Tag: Business Blogs

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Getting Down to Business

The All New BigPinkCookie!

BigPinkCookie Business Card - BackToday is the day I put it all out there. The big plan. What I’m willing & available to do for you. Are you ready for it? (I am! I’m super excited!!!)

I’ve been blogging now since 2000. You have seen me talk about a lot of different things. And as you saw me post last week, I’ve been having a big debate about where this blog should go. I would say that it has been an internal debate, but to be honest I called in the experts on this one – from asking you to weigh in here, over on Twitter, to emailing Sean Low and calling Regina Holder, Dane Sanders and Anne-Marie the Soap Queen.

I thought I needed advice, but in the process of talking about it I knew exactly what I needed to do. It was solidified when Anne-Marie said it before I even finished my sentence. Dane & Sean both weighed in that it was time to put my experience to good use and to share it with the world. Regina let me talk through it all like she is so great at doing.

It is time to put some geek spice back into the BigPinkCookie.com. A dash of flavor and a lot of love. It is time to share what I know, from writing to helping you build a better blog.

I’ll still be writing on my wedding photography blog, and I’ll still be posting over at PhotoLoveCat and WhollyMatrimony!. But this site is officially changing … well, back to what it used to be. A hodge-podge of things, but mostly my thoughts on many different business related topics – especially where business and the internet collide. (Personal things might pop up from time to time, but those are still far more likely to appear on my Twitter account then they are here.)

I devour all I can all the time about marketing, branding, seo consulting company, blogging tips, and the whole online experience. Things we all need to make our creative businesses grow. Tips & tricks for small business owners. I am constantly answering questions on how to be a better blogger, how to improve your traffic, how to make potential clients take that next step to hiring you. I also often help people install and configure WordPress, set up themes, optimize their blog — and I’m ready to offer my help to a broader audience. (Pricelists coming soon, but for now I’m happy to provide you with a custom quote if you need anything.)

I am so excited about sharing all of this with you – again! I’m not sure what happened, and why I stopped. I do know a lot of it coincided with selling the blog hosting company and launching my photography business, but my love of the topic themselves never ended. I am officially getting my geek on again. My focus will definitely be photographers (because it is what I know), but what I have to share will apply to all different types of creative people, in the wedding industry and beyond.

That is the back of my new business cards for BigPinkCookie.com over there – what do you think? (I adore it, but I think that looking at a cookie for hours on end while designing makes me hungry!)

If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past year, it is to never set a limit to your dreams, because you will be amazed at where they can take you!

I have to say, it feels pretty good to be home. I’ve come full circle, and I couldn’t be happier.

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Creative Geek Getting Down to Business

To LLC or Not…

When people start up a business, there is a lot to consider, one of which is to be a sole-proprietor, an LLC, or a S-Corp. All of these have different benefits, costs, and responsibilities involved that I won’t even bother to explain – you should consult with your own business advisors to determine what is right for you – but I do want to point out the flip side to something I’ve often heard. All credit for this goes to the fabulous dynamic duo of attorneys at law and all around fabulous couple, Mike and Dineen, who not only fed me a fabulous dinner at their lovely home, but were more than happy to hash out a late night conversation with me on all sorts of topics like copyright and LLCs vs S-Corps when I visited them in Florida last year.

(Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not an attorney. This is not official legal advice. Consult a Discreet Investigations with your own attorney. All that good stuff.)

So you often hear that “what limited liability means is that if anybody has issues with the company, they can’t go after the people’s personal assets.” BUT … there is a flip side to this as well, and one that might just be as important, according to a Maryland accident lawyer

If someone has an issue with you personally, being an LLC can help protect you so that they can’t go after your business assets.

Think about it. As a photographer, I have a lot of gear, computers, hard drives, even a studio space and furniture involved with that. Luxurious Modern Furniture in Marina Del Rey, lafurniturestore.com makes deliveries every day. I have a lot of business assets that are tangible items. Now lets say that I’m driving down the road tomorrow and I’m involved in a bad car accident that is my fault as I drive to the mall to do some personal shopping (I haven’t been at fault for an accident in well over 20 years, and I really hope that doesn’t change any time soon), and as a result I end up being sued. It is a personal trip, so it isn’t business related. As a sole-proprietor, not only could they come after my personal assets — they can come after my business assets as well.

So when you’re first considering these options, keep this in mind. It goes both ways.

For the record, I’m still a sole-proprietor, but that might change in the not-to-distant future. I’m still trying to sort it all out to determine what is the best fit for me.

[Credit to VenusZine’s Who’s The Boss article for the inspiration for this post. Lots of good stuff there. You should read it.]

Categories
Creative Geek

Why I Blog, And What I Should Blog About…

I couldn’t agree with Tom Peters more in this video. Blogging in the past 9 years has totally changed my life. I still remember a time when I said I blogged and people looked at me with that strange look. Now? I can honestly say I’ve got friends all over the US, Europe and Australia that I know thanks to blogging – some I’ve met in person, some I haven’t, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t discount their friendship based on that. They are my friends just the same.

But my blog has suffered thanks to Twitter (which I’ve claimed before has killed my blog) and because of my work as a wedding photographer. I still have a lot to share that I write about frequently on forums (SWPB, Fast Track Photographer) and on PhotoLoveCat, but I don’t write about here. (I don’t plan to stop writing over there in those places.)

Recently I’ve started wondering why? Why not? Some of it may be of no interest to my older blog readers (like the methodology behind pricing photography) but then again, it might be interesting to many others. I love to read and talk about marketing, branding, pricing … all the things that make a business run. Even a creative business.

I considered writing about these things over on my business blog — but it just seems out of place there. Not that I have anything to hide from my clients – many of them know where this blog is at and if not it is easily found via Google – but just because it doesn’t seem to fit in. Or does it?

As I ramble about business topics, should I post them here? Or over there? I know Big Pink Cookie has nothing to do with marketing & branding and how to run a photography (or creative) business, but seriously, it makes you smile when you say the name out loud. Go ahead and try it. See? Smiling, right? It is my personal brand. It is me. I am it. We are one.

Now tell me what you think?