Free Business Info You Should Actually Read

Etsy Seller Handbook 

There are a lot free resources for entrepreneurs, you just need to know where to look. Etsy has free advice, their Seller Handbook has great content for savvy creatives like this article which has 31 tips for marketing your business on any platform.

3 quick takeaways from the article for those on the go:

1. Tell your brand story when using social media with bts content, workspaces photos and a little bit about you.
2. Create a content calendar for social media and blog posts.
3. Engage with your followers, remember social media is a cocktail party so mingle, create on!!

Freemium Presentation Templates

The Cool Free Stuff... But Read The Warning Too

I love designing presentations but I do it for a living. If you need to create a presentation here is a great free resource: 24slides.com/templates. 

When I say free I mean freemium, more advanced services are available for a fee but all their presentation templates are free to download and use. They will make you sign up and get your info but this is worth the trade off as these presentation templates are quite good.

The Warning

Online services that offer free products or stuff are really making you their product. Your info is what they want and they could then sell your info, use it for their own marketing, or add you to their own mailing list.  You can never be too sure, data is big business.

Here are three tips to keep you and your information safe when signing up for services like this:

1. Use the auto generated password feature on your device and your keychain to save the password to all your devices. Also generate a new password for each service you sign up for.
2. Never ever sign up using your social media accounts i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  This allows the service access to more of your personal info.
3. To be super safe create a separate Gmail account to use when signing up for all free services like this.

Freemium services like this are great resources for creative entrepreneurs but be savvy and safe when sharing your info, create on!

7 Tips For Entering Competitions

Whether you are a professional Creative or just starting out competitions are a great way to gain exposure. Competitions are like mini-jobs, so invest time and effort into them and only enter those that will give you a good return on your investment.

There are a lot of competitions out there, which can be a little overwhelming, and some are not so legit. How to know the good ones from the bad and some tips on how to get a leg up on the competition:

1. If the competition is associated with a magazine, festival, organization or company, that is a good sign. 
2. Search for past winners. This will help you figure out if there is a pattern to what the competition is looking for. 
3. Look at the judges, their backgrounds, and their credentials. This will also give you a good insight into what the judges are looking for. 
4. See how long the competition has been around, the longer the better. 
5. Who are their sponsors, the bigger the names the more reputable the competition? 
6. What are the prizes or awards? Higher end prizes or awards indicates a more established competition. 
7. When submitting make sure to review the submission criteria carefully!! You don’t want to miss anything that would disqualify your submission. 

If you do win something make sure everyone hears about it promo it on social media, be proud!!. Also remember to add this accomplishment to your resume, CV, and your LinkedIn profile, create on!!

Upcoming Competitions:

1. Applied Arts Magazine Student Competition: appliedartsmag.com/student_awards/ May 25
2. Emerging Photographer Magazine: emergingphotographer.com/ June 14
3. List of PDN Magazine Competitions: pdnonline.com/contests/
4. List of Communication Arts Competitions: commarts.com/competitions
5. this is a great site that you can create a profile on to make it easier to enter multiple photo competitions: picter.com/photographers/

How You Can Become an Adobe Certified Expert

Tips For The Savvy Creative:

The first question to ask yourself, why do you want to write an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) exam?  Will you power up and become an Adobe All-Star?  Will people climb a mountain to listen to your sagely digital advice?  Umm no.

The exams are hard, so why take them?  I became an Adobe Certified Expert because I teach Photoshop and Premiere Pro, this was a small part of the reason. The real reason, I did it for myself let me explain:

1. The exams are challenging and I like a challenge it helps you grow.
2. It forced me to look at the software differently, which made me think of new ideas and business possibilities for the software and myself.
3. It gave me a sense of satisfaction and a nice boost in confidence which we all need.
4. Like it or not the certification is a stamp of approval and any edge you can get in this competitive business helps.

When you push yourself and challenge what you know you will always come out ahead.  It is the obstacles in life and how you navigate them that define who you are. So set a goal and achieve it, whether it is becoming an Adobe Certified Expert or running a 10km this year.

How I Successfully Completed The Adobe Certified Exams

I use the software, a lot.  If you have less than five years experience with the software don’t bother. Study how the software works, and apply what you have learned through practical exercises.  This is the only way the skills and knowledge will be reinforced.  Here is what I studied for the Photoshop Adobe Certified Expert Exam:

1. The Exam Prep Guide.  Make sure you know every point listed in this guide, decipher the sample questions.  The way they ask the questions is tricky.  This is the hardest part of the exam and this will challenge you to see other possibilities of the software.  
2. The Software Help Doc.  Use this in tandem with the prep guide, I read the whole document.  Yes, it is long and dry but very informative.
3. Adobe Classroom in a Book. A common theory I heard online is the exams are written, or based heavily, on the material in these books. The books are good but what I found most useful were the exercises.  Once again applying what you are learning. 

The Benefits

When you successfully complete your exam be proud and let people know, share it on social media.  Also attach the Certified Expert badge to your email signature and website. Add your profile to the Adobe Certified Expert Finder, update your Accomplishments on your LinkedIn profile and add it to your CV. 

The pay off for completing the ACE Exam will mostly be a sense of accomplishment, but I am a firm believer that things like this work in subtle ways.  The boost in confidence you get will be noticed because you will feel better about yourself and project more confidence. So challenge yourself often you are stronger than you know, create on!!

I Have Something To Say But My Writing Sucks

Tips For The Savvy Creative:

We visual creatives have an aversion to writing. For those starting out writing about your work and your process is so important. It shows depth and online search algorithms still index text better than images. Instagram posts perform better with more written content using keywords that reflect your hashtags.

Everyone has something to say and in today’s app rich world there is no excuse not to write. Services like Grammerly assist with spelling & grammar. To help you get to the point and be clearer though use the free Hemingway App. Tips aim for a Grade 9 reading level & practice, create on!!

F*uck Social Media Image Sizing!!

Tips For The Savvy Creative:

As creatives we like things done right, but when it comes to sharing on social media we want things done fast. Nothing is more of a social media buzz kill than trying to figure out sizing for your epic image post. Or worse having to scramble to delete an incorrectly sized post before anyone likes it.

There is an app for your social media woes Hootsuite Enhance.  It has all the images sizes preloaded!!

The app is integrated into the Hootsuite app.  If you don’t use Hootsuite it can post direct to social media or save to your photos. It also has text, shapes & image editing, create on!! 

Robots Are Here To Do Your Photo Editing!!

Tips For The Savvy Creative:

I am a fan of Adobe Lightroom, it is a great program for stills and multimedia projects like stop motion.

For savvy creatives Lightroom is a cheaper alternative to Photoshop. It has basic retouching, cloning & DAM. Some of Lightroom‘s more advanced features tethered capture and plugins.  One of my fav plugins is Photolemur ($29 USD).  It is an artificial intelligence automated image enhancement & correction tool.  It works very well, great for quick fixes and batch edits.  The edit can also be scaled back as it sits on a separate layer.  I❤️🤖, create on!!