We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christina Calle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christina below.

Alright, Christina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I like being on a predictable schedule, maybe I have a bit of OCD when it comes to having a schedule. Having a corporate job I had to plan out my schedule to know when I needed to get stuff done. What time to wake up to get to the gym and then when to leave to get to work on time, etc. So when I lost my job I had to make a huge choice, start over at a new corporate job or finally take the risk and invest in myself.

Two years ago, I stopped looking for a new corporate job, I had several job offers, pay wasn’t ideal, the drive was even less thrilling after doing it for so long, and the benefits were ok. But if I was going to take a salary cut because of COVID, I decided to take that salary cut and put the work into building my own company where I could make my own schedule and choose my own projects. All the while being more available to my kids.

It’s been two years, been a hard two years, but I am happy to say the risk of not going back to a predictable corporate job has paid off. It’s paid off more than I ever thought it world. yes I took a huge pay cut but I gained a better life for myself and for my kids and family.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For over 15 years I have had amazing opportunities to work with some of the largest brands and retailers in the world. Straight out of college I was working with brands such as Harley-Davidson, Honda, BMW, PWC and then through the years I worked with Walmart, Sam’s Club, eBay, Kohl’s, and other large retailers and brands. I really enjoyed getting to know the WHY behind these brands and how they worked. I even searched for style guide with other major brands and read up on why they designed their branding the way they did. I also wanted to understand why people tattooed logos on themselves, why did people have Harley-Davidson or Channel tattooed to their arm/leg. Why Coke and not Pepsi?

So when COVID turned us all upside down, I had a huge choice to make, go back to corporate or do my own thing. I was 7 months pregnant at the time, my husband was about to have surgery from a car accident a few months back and I just lost my job that supported our family. So naturally I started looking for a new corporate job and entertained the idea of become an Art Teacher, then the schools shut down a week later and that idea came crashing down and the companies that wanted to hire me wasn’t offering a high enough salary to justify driving into Tampa every day and I didn’t even want to think what my maternity leave would look like start over at a new job.

So my husband told me to start my own company, he said I had the experience and the portfolio to back it up. However, I had no idea how to start my own company, I went to school to learn how to write a resume and killer cover letter, not go onto Sunbiz and get a LLC and had no idea what an EIN number was. But I took the leap of faith and in December of 2020 I hit publish on my website callecreative.com and made the announcement that I was going out on my own.

I joined several local networking groups and going to farmers markets and just started talking to people. The “oh and what do you do for a living” came up in casual conversation when I was going out to see what local business were starting to open back up. Then clients started coming in. 90% of my business is referrals. I am so thankful for my friends and family using my services and sharing out what I have done for them.

What really sets me apart from the next designer, is how I treat each project that comes in, it’s not “tell me what you want your logo to look like and I will design it for you”, of course I want you to love your new branding, but unless YOU are your ideal client then we really aren’t designing based own what you want, it’s based on what your client wants. I build all of brands based off of research and data first. The data drives what the design and strategy will be to attract your ideal clients. Once the new brand is finished I plan for many different applications as well as providing my clients a style guide for them to hand over to who ever they hire next to build their website, create promotional materials, signage. They invest in their new branding, I want to make sure that everything stays on brand to build that awareness through being consistent with the look and feel.

December will be 2 years since I hit publish on my site and I don’t regret anything, even all the mistakes I made in my first year of business, they have all been learning experiences that I can then share onto the next start up business. I work with other designers to help build their business, give feedback and even share my documents. If I can help them get ahead faster and avoid some of the mistakes that I made along the way, that just helps build a better and stronger design community. When we help others rise, we all rise together.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Honesty. I know we hope that each business is honest but unfortunate a lot of businesses don’t operate with honesty first.

Recently I was hanging out after a networking meeting and a local business came up to me to chat. They mentioned to me that they were thinking they needed a new logo. I asked them why did they think that, for me I tell people there needs to be a really good reason on why you need to change your logo, One: You are changing services or audiences, Two: you did some shady stuff and have a lot of negativity around that branding, Three: you can’t legally operate under that name/business anymore. They told me that some people mentioned that they should look at redoing it. I said who are these people, are they friends and family, clients? They said someone who was offering to do social media services. I told them well without doing the proper research I can’t tell you for sure if you need to do a refresh or a rebrand, but just looking at your logo right now without knowing anything about your business, I don’t see a reason why you need a new logo. There is nothing I can do as a designer to make your current logo better.

The other two ladies who were sitting at the table with me where shocked. They said they were so impressed that I didn’t just try to sell her my services and took a loss instead. I said it wasn’t a loss, what would have been a loss was me trying to reinvent the wheel for no reason and I thought she had a nice logo and it fit her perfectly.

Fast forward I was in a meeting last week and the story was brought up around other business owners and how this person heard about what I did and how I am not in the business to just sell anyone a new logo, that I truly care about each business I work with and that I only offer design options if they truly need it. If you aren’t going to use a letterhead and envelope, then why would I design that for you, let’s talk about what you actually need and what will help your business grow.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I joke that once you are one of my clients you have me for life.

At the start of my business I hired a few people to help me navigate this new world of owning my own business, because again I went to school not only for design but how to write a resume and a killer cover letter, the people I hired would engage with my content, check up on me, aske me how that week assignment was going, etc. But once our contract was over with and I didn’t move forward with the next program they were offering, the engagement stopped, the checking in stopped, the follow ups stopped. I was just a transaction.

For me, once I hand over that link to your Google Drive, I am still out there engaging with their content, sharing their sales, their contests, new product alerts, I am sending emails asking how they are doing, I am sharing reel ideas, photography style ideas, content ideas, I show up so their market days, I buy their products and services, I go and eat at their restaurants. They get me for the life of their business and some of my clients have become close friends with me now.

I become one of their superfans because I genuinely want to see each one of my clients succeed!

Contact Info:

• Website: callecreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callecreative/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaCalleDesigns
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/christinacalle
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/callecreative/