A pitch deck and a proposal serve the same purpose, but they’re certainly not interchangeable. Simply put, a proposal takes everything mentioned in a long form pitch deck and distills it into a streamlined piece of communication to back up everything you have already mentioned and sold to your client. The response you’re seeking when you send this along is “Oh yes, this is what we discussed.” That’s why, when we hear that you’re sending off proposals without any previous communication, we get worried! People are skipping the communication altogether and putting together proposals without any setup.

Could you still convert people by simply sending them an email? Yes, totally. Especially if you’ve done a lot of education on your website. But if there’s any confusion at all about what you do, without a presentation, you’re going to lose someone. This is a part of your process we really want you to start caring about. It’s an opportunity to stand out by going above and beyond what other service providers are doing.

The number one thing we are encouraging business owners to do right now is to be flexible. If you can adapt to the needs of the people you’re talking to, then you’re putting yourself in a great position to make sales and optimally serve your clients so that you can both succeed! But how do you reach those clients? And how do you demonstrate that you are the right person for the job?

In today’s episode, we break down how to put together a fantastic pitch deck that will showcase your skills and leave your future clients feeling both inspired and excited. Putting together all the information you need for a pitch deck may seem overwhelming, but once you automate things it will make the process so much easier. We’re here to demonstrate how you can take a structured, predictable, templated approach, while also providing the space to customize your pitch for every client. So if you've been feeling like your process could use a little sprucing up, today’s episode is for you!

The current market is shifting. There’s no doubt about it. What do you think the future of marketing looks like online? Maybe we’re at the next stage of marketing, and the next iteration hasn’t revealed itself yet. A lot of the things that people consider ‘marketing’ may not even be helpful for the majority of service-based business owners. For the majority of you, marketing is a huge distraction! It’s also an ego-killer.

We want to help you all make room in your life for great connections and perfect alignment! If you need to be empowered and equipped to say no more frequently, both professionally and personally, today’s episode is for you! We can’t wait to give you some actionable strategies and real-life tips on how to create more opportunities to say yes to better things.

Our guest today is Meg Clark, the owner and founder of Clapping Dog Media, where she is the master of growing organic traffic. Using a combination of data, proven techniques, and years of experience, she attracts web visitors that not only stick around, but turn into paying customers. Simply put, she connects the dots of data to get your business found!

If you’ve been dipping your toe into the ad space lately, you would have been hearing that a lot has changed. Although people say that every year and the changes are usually not so significant, this year is different; because of some really big Apple changes, the game kind of did change, and we now have to think about a whole lot of new things when it comes to paid advertising. In this episode, we are joined by Tony Rulli, co-founder of the digital marketing agency, Intentional Spark.

Today, Tony is going to be going over what those changes actually mean for marketers and advertisers, and he’s going to share his best recommendations for how to not necessarily combat those changes (because you can’t really) but how to still get the information that you need to sell your product or service.

Today, we want to talk about what it takes to build a sustainable business. One that is focused on making income for the long term, and some of the projects we are focused on internally that we think are just a little bit different to what we see other online business owners spending their time and energy on. To continue with our analogy from last time where we talked about your “Tinder date", we’re now going to segue into "How to make the relationship a bit more official”.

But keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be forever. You’re not necessarily married to everything you put out into the world, but there is some commitment required when you start to think about how you build a business that creates sustainable, consistent cash flow. So if you want to hear about our helpful hints and top tips for creating that amazing content your business needs, let's get into it!

We have the best thing since sliced bread to share with you. Big, big, big news. We are beyond excited. For the first time ever (note the sarcasm), we are giving more value to our members and our students because we love you and are obsessed with your success. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we just want to continue to see you improve your results. We are constantly looking at our programs and our offers to identify how we can help you be more successful, how we can arm you with the tools, strategies, and systems to be the most effective you can be. And we have been taking a good, long, hard look at everything we have done inside The Creative Template Shop, and we love it. It's not changing. All of that is staying AND it's growing and becoming even better!

If you have ever considered using TikTok or Instagram Reels in your marketing strategy, this is the episode for you! Tuning in, you’ll learn some actionable and tangible ways that you can start thinking about these platforms and how to use them in order to actually make money, so make sure not to miss this informative and practical guide to help you make TikTok work for your business!

Today on the podcast we have Melanie Fountain. She is a Pinterest coach and strategist. She started her business in January 2019 as a virtual assistant and quickly found a passion and talent in growing her clients’ businesses through Pinterest marketing. We are going to help you learn how to do that today! If you are creating content in any shape or form then you need to know what is working for Pinterest in 2021.

We are doing an update for all the best Pinterest strategies that you can manage in your content, so you can create new routines while you are creating that amazing content. We talk about all the new stuff including video pins and story pins, how to grow your followers on Pinterest, and why that might start to matter now when it hasn't over the last couple of years. Our conversation also covers everything else you can do to make sure that you are taking advantage of the amazing platform that is Pinterest!

We run ads for everything under the sun, and we have for a long time. Something we did very early on was make a conscious decision to not look at the comments on ads because sometimes there are just troll-type comments, and we don’t need to leave our headspace there. Funnily enough, Abagail’s husband is our ad comment moderator, so it is very rare for us to see a negative comment. But, for some reason, the other day, Emylee was scrolling one of our new Creative Template Shop ads, which is so beautiful and cute. The ad contains our slogan which we have been using for over a year. Emylee was compelled to look at the comment, which was along the lines of, “Oh, so that’s all that marketing is, is beautiful graphics? That's not all that marketing is, so it’s weird that you say that.” The specifics of the comment aren’t that important, but we do want to have a conversation not only about what marketing is, but what marketing means to two visual artists, and why we have our Creative Template Shop slogan, which was very intentional. We believe that it’s something that really makes our business stand out from anything else that we see out there.

Today on the show, we have Monica Schrock, who is cautiously optimistic and is an introverted copywriter who works as a marketing consultant. She has a mean coffee habit and a serious nerd streak. She revels at the intersection between intention and strategy, hoping to make the world a better place one word at a time. Monica has spent the last 14 years navigating the extroverted field of marketing, helping 200 clients craft their brand message and increase their sales from double to over ten times. We are talking about all the tips and tricks she has learned on that journey on the show today.

So, if you resonate as a fellow introverted entrepreneur, who started their business to maybe escape ever having to talk to anyone again, and then realizing that you have to do that in order to make sales, put your offer out there, and grow your business, this episode is for you. We are talking about how to set boundaries, how to schedule (or not schedule) your week in a way that fits your personality so that you can actually get stuff done without feeling guilty and feel like you’re putting marketing and sales messaging out there that doesn’t make you feel icky.

Today our guest is Jennifer Turner, the founder of Gemini where she helps online business owners improve their copywriting and design to create higher conversion rates. Gemini is an online branding and education platform and Jennifer is the rare combination of a trained copywriter and designer! Their MO is unifying a business' voice in the copy and design to tell a stronger story. We love it! Today we will be focussing solely on the copy side of things and how to get your up to scratch!

We are super excited for Jennifer to dive into her four-step formula for high converting copy and it is honestly one of the best formulas we have found in a long time! These kinds of frameworks can sometimes put you in a box or make you sound a bit robotic and this one is a really cool way to insert your story and your audience's story while coming up with something that gets your conversion rate all the way up! This can be used for freebies, opt-ins or paid services and programs, it can be applied in those areas just as effectively, that's how versatile it is, so get your notes ready and let's get into some strategy!

Relationships can make all the difference in your business and as many of us have learned, focusing on connections and networking in the right way can take your biz from quiet to booming! Our guest today is Jaclyn Mellone and she helps entrepreneurs exponentially grow their businesses by becoming an authority in their space. One of the ways she helps them do this is through authentic relationships. Jaclyn is a coach, strategist, keynote speaker, momma, guac lover and host of the Go-to Gal Podcast! In this episode, she shares how to create strategic relationships and how to utilize them as more than friendships without being weird about it!

For Jaclyn, it all starts with an authentic connection and she breaks down exactly what that looks like. We also talk about how this translates into creating more friends in your own space and work environment and how to utilize these to continue to grow your business in the long term. We cover leveraging relationships, creating intimate connections that fill your cup, and how to jumpstart your biz in a big way!

Today on the podcast we have Melissa Harstine. She helps creatives, coaches, and consultants land next-level clients with customer-centric copy and gripping case studies. As a trained journalist, she leverages her research and interview superpowers to write killer copy that makes readers think, “holy guacamole, did they read my journal?!”

We’re breaking down everything about case studies today; what they are, how you can use them to land more clients, how you can use them to vet your clients, and to work with your dream clients. We also dive into how you should set up the interview, how to transcribe it, and how to repurpose your content. Everything about this process makes it seem so tangible and 100% worth it!