Advice for small businesses & creatives

Balancing your mental health while running your own business can be difficult. We’re putting a lot on our plates and it’s easy to get caught up in anxiety over our success (and failure), perfectionism in our work, and comparison to others that we see as more successful than us.

I asked Kayla Chorley, the therapist behind Pineapple Therapy in Edmonton, Canada (and Pretty Content client) to give us her perspective on small business ownership, from her own experience as both a new small business owner, and as a professional helping millennials and teenagers navigate the world alongside their anxiety.

Technology moves so fast and it takes the whole world with it. Trends come and go at a rapid pace. We’re always a click or a tap away from discovering the Next Big Thing.

On the other hand, there’s something about design that is so timeless. For as long as humans have been on Earth, they’ve wanted to create – everything from art to intricate systems to improve our lives.

There are as many different styles of design as there are people in this world.

Naming things is tricky. A name can convey so much. It can be (or feel like) a very permanent decision. I don’t know how parents deal with the responsibility of naming a human! So when you find the perfect name – in this case, for your small business – you want to start stamping it everywhere. You grab the domain and the social media handles. You might even think about applying for a trademark.

Big companies use trademarks. I’ve also noticed it to be a very common practice in the USA small business community. But what does registering a trademark mean for UK small businesses? Let me tell you a bit about trademarks, my own experience registering a trademark, and whether I feel it was worth it!

It’s coming.

It feels like summer, but lurking around the corner is Christmas and the new year.

Here are 5 things small businesses should do between now and Christmas…

One of the biggest debates in the service-based community is whether or not you should show your prices on your website.

You can probably guess what my stance is. After all, I display my prices on this website.

However, in the interest of unbiased reporting, I will go through both the reasons you might not want to show your service pricing, and why I think that you should.

Not everyone was born with a silver pencil in their hand. Writing copy that sounds natural, and not like your 10th grade English essay on Othello, can be tricky and feel super daunting.

Here’s a really quick trick that I recommend to my clients and friends who want to inject their personality into their writing, but don’t find that it comes naturally to them.

When running a small business, it can be tricky to keep up with all of the tasks. There are so many touch points that we create when building a brand, and rightfully so. Sometimes keeping them all afloat is simple, and sometimes some fall by the wayside.

So, how can we blog in a way that is less reliant on consistency and constant availability, but still has an impact on our business?

It’s time for a mindset shift when it comes to your website – stop thinking of it as a static piece of collateral and start thinking of it as something you update consistently, like one of your social media feeds.

Social media is built on an addictive hook model. So what does this mean for content creators when using “engagement” as a performance metric?

Are the number of likes on an image a sign of success, or a sign of an audience with a heavier addiction to social media?