How To Make Professional Graphics

Hello, everyone, it's Jen Kilbourne Obermeier.

And I am a little late for my video tonight.

But, I do just want to share that I got a really happy message just a few moments ago, from one of my followers on this page, who has been watching these videos, and she said...

One second, I'm pulling it back up, she said "OMG, Jen, I just went live."

 Meaning, she did a live video just like this one on her business page.

She said, "I heard my heartbeat in my ears.

I made a million mistakes, but I did it.

I would have not done it so soon without your encouragement and video instructions.

Thank you for being you, THANK YOU."

That is why I do it, people, just to push you out of your comfort zone, and you can thank me later.

Hate me now, thank me later.

You'll be so thankful that you did this.

Unfortunately, I hate to tell you that the nervous part never goes away completely, but it is totally worth it.

And this is not what our video is about tonight, it's not about doing live video, but if you do, if you do, jump on there and test the waters, and you watch back and you absolutely hate it, you can always delete it so it doesn't live out there forever.

And another tip is, make sure you have something to drink, like water, to stay hydrated, and also that you have your air conditioning on, and a fan on, because, even if you're not normally a sweaty person, something about going on live video, makes you start absolutely sweating to death, drenched with sweat.

At least, that was my experience.

It took a really long time for that to go away.

Anyway, thank you so much for that little love note that made my night, I am super excited that this is making a difference and helping you guys move forward.

We can't not talk about the context of the time in which I am doing these videos, day by day is a little bit like a video blog of what the coronavirus situation continues to develop to be, at least in where I live.

I know I have people all over the place who are watching this, so, your mileage may vary, but I'm in Greenville, South Carolina, and day by day, things are changing.

And of course, my heart and mind are very heavy about many things, but continuing to share with you guys just keeps me moving forward.

So, this is a part of my survival tactic.

And if you've been watching or following along with me, I'd love to know how you're doing.

I really genuinely want to hear from you and I care.

I mean, all of you are individuals being impacted in very different ways.

Picked a topic for tonight that we have not talked about yet in the last week, but, no matter what you're doing with online business, this is going to come up for you in some way.

If you are creating a website, anywhere on any platform at all, if you're doing a social media page, if you're starting an Instagram page or Facebook page for your business, any type of YouTube channel, you are going to notice the need for some types of graphics, something to give your channel or your website a look and feel.

You certainly don't want to leave it blank because that's boring.

I guess, as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words, but your branding is worth actual money, write that one down.

At some point, you're either going to realize that you have to create some of these things yourself, or you have to pay somebody else to do it.

And you might get stuck in that decision and then not do anything, which is what I don't want to happen.

My lighting looks horrible tonight, let me see if I can fix this on the fly, once I see what it looks like on this end of things.

I can probably just minimize.

Oh, yeah, I can confirm, I look like a ghost.

My apologies, guys. Let's see what we can do about this.

My tips and tricks regarding the graphic design situation are really good ones.

So, I really feel like this is worth taking some notes on, because there is definitely a happy medium in between teaching yourself how to do graphic design when you might be crunched for time, or hiring a graphic designer, and that might cost a lot of money.

That might feel like those are the only choices, but I want to tell you there are more than just those two choices.

1.) And my first ninja trick is certainly something I have mentioned already, I have used the service, Fiverr, for a lot of one off, one time graphic design jobs.

I've had YouTube banner art designed there.

And this is something that I use in times when I do want a professional opinion, and I know that even though I know how to do graphic design, that if I start to do it myself, I will tinker with it forever, instead of just moving forward on the project.

And as much as I believe that branding is a really important part of any business that you're doing, especially online, because you want to look like professional and that you can, in fact, use the internet, that doesn't mean you have to be a professional graphic designer, but you just want things to really look and feel as good as you know that you can.

So, that is a time when I'll go to Fiverr.

2.) Another really important resource is called Canva, C-A-N-V-A.

It is a free app.

It's a cloud website.

So, it's essentially an app, and you can also do it on your phone.

I've never done that before, I've always used it on desktop.

But Canva is like a super, easy drag and drop version of Photoshop.

So, if you ever need to overlay text onto a photo, that you'll just take it into Canva.

You don't have to pay for the most basic version.

If you do pay for the upgraded version, which I do at this point in my business, even though I know how to use Photoshop, and it does so much more, I use Canva because it's just so simple.

My assistant and I will log into the same account so we can share stuff between each other, and it's just all around really good for that type of thing.

In Canva, not only can you put together graphics really quickly, like say you want to make one of those quotes for Instagram, that has just a background and then obviously your words that have a pretty fun or something over it, Canva is going to take WAY less time than pretty much anything else, and it's going to be cheaper.

You also have the ability in Canva, if you pay for the upgraded version, you can upload your own fonts, as opposed to using all the free fonts that Canva has.

And then, also, if you pay for the upgraded version, they have all kinds of stock photos, S-T-O-C-K photos inside Canva, so that you can just, again, search for the topic or the category of what type of image you're looking for, and drag and drop it into the graphic design image that you're trying to make.

Okay, I can see that there are some people watching, and I am watching on my phone for your comments.

Veronica is there, Pavla, Suzanne, Carly, Melissa.

Hello, ladies, I'm so glad you're all there! And I'm sorry, I just now got up to speed with that.

So, Canva is really good, not only are there free fonts there, you can have paid fonts, you can have the paid stock photos, its a really good all in one place.

And then the other, this is a really, good tip, inside Canva, they have templates for every single type of graphic design project that I can think of.

If you're creating an ebook, they have ebook templates.

If you're creating a flyer or like a, what's the word?

 Like a Keynote.

What's the other one that's not Keynote?

You know what I'm saying...

PowerPoint presentations, they have all those in Canva, and they're already pre-designed, professionally laid out.

They have lots and lots and lots of different options that are all free.

So, if you're ever wondering to yourself, "I don't know if I can make something look good and professional," go into Canva, and they have Facebook post templates, they have Instagram templates, they have the exact size that you need for a banner or a header for your YouTube channel, for your Facebook page, literally for everything, I mean, for everything.

So, Canva can be an all in one place that you make everything nearly for free, like I said, unless you want to pay for the upgraded version.

I think people probably overlook what its capabilities are, and probably forget that there are tons and tons of pre-made templates that are very modern, very cute, very easy to use.

You can switch out your colors that are your brand, switch out your fonts.

You might even have fonts that are just free fonts.

So, you just go and you just make it all look matching and coordinated.

If nothing else, even if your brand is not like the sexiest thing you've ever seen, at least, all of your stuff matches.

That shows that you have attention to detail, and that makes people trust you and makes people believe you when you say like, "Hey, I know how to do X, Y, and Z."

If they're looking at your website and they're like, "Well, your website is not even organized."

You're calling yourself an interior designer but your social media stuff doesn't even match each other, then they're going to think, "Is this person really competent? Heh. Maybe not."

So, it's just one of those things that speaks volumes about the service that you offer.

And is that fair?

Maybe sometimes, maybe sometimes no, but a really killer tip about launching your business quickly, and growing quickly, and getting referrals quickly is to put yourself out there with a professional presence.

Along the same lines, even though this is not exactly graphic design related, if you're putting yourself out there in any capacity as a service provider, as a coach, as a consultant, even if you're launching a web design business, any type of online business where you are the face of that business, you can get away with using a selfie that is really well done, maybe for a little while.

But, as soon as you can get a professional level headshot of yourself that you can use all over the place, you can use the one same headshot on your website, on your social media, it gives just, one, a professional presence, but two, consistent photo that people recognize, so that when, let's say they find you on a blog, and then later they're on your YouTube channel, and they subscribe to your YouTube channel, and they forget about you for a month.

But then, as you're uploading more content, they keep seeing you, and they see the same photo of you that they saw on your blog, then it all connects together, and the two people or the two photos don't look so different, that they forget who the person is.

That's just another tip, just think about the consistency of your user experience across the board, because likely, people are going to find you in one place, and see you in other places, and so not all of your audience is going to be consuming your content all on the same platform all the time.

So, when we're talking about branding, and we're talking about things matching, I really mean it, make everything look like not that it's an identical twin, but at least like a sister of each other.

Okay, Carly said, Carly Adam said, "The upgraded version of Canva has the magic resize feature too."

 And she's typing in every exclamation point.

She says, "That in itself is worth the price," and Suzanne agrees.

Thank you. That was a really good tip.

I don't use that as often as I should.

My assistant, Brie, does a lot of the graphics for Pro Organizer Studio, and at this point, and see, this is a really good tip too, is, once you have a template, a basic template for types of blog images, types of Instagram post, types of YouTube thumbnails, if you're uploading a lot of YouTube videos and have done any research about YouTube, you will hear them say how important the thumbnail needs to be because it has to stand out, and you want all of them to look consistent, so that it's not a hot mess.

Do some research on YouTube channels that you follow, that you admire, and really take a look, like, "What are the visuals?

And what are the consistent elements that I'm seeing in this channel?

And why am I attracted to that?

How can I create that in my videos and on my channel, too?"

So, just something to be inspired by, not steal outright, obviously, somebody else's template.

But, going back to templates, now that we have basic templates we use for Pinterest images, for the work that I put in upfront, and this is the same for you guys, the work that I put in upfront to design the look that I'm going for, if I were doing it myself, it wouldn't take a lot of time to swap in the updated title of a new post, or the updated image, I like to change out backgrounds, even though the colors all stay the same, that thing.

That's something that eventually, if you are outsourcing to an assistant or a social media manager, your investment in that creative direction, ooh, that's a good word, you're the creative director of your business, absolutely.

Your investment in the creative direction upfront is going to save you tons and tons of time in the future.

And if you don't enjoy graphic design, or even if you do, maybe a little too much, and you keep spending too much time on it, having somebody else come in and do that backend work is going to save you a ton of time.

So, Canva is wonderful for that.

Now, here's another resource I want to share with you.

Pavla says she loves my headshots in the photos that I have. Thank you, Pavla!

Oh, yeah, I didn't really touch on headshots.

My very first business that I had a website for, that I put out online, I did have a selfie, and it was a "good looking selfie."

I'm going to post that in the comments later, because I feel like, I don't know, I'm just saying, when I say good looking, I mean, it was one of those things where I probably took like 50 of them, but then one of them looked good enough just to get my website out there.

I'm really big on moving fast, don't be perfectionistic about it.

And then, later, I actually finally substituted that with a professional photo that someone had taken of me for a magazine article, locally, and I said to her, I was like, "Oh, that's a really good picture and it matches my brand."

 I'm like, "Do you mind if I use that?”

And so, then, that became my new headshot.

I didn't have any money to spend on professional headshots when I first launched my organizing business, for a really long time, a really long time.

And then, when I created Pro Organizer Studio, and I did my own website for Pro Organizer Studio, at this point later, actually, I have some varied experience with graphic design, in terms of, I took classes in it in college, so, to that level, I understood Photoshop and everything.

I definitely am self-taught when it comes to web design, though.

And so, at this point, when I made the website for Pro Organizer Studio, I definitely knew how to make a website and make all my own graphics.

But, I was also still poor, I was also still broke.

I'll have to create a little photo album so you guys can see the evolution of my headshots that I've used, just to show you that they don't have to be the best thing in the world.

But I did not even have a super professional camera, so, please don't tell anybody, but, at my workplace, years ago, I had one of my coworkers take a picture of me with the professional camera just so it would be super clear.

And I took that photo and I Photoshopped the heck out of it, using a tutorial that I found online about how you remove...

I was just standing against the wall, and he took several different photos of me looking ridiculous, and I Photoshopped the background out of it and put a solid color behind me.

And, again, that was my first...

You guys who might be thinking about starting like an online coaching thing, or online consulting thing, that was what I used just to get my website out there.

Now, at this point, we've been through many iterations of Pro Organizer Studio, and I did, finally, I have had two professional photo shoots in the last four years.

And I use those photos from those shoots all of the time because those are the best ones that I have.

But, here's another tip, if you have, at this point, because this wasn't around four or five years ago, certainly not six years ago, way before that, with an iPhone, they have the portrait mode with an iPhone, and if you are really hard up, and you don't want to invest in a professional photo shoot, and you don't have a corporate, really nice digital camera to borrow, get your spouse or your friend to take a pic...

Get someone that you live with, since we're all quarantined, to take a picture of you in a very natural environment, and use the iPhone portrait mode, so that it looks, it has that glamorous blurred background and you look super sharp and super clear.

It is amazing how good our camera phones are these days.

And that, again, is a really, good tip for just getting people feeling very legit and professional, and not sticking a selfie or a photo of you cropped out of a group photo, on your website online.

The fact that people do that, absolutely kills me.

I was like, "This represents your very best work, really?”

Y'all are laughing.

Sorry about that.

Sorry about the brutal honesty.

Pavla says she loves the brutal honesty.

And Pavla said, she wants to see...

I will definitely post all of these pictures that I'm talking about, not because I'm proud or I think I'm hot, it's just, I'm just saying, I worked with what I had.

There's another, it's a graphic design tip, it's a graphics visual branding tip, is, definitely getting professional photos a priority.

I think that is one of the most important things that people can do to show that they take their business seriously, and to have people pay you more money.

I mean, sorry, that's the all what it comes down to.

But actually graphic design thing, we talked about Canva, one of my favorite things, another place to go, if you need something more complicated than what Canva offers, and Canva offers a lot.

Like I said, they have ebook covers, they have really lengthy detailed PowerPoint presentations, and they probably have all kinds of other stuff that I'm not even thinking about, or I don't typically use, I mean, they have all kinds of things printable, flyers, business cards, brochures, presentations.

They have a lot of designs for things that are meant to be printable, that doesn't apply as much with an online business, but definitely use Canva for all those things.

3.) Another resource is Creative Market.

Creative Market is a website that has paid resources.

And what I like about Creative Market is that it's not the same crap that everybody has seen on Canva.

For example, we talked a few days ago in my video about email list building and about lead magnets, and I said, currently, for Pro Organizer Studio, our lead magnet that people sign up for free is a business roadmap.

The template for that roadmap, I purchased on Creative Market.

In fact, if you go on Creative Market and you search for roadmap opt-in, or email freebie, it will come up, because it's one of the only ones that are out there that's called a roadmap.

And so, inside that template, and it was a Canva template, so, what I did was I purchased that for I want to say like $27 or something ridiculously cheap, because think about the amount of time that you're saving, when you're buying a resource that is already pre-designed and pre-made like that.

So, I downloaded it, with Canva templates, you have to open it in a certain way, but it's very easy.

There's not really even any uploading involved.

It's just, you buy the template and then you open up a shared link inside your Canva account, and then you can substitute in all of your colors, all of your text, all of your brand, and then you download that, save it as a PDF, boom, you're done.

It's the best.

Other things I have found on Creative Market that I have used, have been more like specialty stock photos.

I'll come back to stock photos in a minute because I mentioned that for a second, then I didn't really go into it.

That's something else that people are often looking for, just background photos, because who has time to take their own?

Some people do, most people don't.

On Creative Market, I have also purchased specialty fonts.

One of the fonts that I use for my business now I bought there, because I didn't want the same scripty font that everybody gets from Canva.

If you're looking for anything that's just elevated a bit above the normal free stuff, definitely go on Creative Market - it is so good.

But you're going to start looking on there, and you're going to get sucked into this black hole of all this awesomeness.

People have designed full Instagram feeds, blog designs that, literally, all you have to do is just download it, and then you substitute in your pictures, and then it's just super modern beautiful, I mean, beautiful stuff.

So, if you have ever struggled with like, "What should my Instagram feed layout look like?” Or, "What cool different things can I do to stand out in my social media posts?”

There are tons of things on there that, again, it's not super expensive, it's like a one time investment in templates, that then you can reuse a million times.

Our current Pinterest post templates, like images, I bought in a package on Creative Market, and then now, Brie and I substituted out the images, we've reused and reused and reused that, because, again, that's point of a template is, it's already designed, we customize it for us, and now it's our brand, but we never had to spend tons of time figuring out how to be a designer, to make it look good.

So, Creative Market is amazing, I'll definitely post a link.

And if you are in the market for a custom WordPress design, if you're building a website that is going to be more of a blog, one of the things I talked about in a past video is, for some of you, you're not really going the coaching and consulting route, you really want to create a blog that you're going to be sending lots and lots of traffic to, and that you want to monetize through advertising or other means, sponsored posts, affiliate links, that thing.

If your purpose is to drive traffic, it's not going to cut it, to have a Squarespace website.

And when I say traffic, I mean tens of thousands of views per month, a hundreds of thousands of views per month, you need to build like a forever dream house website home on WordPress, not on a free Wix blog.

You just can't do that.

You can do that for a small service business or something really specialty.

Sorry, I'm waving my wrist brace in your face, but I promise, nothing is broken, it's just severe carpal tunnel.

So, I'm not sure if anyone was wondering that.

I haven't broken anything.

Where was I?

WordPress, if you're in the market for a beautiful WordPress blog template, so that everything is just already ready to go, you don't have to sit there and try to code or figure out WordPress because WordPress is harder than Squarespace or Wix or any of these other like drag and drop website platforms that you might have used before, go on Creative Market and look for blog designs.

Maybe you want to create a food and recipe blog, search for that on Creative Market and see what comes out, because it's cute stuff, cute stuff.

And you can rank them by bestsellers, by rating and that thing.

So, I really think it's the fastest way to find something that's really pretty, very trendy, very modern, and just easy to use.

Okay, let me check out the comments.

Melissa says she loves the tips on photos.

Okay, now that I've pointed you guys at Creative Market, very fast, let me talk about stock photos.

Stock photos, that term refers to, absolutely, it refers to those really cheesy corporate photos that you see on websites where people are standing around in a meeting and they're looking really happy.

That's what people associate stock photos with, where it's not any individual person, it's just a generic like lady's laughing at her salad bowl because she loves being healthy.

Those are "stock photos".

The other use or the modern use of stock photos that you guys are probably more interested in, would be beautiful, lifestyle design, lifestyle brands, images that are really well designed and represent the aesthetic that you want to communicate to your audience.

Now, let me talk about two different types of scenarios.

If you're an interior designer, and you want to start selling your online e-design services, you can't put a lot of stock photos out there, because you're selling your design eye and your expertise and your background, you've got to have, and you probably know this already, if you are an interior designer, you have to have professional photo-shoots of your work.

So, that would be a case where you're NOT using stock photos for your website.

Now, if you are a home decor blogger and it's just a hobby or a passion for you, and you are sharing content that is not always about like a project that you did at your house but it's more like inspiration, or you're doing like maybe a post that it's about tips for making your laundry room cute.

Now, if your main images in the post are stock photos of cute laundry rooms, by all means, go for it, because, it doesn't have to be of your own house, because that's not the point, that's not what you're selling, you're selling, you're getting people's eyeballs on the information, like, what are the top 10 tips?

Where you're giving them resources, "Here's where to shop, here's where to get the cute baskets."

You're trying to curate a list of resources that, eventually, you're trying to drive traffic towards like maybe, "Here are the best products on Amazon. I have a cute laundry room."

And you affiliate link all of those things, you might want to insert more than just photos of the products themselves, like the baskets and the actual hangers, I mean, I don't know, maybe you don't want just photos of the products, you want photos of a cute laundry room, to give people inspiration or paint the picture.

That would be a time when you would use a stock photo that was interior design related.

So, I just wanted to explain the difference of when that would be appropriate, and when it would not be.

You can, again, I'm always just using myself as an example because it's easy, but you can see, on Pro Organizer Studio, on our blog, we have just blog post's stock images, just to make it all cohesive, because we have so many different topics on our blog, but everything eventually relates back to business for professional organizers.

So, all of our images are typically interior or home related, or business and office related, and our audience is women, so, they're very modern but feminine, and bright white.

So, that's our stock photo goal, is for all of those to look good together.

And another tip on that is you can often buy a batch of those photos, all at the same time, so that you have a bunch of them to use and reuse, and you can put them.

And when you're buying those, they're not customized to you, other people can buy them, too, but you only have the rights to photos that you have paid for.

You can't just go and steal somebody's picture off of their blog, because it looks really cool, and then use it on yours.

That's not okay, don't do that.

It just can be illegal, very illegal, I guess, depending on the scenario.

So, that's why stock photos are important, you need to have the rights to them.

And, once you have the rights to them, then you can reuse them all over the place, which is really good because it goes back to like having a brand and platforms that all look like they are related to each other and belong to each other.

I love how I can watch myself on a delay, doing all my weird hand movements.

Okay, hey, Natalie, I'm glad you're here. Victoria is here. Brie was here, maybe that was a while ago.

4.) Okay, here are some other places where I have purchased packages, packs of stock photos, so that I can use a bunch of them all at once.

One is called Haute Stock, and it spelled, H-A-U-T-E, like, Haute, Stock.

Anyway, I'm just calling it Haute Stock.

Check her out.

She puts out a little collections that go together.

And there are all different topics.

She has health and lifestyle, exercise related photos, things that are related to cooking, things that are related to exercise, and just general healthy stuff.

I feel like, if you have a health related blog, Haute Stock is a really good one for that.

She has a lot of stuff that's just like flowers on a desk, which, for me, I'm not sure how I would use that, but, you could, if you had, let's say you had a coaching blog or anything about like mental health, and you want to have a lot of calming imagery, that would be really good.

Every once in a while, she has something related to interior design or professional organizing, and so, I have occasionally bought some photos from there.

She has a lot of desk and Mac computer cute setups for home office.

So, anything that's related to home office or business, you can often find stuff that is very trendy and feminine and modern, and all that stuff too.

So, that's a really good one.

5.) Somewhere where I have also bought a lot of photos is Kate Max.

I'm not sure if her exact website is Kate Max Photography, or Kate Max Stock, but you can find Kate Max.

She'll also pop up on Creative Market.

In fact, that's probably how I found her, is because a lot of these people who sell, they create these amazing photos, and then they'll sell them on their website, and they'll also cross-promote themselves on Creative Market because it's like the eBay of all kinds of graphic design stuff, and what their hope is, and obviously works is you can either buy stuff on Creative Market, or you can go directly to their website to purchase it there.

So, that's how I became a fan of her.

There's a couple of other ones, but I haven't used them in a long time.

If you are still just looking for one or two photos at a time, you don't really need packs of photography that you can brand your whole business with, go on to some of the free websites that have really great free photos.

6.) One is called Pexels, P-E-X-E-L-S, and other one is called Pixabay, P-I-X-A-B-A-Y.

And there was another one called, there's one called Unsplash.

I didn't write all these down in advance, but I promise I will follow up and make sure that this list is available.

But, these are all really good.

One thing that you'll notice is, there was another one years ago that was really popular called deathtothestockphoto.com.

And they were specifically talking about those really cheesy-like corporate photos that I mentioned at the beginning.

So, that, I think, is where their business model was born out of, was, "We want those to die, and we want to have these cool, modern, minimalist trendy photos.

One thing that I've noticed on a lot of those free photo websites, and again, your mileage may vary, maybe you found some hidden treasures, but a lot of them are very masculine or hipster.

And maybe that reflects the people who create these websites, which, no hate at all, but if you're one of the guys out there, I feel like maybe you'll have an easier time finding photos that relate to your brand, on the free sites.

Which, is that fair? I don't think it is.

But, anyway, that's why I pay for my photography, because I don't want to go scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of photos of beaches and bicycles and coffee shops, that are really dark and moody.

That's just not what I'm looking for.

But if you have just a personal blog, again, I think you can find lots of free photos there.

And I truly believe that mixing in some of your own content like photos of you or photos of your real life, can be helpful too, even if you're not really trying to sell yourself or sell anything, I think that as you grow, a following people do like to see the real person behind the scenes, and not just have an Instagram full of stock photos, no matter how well you write.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, people are creepers, they want to know who you are.

So, give them something to creep on in a safe way.

Okay, Rachel's here. Suzanne says she loves Kate Max. And Megan Rogers is here, hey, girl.

Pavla said, she's been using stock photos, she says she likes the tip from me, Unsplash and Pexels don't have enough organizing stuff.

Totally agree.

The other thing I think that is an issue is that, when you do put out, if someone did put out really good organizing related photos, that people would try to pass it off as their own work, like, "Hey, here's the closet that I organized."

And that's just not right.

I mean, I don't know.

I think that's probably why you can't find as much really good, as many really good interior design photos, for example, because if it looks like somebody's very modern work, then, there is going to be somebody out there who's like, "Oh, yeah, I'm totally an interior designer.

See, this is the kitchen I designed."

And that's just bad news.

So, at the end of the day it is probably eventually going to be a priority for you to invest in having an occasional photo shoot for your blog or your brand.

Let me talk for just a second, even though I don't know off the top of my head if anyone who's listening right at this moment is interested in this, but let's talk about people who do fashion blogs.

Now, since we're talking about all business topics on Jen Kilbourne Obermeier, I would be remiss not to add the fact that there are lots of people out there who do make money, or some money, all the way to significant money, through, they do take a lot of photos of themselves and put them out there.

And they're clearly not all mirror-like selfies.

Some of them are, most of them are not.

If you are ever in the market for just, you want to, let's say, you really want to go all in on the fashion influencer type of blogger thing, and you want to not turn your boyfriend or your husband into an Instagram, your own personal Instagram photographer, raise your hand if you have ever seen one of those couples out in the wild, because I definitely have, and it is, every bit is awkward as you would expect it to be.

Because the girl is looking like a million dollars, and the guy is literally laying on the ground trying to get the shot.

And it's hilarious.

And I can never be a fashion blogger because I don't have a husband who'll take those photos of me, and I don't have any friends who live close by and want to hang out with me that often.

So, here's the tip, here's the tip, if you're ever like, "How do people do that?"

You can find, look for, in your city, Google, "Branding photographers," or, "Lifestyle photographers."

And often, at least like, if I can find this in Greenville, South Carolina, I know you can find this pretty much anywhere.

What photographers will offer is like a two-hour session, and they'll say, "You pick the location."

You pick a location and it's like a two-hour session, and they're just like, "I'll just shoot for two hours and you can do as many outfit changes as you want to."

So, you can get those cute pictures of you like in the middle of the street and the cars are going by, and you've got your hat and your sunglasses, and you're looking like famous.

And they're going to only charge you like $100, or something relatively inexpensive.

So, the idea here is to batch it, batch it in one session like that, like a month or every other month.

People were saying in chat that they don't get enough photos of themselves, or headshots often enough, or they want to refresh the content that they do have, that might be a really good way to do it, is just to do, get one photo shoot done, but plan ahead like, "Let me figure out all the outfits that will make sure I get shot for this day."

And then you have like a month or two months worth of posts to put out.

You don't have to post them all at once, but you have all the content ready to go.

So then, that way, you have really high quality stuff to put out there to grow your blog and grow your following because your fashion sense is so good, and people obviously want to see more.

And as you're growing your blog, your sponsors, if you have people who are sponsoring your posts, if you have a significant enough following that they would buy pretty much anything that you wore, there's no getting around that, you've got to have super quality content.

So, you either have that boyfriend who wants to do it, the friend who you guys trade services with each other, or you're hiring a photographer every once in a while to get all of that content all at once, without breaking the bank.

There's another tip, or, if you're like me, okay, I have an 11-year-old, and I have often thought like, if I really ever needed her to take a picture of me, I'm sure I could talk her into it.

Probably not on a regular basis, but even if you're embarrassed maybe for any reason by having another adult, if you have a teenager, this is a perfect job for them, where they'll be like, "Sure, Mom. Yes, I will take your picture, and I'll tell you if it looks bad."

Because brutal honesty is good, in some cases.

I think my daughter would even try to tell me how to do my hair and makeup.

That'd be another cute tip.

Pavla said... Okay, these are good, I love these comments.

Veronica said, she's found another stock photo site geared towards female entrepreneurs.

She does a few free monthly with email subscription and monthly packages too.

Yeah, some of the other small ones are really good.

There's one called Turquoise and Palm, that I have used before, they had good business stuff, but then, it's like they come and go.

They're really putting out new content for a while and then they stop.

Suzanne said, her husband cannot take a good picture of her laughing.

Pavla said, she can never do that to her boyfriend, that's hilarious.

Mindy's here. And Pavla said, "Make my kids work and earn a living."

Absolutely.

One of the things that I did, I hosted two retreats last year, and at both retreats, one of the all inclusive parts of being a part of the retreat is that I hired a photographer each time to come and take headshots of each individual person, and then, of course, take pictures of us as a group.

So, we had cute photos.

And one of the reasons why I forced that on my retreat participants is for that exact reason, is because I know that this is not something that most of us are making time regularly to do, so that we have updated photos to use in our social media and on our websites, and in our professional presence on our LinkedIn.

Oh, I haven't even talked about LinkedIn, you've got to put it on LinkedIn.

All right, Suzanne said, "It was so awesome."

And I know she appreciated that, even though I'm sure, most people at first were like, "I can't believe you're forcing us to do this."

But I'm just like, "Nope, trust me, we're going to get out of the way, it's going to be fun."

And it was fun.

Okay, we've talked about a little bit of everything, we haven't talked much about fonts.

I hate it or it makes me feel sad, I wouldn't say I hate it, but I know when people have to DIY their own branding and photos and graphics and websites just to get their business off the ground, somewhere they get hung up on heavily are fonts.

My biggest tip for that one is to go on Pinterest.

And if say you found one font that you like but you can't find another font that goes with it, and you don't want everything to be the same, or you want one regular text font, and then you want one scripty font or something fancy to add a little glitter, add a little flair to it, but you can't find one that looks good, go on Pinterest and Google...

I keep saying that, go on Pinterest and search for the name of the font name that you do like, and say, "Font pairing with," such and such.

A header font that I was using on a project earlier today was called Playfair Display.

So, you go on Pinterest and say, "Playfair Display font pairing."

And you will get search results of people who have put together even on Pinterest, because they'll put together images.

Pinterest is like a search engine of images, of really helpful content.

People will put together little tip sheets or top 10 ideas or whatever, and they'll say, "Okay, these two fonts look really good together."

That'll give you ideas.

Or, if you can't find any fonts that you even like at all, just go on there and say, "Modern feminine font pairings."

And you'll get like a million ideas.

And I just say, don't overthink it, you can always change it, you can always rebrand your entire business, but with what I was saying about trying to make sure that all of your branding is consistent across your entire online presence, whether that's blog, YouTube channel, the Amazon ebook that you wrote, you want to choose consistent things, like your ebook cover that you made on Canva has the same fonts as your website, and as your YouTube channel that has the big headline on it.

I hope I'm painting the picture here.

Think strategically, and also think, it doesn't have to be perfect to get it out there, and you can edit it.

It's like a one day project, if you want to update all of your photos, all of your images of your branding.

If you do have printed materials, you might want to wait until you run out of printed materials before you update all your fonts again.

But I promise, that's one thing that you'll spend probably a week thinking about, when you're trying to get moving on your business.

And then, later, you'll look back and think, "That was such an insignificant decision."

I should have just picked the first thing I liked and just went with it, ran with it, just ran with it.

Okay, sorry to stumble over my words.

And it's nine o'clock already, so, I am going to cut myself off.

If I did not answer your question about graphic design, if you are hung up about finding something that suits your specific solution, the worst case scenario, you cannot find the perfect stock image for your ebook project that is free.

Just Google, and this time, I really mean Google, go into Google and search for the exact type of photo that you're looking for.

There are paid images for almost everything.

Now, sometimes they are more expensive.

Sometimes you're going to pay $50 for the image usage rights, license rights, to put this one image on an ebook or on something that you're going to use for commercial purposes like resell.

But think about it, again, if it's that important to you, and sometimes it is, if it is that important to you, pay the $50 and move on with your life.

Because, then, you have the ebook cover that's super professional, and not the sad picture that you found that doesn't really say what you want it to say.

That is all I'm going to say about that.

Sometimes you're just going to have to pay, and it's going to be worth it.

Last resort, if you feel like your web... not your web design, because designing a website is separate from your graphic design.

If you feel like your graphic design game is absolutely falling apart, go back to Fiverr.

Like I said, you can find people who will do a one-off project for you.

You could even say, "Hey, I've already designed the brand, I just do not have time right now to figure out my Facebook cover."

Or, "I need to create images for an online course that I'm doing, and I just want it to go with everything, but I'm so strapped for time and I need you to go in and figure out images that are very professional and go with everything else that I've already decided."

Go onto Fiverr and look for that, because there are people who do that thing and it just, again, save you so much time.

Upwork is another freelancer website that I have never actually used.

I've posted a job there before that did not get any responses.

That was probably my fault.

But Upwork is another freelancer site.

If there's something a little bit more involved, like you really want somebody to design the layout of your ebook, not just do a template cover of your ebook.

Like, let's say it's something that really requires a little bit more skill, you might want to go on to Upwork and look for a freelancer that specializes in the thing that you're looking for.

But, in 99% of cases, you do not need a custom-made thing for whatever your project is, whatever your project is.

Even if you're doing a WordPress website that you want to be your forever home, you can probably still find a blog website template that meets your needs.

So, that's not cheating, that's being smart, and that's investing your money in the right places.

Because, definitely, your branding and your visuals are going to make an impression in people's minds, and they are going to believe that impression, because perception is reality.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you're here, Pavla said, "Thank you, were so phenomenal."

Cheryl, Mark was here. Hey, Cheryl.

And Kathleen was logging on at the last minute.

I'm so glad you guys were joining in, we were just talking about graphic design resources.

And if there was anything that I didn't answer, please feel free to leave me a comment or tell me that I totally forgot about this really cool thing, because that's quite possibly true, there might be things out there that I don't even know about yet.

All right, you guys take care, I'll be back tomorrow with another topic...

I will post in the morning what time, what time, and what we're going to talk about.

If you guys have any requests, let me know.

All right, bye for now. Bye, ladies!