Q & Cake #25

In today’s Q & Cake (our own fancy version of Q & A) Elisabeth and Cami discuss several questions from listeners about recording behind-the-scenes videos to showcase your creative process, outsourcing admin tasks to an assistant, and collecting reviews from wedding invitation clients. These are questions from fellow artists, calligraphers, designers, stationers, etc. that will hopefully help you in your own biz journey as a creativepreneur!

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I was wondering if y’all had any advice on doing video tutorials? Our business is changing and were starting to sell hand painted tiered tray pieces as well as blank kits for other to paint. I’ve found that a lot of people are asking how we paint our pieces and they’ve been wanting tutorials and we would love to give that to them but have NO idea where to start. Hoping y’all have some good advice and possibly any info on equipment, editing software, etc. you’ve used in the past. Thanks so much!! @peachandvalley

Elisabeth 4:10

Your phone is a perfectly viable solution for recording things, as well as the audio that comes with that. It’s not too terrible. I mean, I have like snarky people on some of my older YouTube videos that are like, the sound is not good, or I can’t hear you or whatever. But as long as the phone is close enough to your head, it should be totally fine.

People don’t need to get super fancy with stuff like this. So just do like a gooseneck holder with your phone, looking over your table as you’re doing a tutorial and talking through it. And if you can do it in one cut then great. But to edit and finalize something. I just like using Imovie on my Mac.

That’s what has worked really easily for me in the past. Final cut is one that people might use if they have a PC or something like that. But I also don’t know if that’s free. So I would try looking for some free softwares first via PC, or just using a movie on your Mac to do your editing. And you just like airdrop the video from your phone to your computer, and then you pull it in that software and you do some things like trims and cuts.

When you retire a product, do you replace that sku number with a new design or is that sku number dead forever? Lol – @jesmarried

Cami 8:07

Honestly, this is totally up to you. When I retire a product, I retire the skew number with it, and I just keep going up from there. But I think after a certain amount of time, I would reuse that skew number. 

Hey there! I was wondering if you could list off a few things that a VA (or assistant of any type) would do for you. I don’t necessarily need a description of each of them but I have a problem letting go of control and someone with a business/administrative background that might be able to help me. Where do I start with allowing someone to help? Thank you! @COMPANIONpaints

 Elisabeth 10:45

We have a whole episode actually about hiring a virtual assistant and how to do that and what they can do for you. However, if you want us to like rapid fire, a few things the VA can do for you are to enter products into Etsy, enter products into Shopify, answer emails, etc. 

If there’s things coming through that aren’t super important for you to have your eyes on. Let’s see, they can order stuff for you, write your emails, manage social media. 

Cami 11:17

Yeah. Any type of inventory thing, reach out to wholesale accounts. Do your, this might not be a VA, but financial stuff, book, keeping things like that.

Managing like deadlines for launches, putting together graphics that you might need pending on Pinterest answering DMS. I mean, there’s so many things you could do. You kind of have to figure out what is holding you back. On a big task and be like, okay, this is something someone else could do or something you really hate doing.

Like, I hate putting up new products and all for wholesale plans or haul for selling platforms. So I just have my VA do that because it takes up a lot of time and she could do it. And it’s literally like data entry at that point. So that was a huge thing. You know, keeping all that up to date, writing product descriptions, all kinds of all kinds of things.

If you have a hard time with control it would probably be the bookkeeping financial aspect of it to have someone step in and help you with that, to free up some head space for you to be more creative on the creative stuff that you enjoy.

I’ve always liked the numbers. And I mean, other people who haven’t liked the numbers, who’ve done it for a long time too, but it’s like, there’s probably someone out there that can do better. Yeah. Then you can, that’s the reality of it. So I would like, if you’re thinking about outsourcing one thing, maybe starting there, that could be really helpful, but like emails or something, that’s kind of like low pressure could be a great place to start with someone to write blog posts.

Throughout these quarantine weeks with COVID, I’ve gotten several invitations from fellow calligraphers or creatives to participate in follow loops. What do you think of these? The ‘loops’ sometimes include other potential vendors or businesses with similar connections to my business, but often they are either identical to my services, or accounts that I wouldn’t usually follow. I’m curious how you handle these “invitations” and if you see them as fruitful for growing a creative business. Thanks ladies!! @libbylovesrew

Cami 15:10

Any follow loop that I’ve been invited to be a part of? I have declined. I just feel like I don’t feel like any of the ones I’ve been invited to be a part of are going to be a good fit. I’m not completely closed off to them. I think there’s always potential with anything. Like, you’ve just got to kind of look at the specifics of it and it could be good.

For the most part. I’m a no on that. I don’t like bowel loops anyway, so I don’t love it. Now, if it was like something. I don’t know if it was like some different wholesale shops I was working with or like, you know, there’s like a really good children’s party niche on Instagram that are very engaged. Like I could see myself doing something like that.

So you’ve really got to weigh the pros and cons and be like, is this truly a good fit? Like other people who are similar to your business might not be a good fit, but if it was like, like Libby for you, I don’t know, like a women’s thing, you know, like a women’s influencer thing or like a mom’s or I don’t know, something like that, where it feels more like a potential audience and not so much a potential like coworker and for lack of a better word, like industry person.

Then I think it could be good, but for the most part, I don’t think they’re super productive. Now. I wouldn’t go out with the expectation. Like this is gonna be the next thing game changes my business. Like you might get some extra engagement out of it and get a couple more followers, but I don’t think they’re super awesome.

Something I really struggle with is collecting reviews from custom wedding invitation clients. They will gush over how much they love their invites in an email to me, but getting someone to post a review on the internet for the world to see is next to impossible. I include links, but it still doesn’t seem to help. Maybe I am not doing it at the right point in time? Any tips on best practices for collecting reviews for custom wedding invitations? @ladybirdpaperco

Elisabeth 20:08

The sooner you catch them the better. So like asking them to leave a review, as soon as they go out the door, like as soon as you mail the invitations. 

Cami 20:17

Yeah, you have to catch them at the high point of their hype. And they’re like,” yes, I’m so excited. I’m going to leave a review right now!!”  Like you got to catch them at the high point of their hype.

Don’t wait to ask after the wedding is over because at that point,  they’ve already moved on with their life literally and figuratively. So they are done with that. So you need to ask them right in the hype of it when you said like, for me, when, uh, I would ask for a review, right? And I’m like, cheers, your irritations are mailed out the door. They’re on their way to their guests, which is so exciting.

So, you just need to say something like, “ I would be so honored. If you could leave me a review here on my Facebook page, that’s where I collect them. It really means the world to me and helps so much. Just tell me a little bit about your experience.”