We recently connected with Catherine Rivadeneyra and have shared our conversation below.
Catherine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
My name is Catherine Rivadeneyra and my journey started when I was editing the html for my myspace website page – remember those? From there I became fascinated with the fact that you could tell a story by creating a brand online. After learning these skills I had a few jobs in the service industry and then the legal industry before landing a job in the tech industry that would reignite my interest while at the same time giving me the skills I needed to turn a hobby into a career. In 2015 I created my first commissioned website through a neighbor that needed a landing page for his business. For the next 5 years, I was working full time while occasionally getting a project to create another website. The projects were fun and fulfilling but they were nowhere consistent enough for me to even consider doing it full-time. Then in 2020 I was one of the many people that lost their job in the early stages of the pandemic. I was working as a paralegal at the time and thought this is a chance to reevaluate and rebuild.
While I had no other stream of income at the time I joined the gig economy and delivered groceries during the day to buy me some time while I figured things out. I decided if I could have website clients consistently then I could make that my main focus. The only problem was that I had not done any marketing for myself in the past, so we were starting from square one. After creating my own brand, making my own website, and taking a few courses on UX design to make myself more competitive – I had no luck. I had a really hard time selling myself and I hadn’t built up a portfolio to show for the past work that I had done. A lot of my clients over the years didn’t renew their domains or had their site rebuilt so I didn’t have much to show for the work I had done so far.
Fast forward to getting my hair done – while I’m sitting in the chair talking about life and what was going on my hair stylist realized that I had creative and technical skills that may work for what she was looking for. She commissioned me to create a waiting room slideshow for her front room, then commissioned me for her website, and then finally hired me to work on a recurring schedule to manage her social media accounts, and then the real story begins! I kept track of all the work I did for her to start building my portfolio, started posting it on my own social media platforms, and became confident in the services that I had to offer. For the first time, I was able to speak about my work and have something to show for it. That newfound confidence carried me through raising my prices and committing to making this my full-time career.
With my work on display at this salon, the referrals started coming in and 3 months after completing that waiting room slideshow I was able to switch to doing this full-time. I realized I had an opportunity to keep this going but for me, that meant getting comfortable with self-promotion. While I didn’t turn into a natural saleswoman overnight I did realize that I had a much easier time pitching my skills when I had my work to back me up. I spent just as much time on my client’s promotion as I did on updating my portfolio because I realized that once someone sends you a referral the clock starts ticking and you only have so much time to show someone what you’re made of so you better be ready for those moments. That year I built up the social media management side of the business and focused on getting local businesses into the online world. I came across so many successful businesses that had never had to spend a dime on advertising and built their business one referral at a time – but their online presence did not reflect that. I found my niche and I was ready to keep expanding.
Once I had about 10 clients on retainer I knew that in order to keep going I’d like to have someone on my side to take this on together and give me the support to push for things I felt I could have never managed on my own. That is when I found my business partner Juia Morris – together we balanced out each other’s strengths and I was ready to take things to the next level! From a team of one to a small agency we were able to offer more to our clients and in return, we continued to get high-ticket clients that were excited to work with us! When I look back on my journey so far and think of what I could have done differently I think of confidence. Having the confidence to start my portfolio sooner would have been a game-changer. I was always really proud of my work but the imposter syndrome was strong. It was so much easier to tell people about my 9-5 job than it was about my new business. Sharing my work and experience with others went from feeling like I was selling to them to feeling like I was having a conversation about how I could help. Once I started to see my services that way I had no issue talking to other about what I specialized in and it got me excited to share it with everyone that I met. Having that skill earlier in my career would have saved me so many lost opportunities but we all grow at different rates and I’m just glad I was able to stick with it and see it turn into the business that it has.
Catherine, 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?
We curate social media accounts for business owners looking to expand through organic growth and authentic engagement. We create, edit, and post content for our clients. We respond to comments and engage with their followers to boost engagement. For a select few clients, we have also created their websites, managed their google my business accounts, and created paid ad campaigns on meta and google to promote their services further.
Specialties: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & Pinterest.
Services: Social Media Management, Photo & Video Content Editing, WordPress Websites, PPC Google & Meta Ads.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I met my business partner after posting about the job on indeed. I had a week of interviews where I was getting on calls back to back and feeling a little hopeless because I hadn’t found the right combination of skills and personality. After my first phone call with Julia, I knew I had found my person. She was the left brain to my right brain and I knew that by combining our skills we would be unstoppable! It also helped that we got along great. I thought to myself is this a person that I could spend 40 hrs a week with, go on business trips with, and represent the company on our behalf, and the answer was yes. Personally, I think that has been the best decision for the business I have made so far.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding part of doing what I do is getting to be my client’s #1 fan. We get excited to learn about their story and the ins and outs of their industry so that we can make sure to share their story with the world! I’m here to find out what makes my clients special, and then I take that information and showcase it throughout their brand. Most of my clients have a hard time with self-promotion and that resonates with me a lot because it can be hard to speak about your work to others. So when you have someone else that is hyping you up and telling others how amazing you are there’s no better feeling.
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