February’s highlights included launching Self-Made Artist Academy and two additional mini courses, hosting a handful of webinars, presenting to some classes, and taking a short vacation to reset after a busy couple of weeks.

If you’re new here, welcome to my business journal. This fourteenth edition of the monthly business journal blog post celebrates the wins and serves as a space of reflection of this business journey, which has been such an important practice for me since January 2020. I’m excited to keep up with this in 2021 as well.

The Big Wins

• 21 students enrolled in Self-Made Artist Academy! My first online cohort is running from February 15th-March 26th. I’ve already received lots of positive feedback. If you missed the launch, I’ll be running another cohort later this year. Get on the waitlist here.

• I was accepted to GovCon-Airports and Next Level Exchange. Both are connected with the WBDC and are amazing opportunities to learn and further my business success. GovCon-Airports is an eight-week program that meets for three hours a week on Thursdays and Next Level Exchange is a mentorship program that runs for a full year.

• I launched two new mini courses! The Power of Passion Projects and Are You on Brand? are expanded versions of my most popular presentations. I’m so excited to offer them in this new, on-demand format. I’m offering a special introductory discount of $20 off (so you can grab them for only $29/each)!

General Updates:

• I taught three pricing webinars for artists. I shared the 3 Most Common Mistakes Artists Make (and how to fix them) to help artists learn to charge their worth with confidence. I also hosted a branding basics webinar that had over 20 attendees. I’ve got another webinar in partnership with the WBDC coming up March 18th.

• I read The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. It’s all about focusing on doing the right things in the right order as well as thinking big while taking small actions. It reminded me that multitasking is ineffective and establishing strong habits and taking intentional action is the key to success and happiness in all areas of life and business.

• I partnered with ArtsPartners of Central Illinois to offer an alternative to the full Business of Art Conference. We had over 40 artists in attendance at the virtual event on Saturday, February 6th. There were over 230 comments shared in the chat throughout my hour-long presentation - it was exciting to see the community come together virtually.

• I celebrated four years with Daniel. He’s been such a huge support of Lettering Works since the very beginning (we met just a few weeks after a picked the name and started putting everything in motion when I was a student at Bradley).

• I presented at the Peoria Riverfront Museum’s Art Club and two college classes. I shared my journey from artist to entrepreneur with three groups throughout February including a Bradley entrepreneurship class and design portfolio class at Flashpoint in Chicago.

• I networked with inspiring women and local designers. I attended a virtual WESOS Chicago meeting, a Bossy Chicago meetup, a local Tuesdays Together meetup, a Sunnyside Chats virtual talk, a Chicago Graphic Design Club Office Hours event, a ChiBizHub Abriendo Puertas event, and also set up a handful of 1:1 meetings with individual women to get to know them and their businesses better.

• I hired a bookkeeper! Keeping track of day-to-day accounting is something I am excited to handoff so I can focus on the bigger picture financials and doing more of what I really enjoy - making art. I also finally set up a Calendly account to streamline scheduling meetings. And am continuing to work with Judy, my virtual assistant. My word for 2021 is focus, and I’m putting that into action already by outsourcing more.

• I got setup as a vendor on Faire. Faire is an online marketplace that I’ve heard great things about, so I am hopeful it will help connect me to new wholesale accounts.

• I took on very limited client work (again). In addition to wrapping up everything for the course, this work included promotional graphics and advertisements for the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism’s annual conference. I am super excited to be opening up my availability for March and already have two really exciting branding projects on the books.

• I took some vacation time to reset. Course launches are no small feat, so I took a much-needed break away from work to reenergize, spend some time drawing for fun, reading, and taking long walks on the beach.

Special Announcements:

March is National Kidney Month + Cool Beans will be making a comeback. COVID-19 threw a bit of a wrench in the initial plans when it debuted last year, but I am excited to share that I am officially working with the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois in March on some exciting projects. More details to come soon!

Thank you for being here, for supporting me, and for following along with this beautiful journey entrepreneurship has taken me on.

PS - Have a project you’d like to chat about? Book your 2021 project today! Bring on all the logos, branded merchandise, and brand identity projects… let’s make some beautiful and impactful things together in 2021.