Hello All! We hope you are having a fantastic start of your summer. Things have been jumping in the Working Girls Design, Inc studio here in Las Vegas. We enjoyed a very busy week in New York for the Surtex show and are busy, busy, busy with follow up and excited to bring you some fresh, new cool Working Girls Designs soon!! And speaking of cool, have you heard about the new book The Declaration of You! It's written and designed by the very talented Jessica Swift and Michelle Ward. The book also has lots of really cool contributors including one of our favs the very funny and super smarty - Danielle Laport.
So to celebrate all these fabulous women and their sage advice, we are going to be jumping in with our two cents on certain topics. This week it's all about enthusiasm, and we have a few gems to share about the topic.
First, if you're going to start your business whether it's selling art or opening a hair salon, you're going to need a big healthy dose of enthusiasm. Your ideas and dreams are unique to you, and if you have the desire to express yourself uniquely in your business, then it can become not only a reality, but an uber successful venture too. And how cool would that be, to live like a rockstar in your own chosen profession and 100% in charge of how you shape and grow your business.
Now, in addition to enthusiasm, you're going to need to have a big dose of taking regular ACTION steps to reach your goals. We meet artists all the time and they want to see their artwork on products, they want to see their creations line the store shelves and we say creating the artwork is the EASY part. In addition to creating the art, you'll need to do a lot of legwork and very unsexy things like art licensing tradeshows, cold calls to manufacturers and walking the gift shows in Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas or New York. We've done all those things. It took time, capital and hard work, but wa lah - we've also put over 2,000 products on the store shelves in cool places like Bed Bath and Beyond, Steinmart, Staples, Cost +, JC Penny, Fred Segal and Barnes and Noble to name a few.
Our guess is that when Jessica and Michelle had the idea for the book they were very enthused about it! But that's not nearly enough to bring a successful book like this to market. What you may not see is all the hours they spent creating it, gathering content, proofing it, and finding the perfect partner to publish the book! For success to happen, you've got to schedule in time, maybe a lot of time, to turn all that enthusiasm swimming around in your head, into a 3rd dimensional object like a book or product.
Now another funny thing about enthusiasm is that it really helps to have a partner. Working Girls is made up of Jodi the artist and Tonja the writer, we have different levels of enthusiasm and push and pull each other forward. Likewise, Michelle and Jessica co-created their book together. It's not necessary that you have a partner to keep your enthusiasm up, but it sure does help to have another living soul that believes in your project as much as you do!
Last thing, we love this little gem of a video by best selling author Kelly Corigan.
We know when you are enthused about your project you want to share your ideas with a spouse, sibling, parent, co-worker, friend and maybe even a stranger, but recognize that early stage investors are rare!! If you have a strong vision, keep moving forward with it, you are bringing something fabulous into the world and that means you may hear a few "I don't get it" or "That won't work" from friends and family. That's okay, keep going anyway, because when you feed your enthusiasm with ACTION and keep bolding going in the direction you desire, that's truly when the magic happens! We would love to hear about your next big aha project, and how you plan to keep your enthusiasm in full swing.
We wish you all the best!
Jodi and Tonja
First, if you're going to start your business whether it's selling art or opening a hair salon, you're going to need a big healthy dose of enthusiasm. Your ideas and dreams are unique to you, and if you have the desire to express yourself uniquely in your business, then it can become not only a reality, but an uber successful venture too. And how cool would that be, to live like a rockstar in your own chosen profession and 100% in charge of how you shape and grow your business.
Now, in addition to enthusiasm, you're going to need to have a big dose of taking regular ACTION steps to reach your goals. We meet artists all the time and they want to see their artwork on products, they want to see their creations line the store shelves and we say creating the artwork is the EASY part. In addition to creating the art, you'll need to do a lot of legwork and very unsexy things like art licensing tradeshows, cold calls to manufacturers and walking the gift shows in Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas or New York. We've done all those things. It took time, capital and hard work, but wa lah - we've also put over 2,000 products on the store shelves in cool places like Bed Bath and Beyond, Steinmart, Staples, Cost +, JC Penny, Fred Segal and Barnes and Noble to name a few.
Our guess is that when Jessica and Michelle had the idea for the book they were very enthused about it! But that's not nearly enough to bring a successful book like this to market. What you may not see is all the hours they spent creating it, gathering content, proofing it, and finding the perfect partner to publish the book! For success to happen, you've got to schedule in time, maybe a lot of time, to turn all that enthusiasm swimming around in your head, into a 3rd dimensional object like a book or product.
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| Book Available July 2013 |
Last thing, we love this little gem of a video by best selling author Kelly Corigan.
We know when you are enthused about your project you want to share your ideas with a spouse, sibling, parent, co-worker, friend and maybe even a stranger, but recognize that early stage investors are rare!! If you have a strong vision, keep moving forward with it, you are bringing something fabulous into the world and that means you may hear a few "I don't get it" or "That won't work" from friends and family. That's okay, keep going anyway, because when you feed your enthusiasm with ACTION and keep bolding going in the direction you desire, that's truly when the magic happens! We would love to hear about your next big aha project, and how you plan to keep your enthusiasm in full swing.
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| c 2013 Working Girls Design. |
We wish you all the best!
Jodi and Tonja
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| Come Join the Fun! |
What a wonderful and inspiring read! Thank you for this :) Kim
ReplyDeletePerfection! Thanks for stopping by and for a great dose of inspiration! xoxo, Madge
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. You are so right about putting in the time. You've inspired me to put More Time into my pet projects. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThat's great Darlene, we wish you much success and congratulations for making the decision to put yourself first and spend time on projects that inspire you. As we say around our houses, the family laundry can wait, THIS is important.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much both of your, what an inspiration ! Sharing this! Awesome video! Dare You! (I shouldn't be using so many apostrophe's huh) Oh well!!!
ReplyDeleteWe really do need to have enthusiasm for the whole process that will make our dream a reality.
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