Creative Business Group: The Shipshape Collective

If you’re anything like me, you love making improvements and watching your business grow. Sometimes, though, the day-to-day reality of running your own business doesn’t feel ideal. It doesn’t feel like you’d hoped when you first started out. I thought maybe we could all use a creative business group to connect and help each other out.

We can all get closer to that ideal:

• sticking to the tasks that we’re best at
• working on our businesses, not in them
• seeing consistent increases in profit
• AND being able to close the laptop, set the phone down and enjoy evenings and weekends

I have been watering and weeding a sprout of an idea for the last couple of years. It finally needed a name and a mission applied to it:

Welcome to The Shipshape Collective,
a growing community of creative shop owners!

I have been sending a business-building newsletter since 2011. I started the Aeolidia blog in 2012. In 2015, we added The Shipshape Collective by Aeolidia Facebook group. I wanted to go beyond broadcasting and have some real discussions. And to make a space where you could learn from and help each other.

Aeolidia has two sides. We’re primarily a transformative design agency. The funny thing is that I spend most of my time on the free half of my business: the educational resources and creative shop owners community. The Shipshape Collective is the second branch, the helping hand that lifts you up.

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The Shipshape Collective’s mission

I’d like to bring real professionalism, credibility, and business savvy to creative shops. All this while staying true to what made us want to start selling our products in the first place. If you take yourself seriously, your customers will, too.

I aim to support struggling, stressed entrepreneurs in becoming confident captains of their industry. Your small business can be as successful with your small niche of customers as large businesses are with their big group. More successful, because your customers believe in you and your story.

Do you feel like you’re getting bogged down doing everything for your shop? Embrace the idea that you aren’t an accountant or an advertising specialist or a web designer. You shouldn’t be doing data entry or packing orders forever: I’d like to see you hasten to invest in your business and yourself.

What our members discuss

We talk about all the nitty gritty that goes into running a business. Recent roundups of great business advice have included:

• How to print shipping labels & ship cost-effectively
• What to write in a newsletter
• Where to find printers and packaging suppliers
• What to do about copyright infringement
• How to sell wholesale

Join us and ask your question!

What makes us special

In most business-building groups, you’ll find “hustlers” and “startups” and “disrupters.” People in it to make a buck. How about joining a community of creative businesses founded by designers? Our methods are a bit different, and we already understand you. For us, the passion and drive to create usually came first, with profit coming next.

That’s all well and good, but it’s hard to run a business without knowing how to run a business. I speak from experience, HA! No business should be an island. Talk to other shop owners to find out what works.

Not just any shop owners, though ones who have the same concerns and a similar path to yours. The Shipshape Collective!

Thanks so much for all of the information you share in the class, in your newsletter and blog and in the Facebook group. Aeolidia consistently provides specific, helpful information and feedback. It’s appreciated!!
–Lauren Boggs Meslar

What you get and how to get it

Our members’ area is full of detailed, free bonus content. More than 13,000 subscribers have access to all this goodness.

Our Facebook group is humming along without a single sales pitch or spam in sight, even with over 4,300 shop owners involved.

My ultimate goal for this creative business group is to be able to help you every step of the way: from grand idea to the busy business you dreamed of! I’d love you to succeed, and then Aeolidia can work directly with you as your design team. Step by step by step. We’ll get there.

Will you join our smart, supportive group? It’s all still totally free, by the way. I hope to see you soon and help you solve some problems: