Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lyric Abbott. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lyric, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Building a business from ground up takes a lot of self-discipline. At first I had to realize that my business was my only financial option. If Visionary Palette didn’t make any money therefore I didn’t make any money. For the first year of my business I chose to miss out on all the fun to build financial freedom. Meaning no hang outs, no social media, I completely went ghost. At that time I didn’t really associate with anyone so it wasn’t hard. For 365 days & 8,760 hours I mostly stayed at my computer posting on my business social media pages advertising to attract more clients. I spent time researching out how to trademark my business name & logo, how to register a business for taxes, basically how to create a structured business. Oh and how to open a business bank account and gathering the important documents to do so. When owning a business no one tells you or provides you with a step-by-step guide on what to do and what not to do. Researching was a key part on building the foundation. It’s very funny how I Brand businesses for a living but I couldn’t brand my own. Creating a logo and a website was difficult I didn’t have a vision. I had to step back and determine my target audience and my business goal to create my business essentials. Lastly, the most critical part of starting a business is setting/choosing your prices, especially when your business is full time. When pricing i started way low-priced to bring in the clients. Plus i had the degree but i didn’t have the experience so I didnt think my work was worth more. I learned to price my products off of my degree, time being used to execute the product, and my experience. After my first year in business by that time I experienced & researched more, i have now changed my website 3 times, changed my logo twice. I also changed my business structure into an agency instead of a one on one brand, meaning now when emailing Visionary Palette your not talking to me your having a conversation with a virtual assistant. My business is larger today because when you know better you do better and experience is your best teacher.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I Was born in Chicago Illinois, moved to Jackson tn, when I was a baby. I was a shy and soft-spoken child. I really stay to myself and I only spoke when spoken to, mainly business I was different. During my birth I was stuck in my mother’s birth canal, doctors panicked and grabbed me by both of my arms and pulled me out. Creating brachial plexus (Nerve Damage) in both arms. I loved to drawing and painting until endurance pain by performing both activities due to the nerve damage. I was introduced to Graphic design during High school basically learning to draw/illustrate on the computer. I used Adobe software like photoshop to create. I turned to google and youtube tutorials for answers to teach myself more about adobes programs. uring high school, I also took a coding class that sparked my interest developing websites. By graduation I knew I wanted to be a graphic & web designer, I even received an award for “Best Coder”. I applied for “Watkins College of Art & Design” and got in, I also received a grant from the recommendation letter my art teacher wrote for me. During my college years, I really didn’t learn anything that I already knew before. They basically taught us how to work for corporate and how to work in groups. So never would I have thought I would own my own business. After graduating, it was extremely hard to find a job in my field. After completing 50 to 100 applications and the final decisions were basically the same “you don’t have any experience”. After being turned down for the 100th time, I started to freelance. I started to freelancing in 2017. I created a logo, a business name “Visionary Palette” and a website. Within my first year, I made $5,000 – $6,000 a month. I have always been ambitious, I never ask for anything because if i want something I Go and get it and if its not available to me at the moment I work hard until its mine.
Visionary Palette is now known as a creative marketing agency around for 6 years, based in Georgia, specializing in branding and web design. Assisting businesses create amazing brand identities. Accompanying over 5,000 clients worldwide, including All 50 states, and United Kingdom. We Providing services from logos and business cards all the way to breathtaking custom websites and retractable banners. We’re different from other agencies because we offer great customer service, guaranteed turnaround times, and just a great experience for our clients. Our unique design services are guaranteed to enhance your brand to it’s fullest potential!
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
For 4 years our business website was on WIX platform. Which was great for selling products and designing a unique website layout. WIX is basically for beginners & its inexpensive. But our business out grew WIX. We have added more services, and now we have more clientele in our database. So we switched to Shopify. Shopify offers more business features to manage our clientele and products without extra cost unlike WIX. Email marketing is very important to us incase social media blackouts out we have a list of our clients email to communicate through our newsletter mailing list and the ROI with shopify is wonderful. Also with buy now and pay later payment options have gotten so popular Shopify offers all of them as for WIX only offered 3 companies. Will always recommend WIX to our clients who are just starting and on budget.
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 learn how to differentiate personal from business. For example, in the earlier years i didn’t understand “Business is Business”, some clients would come to be with a sob story on why they could not afford a service and I would give in and provide a discount. I would let their personal issues dictate on how much I would make that day. Other People difficulties does not have anything to do with you or your business. I had to learn that if someone really wanted your services they would buy with no question. Not every client is meant to be your client.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.visionarypalette.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visionarypalette/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Visionarypalette/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyric-abbott/
- Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@visionarypalette
Image Credits
Bonnie Blu