I’ve tried several email marketing apps: ConvertKit first, MailChimp, MailerLite, Squarespace Email Campaigns, and now FloDesk.

Today I want to help set ya straight on payment processing fees.

I know, I know. It’s not a sexy topic. But hear me out!

I see and read and hear complaints about this all the time. So let’s walk through it in a way that makes sense.

You’ll learn why there are fees, what a standard fee looks like & where they’ll hide, how to work with them, who I trust (& who I don’t), and what you can/can’t do to work around them in your business.

I’m SO effin’ excited to talk about these resources today! You just don’t even know. 😂

• One does all the logo exporting FOR you, in #alltheformats, saving a shitload of time.

• Another makes it super simple to video chat with customers, –no more downloads for them to join the call!

• The last one is maaaaybe, my favorite: a genius way to share our work with the client, stay sane, stick to the rules & still be organized.

Can I get a hell to the yeah, ladies?! Ok. I can’t wait anymore. Let’s dive in!

There’s something I very much dislike about unconfirmed bias. Do you feel the same way?

I’m talking about you telling your mom you ‘hated’ broccoli as a kid… before you ever tried it. 🥦 (Side note, whyyyy do we do this??)

As a kid, you have your parent/guardian to correct you or tell you something like: “How do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it?”

As an adult though, hopefully you have your friends & family, and in your business hopefully you have your team, your mastermind, your coach, or even yourself, if you’re a solopreneur, –to remind you that just because you think or feel something, that doesn’t make it true. You have to investigate for yourself and use reputable sources during the investigation.

Why am I talking about bias & research? Because today’s topic is a fiery 🔥 one and it tends to be refuted by extremely biased folks who don’t have personal experience to judge from.

Today’s I’m debunking popular Squarespace myths, from my own research for the truth and my own experience using the platform for both myself and my clients.

Yes, that does technically make me biased toward Squarespace, but you can bet your ass I’ve hunted for the truth many times (no matter what it actually is) before coming to a decision on the topic. And not only that, but if some of these myths were true, I wouldn’t be recommending Squarespace to anybody, much less using it myself. 😉

So let’s get on with it!

With all the fuss over Squarespace introducing a new version of their service (that’d be 7.1 in case you’re living under a rock), Squarespace website designers like myself are getting tons of questions like:

• Which is better, 7.0 or 7.1?

• Does 7.0/7.1 have X feature?

• Can I move my site from 7.0 to 7.1?

• Should I start my clients on 7.0 or 7.1?

On and on and on. Most of the answers aren’t straightforward either, I’m afraid. So let’s dive in & see what we can tackle today.

All kinds of people are being forced to work from home now. Many of us LOVE this and are dreading going back to the grind once the pandemic slows & eventually things go back to normal.

But I also know some people weren’t prepared for this, mentally or otherwise. And that can be scary!

If you’re not a self-motivated person, or your an extreme extrovert, working from home will be hard for you.

If you’re an introvert, like myself, and even if you’re organized, it can still be hard if you don’t know how to prioritize, communicate with your coworkers or keep your workload organized.

After all, who wants a ton of phone calls, texts and emails throughout the day while you work?

Not me! ✋🏻

Following the previous post about how to stay productive when working from home, I’m sharing a list of 13 apps that should help ya stay on task and continue to be productive, even in a brand new work environment.

Let’s dive in!

The world’s flipped upside down during this global pandemic, and I know a LOT of people are suddenly working from home.

Maybe you’re asking yourself questions like:

How do I do this? My dog/kids/significant other keep interrupting me; how do I stay productive? What apps could make this easier? Are they free or paid? Do they work on my Mac/PC? How do I stay organized? What if I need to ask a coworker a question; do I have to email them & wait? Surely I don’t have to use my personal cell phone to communicate via text or phone call. HALP.

I get it. I was in your shoes once, many moons ago.

About 10 years ago, I was working in an office in Georgia (US) while my my then-fiance went out west to attend college in the mountains of Wyoming (US). He came home for summer break and proposed! About a year or so later we decided we didn’t want to wait the additional two years that I had remaining to graduate, so we bumped up the wedding and I decided I’d move out to Wyoming with him and finish college there.

That meant I was “quitting” my job, but when I told my boss that I was moving, just for shits and giggles, I gave him the option of keeping me around as a remote employee. I had no idea if they’d go for it, but since they seemed to like me a lot and I’d already been there over a year at that point, I was completely trained on everything. Plus, as a design student I already had the Mac & design software I needed to do the work at home anyway (because I hated being in the lab to work on homework 😆).

They went for it! So after we got there, got our internet hooked up and all that fun stuff, I began working from home. It was kind of a culture shock for me, never having worked at home before, but the office I’d been in only had 2-3 people in our small branch, so after I got used to a routine it really didn’t feel all that different. The General Manager was an old, friendly Grandpa type, near retirement; he and I had always gotten along really well.

I ended up just signing into the iChat or whatever it was called at the time & video chatted with him while I worked, for a few hours a day. It helped me feel less like I was the only human being in the world during the workday, –because even introverts can feel that way, eventually– and it let me ask him questions as I needed to without phoning in.

BUT there’s a better way!

Since I started doing freelance work, I’ve tried a TON of apps, soooo many different processes and found what works for me. Not only with my own long distance clients, but also implemented some of what I was learning at my 9-5!

These are my top tips for staying productive while you work from home.

There’s a lot to be said for pretty emails these days. It can make you stand out from the crowd, for sure.

But what’s the cost? If there is any.

If you’re in the entrepreneurial space at all, you may have heard about FloDesk: the beautifully style email marketing tool that doesn’t limit you to a subscriber amount. It’s one flat fee no matter how many subscribers you have, which sounds great. So what’s the catch?

Feel like maybe I’m about to give ya some negative feedback? I am, actually! And it doesn’t seem to be the popular opinion, but here goes.

If you’re new to blogging or want to start, but you’re not suuuper tech savvy & computers sometimes make you want to wring somebody’s neck, –then blogging on Squarespace will probably be a good fit for you.

If you’re already blogging on Squarespace, but you feel like the posts are disorganized, or you can’t figure out what should be tags or categories, then read on, ma’ friend!

I’ve had several questions about this lately, so it’s time to address it for you all! And it’s not super complicated, so don’t freak out –just jump right in!

When you first launch the website, you’re likely wondering how things are going right?

How many people are seeing it? Which pages are people going to? How are they finding me?

These are all good questions to ask!

You’ll want to link your site up to Google Analytics for the most accurate & detailed information, but until you do Squarespace has built-in analytics that will still be helpful for you to collect this kind of info.

Maybe you’ve seen it in the home menu in your account, and maybe you’ve even clicked on it before to see what’s there, but got overwhelmed or don’t understand the terminology.

I totally understand! So let’s walk through it together; it’s not as scary as it sounds, I promise!

My older sister’s gym website was one of my first client sites that I built on Squarespace. Actually, I set up the basics for her and she took it over from there, transforming it into whatever she needed it to be.

So, imagine my stupid moment, when a couple years later, I realize she doesn’t like the long string of navigation links across the top. It was like that because she didn’t realize Squarespace has the ability to create drop-down menus, or how to do it obviously.

I dropped the ball on that for her, not that she was pissed about it, but I felt a bit bad about missing that detail. We’re actually in the middle of a total site redo anyway, so it’ll be fixed going forward. 🤦🏼‍♀️

That situation made me realize that I had taken my own knowledge for granted & assumed she knew, but it’s actually not an obvious thing.

Since it’s not obvious, even to the technically savvy like my sister, I’m sharing this quick tutorial with you! Let’s get to it.

People always want to know how to pick a Squarespace template, or which is the best template.

While it does depend on what features you actually want to have on your website (whether you want a side bar, pre-footer, full-width banners, buttons & content on your banner images, etc.), my go-to is still the 7.0 Brine family of templates.

Want my thoughts on the new 7.1? Keep reading.

If you’re a designer who uses Lorem Ipsum placeholder text, chances are you’ve at least heard a comment from your client like this: “I see the draft and it looks great, but the text is all in another language.” Haha!

Tired of explaining what Lorem Ipsum is? Maybe it’s time to try one of these placeholder text generators instead!