Bridging New & Phased-Out Emails

Too many email addresses is a common issue for creatives and business owners. This post is intended as a stopgap for clients who have budget limitations and fit one or more of the following scenarios:

• managing too many email addresses

• creating a new email address that is intended to replace an old email address

• need to preserve communication in phased-out email

Important disclaimer: The following information should not replace consulting with a qualified IT professional regarding email changes, transfer and/or deletion. Emails can be attached to functionality that you’ve forgotten about, for example, an Apple ID or an important credit card payment. Once it is changed or deleted, it can be difficult to gain access to some accounts again. Therefore, deletion is not recommended. If assessing and transferring email is not in your budget, the steps below can offer a temporary bridge. The following steps are relatively low risk, but only a qualified specialist can provide guidance that is specific to your situation. These are general guidelines that should be carefully thought out. Proceed at your own risk.

Contact me for a referral to work with a qualified professional to assist with email consolidation or set up.

---

Updating emails in the various websites and platforms with logins we accumulate is a slog. There are probably more than you remember, especially if an email address that is being phased out has been around for awhile. The following steps offer a phased approach to managing these changes until you can hire qualified professional to assess your specific needs and handle transfers or consolidation.

• Setting up a custom domain email (you@yourwebsite.com): After purchasing your website domain at Google Domains (highly recommended), purchase the email plan that fits your needs using the email address you would like to use. Test the new email to be sure that you are able to send and receive emails before continuing with the following steps.

• Apple ID: Never change your Apple ID without consulting with an Apple specialist about what will be affected by this change. Always check with a specialist before making changes to Apple IDs or other important IDs that control important information to discover irreversible consequences. I recommend downloading the Apple Care app.

• Personal & Business Email: You may consider keeping 2 emails in service. I use a free email plan for personal use and a custom domain with a paid plan for business. This helps keep information flow organized. For clients who may eventually sell their businesses in the future, this is crucial.

• Create a Spreadsheet: Create a spreadsheet that lists websites or platforms that require email logins. Start with those that are priority. (i.e.: premium or subscription websites, social media, etc...). You may also consider listing websites that require logins that you frequently use. After updating your email at each website, mark in a way that is recognizable to you. For security, only list email addresses to this spreadsheet—don’t list passwords. This is a great spreadsheet to keep around so that you can remember which email is used for which service, if you have multiple, active emails. It’s also incredibly helpful if you plan to sell your business in the future.

• Set Up an Auto-Reply: If you have email addresses that are no longer in use or that are being phased out, you should keep them active until you can hire a qualified professional. When phasing out an email , set up an auto-reply. This is the same feature that is used for out-of-office reply. Craft a message to any emails you’re planning to phase out with boiler plate content to alert email senders that the email is no longer in use. Ask them to update the new  email or emails into their contact list.

• Set Up a Forward: In addition to the auto-reply, you can forward emails from old email addressees to a new email address. You’ll be able to see any emails that have been sent to an old email address without checking those emails. You can respond from the new email to encourage the use of it. This also allows you to receive alerts for any email changes that you miss for websites that may be important but you forgot about. Over the course of a year, you’ll likely receive fewer emails from those forwards, but you’ll see occasional privacy policy updates or other types of content from websites that use an old email address that you may have forgotten about.

• Build Changes as a Process: Manage updates and adjustments as they come in from your email forwards, either by unsubscribing or updating your preferred email address. When important, add websites to the spreadsheet. After a year, or when you feel ready to delete an email address forever, get in touch with an email professional to usher you through that process. You’ll be better prepared when that time arrives.

Privacy, Terms, and Returns

As your business evolves, it’s a good practices to generate or update policies for privacy, terms, and returns. Consult an attorney if you’re not sure which terms or policies are needed for your website, online store, mobile app, or online community.

Basics

• Returns: What are the return policy expectations? Are returns accepted? How long does a customer have to make a return? In what condition is the product return accepted? Who pays for shipping? What is the refund method, back on the card or store credit? A Return Policy can be very important even for a “no return” policy. It can also improve customer satisfaction.

• Privacy: Are you storing personal information? Are you selling products or services online? A Privacy Policy is required by law if you collect data that can be used to identify an individual.

• Terms: Terms & Conditions or Terms of Use policies are not required by law, but can help protect your business or e-commerce store. These are legal agreements that allows you to create rules for visitors or limit liability.

Create Policies & Terms

Many online policy generators are available online. TermsFeed is widely-used to generate unique policies and their online forms guide you through the process for each policy generated for a reasonable fee.

The Art of Optimizing Anything

Profit Margin & Process Refinement

As the pandemic necessitates change for how we do business, some people who run small businesses are taking a breath, refining processes, and reimagining details. For those who have achieved that moment of breath, now is a particularly good time to optimize workflow and review profit margins. Whether you are refining offerings, creating new products or services, embarking on virtual classes, or launching your first online store, Design for the Arts can help you break down and fine-tune important details.

The art of optimizing is a requisite task for any small business. To assist with this need, I’m offering custom spreadsheet calculations to help you adjust quantities, scope, cost, and fees. What can you optimize? Virtually anything.

Contact Karen to chat about what you want to optimize and receive a free estimate for your custom calculation. Together we can determine a plan that will best serve you. You provide the costs and I create a spreadsheet with variables that you can adjust. Read on for examples and to learn how this process can help you plan. We can start simply and affordably or build on complex scenarios.

---

What Can You Optimize?

• Pricing for products, services, or art

• Fees for virtual workshops or classes

• Subscription or class schedules

• Optimize a production schedule that considers income + work/life balance

• Refine an hourly rate based on new variables (like accepting credit cards)

What can be estimated?

• Credit card processing and transaction fees

• Shipping costs

• Wholesale product costs

• Vendor or print costs

• Item variables based on quantity

• Hourly rates, fees, and profit margins

---

Plan for the Future

Small businesses often have fine lines between the margins of profit and loss. My nerdy love for creating spreadsheets in Xcel and Numbers is how I relax into those margins for my own business. I use them for everything: from monthly and annual revenue and expenses to print cost projections or pricing artwork or products. This simple, old-fashioned spreadsheet calculator is a powerful tool for profit guidance and business planning when formulas are applied to the right concepts.

Crafting a spreadsheet that is unique to your specific needs can help you understand how to price products or services, define optimal quantities, and maximize margins. Each spreadsheet is a tool that is designed to flex and recalculate with each variable. It’s kind of magic.

Once a calculation has been crafted, if a variable changes or a fee increases, all it takes is one small keystroke adjustment, hit return, and the totals update.

The Art of Optimizing

This isn’t just a calculator, it can help you improve concepts before making costly mistakes so that you can relax into a rhythm in the production stage. These are the steps we’ll take:

1. Determine the variables (we do this together)

2. Document costs and estimations (you gather the numbers)

3. Create the calculation(s) (Design for the Arts)

4. Rethink variables to modify for better outcomes (we do this together)

5. Refine variables over time (you adjust the numbers)

The only variable remaining is whether or not your product or service is perceived by your community of customers as having the value that you attached to it.

Bringing Intentionality to Workflow

Balance Is Not an Achievement — It’s a Practice

One of the core values many of my clients and I share is a desire for work-life balance. With over two decades of collaboration with hundreds of incredible forward-thinking entrepreneurs, craftspeople, and artists, I am keenly aware that balance is not an achievement, but a practice.

Starting and managing a business can be stressful. When we are stressed, everything becomes inflated, including priorities. This can bring disorganization to project flow for creative initiatives, which can result in increased budget, false starts, or missed opportunities.

Over the years, I have noticed that clients who regularly scheduled time to intentionally review the various aspects of their brands often achieved better outcomes and were more in touch with the vision for their business. I nurture this practice in my own business and also encourage clients to create scheduled check-ins with me to continue engaging with their brands as they evolve.

Intentionality & Better Outcomes

By fostering a purposeful approach to work flow and brand engagement, we can build on creative initiatives that impact work-life flow in a number of ways. For many clients, quarterly Brand Engagement sessions are sufficient to keep the energy alive.

• You’re less likely to end up in a scramble because an event, conference, or deadline snuck up on you.

• Engagement eases budget and increases efficiency. Minimizing “re-do” design and creative initiative projects that missed important opportunities can save hundreds or more in design time, printing costs, and your own time.

• Engagement helps reduce stress. Inflating needs under the hold of urgency or worry is common when we’re stressed. Stress has a tendency to fan a spark into fire and predisposes us to create unnecessary urgency. When we step back from the space of urgency, different solutions come to light. Often these are better than the initial urgent thing that we thought we needed.

Working In the Flow

Quick timelines happen, and they can be beautifully in flow. Working intentionally in fast flow is a reality in our fast-paced world and it is possible to do it well. Flow within quick timelines is easier to achieve when you and your creative professional are regularly engaged with your brand and creative initiatives. With regular engagement, everyone is in the loop on business growth, obstacles, and successes.

The antithesis of urgent energy is the project that drops off entirely. This also happens when we have too much on our to-do lists. I’m pretty easy about riding the wave of project drop-off, and allowing clients to come and go as needed as long as I’ve been paid for work complete. It’s also worth nothing that as gap-time increases, likely so will costs and timelines. Getting back into flow and re-familiarizing takes time, which will be reflected in the cost, especially for complex projects or Web builds. Meanwhile, other projects on my to-do list are prioritized which may add further delays to an on-hold project, even after a client is ready to jump back into work.

Better Work / Better Life

Bringing intentionality to creative initiative workflow improves outcomes, and this approach to a sustainable work/life is fundamentally tied to its practice. I can say this unequivocally with the experience of having collaborated with hundreds clients with different kinds of businesses over the last 20 years. Over time, creative initiatives become clearer and there is more enjoyment in the process. Bringing balanced, purposeful energy to brand development and creative projects is a practice that we can cultivate, addressing needs with intention instead of as they arise. And this helps you better focus on the work that you love.