WORKSHOP 1: INTRO 2 ENTERPRISE + SOCIAL MEDIA AND ANALYTICS
Workshop 1 – Bridge to Business: Intro 2 Enterprise + Social Media and Analytics
Today we had our first workshop with Liam from Bridge 2 Business. I was not really too sure how to feel about the workshop going into it as I have never done a workshop like this before so was not too sure what to expect. this first had of the workshop was Intro 2 Enterprise. We were asked what we think this means and what is our understanding of the word “enterprise”. To me and from my own understanding, that is it is a successful business.
We were then asked what our business is that we would like to have. I thought it would be cool to always have my own bookshop. I love reading and I'm a part of several reading groups and social media pages. It's something that have always dreamed about doing. Though my passion is makeup and being a creative artist, this has always been an idea that has been floating about in the back of my head.
We then looked at areas that we would be interested in learning more about that the Bridge 2 Business could help us with. For me, I would love to learn more about Business start-ups/ right now I have no clue how to start a business. If you were to ask me, I would just look at you with a blank expression. I really have no clue whatsoever and obviously, by doing this course I want to learn, grow, and develop as a freelance makeup artist and turn my passion into a career.
Having an Enterprising Mindset is also something we looked at. I have not really thought about what that is if I am honest. I never realized it was a mindset. When looking into it is a mindset that enables you to overcome obstacles, be decisive, and control your outcomes. A time when I showed an Enterprising Mindset was when I used to volunteer at an Arts Centre at Lethum Glen. We were looking to raise funds for the center to keep it up and running. So, we decided to hold a festival. 2 friends and I organized the whole thing. The stalls, permits, rides, live music, marketing. Everything that went into it we done. It was a big learning curve but something that I am proud to of been a part of. It really helped me to develop skills such as organization, communication, problem-solving and many more.
A couple of skills that I still need to work on are being decisive and accountability. For me these are 2 areas that I have always struggled with. For me being decisive is exceptionally hard and this links back to me being neurodivergent. I find it hard to make finite decisions. I mean I struggle with what I'm going to eat for each meal, might as well make big decisions about a business. Accountability. I always struggle with this; I always have an excuse, or some dreamed problem where in actual fact I have been an idiot and I'm far to stubborn to admit when I'm in the wrong.
Lastly, we looked at goal setting. For me, I do this using the SMART Plan method. I learned to do this when doing my HNC Fashion and Editorial Makeup. It really has helped me focus on the goals I have set for each class and for my personal life. It helps me keep on track and keep myself realistic with what I want to achieve.
Social Media and Analytics
What is digital transformation? This was the first question we were asked. I really had no clue what it meant but was hoping by the end of the workshop I would have some sort of understanding.
We looked at 6 different areas of the interned and those where shopping, entertainment, learning, travelling, paying and social media. Everyone uses apps or services within these areas. They all individually have large markets. What's important when creating your business is to find where it lies within these categories and then really home in on your audience.
My favourite part of the workshop was when we were discussing our favourite brands/company's social media pages. What did we like about them? What where they are doing right and what could they improve on? I picked PLouise as I love there social media site. They are really consistent on posting on all there accounts and they have always stuck to what they do best which is colourful and creative makeup looks. They are great at interacting with customers and are always doing special deal on their products. I would say something that they need to improve on is their customer service when it comes to people not being happy with something. They get quite defensive and snippy in their response to people.
I also looked looking at influencers and how brands choose who to work with. An example we were given was Molly Mae working with Pretty Little Thing. She is someone that has a big influence on girls ages 16 to 25. I would say that is are demographic. She can literally sell them anything as that how much people trust her opinion. For example, she recently sold out this Zara leather jacket. She posted one photo with it one and now it's known as the “Molly Mae jacket.” It's crazy to me that one person has that much reach and influence on others. That the power of social media though, especially when you play your cards right.
Overall, I really liked this workshop. It made me realise that I really need to get back to posting regularly and that I need to make sure that my social media are all looking on brand. Though I am still working on branding I know that I will need to make sure that its consistent on each of my social media pages.
Workshop 2 – Introduction to Branding + Confidence Building
Intro to Branding
This week we first looked at Branding. What is it? Why is it important? What makes a brand stand out?
I was really looking forward to doing this workshop as I am currently trying to develop my own brand for my personal business, and this workshop is really going to help me look at what I want to do for my own brand and how I want to develop it.
We looked at what you want your brand identity to be? What message do you want to portray? Who is your audience?
Using the right colours, text, font, and language are all key aspects to consider when developing your brand. Even choosing the colours is particularly important as each colour will represent and evoke various emotions in your audience. We were talking about how we associate the colour yellow with McDonalds as this is their signature col colour and they are known worldwide for having “golden arches.” for me and my business I want to use a mix of colours so that I can convey a message of creativity and being inclusive of everyone. It's still something that I am working on and will be working with a graphic designer to help me develop a logo and from there I can then develop other areas of my brand.
The class then had a discussion about slogans. These are catchy one-liners that people associate with brands and the brands mission statement. I have never really thought about a slogan for my own brand. It's not something that makeup companies and makeup artists have. They usually just have a logo, but I think that by adding a slogan that will then help me stand out from others as it is something that they do not have.
Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop, and it has helped me by giving me advise about developing my own brand. It is not just about a logo; it is about what message you want to put out there to your audience. I think I will definitely be using what information I learned today into use when developing my own brand.
Confidence Building
For this workshop I was not too sure if there was anything new that I would learn. I am quite a confident person, but I am also very self-aware and know what my strengths and weaknesses are in pretty much every aspect of my life. I have recently started seeing a therapist and this is something that is aiding me, to realise where I can improve as human being.
I really liked that in this workshop, we looked into what our skills are and what we could improve on. I think for me personally I really want to improve on my video editing skills especially with what I want to do for my project in my Professional Practice Portfolio class. Something that I have come to realise that I really need to work on is academic writing. It's just not something that comes easy to me at all. And for all my assessments that I need to write them in an academic manner, as well as another blog for Producing Cultural Projects that also needs to be written the same way. This is an area I need to work on and grow my confidence in.
We looked at different characteristics, that come to mind when thinking about confidence such as positivity, driven, creative, passionate, decisive, resilient, and curious. I found myself thinking back to times in my life when I have shown all these characteristics. For example, I have always been a curious person, I like to think of myself as an open book that will always have some blank pages, ready to be filled with all this new information. This was really a prominent characteristic of mine a few years back when I got into the makeup community. I threw myself into the thick of it all and was just absorbing all this information as I was just so curios about the world of makeup and all it had to offer.
Then for the rest of the class we looked at SWOT analysis and Pitching. SWOT analysis is something that I have done several times and I have already done one for this class this year. So, I already have a good understanding of what one is, but it was good to talk to everyone and get ideas about what we could put in the various categories. Liam our presenter spoke about how people would put mental health in the threats section. This is something I had never thought to put before. I mean I suffer from it, but I have never considered it as a potential threat, so that was something new to consider. We then spoke about pitching. This is something that we are doing this year, the first one to pitch our group project idea, and then the other one being the Dragons Den we are doing for our personal projects. It was interesting to look at the different styles of pitching. I know that for me, I will have it all well laid out, pre-planned and practised several times. Though enviably, something will still go wrong. I really enjoyed this workshop. I went in thinking I would not learn anything new but kept an open mind and did in fact gather some new information.
Workshop 3: Bridge 2 Business
Building Connections
What is networking? This was the first question we were asked at the start of the workshop. For me networking is interaction and engaging with others in a formal or informal situations. You can also network using social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook. LinkedIn and Twitter. For example, I have groups that I am a part of on Instagram with fellow makeup artists from all over the world and this is a big part of my networking with fellow makeup artists in the community.
We then looked at values and what our mission statements would be? Why are they important for a brand/company to have? I haven't really given any thought to my own businesses mission statement. I know that for me I want to want to give people a positive experience with makeup and show them the magical world of transformation. It is defiantly something that I need to work on.
I think my favourite part of this workshop was talking about positive first impression. What do we notice about people when we first meet them? I think for me I always go off people's energy. And when I meet others, I always try to put by best foot forward and give out positive energy.
Then we looked at collaborations. Right now, I am part of a collective called Kaptured Majik. This is a collaboration that is made of myself another makeup artist, an interior designer and a photographer. We then watched a video on collaborations and why they are important. I quite liked it. I do like collaborating with others because I get to learn new skills and knowledge as well as develop my own skills in my specialist area.
We then looked at business partners and why they are important to have. A partner are people like Web Designers, Solicitor, Landlord, Suppliers etc. Having partners like this is important as they help to fill gaps in your knowledge.
Mentoring – a mentor is someone that teaches you wisdom, teaching and gives support. In my life I have a fair few mentors. When I was studying childcare, it was the teacher, I worked with in the primary school in my work placement, when I was 14, I met a women called Mary and I worked with her at an art hut at Letum Glen and learned how to interact with the public and run a small business. When I went back to college I had my tutors, Karen, Lyne, Leigh and Yvonne. All of whom I learnt from in various ways. I would say right now though I don’t really have a mentor as I think I am learning to become one myself.
For the final part of the workshop, we looked at volunteering. This is something that I have done a few times, though 2 places stand out the most to me in my memories. The first being the Art Hut I volunteered at when I was 14 and I was there for 4 years. I loved where the place was, which was down Lethum Glen and nothing was as a calming and as beautiful as going do their first thing on a Sunday morning, on a forty day. When there I worked a lot with children and adults with disabilities, the environment allowed me to be creative as well as gain experience in working in a small business that worked closely with the local community. The second one was when I volunteered at community cinema in Leven. Through doing that I learnt about sales and customer service. It was also just fun to work in this cool, old fashion building.
Overall, I enjoyed this workshop. Though I already knew a lot about what we were being taught I was good to get to discuss other people views in tings and get to learn about them and their life experiences. It also gave me the opportunity to look at things that I have previously done and reflect apon them.
Wellbeing
I have never looked into wellbeing before for oneself. Yeah, I know about how to look after other people wellbeing but not my own, so I was looking forward to learning about it in this workshop.
We first looked at the wellness wheel. I've never seen it before, so it was new to me. I shall add a photo. I choose this particular one as it explains what each section is. I honestly didn’t think wellbeing could be broken down into some many sections. When I think of wellbeing, I guess I just think about your mental and physical health, but I can see now that much more goes into it than I initially thought. And it's important to address all these areas to have good wellbeing overall.
“Make time for your wellness, otherwise you'll be forced to make time for your illness”
- for me this time is when I have those few hours that I can sit, relax and read a book. For me looking after my emotional and spiritual wellness is really. I suffer from intrusive thoughts and I'm a big empath. This leads me to feeling drained and overwhelmed quite often as my brain is always on the go, so having time to relax my brain is important so that I don’t burnout.
We then looked at dealing with stress. Admittedly, not one of my strong suits. I often find myself in stressful situations and unable to calm myself. It is something that I am working on though as I see a therapist and we are working on a lot of these areas. For me I hate making decisions, to the point I hate even being asked what I want for dinner? A simple question but to me instantly stresses me out and I get overwhelmed with trying to decide.
Burnout - I have suffered from one before 10/10 do NOT recommend. It was awful. I left my job because of it. I was just so overwhelmed with so many aspects of my life and I did look after myself so inevitably I burnout. When we looked over this part on the workshop, I think talking about it helped others to recognise the signs and what big effect it can have on you.
How to manage these emotions?
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Learning problem solving skills
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Time management
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Developing your ability to cope with adversity
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Working on personal relationships
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Look into and practice relaxation techniques
I try to at least once a week meet up a friend and do something fun, like going for lunch, the arcade, coffee, art exhibit, museum etc. It's important for me to maintain my personal relationships. I do find it difficult at times, but I find with the help of today technology it's easy to keep in touch with people and keep updated with what going on in each other's lives.
Workplace environment – it's important to not stay in a toxic work environment. If it is affecting your mental health, you may just be better leaving and finding something else. I love to work in places surround by nature. I just love to look out and see the countryside. I think being brought up in Scotland you learn to love the countryside and appreciate its beauty. It is calming and brings a sense of peace.
Planning my day - I find that planning my days and weeks helps me tremendously. I like to think I am well-planned out person. I even plan when I'm going to have “lazy days”. With Uni work I always keep a small notebook and constantly make to-do lists to keep myself on track. I do think by breaking tasks down and setting myself a series of small tasks, this then helps me not to get overwhelmed by the workload.
Things I do that help me relax-
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Reading
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Painting
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Watching movies and tv shows
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Walking in the countryside
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Going for coffee
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Listening to music
Overall, I felt a learnt a lot from this workshop as it allowed me to look at what wellbeing is and how I could improve my own. I really liked that we looked at all aspects of wellbeing, what they are and how we could make sure we are taking care of them.
Workshop 4: Bridge 2 Business
Pitching
For this workshop we looked to make a successful pitch. What is a pitch? To me it is a presentation in which you are presenting an idea such as business plan, prototype etc. to an audience in the hope to gain something in return.
Just before Christmas I done 2 pitch presentations, one for my finance and fundraising class and the other for my producing cultural projects. Where centred round the same business idea but looked at different aspects of the business. For one presentation we went way over the time limit. This is something that we took on board and then made sure for our next presentation we were within the time frame. this is also a skill I will be taking forward and keeping in mind when I go on to do my Dragons Den presentation at the end of the year.
We then looked at who is our audience? Is it an investor? A partner? Customer? It's important to understand who your audience is when putting a pitch together so that then you can put together the relevant information that you need together. For example, when making a pitch to a customer you would not talk about your predicted cash flow, but you would speak about this if your audience was an investor. For me, I liked that we investigated what different audiences liked and how to aim information at them using different styles of presenting.
At the start of the year, I was asked to pitch myself as a creative to the rest of my class. I done this in the form of a Pecha Kucha. This is a style of presenting that is quick and to the point, you create 20 slides and have 20 seconds to talk for each slide. All my slides were filled with photos of my work, what I can do as a creative and a little bit about me. I really enjoyed this style of presenting as it was easy to put together and it was not long winded and boring as at opposed to having slides filled with text and then just reading off each slide.
We then watched some videos of different pitches and presentations. Each person has a different style but something that they all had in common was that they were all confident in what they were say. I also liked that they didn't read off a screen or script, so they have clearly practised.
Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop. I have a big pitch presentation coming up in a few months of one of my classes and so by doing this workshop I learnt a lot about different styles I could use and how to put together a good pitch.
Running a Business – Business Challenges
At this start of this workshop, we done an ice breaker in which we were split in to 2 team of 4 and then 1 played for each team would get given a logo to draw and then we had to guess what the logo was. It was all rather fun and bit silly but a great way to break the ice before starting the workshop.
During this workshop we would be learning about running a business and any challenged one might face. First, we looked at internal factors. These are thing in terms of your business that you can control such as staff, infostructure, social media, brand message etc. These are all things a business in in control of. I think for me and my business I don't think I'll have staff per say but I will have partners which I hope to work with.
We then looked at external factors. These are factors of a business in which you can't control but can mitigate solutions and plans to these factors to help your business. Factors such as customers, weather, competitors, emotions, economic factors etc. Though you can make planes and solutions for each factor as with any business sometimes things do go wrong but how you respond and deal with these issues says a lot about your business and your character. I think for me I will put in plans for these things when I eventual have my own business, but one can't predict the future.
A bit part of running any business is maintaining a good reputation. With the use of social media at an all-time high it important to understand that everyone is will share their thoughts, feeling and opinions on various platforms. Not everyone will like your business, so it is important to set your expectations to high and to also have a great understanding of who your target audience is so that then you can produce social media content that speaks to them. Try and not take comments and feedback to personally as stated before not everything is for everyone.
We then did some work in pairs in which we looked at different work scenarios. All very different from each other. The first being what you would do as a business if you found out one of your partners used unethical practices? I was paired with tammy. After a 5-minuet chat, we both concluded that if this was our business, we would cut all ties and find another partner that had ethical practises. Though this may then be more expensive we would stand by our brands message and principles. We done another 3 scenarios, and it was good I think to hear other people thoughts and opinions and how they would deal with things. I always like to hear other people perspectives as it might help me to expand on my own thoughts and ideas also. I try to keep an open mindset as well which I think is important if you want to grow and develop.
For this workshop I really liked that we done a lot of groups work on had a lot of discussions with others in the group as it allowed me to see things from various perspectives.