When it comes to running your own business, it can be easy to stick to the same processes from when you started up your business. After all chances are its familiar and you know that its works. The trouble as your small business grows those actions may not have the same strong impact, but sometimes it’s about making slight tweaks.
In this blog you’ll read about how reaching the 5-year milestone made me review my small business and decide to set some amazing goals to allow me to continue the growth of Tracy’s Treasured Keepsakes. If I can grow a successful business with limited business knowledge, then you can too.
Taking a step back and reviewing my small business
Over the last 5 years my small business has certainly evolved, I only ever thought I’d be creating keepsake bears, cushions, and blankets from those old baby clothes but within weeks of starting up I found my passion for creating memorial keepsakes.
I’d say the drive to look at how to level up my business began in September of last year. I wanted to start looking at my email marketing. Everything I had been doing up until then was working just fine but I started to think about how I could strengthen my brand awareness. Sadly, this is where my knowledge lacked so I decided to take on the help of a business coach, in came Penny at The Platt-Form. Penny was able to give me some amazing ideas of how I could elevate my brand through marketing and press coverage which as I soon found out was much better than just email marketing.
Penny offers an amazing coaching programme where we looked at the whole business and made plans for where I wanted the business to be in the future. From there we discussed what I would focus on each month and Penny sets weekly actions. What’s great about this approach is that not only is there accountability, but I have the support from Penny to ensure it’s the most effective use of my time with the biggest impact. I have been featured in the local press, entered awards and looked at avenues for my small business to grow that I would never have even considered.
Which also led onto the confidence to enter this year’s Best Businesswomen Awards in the ‘Best Creative Business’ category. At first, I thought it was about building credibility as a business and a huge achievement but it turned out to be so much more.
It gave me the opportunity to look at my business from an outside view, it helped me to re-evaluate areas of the business, look at what I have achieved over the last 5 years, reflect and plan for future growth.
Some exciting changes have taken place
My previous logo I had created on my phone within a word document whilst travelling to Norfolk for a family holiday. I only ever thought I’d be helping parents treasure those
memories from old baby clothes, my business is definitely so much more than this and I just don’t think the logo reflects the business today.
So after week of go back and forth I am
pleased to say that Tracy’s Treasured Keepsakes has a new logo and branding colours. All beautifully designed by the lovely Sarah at Hallmarked Branding.
Capturing the business through some awesome images
I had some branding photos taken a few years ago and I realised I’d started to use the same photo in all my content. Whenever I looked at them I just saw my old house and where I first started out. After all, I no longer work from my dining room table, I now have a beautiful workspace that my small business paid for. But I have also grown and achieved so much since these photos were taken so I thought it was time to invest in some new ones.
This is where Tigz Rice worked her magic. Tigz came and took a lot of photos of me working in my workspace, me with my memory bears, photos with my 2 daughters and as cringy as I thought some photos of me looking at the camera.
But Tigz was amazing, she made me feel so comfortable talking to me throughout the photoshoot, to the point that I almost forgot she had a camera pointing at me. As a result I have a large selection of different images perfect for my website, social media and any other marketing activities I plan to action in the future,
To say I loved my photos was an understatement, I went from having one photo I loved to thirty photos showing various aspects of my small business. So much so, that I want to use them all at once. You may have seen some appear on my social media already along with my website too. I believe the photos now reflect my small business perfectly and have taken my business to a whole new level.
So watch this space as you’ll begin to see all the tweaks I’ll be making to Tracy’s Treasured Keepsakes, with a new logo, more heartfelt keepsakes, charity collaborations and so much more. Why not subscribe to my newsletter (via the form at the bottom of this page) to ensure you don't miss any future posts, and whilst you're here why not have a look at what I have available to offer. I look forward to working with you in the near future and preserving those precious memories for you and your family.
Tracy xx