We were lucky to catch up with Camila Montejo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Camila, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?

I think the first thing to do is to believe in your own gifts/ talents / business and to love them as well. Then, those close to us can actually see the passion and the love that we put into the business when using our gifts. They can see how using those God-given talents actually makes us light up and shine! So, when asking them to support you, it’s not going to be a hard ask for you because they already see the things that you can do and how doing those things brings you joy! I remember starting my own business at home (renting my parents’ house in the mountains to do events) and my family saw how much I enjoyed doing it and the fact that I was good at it made them support me. My parents did not want to rent their property just for fun, it was more about them seeing me enjoy the people aspect of it, the whole creative process—bringing my ideas to life and putting my gifts to good use!

Camila, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Since I was a little girl, I would sit by my mother who is an architect and I would pretend to make blueprints with her (back in the day when there was no autocad or computers and everything was by hand). One day I even thought I was helping her and decided to color all of the final blueprints that were ready to give to her client. She always had a great eye for beauty and design and I actually wanted to be an interior designer. Of course being surrounded by home decor magazines always inspired me!

When I was in high school, I had two friends who had the most amazing handwriting and I wanted to learn from them, so I would borrow their notebooks and practice copying it at home. Then I ended up doing all the big titles of our notes for most of my classmates and some of them still keep their notebooks with my handwriting on them.

I ended up going to college for communications and graphic design and halfway through my sophomore year the graphic design program closed. But I was thankful I had an internship in Colombia (where I am originally from) where I learned the basics of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. When I went back to America, I lived with a family who did catering and events so, the little I had learned was put to good use. I made event invitations, I hand wrote signs and menus for the catering gigs, I made cards for people and signs to frame and give as gifts. Then, at school I also did chalk art for the local coffee shop. Then I got a job at The school’s PR department and did a lot of things for them and I actually did the re-brand for the coffee shop! I also worked with my “American family” on several branding projects and I absolutely LOVED the whole concept of branding.

The whole process of taking someone’s idea and bringing it to life, basically giving it a “face” is so enthralling to me. My favorite part is sitting with the client and talking about their business idea. I feel like until a business has a name and a logo it’s just an idea! I think what sets me apart is that, I have mostly done projects for people I know and so, I love incorporating their personalities into the brand. It’s not about what’s trendy or what’s popular or even what I like most, but more about representing them and putting a little bit of them into the whole project. So I love to build that relationship with my clients, where they’re not just another brand, but I want them to feel seen, heard and represented when they receive their product back! I think I’ve done that in all my projects, whether it is branding, calligraphy, interior design or event design and I feel proud of that!

I’ve been working for a company for the past 9 years and I manage their brand and do everything that has to do with their corporate image. But recently I actually started my own company and I want to put my gifts to good use. I am in the process of doing for myself what I love doing for other people and let me tell you, it is not the same thing doing something for yourself than for other people. I hope I’m not the only one who thinks this in my industry, but… I do struggle with that!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

For me it’s been fostering that brand loyalty with my existing clients and then also, to be honest, offering free advice and services to genuinely help people. Then those existing customers refer me to others or they’ll get asked who made their logo for them and then it goes from there. I have just started with social media, so I think that will have an impact as well. There’s a saying in Spanish that goes, “everything comes in through the eyes”. I think the upside about a visual business is that if someone sees it, they like it and you don’t really have to do much more selling. It’s very sensory and at that point, people can already tell a lot about your style and the beauty you create when they look at your work. Some people might not like my style but they can appreciate it, so I think to summarize and answer the question concisely, the best strategy for me has been not to be afraid to put myself out there or do things I love doing, even if it means low to no compensation. Happy clients will bring more clients!

How did you build your audience on social media?

Gosh! It’s definitely a journey. I think I have learned that, like I said earlier, “everything comes in through the eyes” so, my best advice would be to put beautiful things out there and BE CONSISTENT. I have to tell myself this all the time and actually this is advice that my friend gave me. Everyone has to start somewhere, I feel like there’s this feeling of “I don’t have as many followers” or “what if people don’t like it?”. So many things that hold us back, but what I keep telling myself is that everyone has to start somewhere. Do not be afraid of small beginnings, just be consistent and keep posting and learning and in the end… practice makes better, right?

Contact Info:

• Website: Inkeebycamila.com
• Instagram: @inkee__
• Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/in/camilamontejo/