December Showcase: Creator Spotlight

Creator: Katelyn Dekle: Designer

How long have you been using ConvertKit? Part of the community?

I actually tried out using ConvertKit back in 2016 for a few months, with a list size of (literally) about 14 people and about half of those were just super supportive family members and friends. My “business” was more of a hobby back then, so I had no idea what I was doing or what I was supposed to even be doing. But that experience gave me a taste of what it offered for my business and that was important. 

I ended up switching to MailerLite for a couple of years because it had the right budget for where I was in my business at the time. Then I switched to FloDesk in 2019 and found some glaring issues right away, but I just lived with them for a while because the email builder was really awesome & no one service is ever 100% perfect... But when they announced pricing changes at the same time as I was getting really frustrated with their limitations, I made the decision to come back to ConvertKit earlier this year and it’s been really eye-opening to come back as a 'different person’ than I was 5 years ago!
 

What’s your creative niche? 

I’m a web designer, helping move ‘Wordpress-haters' over to Squarespace. Most often, I’m helping clients fix and/or redesign their websites, making them more strategic, more resonant of their brand, more modern & mobile friendly, and then I teach how to maintain it so my clients can choose when to ask for help in the future and feel empowered to keep it updated.

Background 

How did you start out as a creator? 

Personally: I drew & painted in high school as my creative outlet, so I knew I wanted my career to have a creative element. When I got to college, I started as an Interior Design major, –which, as it turns out, is nothing like what you see on HGTV.

So I found myself in my Advisor’s office working through what to try next. She asked what I enjoyed doing, and I told her I played in Publisher A LOT growing up and she suggested Graphic Design! So I switched majors in 2007, got my first entry-level design job by the end of that first semester, and I’ve either been an in-house designer or freelance designing ever since!

My business: In 2015, my 9-5 design job wasn’t making me happy anymore and I felt like I was the proverbial square peg in a round hole, so I started freelancing “for real.” I buckled down and started really trying to make it work. After a couple years of taking practically any project that landed in my inbox, I decided to drop all things print-design, and focus on website design since that’s what I loved.

 

What work were you drawn to? 

I'm definitely drawn to pre-existing websites that needed to be “fixed.” That’s my DNA; I’m a fixer and a problem solver. It’s way more fulfilling for me to swoop in & save the day by fixing or redesigning something, than it is for me to create something from scratch. I think the level of gratitude and relief I get from my clients is sooo rewarding, because they’ve come to me with a specific list of problems first, rather than a generic need. So it feels like they understand the value of the new design or the newly fixed issues, much more than the person who doesn’t have their website created yet.

I’m also definitely drawn to lightheartedness, laughter, sarcasm, dry humor, being goofy or funny, not afraid to be yourself –types. That’s my own personality as well, so when I get to work with people like me, it’s like working with friends! Website design can be overwhelming to tackle, depending on many things, so it’s always good when we can have fun with it, not take anything too seriously, take the stress out of it, and enjoy the process!

 

What problem did you face? 

Honestly, I was scared by a lot of things. I’m a risk-averse person, –and soooo many things I’ve done these past few years are risky! Specifically: I was scared to call myself a web designer, because my day job had been in print design (for almost 9 years). I was a little scared to tell people what I spent all my free time doing, because I didn’t want to be judged by people who didn’t understand. I was scared my husband would become frustrated with my day & night work schedule as I built my freelance business, working 4-8 hours almost every weekend day for years, which wasn’t fair to him; I was afraid to stop & lose my momentum, but I also just didn’t want to stop; I loved learning and building my business and I KNEW I could do it, but I didn’t want to build it at the expense of my marriage. 

I was also scared I couldn’t make the freelance gig work well enough to replace my 9-5. Scared to “be myself” as the face of the business. Scared to be on camera in tutorials or on social media, etc. Scared to have a nightmare client, or a serious legal situation arise because of my ignorance or that nightmare client. Scared to spend money on education from sources that weren’t accredited by colleges. Scared to quit my 9-5 and go full time freelance. Scared to move across the country during a pandemic. Scared to raise my prices, scared to launch a new service, scared to sell an evergreen product...

Lightbulb moment 

How did you solve your problem? 

I finally realized that I was way more afraid of being stuck in the life I currently had, and knew the only way out was going to be through making changes and taking a couple risks (they could be small at first!) in order to create real change for my life. I felt like what I’d been doing up to that point was resisting the thing I was meant to do because it was scary, and of course hindsight is 20/20. What I was doing was the definition of insanity: I was doing the same things over and over, but expecting different results. Get a job, expect "too much," try initiating beneficial changes, hit a wall, get stressed out, and then eventually let down; rinse & repeat. In order to get a different result, I had to ACTUALLY do something different.

Eventually, I began to realize that lots of things ARE genuinely scary, but they don’t have to FEEL scary too. I’ve heard it said that courage isn’t a lack of fear, it’s just moving forward despite it. So for each of those things I was afraid of, I’d do the scary thing and pause ––wait for feedback/results, then evaluate. I started treating it like a science project: What worked? What didn’t? How I can fix what didn’t work & do it better next time? Or just drop it if it didn’t feel like a good fit for me. That took all of the failure out of it, which in turn started taking the fear out of it too. After that, it became much easier to make these types of “scary” decisions going forward.

 

How did you envision solving the same problem for others? 

Through encouragement, helping others and telling my story. I’ve been there, I can relate, and I’m not afraid to tell other people how I got through it. That kind of thing is built into my client process too; as I work with my clients, I’m always giving them suggestions or resources to check into that may help them bypass the scary stuff I’ve gone through myself and hear from a professional that it’s okay to mess up along the way, as long as we learn from it. Trust me, in many cases, no one else is watching as closely as we think, or cares about our screwups as much as we do.

Current success & work 

Where are you now in your journey as a creator? 

I’ve been working for myself now for almost 18 months! This year I’ve made more than I did in my last year at my 9-5, and I’m usually booked out for about 3 months at a time. I’ve just updated my prices, and I’m about to launch a small template product aimed at helping to organize other web designer’s client content-gathering process via a custom-built client portal template system in a project management app –so I’m really excited about that. I’ve just introduced it a couple weeks ago and already have 40+ people on the waitlist. I see myself moving more toward support & education, and doing less 1:1 design in the future, but for now I’m doing both and seeing lots of growth!

 

How is ConvertKit supporting your work? 

ConvertKit makes my blogging and email marketing SO much simpler & faster & more relevant to my business, for sure. With FloDesk, there were so many automations I couldn’t do and analytics for my list that they just didn’t have. I also tended to get stuck on the design of the email in FloDesk, whereas ConvertKit has fewer design options so getting stuck on design options is not a thing & I can write my broadcasts MUCH faster without that distraction. 

The biggest changes have been the ease of finally “cleaning up my list,” really organizing my subscribers, changing the way my freebies were being delivered and actually seeing month-over-month growth for the first time in a couple years!

My open and click rates have since DOUBLED. I’d been hovering around a 20-25% open rate and about a 2% click rate with FloDesk, but after being able to clean my list of the inactive people, my open rates jumped to over 39% and my click rate jumped up to 5.5%!! CRAZY. Now that I’m getting better engagement with my list, I’m able to get to know them better, not only because I can understand them better with A/B testing & better analytics, I also get more opens, which leads to more personal replies to my emails so I get to hear right from them about what they want or like best. It’s been a HUGE improvement in the way I handle email marketing, for sure.

 

What types of people are you helping now? How has your list grown as you’ve helped solve this problem for others? 

Other Squarespace designers, especially those in the early stages of starting their business, are often attracted to me & my supportive/educational content. I get comments from them all the time–it’s so rewarding. And for potential clients, they find me from Google searches 98% of the time, land on my blog and try one thing, get a quick win and then realize there’s more that can be done to fix this or that, and they end up wanting to work with me. I really enjoy helping both groups, so win-win!

Anything else you would like to include?

Two things that I’d do differently if I had to start over again: focus on being a better writer for my business & building my email list sooner. So many new business owners focus on social media when they first start out, because they don’t know they can build an email list affordably or it’s not even something that enters their minds in most cases. When they do learn about it, they don’t know what to send their list. They’re always like, “but what do I say?” –I totally get it! My first emails were HORRIBLY boring and dull, but you HAVE to start somewhere. Right? We all do. I did too. –Now when I sent out a weekly email I get responses like, "You're very funny. I don't read all your emails but the ones I do, I always enjoy! Keep the value coming.”  

Ash Ambirge says in her book, The Middle Finger Project, –which is one of my favorite business books– if you do something enough times there's no longer an argument that you’re not doing that thing. With practice you get better and better and better each time, but ya can’t get better until you START. It won’t happen overnight though, so don’t get stuck on that. Just start, then keep going, and eventually you’ll reach one of those kick*ss goals!