We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Thomley recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?
A little bit of both! Because I originally started ST Creative Branding in the social media management space, I know just HOW much work goes into managing a brand’s social media pages and online presence. I have found that my brand’s online visibility is at it’s best when I use a team to carry out the basic functions (putting together repeating series posts and scheduling them, hashtag research, engagement, etc.) but remain heavily involved in the content and design aspect of things (posting calendar, content creation, graphic design, etc.). Social media can make or break a brand, and many business owners don’t realize just how much back-end work goes into having a solid online presence until they are truly in the thick of it. There is always something needing to be done for a brand’s social media – post planning, content creation, graphics, hashtags, various platform requirements, stories, reels, engagement, and the list goes on! Adding a team to help with even the most basic of social media tasks has brought me so much peace of mind and has taken things off of my plate that I didn’t even realize were keeping it so full. Adding a social media manager (even if just for basic tasks in the beginning) is one of the fastest ways for a business owner to help streamline things and get back valuable time that they didn’t even know they were missing, while adding the huge value of an increased online presence. I know first hand that the idea of adding social media management is scary for a lot of small business owners, which is why I am a big proponent of bringing on young paid interns who are interested in future careers in the digital creation space instead of hiring a full service digital management company. Digital marketing firms are INCREDIBLE at what they do, but for many business owners the increased cost of a full service firm is simply not possible. I’ve personally had the best time working with my current social media intern, and the value that is added to my brand paired with the amount of time they have saved me has absolutely justified the time spent teaching the foundations of managing my brand’s online presence.
Sarah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started ST Creative Branding in 2019 after becoming a mom and leaving a decade-long very successful career in the automotive repossession and transportation industry. In my mid to late twenties I spent the second half of that career building an auto transport company as a side hustle, and it was pretty successful for several years. After having my son, I decided the time was right to leave my career with the repo company and pursue the transport company full time. Two months after taking this huge leap of faith things with the business and partnership went south and I was left with a huge mess to clean up, bills that still needed to get paid, and a son who’s list of medical needs were beginning to requiring a lot of time and extra care. It was during this season in my life that a dear friend reminded me that I can do hard things, and that this was just a chapter in a much bigger story, which is something I still have to remind myself of to this day. She challenged me to take a step back and evaluate the things I loved from my time spent owning the transport company, and encouraged me to figure out how to use those tools and skills to create a business that would bring in the income my husband and I desperately needed while also letting me stay home and serve as the primary caregiver for my son. Once I took a step back, I realized that one of my favorite parts of the transport business was always the branding and marketing that was happening behind the scenes. I loved creating the logo, all of the social media graphics, the website, the networking, and everything else that went into building our brand. More than that, I loved the relationships we were building through our branding and networking efforts. I had done some smaller branding consulting gigs for a few other transport companies and had done quite a bit of networking with the repo company – but NEVER would have imagined I would be opening up a branding business. Another leap of faith later, and here we are! I managed to land a Family Law Firm in Georgia as my first client, and even though I had no idea what I was doing, that first client thankfully hung in there with me as I spent many late nights on google figuring it all out. Soon thereafter, the referrals started coming in the door and I grew to managing a pretty impressive roster of clients who were using me for on-going social media management and other large-scale marketing and branding and gifting projects. I was once sending out gifts for a client who voiced how frustrated they were with not being able to find exactly the right card for the gift we were sending out. They made the comment “You make pretty things on the internet, maybe you could make something?”. I took a stab at it, and to my surprise, I was pretty good at making cards! My client loved being able to customize every aspect of the card we created together and was so thrilled to be able to get exactly what they wanted. As word started getting out among my clients that I could make customized cards and notepads, several of them started asking for their own custom stationery for their offices and custom event invitations and flyers. I would mock up several designs options, let them pick/request edits, send their cards, and then the unused designs would just sit in my files. I had the realization one day that it kind of hurt my heart that so many beautiful designs were going unseen. I decided it was time for another leap of faith and got the idea to launch a stationery line using the designs I had already created. From there I went crazy creating fun designs with the sassy sayings ST Creative Branding is known for, and before I knew it I had created several collections of custom stationery that were officially launched in late 2021. Once my stationery line became public, I also started sharing some of the custom event stationery I was creating on social media. I began getting requests to create event stationery and signage for all sorts of events, which has been so fun! My custom event stationery clients often come to me frustrated because they can’t find exactly what they envision for their event, and I LOVE the challenge of creating something beautiful that they haven’t been able to get anywhere else. I have since scaled back the marketing management side of the business a bit to be able to focus more on my son and growing the stationery line and event stationery side of things, while still offering limited free-lance branding consulting, marketing project managment, and corporate event coordination services. There is so much work that goes into juggling everything that comes with being a wife, mom, and business owner, but I am so grateful to be here with the support of my husband, family and friends, doing something I truly love in a community that I love!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I truly believe that the best way to build a clientele, no matter the business type, is a fairly simple concept. Do good work and the business will follow. Anybody can learn how to become a good talker and sell their business, but at the end of the day, if the product or service is not good, the customer knows it and they’ll likely not be a customer again. For me, the biggest clientele builder has simply been word of mouth driven by the quality of the service I give my clients and the quality of the products I create. When my clients hire me to handle their event stationery, they are hiring me because they know that the quality of their custom order will absolutely be top tier, or I won’t stop until it is. When a customer buys anything off of my product line, they already know that they don’t have to deal with issues like flimsy paper or pixelated images. People don’t usually recommend subpar businesses to their friends, which is why I work so hard to make sure they are beyond satisfied with each order. Sure, I like people being happy with me, but more than that, I want their return business and I want their friends’ and families’ business too. When the big moments happen in their lives, I want to be the only person they trust to handle their special event stationery. I don’t just make invitations for my clients, I build relationships with them. If you want to build a clientele, not just a customer list, don’t cut corners when it comes to quality control and customer service. Put in the time to create quality products and build meaningful relationships with your clients so that you are the only person or business that comes to their mind when their friend asks for a referral. Do good work and the business will follow.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
When I learned to stop being so scared of what people would think about my designs and products and started creating from a place of authenticity, my business really turned a corner. Since the launch of my stationery line, I have gained a bit of a local reputation as the ‘Sassy Stationery Lady’- which I totally love. Instead of trying to create something that fits in with what’s already out there or what’s currently on trend, I create products and designs that are reflective of who I am – unapologetically sassy, classy, and a bit smart-assy. After I released my ‘Not Your Momma’s Notepad Collection’ I saw how much people were resonating with my designs and it was because of that collection that I began truly connecting with my customers and clients in a much more authentic way. Becoming comfortable with who I am and the things I make, focusing on quality work, staying consistent with social media posting, participating in community based events, and collaborating with other local businesses have all been invaluable in increasing my brand visibility and solidifying my reputation in my little niche of the creative world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stcreativebranding.com
- Instagram: @stcreativebranding
- Facebook: @stcreativebranding.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-thomley/
- Other: email: [email protected]
Image Credits
Shayna Stewart Photography