We were lucky to catch up with Lyric Abbott recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lyric, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

There’s a reason why so many people stay at their 9-5 jobs because when owning your own business you never know what’s going to happen next. When you have a business that provides digital products there will be unexpected issues. One of the first common issue I faced is Chargeback’s. For those who may not know A Chargeback is when a customer call their bank and basically state they did not complete a transaction that’s viewed on their statement then the bank will mark the transaction for that product as fraudulent and then the money will be returned to the customer’s debit or credit card, with or without proof. So that means the customer could have lied just to get their money back while having the product. And then the merchant literally has to provide proof to win the case and lastly wait at least 90 days to receive their money back unless they lose. It’s a hassle! With Visionary palette I have experienced at least six Chargeback’s and all of them were fraudulent because we provided each customer with the product and service they purchased. To win a charge back it’s really time consuming, first you have to gather all of your proof, for example captures of communication, their receipt and proof of purchase, and proof of delivery that the product was sent directly to the customer. After you gather the evidence you send it to the payment processor and then wait for 90 days to decide if it’s fraudulent or not. Out of all six chargebacks we have lost two cases because those two customers had AMEX cards. A lot of businesses know that it’s hard to win a Chargeback case with AMEX member. To add void disputing issues we added a legal bound service agreement that every customer has sign before proceeding and then there’s a statement at the bottom of the agreement concerning Chargebacks basically stating that we do have an attorney to handle disputing cases. Lastly, we do not accept any AMEX cards on our website or invoices. We also installed Fraud analysis on our website to distinguish any fraudulent orders. As a business owner you just have to expect the unexpected but just remember why you started and don’t give up.

Lyric, 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 was born in Chicago, Illinois. At birth, I suffered a brachial plexus injury (nerve damage) in my right and left arm, which resulted in my left arm recovering fully but my right arm did not. Due to this condition, as I child I always felt left out and different from my peers. While in middle school in Jackson TN, my love for art grew and became an outlet for me to take my attention off of negativity. I began drawing at the age of 11 but at the age of 13 I realized I was blessed with a talent and began to take my passion for art serious. My passion later became something difficult to do due to my left hand continuously experiencing vicious cramps. Because of this, I decided to learn how to utilize programs such as Adobe, Photoshop, and Illustrator. The use of these programs became my pencil and paper and that is where I continue to flourish. I have now grown confident in my ability to create, however, I truly believe there will always be room to grow. I am constantly seeking new opportunities to enhance my skills as I continue to grow as a graphic designer.

In high school (Madison Academic), I continued to use Adobe programs and enrolled in a coding class. Where I beached out to Web Design. The close to the end of senior year our coding class entered a local coding school contest “TheCO: Dev Catalyst”. I won the coding contest out of all of the Middle Tennessee contestants. Fast forwarding to college, I enrolled in Watkins College of Art in Nashville TN in their graphic design program. After two semesters, I had to quit and transfer to Tennessee College of Applied Technology due to increase in tuition. While being a full-time student studying two majors (graphic and web design), working two jobs. Life became really stressful at 20. Approaching my last year in college in 2017, I applied for at least 100 Graphic & Web Design jobs. I followed every procedure & participated in so many different interviews for them just to inform me “I Didn’t Have Enough Experience To Qualify For The Job”. Which I thought didn’t make any since I felt if I’m a recent college graduate someone needs to hire me so I can receive experience.

After being rejected for the 100th time, I decided to step back from social media & people and quit my 9-5s to create my business Visionary Palette and become my own boss. Starting my own business was REALLY difficult for me. I didn’t know anything about being an entrepreneur, I felt defeated because I didn’t receive the support from the people who I thought were going to support me, to them: I charged too much, they wanted free work, or I had to do something for them just so they could support me. I’ve learned people support who they want to. Within two years, I was able to build a successful brand. That brought my first house at 22 years old In Atlanta, GA. I decided to move to Georgia because thats where majority of my clients were from.

Fast forward to this current day Visionary Palette has been in business for six years. Specializing in branding and web design. Assisting businesses create amazing brand identities. Accompanying over 5,000 clients worldwide. Providing services from logos and business cards all the way to breathtaking custom websites and retractable banners. We pride ourselves on creating 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!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Let’s be honest, graphic and web designers don’t have the best reputation. The common issues people have with designers: First, is not meeting their deadline meaning designers will usually tell you a specific day when the project will be completed but usually when it gets to that day the product is not completed nor started. Second, there are a lot of scammers pretending to be graphic and web designers they will steal other designers work from there portfolio and post it as theirs, from there they will gain clients, take payment and you will never hear from them again. Thirdly, some designers never listen to their clients vision, majority of customers will tell you what they want and as a designer you’re supposed to bring their vision to life but some designers ignore and do what they think is best for their customer. But Visionary Palette is the total opposite. Being in business for at least six years we have build a reliable and honest reputation. Basically by having a Guaranteed turnaround policy, meaning if we state to you that your project will be done by a specific date then it will be done by that date no matter what. Also we have a secured check out on our website that protects you as the client and us the consumer. Lastly, our slogan “Let’s bring your vision to life”, essentially let’s our clientele know that we’re here to create your vision but of course we will create a couple of examples of our vision to provide you options.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

To tell you the truth, social media is really frustrating now especially to gain an audience. For the last couple of years the algorithm of social media’s timeline has changed for the worst. Back when when you posted something on social media it will be the next post that your followers will see but now when you post something your followers won’t see it until hours later sometimes days later. Business owners post things on social media it’s usually a new product or service, important announcements, or images of their recent work. With issues like that it’s hard to get in the audience on social media because you don’t know when your posts will connect with your followers/audience. So to gain an audience you have to follow the social media rules, for example let’s say an Instagram state that they’re concentrating mostly on reels it would be best for you to make a majority of reels than regular picture post. You have to use a lot of popular tags so social media can push your post to the top. Mostly Instagram and Facebook even Twitter push reels and videos more than any other post. Instead of posting pictures or statuses it will be best to post videos of your product or service. Recently I have noticed posting and advertising in Facebook groups brings in a lot of new clientele by basically just posting videos or images of your work and then placing your social media at the bottom of each post. You can’t beat the new timeline algorithm you just have to work with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.visionarypalette.com
• Instagram: visionarypalette
• Facebook: Visionary Palette
• Linkedin: Lyric Abbott
• Other: Tik Tok: @visionarypalette

Image Credits
Bonnie Blu