How Did You Do It? (Part 1)

(Today’s blog post was supposed to be about this pretty thing. But due to some technical difficulties with Blogstomp, I had to change things around. HOPEFULLY it will be up tomorrow!! Until then, see some of the pretty over on Katie’s blog & Johnna’s blog!)

“HOW DID YOU DO IT?”

I keep hearing this question. In the last month, I’ve received a lot of emails & Facebook messages about my business. Because I can’t answer all of them with a detailed reply (I’m so sorry!) or have coffee with every single one of you (although that would be amazing!), I felt like a blog post might be the best way to share a piece of my heart with you!

First off, I’m really not that awesome… and I’m not an expert on becoming a business owner. I promise! I’m incredibly humbled that some of you have reached out to me for advice & I want to give you an honest answer – newbie to newbie – but I also want you to understand that I’m just an ordinary girl who had a really big dream… and I’m blessed enough to see it coming true. I also have A LOT to learn!!! I’m 5 months in. That’s NOT that long!!!! I have been blessed to meet & hang out with amazing creatives who have given me advice & encouraged me so much!! So please don’t think I’m an expert, because I’m not.

I “officially” started DSE in September, meaning I started a blog, got my LLC, my business license & a separate bank account for my business. In the last 5 months, I have been SO BLESSED to already see fruit from it. If you ask me “How I Did It?” my first response is simple: Jesus.

He is the creator, sustainer & the only thing in my life that is always, always constant. He has showed me SO MANY TIMES in the last few months that DSE is what I was made to do. He’s provided clients, a blogging presence & amazing blog features I can’t even believe happened so early on in my business.

However I know that doesn’t REALLY answer your question! And I don’t want you to think that I literally just sat in my room & prayed, and things happened. Although the power of prayer is SO important, and having faith in the unseen is crucial to my walk with God, He also calls me to ACT. He calls me to go & do & be actively engaged in this world.

Today’s post is all about your heart behind owning your own business. The things you need to look into BEFORE going through the legal & logistical things. Part 2 will be about the technical stuff –  your LLC, your business license, etc. Let’s get started!

3 things to think about before owning your own creative business:

– – – Why do you want to own your own business? If you love stationary design so much, why not go work for a company? If you love baking so much, why not go work for an established sweet shop? Why is owning your own business vital to you?

All of our answers will vary a bit, and that’s the beauty of it! We each have a calling, and a different reason for it. My answer in a nutshell is this: I have a BS in Business Administration, and was always the one to step up to lead a club, organization or group project. I knew I wanted to start my own business because of my passion for the wedding industry, and my love for entrepreneurship & leadership.

– – – Do your research. (I’m not talking about the legal & logistical things to think about, we’ll get to that later!) I’m talking about YOU as a business owner… What will make you unique? Are there a lot of others like you in your area? What can you bring to the table that they can’t?

The wedding industry is saturated. There are a lot of photographers, designers, planners, florist, etc. But the ways of weddings have changed – Pinterest did that, an outpour of wedding blogs did that. More brides are DIY, and more brides are detail-oriented. For me, that meant offering wedding DESIGN packages & not just coordination. It also meant blogging, and blogging A LOT. I don’t know another wedding planner in the VA/DC/MD area who blogs on a regular bases like I (try) to do. I love to blog, so that was a natural step for me to take!! I love sharing my life with you & giving advice. It helps to set me apart & make people WANT to talk to me, because I talk to them a lot via my blog. Think about your niche – what sets YOU apart, what do you like to do, how can you be relatable to your clients & get people excited to work with you? Because more & more women are entering the creative industry, we have to be even MORE creative with why we’re doing what we’re doing!

– – – JUST DO IT. Punch fear in the face. Make a bold move. Leap in & stop doubting.

Friends, this is the BIGGEST piece of advice I can give you. You just have to DO it!!! Yes, you might fail. Failure is ALWAYS a possibility. But it’s 50/50 & the other 50 is CONQUERING it. Don’t you want to take a chance on your dream?! When I started DSE I had a few friends’ weddings under my belt & my own wedding… that’s it. No formal training, no degree in wedding planning. And here I sit with over a dozen weddings/shoots in the next 10 months, and 3 amazing national blog features. I just JUMPED in y’all! You might be surprised to hear that I WAS told no by vendors & brides, that I had people tell me I was doing it all wrong. And I cried & got my feelings hurt. But I got up the next day & DID NOT LET THAT STOP ME. Failure is our chance to grow. Always look at it that way. And hearing NO is ALWAYS an opportunity to find a YES.

I just starting DOING things, friends. No magic to it. I had a dream, and instead of sitting around dreaming about it, I decided I wanted to live it. I reached out to vendors & blog editors, I blog 4-5 days a week & I Instagram all the time (ha). I got people EXCITED that I WAS EXCITED… and it worked. I’m so, so blessed that it worked!!!

What’s YOUR dream? What’s YOUR niche? What are you waiting to do? WHY? Why not just DO IT?

I can’t wait to see you make it happen 🙂

xo! kat

(( Floral Design by Dear Sweetheart Events // Photography Credit ))