We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julie Patterson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Julie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I’ve been a designer across many industries and disciplines for 15 years. While I have benefited and learned from the corporate world, it no longer served my mission. My mission is to live a life that nourishes and excites me; to welcome my days with wonder and opportunity to grow. Given my skill set and passions, this lead me to the conclusion that I needed to start my own business with a new yet parallel mission: to foster this possibility for others as well.

This mission for who I was serving wasn’t immediately obvious to me. I knew I wanted this entrepreneurial life for myself and my family so I started there. After opening up time in my days to connect with other entrepreneurs, I learned the real “why” of my business.

With Anymore Creative, I want to help people reach their goals and live a life they’ve created by mainly serving entrepreneurs and small business with the branding tools and foundations to nurture a successful business. I am so passionate about these two things; one – looking at the time we are given on this earth and really taking the chance to make that time what you want it to be for yourself and two – that developing intentional, deliberate, and consistent branding strategies will get entrepreneurs to that place. Defining your business with intention will allow you to stand proudly behind it. (Not to mention, save you oodles of time and increase your revenue as you grow your business!)

Julie, 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?

I’m Julie – brand designer and founder of Anymore Creative.

I provide the creation of branding strategy, visual identity, and website services for entrepreneurs and small businesses to help them create a life they love. Looking forward, I have future plans to be able to further help the various levels of need for this group through DIY and semi DIY offerings. Look out for those coming soon!

The problems I want to solve for my clients to save them time and confusion, and to give them the ground work to gain higher revenues, through defining their branding strategy. Distinctive branding will do this by enhancing recognition, fostering customer loyalty, and establishing perceived value. Being intentional with defining your brand will make you feel connected to it, which invites others to be connected too. Cultivating this differentiation and trust creates connection that encourages repeat customers and referrals, ultimately driving sales growth. It can also allow you to set premium pricing, increase marketing effectiveness, and make it easy to grow without faltering from the brand story your customers have built a relationship with.

What sets me apart and what I am most proud of is my promise and belief that what we are defining is the clients style and purpose, not mine. I see some trends of designers having their own style of branding that certain people come to them for. (ie: “Hire me for your next bohemian style brand!”) While what I see is beautiful to the eye, I struggle to be able to stand behind such an offering myself. To me, a main cornerstone of a brand strategy is that it is distinctive. Being able to identify that your brand is YOURS is a huge part of the purpose and value you are paying for. Discovering this necessity and deciding I cannot stray from it helped me carve my path immensely. I’ve also been surrounded by entrepreneurs for over a decade and cannot NOT think of things from their perspective. It’s how I am wired. Whether it be a big or small budget, we can make smart choices.

So I strongly stick to my foundational branding strategies; to be intentional, distinctive and consistent. This is how I fulfill my mission to help entrepreneurs and small business live a life they love.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That the client is NOT always right. HEAR ME OUT! Of course the client is always right about what they want; their “whats” and “whys”. While I can help them dig deeper to more accurately describe this, they are the only ones who can be right about that. BUT what I am here for is the “how.” How I get a client what they want for their business might take some redirection of what they previously thought would get them there. After all, that’s why they hired me!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Yes, my side hustle turned into my full time business! While providing for myself and learning plenty along the way, the corporate world did not fulfill my creative soul. So I would take on branding projects for the nights and weekends to keep filling that cup. I always toyed with the idea of taking the full plunge, but never had the guts.

Then I had a baby. Maybe it’s a tale as old as time, but I feel so grateful that I took the jump. I needed time. I needed flexibility. I needed to be HAPPY and fulfilled. I love to work! But getting hung up on things that didn’t have meaning to me was making my light dim.

Nothing makes you “yolo” like watching how fast your baby grows up! Now my stresses, my celebrations, my wins, my losses, my schedule are all my own.

And I want this for everyone who wants it too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.anymorecreative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anymore.creative