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

Michelle, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

When I first started my design business, I was completely winging it. I was taking any client that wanted to work with me because I just wanted to make money and make this business a reality. It wasn’t until a couple of years in, that I realized that I was becoming exhausted working with anyone and everyone that knocked on my door. It wasn’t sustainable, especially for the amount of money (or lack there of) that I was charging.

I decided to increase my prices to target the audience I actually wanted to work with. I updated my website, copy, imagery, portfolio and really up-leveled my client experience so that the price matched the value. I cut back on my amount of clients because I wanted to spend more one on one time with each of my clients so that they got a much more personalized and custom experience. This created an elevated, professional experience tailored to them. This allowed me to continue to increase my pricing.

I, of course, made some mistakes along the way while doing this. In the beginning, I was offering my clients too much that it was overwhelming for them. I had to find a happy medium of deliverables that I wanted to give to them and how much to charge. Once I found this sweet spot, my sales started to increase overnight. It can be really tough to piece all of this together when you’re running a business alone in the beginning. It truly is a trial and error type of process.

There were a lot of ideas that were like throwing a spaghetti at a wall to see what will stick. I even hired a couple of people to bring onto my team before I was actually ready to do so and ending up having to let them go later on as I didn’t have the capacity or knowledge to be able to train them yet.

A lot of business owners have the tendency to get ahead of themselves and hire out help before they’re ready to. Only after looking at my internal business processes and identifying weak spots was I able to successfully hire people to my team to help me grow my business. It’s been a long, but satisfying 6 years!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Michelle Marie Studio started in 2016 when I discovered my passion for designing graphics. It had always been there underneath, but I never really understood that art could become a career path.

What started out as a weekend and late night hobby turned into a full time business by the Summer of 2019. My Undergraduate Business Degree laid the foundations for what I needed to create a functioning and sustainable business. I love incorporating my business knowledge alongside my art talents to create the perfect logo and website designs for my clients.

What lights me up is seeing the difference that design can make in my client’s confidence and their ability to serve others. I am truly there to be my client’s cheerleader and to help them succeed. I love seeing my client’s businesses grow.

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

I thought that to be successful as a business owner, I needed to work over 40 hours a week and sacrifice my life to get further ahead. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, in the beginning it will feel that way to everyone. But the reality is that as a business owner, you can chose your own hours. You have the choice to decide if you want to scale to a large company or to something that will be sustainable for you. Everyone has different capacities. For me, I knew that I wanted to scale my business to have 3-4 employees so that I can work when I want to, take vacations when I want to and not feel strapped for cash. There are a lot of avenues that you can take to help you achieve this goal – raise prices, hire out help, create passive income products, etc.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The number one most effective strategy for growing your clientele is to create an unbelievable client experience for your current clients. Answer their emails promptly, stick to the deadlines you give them, send them thank you gifts, share their stories to your following, constantly think of ways to improve the client experience. Do whatever you can to make that client feel like they are the most important client in your life and that they matter. When you make the client feel special, they WILL tell everyone they know that they should work with you. Clients will start coming to you left and right because they know that working with you will be special and it will be worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://michellemariestudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellemariestudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellemariestudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellegatwood/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMIepcNAQCLaiLbprKVOUGA

Image Credits
Soel Studio