Category: business

What Is Like Being An Entrepreneur?  

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Being an entrepreneur can be an exciting and challenging journey. Starting a business from scratch requires courage, determination, and a lot of hard work. However, it can also be a highly rewarding experience, both financially and personally. 

What is an Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is someone who takes on the financial risk of starting and managing a business venture. They are often passionate about their ideas, willing to take risks, and highly motivated to succeed. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, from solo freelancers to large-scale business owners. They create products, services, and companies that disrupt the market and change the way we live and work.

The Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur

Starting a business is not an easy task, and entrepreneurs face a range of challenges along the way. Some of these challenges include:

  1. Uncertainty: Entrepreneurs face a lot of uncertainty, especially when starting a new business. They may not know how their product or service will be received in the market, and they may not have a steady stream of income.
  2. Financial Risk: Entrepreneurs often have to invest their own money into their business, and they may need to secure funding from investors or lenders. If the business fails, it could lose everything.
  3. Time Management: Starting a business can be a full-time job, and entrepreneurs need to manage their time effectively to ensure that everything gets done.
  4. Work-Life Balance: Entrepreneurs often work long hours and may have to sacrifice time with their family and friends. This can lead to burnout and affect their mental health.

Tips for Being a Successful Entrepreneur

While being an entrepreneur can be challenging, there are ways to increase your chances of success. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

  1. Identify a Need: Make sure that there is a need for your product or service in the market. Conduct market research to understand your target audience and their needs.
  2. Create a Plan: Develop a business plan that outlines your goals, target market, marketing strategy, and financial projections.
  3. Build a Network: Connect with other entrepreneurs and business professionals in your industry. Attend networking events and join online communities to build your network.
  4. Be Adaptable: Be willing to adapt to changing market conditions and adjust your business strategy accordingly.
  5. Prioritize Your Health: Take care of your physical and mental health by exercising, eating healthy, and taking breaks when needed.

Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, but for those who are passionate about their ideas and willing to take risks, it can be an exciting and rewarding journey. By following these tips and persevering through the challenges, you can increase your chances of success and build a thriving business. 

Meet Susie Liberatore

As an Art Director with over 10 years of experience in the agency and corporate world, I saw global and local clients missing out on so many opportunities to get leads because of inconsistent branding. My goal is to help them generate new clients with my strategic processes. I help businesses NOT waste time or money and provide the highest quality design and service. As a single mom to an autistic child, I know how valuable time and money are. 

The Ultimate Branding Guide to Win New Clients in 7 Days

How A Single Mom Does It All: I outsource

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When I first became a single mom, I thought to myself how am I going to be able to get all the things done… You know the lawn, dishes, cleaning, laundry, work, parenting, etc. The list goes on and on. The struggle was real. I was on a strict budget and could not afford all the things that I wanted.

Now that I have taken control of my life, I am able to manage it much easier and focus on how to manage my time much more efficiently so I am not doing all the things. 

The key to single parenting is OUTSOURCING. 

  • Pet sitting: If I am going away or out of town, I totally let my friend watch my dog(S) while I am away. I used to have two dogs and it made traveling so much easier. She would watch them and I wouldn’t have to worry about putting them in the kennel. Now that I have one dog, I still sometimes ask her to watch Bella. 
  • Cleaning: YES. I outsource cleaning. I have a cleaning lady come once a month and do deep cleaning. This helps to ensure that we are getting in all the cracks and grains that I don’t clean every day. This has been a huge lifesaver for me. She comes for about two hours a month and it really knocks a lot off my plate. 
  • Babysitter: Again, this is awesome to have! When I first got divorced, I was nervous and scared to have someone else watch my boy. However, now I have so many great people that I can depend on and rely on that I feel great about having some adult time. 
  • Lawn guy: This is perfect, he will do my grass, leaves, and even snow. He covers my yard all year round. I highly suggest outsourcing this. 

I have learned that my time is valuable and I love being able to get things off my plate. 

What I outsource in business 

  • Accounting: If you know me personally, you know that math is my weakness. I am NOT good at all with this. I have found that my anxiety is WAY lower when I have someone doing this for me. 
  • CPA: Well, if I do not do the accounting, then I wouldn’t take on the CPA role either. I outsource this and have never looked back since then. I love that my CPA has helped me to create a great system to pay quarterly taxes and get the best bang for my buck.
  • Admin work: I learned a long time ago, that admin work takes up a ton of time. This was one of the first things that I outsourced. I love that I can have someone work on contracts, proposals, and other items so that I can have more time with my clients. 
  • Creative tasks: Just this past year, I started to hire and take on team members for writing, design, and website development. If I wanted to grow my company, I needed to be able to have a team to assist.

I didn’t grow any of this overnight. You might not need all the help, but I know that my time is valuable. Figure out what you can outsource, and make it happen. 

Meet Susie Liberatore

As an Art Director with over 10 years of experience in the agency and corporate world, I saw global and local clients missing out on so many opportunities to get leads because of inconsistent branding. My goal is to help them generate new clients with my strategic processes. I help businesses NOT waste time or money and provide the highest quality design and service. As a single mom to an autistic child, I know how valuable time and money are. 

The Ultimate Branding Guide to Win New Clients in 7 Days

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The Easy way to send Thanks!

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I love being able to send quick little appreciation gifts to clients, podcast guests, vendors, contractors, etc. 

I found this super easy way to send a gift! Build strong business relationships through efficient, personalized and thoughtful gestures of appreciation.

It is easy to send your gifts digitally with Thnks!!

You can send gifts from Starbucks, Dunkin, Amazon, Grubhub, Chipotle, Olive Garden, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jamba, Dominos, Panera, California Kitchen Pizza, IHOP, Taco Bell,  and many more!

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This is one of my favorite ways to send gifts since it is easy and comes with many different options. Go ahead and someone you appreciate them! 

Meet Susie Liberatore

As an Art Director with over 10 years of experience in the agency and corporate world, I saw global and local clients missing out on so many opportunities to get leads because of inconsistent branding. My goal is to help them generate new clients with my strategic processes. I help businesses NOT waste time or money and provide the highest quality design and service. As a single mom to an autistic child, I know how valuable time and money are. 

The Ultimate Branding Guide to Win New Clients in 7 Days

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How Childhood Has Helped Me Grow

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I used to feel like the outcast of my family. My brothers and father are engineers. I always say they have the brains… & I  have the creativity genes. 

Throughout my childhood, I loved dance, photography, arts, painting, etc. In fact, I always created the dance flyers and programs! 

I taught dance for a short time in my life. What I realized was that I LOVED seeing the vision come to life; I saw dance moves go along with the music. It brought me so much joy; I guess you can say I had creativity when I was born. 

This journey has taken me to where I am today. I love that I was able to create a vision for my clients.

Meet Susie Liberatore

As an Art Director with over 10 years of experience in the agency and corporate world, I saw global and local clients missing out on so many opportunities to get leads because of inconsistent branding. My goal is to help them generate new clients with my strategic processes. I help businesses NOT waste time or money and provide the highest quality design and service. As a single mom to an autistic child, I know how valuable time and money are. 

The Ultimate Branding Guide to Win New Clients in 7 Days

“How I Scaled My Agency In One Year.”

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Over the past year, Susie has grown as a person, mother, and business owner. She is giving away FREE tips, tricks, and mistakes she made that helped her overcome many obstacles.. (she never gives away free advice so make sure to take advantage of this) #knowyourworth Which in turn led to “How I Scaled My Agency In One Year.”

Here are the THREE topics for you to listen to and enjoy:

Susie Liberatore is the owner, and Art Director, of Visions2images Creative Services. She helps established businesses grow their brand awareness by using digital marketing and professional branding techniques. With over a decade of agency and corporate experience, she brings businesses’ visions to life, while watching their return on investment increase.

Susie helps businesses grow their brand presence and connect with their target audience.

The Ultimate Branding Guide to Win New Clients in 7 Days

The Top Nine Software Programs An Entrepreneur Needs

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When I started my journey of being an entrepreneur I had no idea about all the amazing programs out there. These programs have REALLY helped me to create systems and flows for my clients and team.

WordPress: the best website platform.

WordPress is, by far, my favorite website platform to use. It is great to use for bloggers, creatives, e-commerce, and really any business. You will find that there are so many great benefits to the platform. Sign up here

Freshbooks: Get Your Accounting On Track

Business owners, automate your finance.. YES, you read that right. Have I told you that I love Freshbooks? I am not a fan of numbers and math, but this program makes my life one hundred percent better. Freshbooks is super easy to use. Sign up here.

Tailwind: Automate Your Pinterest

Pinterest is a great platform to use for all of your online business needs, but only if you know how to use it efficiently. You want to make sure that you have fresh content on Pinterest to get the best results possible. Fresh content on Pinterest is a new image that has not been shared to Pinterest before. This could be images for new blog posts, new pages, new product listings, and new images for existing posts, products, and pages. Tailwind is the perfect solution to scale your business online. Sign up here

Animato: Video making, made easy

Create impressive branding videos in minutes with Animoto’s drag-and-drop video maker. No video editing experience necessary.  Sign up here

Shopfiy: The website platform for e-commerce.

E-commerce is one of the biggest trends happening right now. It is a great way to make money and be an entrepreneur while doing a side hustle. I have helped dozens of websites.  Sign up here

Dubsado: The Program For All Your Automations

I have a list of contacts and sending out proposals, invoices, and even contracts that happen DAILY was tough. I was sick and tired of writing contracts, invoices, and legal documents all the time by myself. I had to reformat each one and had people print and sign contracts. Luckily, I found the perfect solution! There are so many great features, but automation is my favorite. If you are looking to simplify your client process, Dubsado is the perfect solution for anyone. Sign up here

Thinkific: Launch your online courses.

Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their online courses. Their mission is no less than to revolutionize the way people learn and earn online by giving them the tools they need to turn. Sign up here

Convertkit: The Best Email Provider

With ConvertKit, it’s easy to customize and embed forms on your website to turn casual readers into subscribers. Sign up here

Shopfiy: The website platform for e-commerce.

E-commerce is one of the biggest trends happening right now. It is a great way to make money and be an entrepreneur while doing a side hustle. I have helped dozens of websites. Sign up here

APR 18, 2020

WordPress is, by far, my favorite website platform to use. It is great to use for bloggers, creatives, e-commerce, and really any business. You will find that there are so many great benefits to the platform. Sign up here

Freshbooks: Get Your Accounting On Track

Business owners, automate your finance.. YES, you read that right. Have I told you that I love Freshbooks? I am not a fan of numbers and math, but this program makes my life one hundred percent better. Freshbooks is super easy to use. Sign up here.

Tailwind: Automate Your Pinterest

Pinterest is a great platform to use for all of your online business needs, but only if you know how to use it efficiently. You want to make sure that you have fresh content on Pinterest to get the best results possible. Fresh content on Pinterest is a new image that has not been shared to Pinterest before. This could be images for new blog posts, new pages, new product listings, and new images for existing posts, products, and pages. Tailwind is the perfect solution to scale your business online. Sign up here

Animato: Video making, made easy

Create impressive branding videos in minutes with Animoto’s drag-and-drop video maker. No video editing experience necessary.  Sign up here

Shopfiy: The website platform for e-commerce.

E-commerce is one of the biggest trends happening right now. It is a great way to make money and be an entrepreneur while doing a side hustle. I have helped dozens of websites.  Sign up here

Dubsado: The Program For All Your Automations

I have a list of contacts and sending out proposals, invoices, and even contracts that happen DAILY was tough. I was sick and tired of writing contracts, invoices, and legal documents all the time by myself. I had to reformat each one and had people print and sign contracts. Luckily, I found the perfect solution! There are so many great features, but automation is my favorite. If you are looking to simplify your client process, Dubsado is the perfect solution for anyone. Sign up here

Thinkific: Launch your online courses.

Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their online courses. Their mission is no less than to revolutionize the way people learn and earn online by giving them the tools they need to turn. Sign up here

Convertkit: The Best Email Provider

With ConvertKit, it’s easy to customize and embed forms on your website to turn casual readers into subscribers. Sign up here

Shopfiy: The website platform for e-commerce.

E-commerce is one of the biggest trends happening right now. It is a great way to make money and be an entrepreneur while doing a side hustle. I have helped dozens of websites. Sign up here

How Rejection Made Me a Better Person; Rejection is okay

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How Rejection Made Me a Better Person; Rejection is okay

There once came a time when I was scared of failing and getting rejected. I had been rejected. so many times in my life that I just had that feeling nothing could get better. I am sure you can relate. I had to change my mind and realize that everything is fine, and that was so hard to do. But when you do change your mind you can achieve just about anything. For real.

I want you to know, Rejection is OKAY, though. Not everyone is going to like you, not everyone is going to buy from you. Some people might not be happy with your service or product. That is okay. I am giving you permission to understand this is okay. It doesn’t mean they don’t value you, or your work, but rather that they don’t need it right now. It might mean they have their own problems, whatever it might be.


Furthermore, It is okay to say no and accept no as an answer in life and business. I have turned away customers for numerous ideas, but I did it knowing that I could save my own sanity and time.

When someone rejects you, either personally or professionally, take some time to reflect. Was it because of an internal battle you had with yourself, or were they just not ready? A lot of times it is because of our own insecurities and problems. We doubt ourselves. People can hear it in our voices and see it in our faces. No matter what, keep doors open and look forward. Sometimes things just don’t happen because there isn’t a need for it at that moment.

Once I realized my worth and who I really was, I realized I didn’t care about rejection. Why? Because I knew I was worthy and knew that I could change it around. What other ways can you get rejected? If you send out a proposal after they already agreed that they wanted the job, but now changed their mind. That is hard. However, it is okay. This type of rejection hurts, but it just means you need to get better with closing your sales. It means you need to communicate better with them.

In order to grow in life and business we must accept rejection and turn it into a positive thing. We often will find ourselves in a rut and dealing with self esteem whenever we get rejected. Don’t do it, you will be just fine. —> Join me over in my private little clubhouse for FREE RIGHT NOW, before we no longer accept new members!!

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We can all learn something from our competitors

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A long time ago someone who is very close to me and smart, told me to not look at competition the same way. I thought what does that mean? After much time of being a business owner I have realized that this is now more true than ever. There is NO such thing as a competitor… Hear me out.

Each “competitor” is different. We all have something different and unique. We all have something more personal for each business. If my competitions offer the SAME EXACT THING, they might not get the same price, experience, or professionalism as myself. It is important to be aware of your competitors, but to not feel threaten.

 

Whenever I travel, I can see different food options, I have to decide which one I want. Do I go with Burger King or Wendys? They both have burgers but each have different branding and tastes. So which one am I in the mood for? I have to choose between this, but I am not limited to either. I can choose one now and one later, but I still go to both and do not close out competitors.

What if I told you that I work with other designers when they have a workflow overload? We need to rely on one another and help each other out. That being said those people I do do design overflow for, I have learned so much from and gained so much insight from it.

The point is that we can help each other and motivate from one another. We can learn something from each other and help cultivate each other. So take it with a grain of salt and understand that your competitor isn’t truly a competitor.

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** This post also contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

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Business Motivation: How Can We Motivate Others

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I am sick of hearing and seeing people put others down. Everyone always wants to be right but does it really matter? Didn’t your parents tell you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all?” We are human, and we all have feelings. We all want to help and feel good about ourselves. I want you to compliment someone every day, and realize how awesome you feel.

I have managed to change my mindset on most days. There are some days when I have bad days and am in a bad mood. I am human, guys. But, even then, I try to be nice and make someone’s day better. You literally don’t know what someone is going through, so be kind to one another.

When I first started going through my transition in life (a divorce), I began to realize a lot of things including mindset. I’ve always had a positive go-get-‘em attitude, and I felt like I lost it for so long. I felt like I couldn’t be the person that I needed to be to achieve success. I am in charge of myself, and that’s the easy thing to say. I realized that I wasn’t happy; I couldn’t even allow others to feel good. I realized when people started to compliment me, I felt good and wanted to give back to them. See how that works?


Life happens, period. We let kids, spouses, family, friends, work, life, or whatever to get in the way. If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to grow, overcome, and change. This growth is where the mindset comes in. You have to take challenges and risks every day. You have to change “I have to” to “I get to.” For example, I used to say, “I have to get up this morning and do all this crap, and I don’t want to.” I then started to say, “I get to wake up this morning and help my clients, take care of my son, and be an independent woman.” Which one do you think worked better for me? By realizing I have a great morning to start with, it helped me start the day right.

Friends and family around me would uplift me by saying certain things and helping me change my mind. Your mind can be your worst enemy. Whenever you get those negative feelings or thoughts, block them out. But honestly, we all need to motivate and compliment one another more. It doesn’t matter who but let’s do it more. If we can give one compliment or saying a day to someone, we would live in a better world. Think about how much better the world could be.

Open up to someone, and realize that they might be able to help you or even listen to you. We all have a story, we are all human, and just want to live and feel good.

P.S. If you receive a compliment, say thank you and give a compliment to the next person.

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** This post also contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

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How To Stay Motivated When You Work From Home

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I have been working for myself officially now for almost two years. During that time, I have realized that I needed to have a ton of control in my life to be successful. People tell me all the dang time, “it must be nice to work from home” or, “I wish I could work from home” or even, “I couldn’t work from home.”

I like to think that I have always been well-disciplined and can get items done that need to be done. Being an entrepreneur has its perks. Even with kids running around, cooking dinner, and doing everything in between, I am still able to get motivated and focused.


  1. SHARE GOALS AND PLANS WITH FRIENDS: I know there will be times when we all want to slack off. There are days where I go to the spa instead of working, but it is because I know that I can pick up when I get back. I am part of a mastermind, and also have a sales coach; both of these seem to help me stay accountable. Furthermore, my parents are always by my side when it comes to running my business. I keep them informed and allow them to know my business goals and plans.
  2. THINK BIG PICTURE: Your mind is going to wander, so get that straight. From writing to social media to photo editing to networking, your list will go on forever. You will want to tackle bits daily, but you need to know that you are in charge. Focusing on the end game is much more motivating than seeing each task as an individual chore. Find a way to see the big picture and the end game that you want, and what the steps are that you need to make to get there. Too often I find myself seeing the end of the results for my business but unsure how to get there, so I make a plan. I draw a huge plan and write it out on my whiteboard + make sure to have it visualized in front of my desk daily. This process helps me to stay focused and reach that goal.
  3. CELEBRATE LITTLE MILESTONES: You cannot get to the end game or the big picture unless you celebrate every little milestone and learn from the past. I will tell you that I had to do both; it is just the nature of the game and being an entrepreneur. I have learned that EVERY single small milestone matters. Sending out that email, knocking off the emails, whatever it is, it matters.

The truth is working from home is great; I don’t mind it at all. I am very well-disciplined and can manage my time and see the big picture of where I see myself, and my business. Tell me, what do you need help with working from home?

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** This post also contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

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