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

Hi Shelby, thanks for joining us today. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

Yes, of course I take vacations! Work-life balance is incredibly important to me. Having freedom to travel and work remotely is one of the primary reasons I wanted to work for myself.

In 2019 my husband and I took a 3 week long road trip from Wisconsin to San Fransisco and back. We have a converted cargo trailer camper that we’ve taken road tripping to Colorado and camped in Estes Park.

This summer we’ll be spending 3 weeks traveling France, Italy, and Greece.

Shelby, 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?

My name is Shelby, I’m the founder and creative director of Shelby Design Co.

At Shelby Design Co, we help business owners step into the next level of business growth with a brand and website designed to make them more money.

We walk them through a Brand Clarity Session where we learn all about their business, customers, offerings, and current struggles. We work to clarify and simplify their offerings and overall message; speaking directly to their customer’s struggles, wants, and needs. Next, we design a professional brand that perfectly represents their business and attracts their ideal customers. And finally, we design a sales-focused website that builds trust with viewers and turns them into customers.

My first introduction to graphic design was in 2006, designing for my high school yearbook. Throughout all four years of high school, I was devoted to yearbook. I was learning and growing so much, each year I was given more responsibility, and worked my way into leadership positions. I loved it so much that I continued on to study graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Throughout college, I worked many odd jobs, one of them for a local wedding DJ company. For many years I worked alongside my now-husband as a ‘DJ assistant’ at weddings. If you’re thinking “that sounds like a fun job”, it was.

I loved working at weddings. Meeting other wedding creatives and being a part of the high energy of a wedding day, was all so thrilling. I decided I wanted to have my own business in the wedding industry but wasn’t sure what business exactly. I gave myself the challenge of working at as many local wedding companies as I could to try and figure out where I best fit. I worked as an office assistant at a wedding photography studio, sold wedding dresses, worked at a wedding stationery store, and continued to work for the wedding DJ company as a photo booth attendant.

A bit impatient, I decided I just needed to start somewhere. I had just designed my own wedding invitations and was teaching myself calligraphy. At the stationery store, I was trained in how to sell wedding invitations and learned about all the logistics of printing. I had also recently graduated with my degree in graphic design. It seemed like all the stars were aligning.

In July of 2016, I dove headfirst into my entrepreneur journey as the owner and operator of a custom calligraphy and wedding invitation business.

Those next two years, I hustled hard and made very little money. I worked several odd jobs that allowed a flexible schedule so I could devote as many hours as I could working on my business. I taught myself how to do everything. How to build a website, how to execute a trade show, how to market my business on social media, build relationships with wholesale printers and other wedding vendors, and minimize shipping costs – I did it all.

I finally had enough work to go full-time with my business, and to my dismay, I was miserable. I spent a lot of time reflecting on what was missing for me; picking apart what things I hated about my current business, what I enjoyed doing, and how to design a life for myself I truly loved.

During my reflection, I realized that what I really loved was being challenged, solving complex problems, and collaborating with other business owners. During this time I was following Chris Do of The Futur on YouTube and was learning about this thing called Brand Strategy. I was hooked. I thought – this is it! Over the next year, I worked to pivot my business to offering brand strategy, branding, and website design for small businesses.

Everything felt right – like I was stepping into who I was meant to be. Each year my confidence and skills improved and my business grew. I took on larger projects, with higher budgets. Now, I’m growing a team to support in areas that aren’t my strengths.

I believe everyone deserves to do work that they love. My true mission is to use my creativity to help business owners improve clarity, growth, and overall profit so they too can thrive in the life and business of their dreams.

Seeing my past clients showing up confidently online, growing their team, and having their best revenue months ever is what makes my heart sing. And it’s truly an honor to know I have been a part of their success and happiness.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I think a lot of people, especially business owners, have a love-hate relationship with social media. I think social media is a great tool for growing a brand and a business, but it shouldn’t be the only tool.

Most of my brand-building efforts when I was first starting out were in-person connections. I would go to local business networking events, seminars, and weekend conferences. I also often reached out to other business owners I looked up to and asked to either get together one on one for coffee or chat over Zoom.

I strongly believe in the impact of in-person conversations. The level of connection you can make with a person during a 10-minute conversation is incredible. It takes months if not years to build the same level of trusting connection through social media alone.

So most of my audience, even today is almost all people I have either met in person or have talked to via video call.

My advice would be to focus on building really strong, genuine connections with people on an individual level rather than building an ‘audience’ of on-lookers that you don’t really know.

There are many ways to achieve that, and find the way that feels most comfortable for you. If going live and connecting with people feels fun – awesome! If you’d rather reach out to people one on one and chat over Zoom, do that!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Two books have completely shaped how I operate my business and work with my clients.

The first is Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. His StoryBrand theory is a huge part of how I structure my client’s websites and the way I work with them to clarify their brand messaging. I’m a big fan of Donald Miller.

The second is Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. I recommend this book to everybody. His simple system of organizing money is genius. It makes organizing your finances easy and less of a mental burden. I implemented his method for my business and personal finances and haven’t looked back since.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shelbydesign.co
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/shelbydesignco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shelbydesignco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-smeltzer-44458a60/

Image Credits
Front Room Studios