We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hannah Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hannah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?
One of my favorite things to do in community is to brag about and promote the people in my circle for the awesome things they’re doing. It is always an encouragement when I meet somebody who’s looking for a service that I know one of my friends does really well. I can’t wait to share their contact with new people! This could be a close friend who is launching their own business after I’ve watched them work and pray over it for years. This could also be a family member giving their all to a creative project and finally releasing their art. This is special to me because people have done it for me over and over again.
When it comes to asking my family and friends for support, I consider this serious business. Before asking for financial support from others for a project, I critically examine my current resources and streams of income to see if there is something happening within my little creative business that could fund the project. If there is not and I believe this project could be done excellently with a little help from my friends and family, then I write it all out. I have to see the picture on paper of what I’m asking for and why. Then I gently remind myself that people have invested in art for centuries and the people that still love to do that are out there. Many of them are in my own community!
In writing out the vision for the project and the scope of what all would be included, I think of ways that people can provide support. These might not just be financial investments. People in my community might be able to promote my work and share it online or in person with others. It might be by making a financial gift. I find people will want to be involved and having options to make that happen is important.
Making the ask is never easy for me but that has not kept me from asking. Why is it so easy to ask friends to buy cookies from my kids but so hard to ask them to buy my creative works that I pour my heart into? I think the answer to that question is much longer than I should explore here but my simple answer is that the project is a part of me. I have never made something with my hands or written a song that did not feel personal. Asking for others to support that and purchase my work is personal, whether I want it to be or not.
My personal choice has been to draw the line at asking for support for anything that isn’t going to eventually sustain itself or be sustained by some income within my business. I make music, quilts, and written work. If the project I want to do is not something that will naturally weave into the overall workload and be sustainable, then I do not want to start that project or ask for others to fund it. I limit asking for direct financial support to things that can fly once they launch. The overall ask has to be for the right amount to cover the initial and ongoing need to really get that something off the ground.
In my own life, it has been the people who are passionate about my gifts and my work ethic that have given in ways that inspire me to keep trying, to keep going forward, and to take the risk of asking for help when the right idea comes along.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As a performing singer songwriter and creative, I appreciate this moment to share a little of my journey.
I opened my small business after a conversation across the kitchen table with a friend who was sharing how they launched their photography business. Having someone talk through the steps was exhilarating and I knew it was the right next step for me. It had been five years since I started making memory quilts from the belongings of loved ones in my community. People wanted a way to memorialize the moments and people connected to their T-shirts and clothes. This just felt like the right moment to step up a level and really define what I was doing.
I am so grateful for that moment, that choice. I made more than 20 quilts in the first year and was shocked how much my family and friends were jumping in to purchase my products, recommend me online to strangers, and believe in the work I was doing. That business then grew into a space for more creative work. I now do textile art, music publishing, and other written work under this roof of Prayerful Pieces, LLC.
If I had not started Prayerful Pieces, I probably would never have followed the path it started me on and released my first EP of my own songs in collaboration with producer Jeremy Casella. That project solidified my sound and gave me a sense of doing this all for real and for good. It was a step forward on the journey toward sharing my creative gifts honestly. I am still taking steps and having fun along the way.
The thing I am most proud of is that I haven’t done any of it alone. I have had my family, my friends, and Jesus in it at every step. It is a shared journey. What a privilege.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn to figure everything out on my own. If I am honest, my tendency in life is not to ask for help and just learn things the hard way. I have had to unlearn to rely on myself.
The way that I unlearned this is by taking the risk and asking for help from people who had something to teach me. Could I deep dive down video tutorials on social media to learn everything I need about a certain topic? Maybe. Is it more valuable to sit in a room or in a video call with someone who has experienced more than I have in my field? Absolutely.
There are so many master classes and coaches out there trying to pass on all that they’ve learned. Some of them are charging fees to do this. Whether I choose to pay for a course or connect with a friend whose gone before me down this pathway, getting help from others and learning lessons from them instead of making the mistakes myself has turned out to be a really fruitful method. I learned plenty of lessons the hard way, and still do. It is way more rewarding to learn them from a friend or mentor who is cheering you on.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
I find encouragement from a few key places. The first is in the Word of God, as I am a believing Christian. I find everything I need for life in there.
The other weighty influences for me have been from The Connecting Podcast (with Paul Tripp and Shelby Abbott) where I have learned to empathize with others in transformative ways, the Charlotte Mason Poetry podcast where I find my own ways of thinking changing as I create written works myself, and pretty much anything Ruth Chou Simons shares in any avenue. Ruth’s beautiful artistry points to a weaving together of creative works under a clear brand with global reach from a foundation of Christ. She is a strong woman and entrepreneur that I admire.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.prayerfulpiecesbyhannah.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannahbjohnsonmusic?igsh=MWhuMHJ1OGhwamYxbg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hannahbjohnsonmusic?si=r1RJ4axxeu8KLyl9
- Other: https://www.hannahbjohnsonmusic.com
Image Credits
Ally Patterson