We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Riley Moody. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Riley below.

Hi Riley, thanks for joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in owning a small business is the power of relationship. As a service-based business, I knew that my first few clients would come from loyal friends and family who really just wanted to support me, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

As I’ve worked through my first year in business, the vast majority of my clients have stemmed from an existing relationship, whether that be a loose acquaintance that I knew in college 10 years ago, or a referral from a previous client who has recommended me to their friends and connections.

What I’ve learned from this is that, while it’s absolutely important to market your work well online to attract clientele from any and everywhere, it’s also immensely important to be deeply genuine and good to the people already in front of you, whether you think they could benefit your business or not. This is friendship, not networking.

Serve your current clients well. Be professional, but be real and authentic and generous. And do the same in real life! Your husband’s best friend’s sister may just start that business one day, and the relationship you’ve invested in outside of a work setting will set you up to be her first call when that time comes.

Relationships that I built up (even loosely) years before I launched a business have ended up being the greatest referral source for my business, and brought me clients that have become real friends.

Be good to people. Build relationships. Within your business and outside of it.

Riley, 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?

Good Mood Design Co. officially started in 2021, although the dream was in the making for many years before while I worked full time for a nonprofit and freelanced at night.

The name comes from my personal history, with my maiden name being “Goodman” and my married name being “Moody.” It also reflects the fact that I’ve always believed art and design have the power to bring joy. All art should evoke emotion, and I hope that the art I create brings a joyful mood to those who interact with it.

My business is mostly focused on brand design for small businesses. I especially enjoy working with female entrepreneurs, helping them take their brand from a “side hustle,” a hobby, or just a dream, and to give it an identity that makes it feel real. A brand can be the difference between a working mom having a cute photography hobby that she does while the kids are at school, and a full-blown business that her audience takes seriously, that brings in real income, and that she can proudly stand behind. I love when a client walks away feeling like their business has leveled-up and hit a new level of legitimacy through branding.

I also grew up loving fine art, and it brings me joy to incorporate hand-created elements into my work. Painted textures, hand-drawn icons, and illustrated patterns can really set a brand apart from the market and give them a unique identity.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As a woman growing up in the South, I had a pretty distinct view of how women were “supposed” to act, speak, dress, and live. And while there’s much of this persona that I actually love and resonate with still, I’ve learned to eliminate the pieces of it that aren’t true to me and that don’t serve me as I build a business and a life.

One of those things was the tendency to hold back opinions or to avoid any sign of disagreement. As I grow in my business, I am unlearning that tendency and instead learning to see that my clients hire me to be the professional and the voice of authority in my particular area of work. My opinions add value, and they’ve been specifically sought out by those who work with me. In fact, holding them back is not serving my clients in the best way possible.

It’s an honor to learn these things alongside clients who really do make me feel valued and heard, all while maintaining respect and authenticity.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I feel a bit silly answering this question, because my audience is still very small and I am far from a social media expert.

But more than being proud of the audience size I’ve built, I’m proud of the way I’ve made marketing my business on social media something that I enjoy.

I will occasionally take a trend and adapt it for my account, but in general, I view social media as my creative playground. I get to post what I want, make it look how I want, and add the music that genuinely I like. I never post anything that doesn’t feel deeply authentic to me, or sound like something that I wouldn’t say out loud to a friend.

There’s a lot of noise out there telling entrepreneurs what to look like, talk like, and post like in order to grow an audience, but thus far in the life of Good Mood Design Co., I have resisted the temptation to follow the quick fixes, and instead treat Instagram like a place to play. No agenda, no rules, just a place to create and celebrate the projects I get to work on day-to-day.

Contact Info:

• Website: goodmooddesignco.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/goodmooddesignco

Image Credits
Kelsie Johanna Photography