, and Pantone color codes, as well as fonts to use for both web and print projects that will complement the logo. In this case, the font used in the logo is also available as a web font, making it possible to use for editable text on a website.

Very fun to follow the process, right? I thought I wasn’t going to like dropping the creative work to focus on the business side of Aeolidia, but it’s turned out to be a great change for me, and I love to see what everyone on our team has been doing. It has been very rewarding to be able to take on more projects like these and be a small part of launching these new businesses into the world!

Giveaway: Refresh Your Business with Aeolidia

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

by Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia

Happy holidays! Our clients at Aeolidia are starting to think about the new year, and how best to refresh and renew their websites and marketing efforts. With that in mind, we’d like to offer one of our marketing/branding services to two Oh My! readers.

The winner will choose from one of the following for their small business:

Business card design (one sided)
Twitter page design
Etsy banner & avatar
3 static banner ads

Please note that we will not be designing a logo or branding for you, but will use your existing logo as a starting point for the work. Business card design doesn’t include printing or shipping costs. Twitter page design includes a background graphic and color scheme. Banner ads will use the same design theme, with three different sizes for different advertisting opportunities. Project will be begun and completed in January, 2011.

Optionally, if the winner does not have a logo, or would like a new logo, we will offer a $100 discount on a logo design, instead of one of the above projects.

How to enter for your chance to win:

Visit the Aeolidia portfolio and let us know what your favorite designs/websites are!

To earn additional entries please leave a separate comment for:

1. Following Aeolidia on Twitter

2. Tweeting about this giveaway (be sure to use @ohmyhandmade and @aeolidia in your tweet)

3. Becoming an Aeolidia fan on Facebook

4. Sharing this giveaway on your blog with a link back to this post

This giveaway closes on Black Friday at midnight (the perfect way to start off the shopping season!) and the winner will be announced on Saturday, November 27th at 7pm EST.

By entering this giveaway you are agreeing to the Oh My! Handmade giveaway policies

Connecting Creative Women: Interview with Kitty of The Switchboards

Thursday, October 28, 2010

by Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia

Hi, Kitty! Tell us a bit about yourself. You’ve always been a great help on the Switchboards, since you’ve run your own businesses and also have a lot of website know-how. What projects are you working on now, other than the Switchboards? What are your DIY qualifications?

I’m a molecular biologist by trade, but I’ve been crafting ever since I discovered the joys of dry macaroni noodles and glitter! To support myself in college I started my first business making anime-shaped fleece hats, which I ran for almost 6 years. I needed a website when I started and wanted to DIY it, so I learned HTML and some php so I could run my own shop online, and my site went through many incarnations as I learned. Along the way I also adopted I Buy DIY, one of the first online directories for indie shops. I eventually closed down my first business last year with the intention of taking a break from running a business, but I missed it so that break didn’t last long at all. Instead of relaxing, I teamed up with my best friend to start VelAwesome Raptor Labs.

Could you give us a run-through of the Switchboards’ history? I’d love to hear when/how it got started, your history with the Switchboards, and about the recent changes.

The Switchboards (TSB) was started in 2004 by Leah Jesse Pearlman of Uplifting Arts and Vanessa Brady of Gerbera Designs. These wonderful ladies created the forums that grew from a need to have a place online where indie (independent) businesswomen could talk shop and meet and share information. I joined in 2005 when I started my first business. The forum helped me so much while running my business, and I made many lasting friendships. I could always count on excellent advice and support! A few years later, Leah had to leave TSB due to other life obligations, and Vanessa kept things running along, and I was volunteering as a TSB moderator. Eventually, Vanessa found she had too many other responsibilities and had to let TSB take a back seat, but without tending members began to drift apart. I loved TSB and wanted to give something back to the community that gave me so much, so I offered to take it over. I officially took over in August 2010 and made some much needed upgrades to the forum software including a new Link Directory for members. Now we’re back on track to being one of the most helpful communities for new creative business owners around.

What is the mission of the Switchboards? Who is the community and how does the Switchboards help?

TSB’s mission is to connect creative women in business, to give them a place to share information and support one another. We don’t exclude the gentlemen with indie/crafty businesses from joining (everyone is welcome!), but the great majority of the site’s members are still women. The community includes everyone from those just thinking of starting their own crafty business to those who have been running one for years, as well as those who run their business on the side to make some extra money and have a creative outlet, to those who fully support themselves and their families with their crafty skills. The Switchboards provides a place for newcomers to the crafty scene to benefit from the excellent advice of indie veterans and others who have dealt with similar situations and questions for starting and running an indie business, and provides indie veterans with a place to share their experiences and find advice on the more advanced aspects of business ownership. These days, TSB makes a great companion to the forums on sites like ArtFire or Etsy, a we provide a more in-depth environment for business-related questions than site-specific forums.

What features are offered on the Switchboards aside from the forum? What community projects/activities does the Switchboards take part in? I know in the past there have been link swaps, promo swaps, and talk of an Etsy shop. Any interesting new plans?

One of the newest features is the Link Directory and the revamped Articles section which now includes full integration with the forums so users can leave comments on the articles. Our forum is now fully upgraded and lets members log in using their Twitter or Facebook accounts. Links swaps go on between members. Something new in the works is a photo gallery for members to show off their latest creations!

The Switchboards has gotten social! See the Switchboards’ Facebook page and the Switchboards’ Twitter account. Kitty, are you running both of these accounts, or do you have help? Have you found them to be useful in spreading the word or adding a new way to communicate with members?

Right now, it’s just me running those accounts, though I would really like to include some other community members to help out! I’ve definitely found both Twitter and Facebook to be a great way to communicate with TSB members new and old, and a way to reach people who haven’t heard of us yet.

What can small business owners who want to be part of the Switchboards community do to contribute and spread the word? Are there any specific projects community members could volunteer to help out with?

If you want to be a part of the community, just come make a post in the forums, we’d love you see you there! If you want to help spread the word about TSB, you can post our link (http://www.theswitchboards.com) on your website, Facebook page, or on Twitter. Blog about us, and spread the word everywhere groups of awesome creative people get together. As for volunteers, I’m glad you asked! I have two projects that I could really use some help with. I need a volunteer (or volunteers) to take the old articles and edit them from the old bulky HTML format and convert them to BBCode (keeping the formatting) so they can be posted in the Articles Section. I could also use some help posting on the TSB Twitter account to keep it updated with articles, links, and craft world news for TSB members.

How does the Switchboards pay the bills? Could you let us know more about the donation system, and any other ways you have of keeping the site up and running? It seems unusual that there are no ads on the Switchboards. Do you think this is something community members would object to? Are there plans to accept advertising, or other type of revenue-generating features?

Right now, it’s mostly me paying the bills! The site needed some major upgrades, license renewals and some TLC when I took over. We have had some wonderful generous donations from members to support TSB, and I thank them very much. I do, however, want to get away from having to ask for handouts to run the site. In the near future, I would like to be able to offer both ads and a subscription service to TSB members. Ads will ideally be from TSB members’ shops (no nasty Viagra or weight loss ads here!) and subscriptions will offer additional TSB features and perks.

How much time do you spend working on the Switchboards? What are your day to day tasks to keep everything hopping? Who else is helping you run the Switchboards? If you have any assistants or moderators, is everyone a volunteer?

I spend about an hour a day on TSB, but I wish I could spend much more time there! Each of us who works for TSB is a volunteer, who generously donates their time and talents to the community. Lindsay of Purr Design donated our happy new layout colour scheme and logo, and Lilie from Asian Buzz helps me moderate the forums.

What plans do you have for the future of the Switchboards? What would you do with the Switchboards if you had no time or monetary constraints?

I’d love to see The Switchboards return to being the go-to site for all things related to indie business. I want to expand the features that TSB offers our members. With unlimited time and money, I’d hire a blogger or two to keep TSB fresh and up to date, someone to run a TSB advertising collective, and a professional php/IPB coder to help me out. I’d buy advertising for TSB to help spread the word about our community, and have TSB promo material printed. I’d have a t-shirt designed and made and available for sale on the site. I’d love to negotiate partnerships with other websites and services, so a TSB membership could get you perks at another site or store. I have a lot of ideas floating around my head for TSB, and some fabulous suggestions from members that I’d love to see come to life, so most importantly if I had an unlimited budget I’d hire a research assistant or two to help figure out the best way to implement all these awesome ideas.

Interview with Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia: Part 2

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

You might remember our interview from last month with monthly contributor, Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia, here is the second part to our interview, filled with some of her favorite handmade finds and an insight into the life of a busy (and brilliant) designer.I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed this look into Aeolidia behind the scenes. Also a big congratulations to Arianne on her new baby boy who is a month old today!

1. You have a degree in marine biology- how did you wind up running a successful design company?

I figured that having a college degree was important, but what the degree was in was not so much, so I decided to do something that would be fun for me. I learned about molluscs and helped tag and weigh elephant seals, and would come home at night and make websites. It turned out one was more lucrative (and relaxing) than the other!

2. Aeolidia is busy! How do you manage to balance work, parenting and time for yourself, especially with a new baby on the way?

Well, I have a plan for this, but haven’t been able to put it into practice yet. I’m hoping I can start fresh after my maternity break and be more strict with myself about work hours and how many projects we take on.

At the moment, I play with my two year old in the mornings (and recently he’s started playing independently, just wanting me in the room for company and discussion, so I can answer a bit of email). Then, his grandpa picks him up in the afternoon, and I work like crazy until dinnertime. Ideally, I would be done with my work day at this point, but we’ve been so busy all year that most nights I work after Calvin goes to bed at night as well. And sometimes on the weekend. My goal is to cut this extra work out!

aeolidia interview, happy owl glass, scrabble tile pendant

fused glass pendant from happy owl glassworks

3. How do you take maternity leave from running your own business, or will you? Have you spent a lot of time planning your leave?

This is the great thing about working for yourself! Getting to decide when and how much to work. A couple of months ago, I stopped taking on new projects for myself, instead scheduling projects that Shoshanna, Lauren, and Chris will work on. In that time, I’ve been getting all my existing projects finished up.

My plan is to take 2-3 months off, depending on how everything goes and how I feel. Last time, my brain was scrambled for the first few weeks of sleep deprivation. However, after a while, my brain started to feel flabby, and I wanted to get back to solving some coding problems. So, I can always help out with Chris’ projects if I need some mental stimulation, but I don’t want to get myself set up so I have to work on something when I’m not ready.

I do most of our project management, and sort out all of our potential and new clients, so I won’t be taking a complete break. But I hope to just have some email to answer each day, rather than actual project work. I will be turning a lot of new project requests down, but still want to hear from people so we can fit things in as we have time and of course work on logos and illustration with our team of artists.

We will also rely on auto-responses (to let people know we got their email and will get back to them as soon as we can) and form letters during this time. Chris will be able to answer some of my email, as he won’t have to come up with a brand new response, but will be able to send out my standard replies and info.

This way, we’ll be able to stay up and running, and everyone but me will have plenty of work. I would hate to leave existing clients in the lurch, so I’m incredibly glad to be working with trustworthy folks who can help with emergencies, updates, and upgrades, as well as new projects while I get our new little one accustomed to life on the outside!

aeolidia interview, ceramic bowls from gleena, modern handmade design

organic bowl with flower from gleena

4. Aeolidia designs are beautiful, distinctive and exactly what the handmade market is looking for, how do you stay so on top of current design trends and styles?

Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, because I don’t feel like I spend much time researching what’s popular. I do have my Google Reader packed with design blogs and handmade blogs, so I do see what’s out there. I think a big part of it may be that we ask clients for their inspirational websites, so we can get an idea of what they like. I’ve had clients point me to some beautiful sites I’ve never seen before that way. We never copy, but we try to capture the feel that the client likes.

5. Do you have any suggestions or advice for other designers thinking about putting their entrepreneurial skills to the test by starting their own company?

Customer service! This applies to any type of service business, whether you design websites, personalize stationery, or create custom products for clients. Design skills are great, but clients are very nervous to part with their money up front in the hopes that you’ll be able to make them what they want.

I think what makes Aeolidia successful is that we are all committed to getting things just as our client wants them. Even at our busiest times, we try to get back to all emails quickly, answer questions, and make adjustments. We never stick you with the first design we come up with, and when we can’t make a technical change for whatever reason, we try to come up with possible alternative solutions or hire outside help.

I spend a lot of time helping clients sort out what will work best for their business and customers, rather than just slapping together something that would work for anyone, and leaving them to it.

So I would say if you want to have longevity, and have all of your clients telling their friends to work with you, make sure that your most important job is to listen to what they want, and do your best to come up with tailored solutions to their problems. Be very prompt about answering email, and if you ever can’t make a deadline, let the client know right away, and make sure your new deadline works for them. If the project doesn’t work out, accept your part of the responsibility, and do what you can to make cancellations and payments fairly. Never take a client for granted, even at your busiest! They’re all you’ve got, and everyone has so many online connections nowadays – they will talk, and you want that talk to be glowing!

aeolidia interview, modern ceramics, handmade

sweet pea bowls by kimwestad

7. Designers are notoriously picky about details (I am guilty of this!) what are a few of the things that make your inner designer cringe?

I’ve been used to doing entire projects myself, from first design idea down to every bitty bit of coding, so I do find myself cringing sometimes when my non-designer husband codes my site and doesn’t get the spacing right or the height between the lines of text perfect, etc. With each of our projects, I schedule a day to run in and tidy all the little details of the site up, and I find myself pasting a screen shot of his coding over my original Photoshop design so I can go back and adjust things pixel by pixel to my original plan!

I’m more picky about my own work than other peoples’, and I’m always learning from good design.

8. How do you celebrate handmade in your life and home?

I love, love, love owning handmade stuff. I shop from indie and handmade sites, and Etsy, of course, and I go to local craft fairs ready to buy. Often, as I’m working on a website for a client, I end up wanting things, and have definitely been known to trade work for goodies as part of the final invoice!

I also love giving handmade gifts, because you can really amaze someone with something they haven’t seen before.

Though I never settled on one craft of my own, I’ve always enjoyed dabbling in different crafty projects. I can crochet and knit, I’ve been known to make myself jewelry, and recently I sewed a quilt for my toddler.

aeolidia interview, loyal loots log bowls, handmade

loyal loot log bowls from the good egg shop

9. Aeolidia appears to be a dynamic and growing company-how do you feel about where your business is at and where it is going?

I am trying not to grow too much. Potentially, we could put the word out that we were looking for designers and developers and be able to take on many more projects, but then I would find myself in a completely managerial role, with no time to do my own work. I would rather stay small and be able to be sure each of our clients and team members are happy. Keeping it simple!

Interview with Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia

Saturday, August 28, 2010

by Jessika Hepburn, O Happy Day Handmade

This month I am excited to offer readers an interview with monthly contributor, Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia, a successful design company known for its uniquely artistic and beautiful designs. In this interview Arianne gives readers an inside look at handmade design, the Aeolidia team and their design process.

1.Can you please share a bit about the beginnings of Aeolidia and how the Aeolidia team came together?

I started creating websites for myself and friends just for fun when I was in college (in 1997 – and yes, I had a Geocities page!). I kept up this hobby, slowly starting to charge a bit for my work, until I was laid off from my customer support / project management job and found myself with time to really work on my skills and take on more projects.

Shoshanna, my best friend from college, had moved up to Seattle, and was also doing freelance web work, so we decided to combine forces and work together. A few years later, my husband, Chris, decided he wanted the flexibility and freedom of working for himself, so we spent about a year getting him up to speed (he was already savvy at making websites, but hadn’t worked with ecommerce before, and wanted to improve his CSS skills).

We started working with a third designer, Lauren, and that has been perfect for us! Chris doesn’t do site design, so before we had Lauren, Chris was often waiting for me to finish up design work so he would have some work to do. Now with both me and Lauren designing sites, Chris always has plenty to do.

2. Aeolidia is best known for its creative merging of art and web design to create beautiful, unique designs for small businesses, what inspired you to develop the Aeolidia style?

This hasn’t been a conscious decision, but is just the way our design style evolved. We start most of our site designs based on custom illustrations from our team of illustrators, and our illustrators have a cute but quirky aesthetic.

We usually work with somewhat cute and quirky crafters/designers as clients, so it all works out!

If we need a less-cute, more-professional type site design, I nearly always give these to Shoshanna, because she comes from a background of doing more mainstream sites, and I’m just awful at them. If I don’t like it myself, I can’t design it.

3. Aeolidia works with some amazing illustrators, can you tell us a bit about their designs and how they came to work with Aeolidia?

I am good at putting the elements together to create a site design, but not so good at drawing things from scratch. Sometimes our clients have a very specific idea of what they want, and hunting for stock illustrations wasn’t very satisfying.

Early on, I knew of a handful of illustrators that I admired, and I wrote to them all, asking if they’d like to work with me. I wasn’t expecting much of a reply, but I had a lot of interest, and we set them up. I’ve been working with some of them for five years now!

Since then, I’ve contacted an illustrator or two when they look just perfect for us, and I’ve had people contact me, though I’ve been strict about only working with people that I think fit our style.

4. A large portion of your clients are involved in the handmade industry, obviously attracted by the handmade style of your designs, do you prefer working with small businesses/artists, why?

Yes, absolutely! I love working with like-minded people, for many reasons. We tend to get along and have a fun time working on the project together. Small businesses are more understanding of other small businesses, so they tend to pay their bills on time, try to make our job easy, and understand if something comes up on our end to slow us down a bit.

I’ve been approached by larger businesses/companies before, and when they start talking conference calls, non-disclosure agreements, and in-person meetings, I know it’s not a good project for us. The Aeolidia team all left our office jobs for a reason! We enjoy working one on one with the business owner and keeping things personal.

5. What are the benefits to having an artist illustrated or handmade aesthetic for websites and logo design?

For one, if you hire an illustrator, you aren’t going to see your illustration on any other website, sign, or brochure – it will be immediately recognizable to your customers as yours, which you don’t get if you purchase stock art.

I don’t think illustration is beneficial to every type of site (and in fact, we do many sites with no illustration work), but it’s perfect for certain sites. We do a lot of websites that sell children’s and baby products, and it’s nice to have something cute and cuddly or fun in the site design. We also work with a lot of artists and creative people, and a pretty illustration can tell customers that the site has something unique and creative to offer. It’s also nice to give a bit of a handmade feel to sites for handcrafted items.

6. Can you give us an example of the process you would go through with a new client looking for a web design and business branding with custom illustrations?

We have worked with hundreds of clients, and we refine and improve our process with just about every one. We’ve learned that it’s important to ask the right questions at the start so you can capture the client’s vision with the design.

If the client wants to do the entire project with us, we always start with the logo, so everything else will complement it. We have a bunch of questions we ask about the business, the target customer, and the client’s preferences. From there, we work on illustration and design, with lots of back and forth with the client to be sure we’re making something they’ll be proud of in the end.

When the design work is done, we then get it working with the website software, and guide the client through the process of setting up their site and adding their content. We know it’s useless to have a beautiful site if you aren’t able to update it, so we make sure to be there through the client’s process of working with the site. We provide tutorials, examples, and are always available to answer questions or make adjustments to how the site works/looks.

When everything is looking shipshape and ready to go, we do extensive testing of the technical aspects, while providing instruction for the client to test out the customer’s experience (payment, shipping, tax, contact forms, etc.). This way, they know exactly how their site works for their customer, and can suggest changes. Then we put the site live! It’s nice to pair this with Jena’s marketing consultation, so word will get out about the new site quickly.

7. Aeolidia has a number of team members, how do you collaborate with each other, do you work from a shared office or mainly via email?

We all work independently, with me scheduling and setting up projects, and Chris managing our billing and paperwork. Chris and I usually work from the same room, so we collaborate on projects. Shoshanna is in town, and we are in touch via instant messenger all day long.

For our out of town contractors, we stay in touch with them the same way we do our clients: we manage all of our projects through Basecamp, a online project management program that tracks to-dos and deadlines, and lets you post messages and upload files. I think most of us do the type of work we do because we hate the structure of a regular office/business setup, so I make sure to work with people who don’t really need any managing, and just let them do their own thing.

8. Do you have any design suggestions to give handmade businesses on choosing the right design/designer?

I would be sure first to look at some example sites they created very carefully. Is there anything confusing about the site, or do you see any problems with it? Is the design thoughtful throughout, or can you tell that it’s just a header graphic and background slapped onto a stock template? Is it easy to shop?

I would also check references. Start with the testimonials page, but don’t hesitate to contact any of their past clients to ask how the project went.

All of your communications with the designer before you make payment should go smoothly. If she/he is slow to respond, rude, or confusing, they likely will remain that way throughout your project.

A good business person will send you a contract and make it clear how/when you will make payment as well. Find out what’s expected of you during the project, and how much/what type of help you’ll get learning to manage your own site.

9. How do you market and promote Aeolidia? How has your promotional strategy changed (or has it) over the years?

I got very lucky at first, by designing a pretty high-profile site in the crafting world, so word got out about Aeolidia. We put our little “site by Aeolidia” link in the footer of each site we do, and new business has almost entirely been by word of mouth – either people seeing the link, or our past clients spreading the word (personally, or on their blogs/Twitter/etc.).

We had a brief period when people were worried about the economy when things slowed down, but mostly we get more demand than we have supply. When we redesigned the Aeolidia site early this year, I also started Facebook and Twitter accounts, which have definitely increased traffic to the site, and we see a lot of Oh My! visitors as well.

Sometimes I come up with marketing ideas, but usually don’t try them, because I’m worried about the flurry of work requests that will come! We have spent about six months of this year overbooked, all of us staying up until 3am trying to hit deadlines – no good. It’s hard to turn down fun looking projects and like-minded clients, so it’s a struggle to maintain a reasonable workload sometimes.

10. What are your plans for Aeolidia in the future-are there any exciting new projects in the works?

Right now, we’re just trying to slow down and stick to what we know during my maternity break, so you’ll have to stay tuned for excitement in the future!

A Little Bit Better: Improving Your Business a Bit at a Time

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

by Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia

I have a strategy that I use throughout my home that I call, “A Little Bit Better.” I’ve noticed that if I live my day to day life, each room in the house gets a bit worse as I go through it – a dirty dish ends up on the counter, an empty toilet paper roll sits on the bathroom window ledge, a shirt is tossed on the bedroom floor. Instead, I try to make things a little bit better as I go through each room. So, on my way to the sink for a glass of water, I’ll put away the dish or toss a paper towel in the trash.

Rather than spending a day cleaning everything up, I try for frequent little maintenance tasks and adjustments each day. Less arduous, and easier to find time for.

With a successful business, it can be hard to find time to improve your own operations, as it’s often at the expense of doing client work, packaging orders, adding content to the website, and doing your day to day business tasks. Instead of setting aside a full day (or week!) to work on improving your workflow, instead you can apply “A Little Bit Better” as you work each day, making small improvements that will add up over time. Here are some examples of how I do this:

Answering common questions

My absolute #1 best way to save time each day is to make sure I’m not answering the same questions for clients over and over. If I ever find myself answering the same question twice, that’s when I tell myself I need a form letter – because someone is going to ask me again.

When the second client comes to me with that same question, I dig up my response to the first person, adjust it to work for everyone, and save it as a form letter. That way, any time I’m asked in the future, I just use the form letter instead of writing it all out again in new words.

Most email programs will allow some kind of form response, template system, or way to insert snippets of text into your emails from a list. When I used Thunderbird, I had a “signature” add-on that let me choose which signature to add to my message – I used this to make form letters and “form blurbs”. Gmail has a “canned responses” feature, and you should be able to find some way to make your email program do something similar.

Do this every time you see the same question, and you’ll find yourself with much more time on your hands – especially if you answer as much email as I do!

Preventing common questions

I know I said “answering common questions” was my #1 best way to save time, but even better is “preventing common questions.” Alas, these questions are not 100% preventable, so I still stand by my #1.

At any rate, if you get the same questions repeatedly, that points to there being a problem with the information you provide to customers. If they’re asking, that means they couldn’t find the info on your website (or didn’t try).

Head these people off at the pass by making sure the information is readily available and easy to find on your website. If it already seems to be, you may need to take it a step further, by putting this most vital info right on your contact page, or linking to it right next to your contact form. It’s great to have a link to your FAQ page here – in my case, I have links to “pricing” and “time line” right over my contact form, because some people seem to hop right there and ask me about pricing without looking on our services/pricing page or our FAQ.

Rather than fielding these questions every day, make them go away, and use the extra time for something more fun!

Clearing up confusion

Related to the previous topic, any time someone emails me and they’re obviously confused by information on my website, or they’ve gotten the wrong impression of what something means, I instantly go to my site and clarify or correct. I assume if one person emailed me thinking the wrong thing, then twenty other people probably looked at it, thought the wrong thing, and didn’t let me know.

Similarly, if someone points out a typo or mistake on your website (or you notice it yourself), fix it right then as you’re going past, rather than saving it for a big update.

Production-line tasks

Some things are better to do all at once than to do a bit at a time as they come up. For instance, my husband (and partner at Aeolidia!) pre-stamps our envelopes and sticks our return address labels on them. He then stuffs them all back in the envelope box and whenever we have a contract or payment to send out, it takes only a few seconds to get everything ready for the mail.

See if there are any little bitty tasks like this that slow you down each day (trying to find the stamps, discovering you need to print new address labels), and get everything all ready so next time it will be a breeze.

Automating tasks

Perhaps there are things you do over and over again that are time consuming, and are always done in the same way. If there is any way to automate these tasks, take the time to do it once, and save yourself hours of work in the future.

For instance, any paperwork that you routinely send out should be a template that you can just pop the client/customer’s name and info into. You may find you need multiple templates. I have three different contract templates I start from (one for web development, one for logo design, and one for illustration), so I don’t have to take the time to adjust one template for different situations.

Maybe you need a standard form to send off to wholesale clients, or an invoice or packing slip template to fill in for each customer. Maybe your website could generate this for you automatically.

Some of our clients create custom stationery/invitations for clients, and we’ve found a way to save them time in the proofing process, by creating a tool for them to use to upload, share, and get a response to their proof from their customer.

Maybe you spend a lot of time processing orders, and your web developer could find a way to automate some of the tasks – for instance, connecting your site with a program to automatically generate shipping labels. Now you’ve saved hours of tedious data entry, and instead you can make new products.

Services to improve workflow

A step beyond automating your recurring tasks is to start using software to manage these things for you.

I have three programs that I pay for and use every day, and they save me so much time that they’re worth every penny. I use Basecamp to manage every aspect of each of our projects, from to-dos and scheduling, to discussing things with clients and uploading files. I use Tick to keep track of my hours, keep myself on target with the amount of work planned for each project, and chart how much work I get done each week. I use Blinksale to send out client invoices, make sure everyone has paid, and send reminders.

Prior to signing up for these services, I had a text document where I listed all the work I needed to get done with rough timelines (huh?), I had no real method to be sure my work wasn’t going over budget on projects (what?!), and I was sending out PayPal invoices one at a time, with no way to follow up and see if I’d been paid (crazy!). I don’t know how I got anything done!

For businesses that sell products, not services, some other software programs may help. There are programs to manage your finances, speed up your shipping process, send newsletters, create wholesale catalogs, and help with your customer support.

Double check

Do a quick double check from time to time. Take a few minutes to run through your site like a customer would, and see if there are any errors or problems that have cropped up, or if there is anything that may be confusing about your checkout process. Instead of finding out from a customer a month from now that you no longer offer PayPal payments, you’ll nip any problems in the bud by doing a quick sweep through your site.

At Aeolidia, we try to go beyond just creating a website for our clients, and we work on making their shop easy to use, easy to run, and we add little things that help with their entire process. We are experts at eliminating the inconvenient!

I’d love to hear from shop owners about tricks you have to make things go smoothly. Alternately, what task do you find yourself doing over and over that you wish you could speed up or eliminate entirely? There is almost always a solution or an improvement to be made.