Inaugural Blog Post
Welcome to the Beyond Design Co. blog! This is my inaugural post in the blog-o-sphere, and it may be my last! JK, I hope to stick around for at least a couple months. ;) I plan to write about all of your burning marketing questions as time goes on. For example, is it actually worth starting a blog for SEO purposes in an overly saturated blogging world? But, for now — I thought I’d start with my story and my hopes and dreams for this business.
How It All Started
If you visit my about page, you’ll see the timeline I created that shows how this business came to be. So, I won’t recap that mushy gushy story filled with way too much cheese, but I will instead unpack the story a bit from 2017 to now, because that’s when the Beyond Design Co. dream was really born (pun intended).
I worked on the marketing team for a leading Berkshire Hathaway insurance company from 2014 until 2017. In May of 2017, I gave birth to a sweet little boy named Spencer. Truly, my heart fell madly in love — very fast.
But, as much as I’d love to tell you my transition into motherhood was a rather simple and beautiful one — it was actually anything but. Perhaps it was the near 60-hour labor, the 40+ hours of pitocin that was pumped through my veins, or perhaps it was having a tongue tied/jaundiced baby or a thyroid cancer that was unknowingly growing at the time — whatever the reason, it was clear God wanted me to s.l.o.w. d.o.w.n. I had full intentions of going back to work full-time. I loved what I did, and I knew if I stayed home full-time, I would go stir crazy (2020, you proved me right on that one). But, the thought of spending an hour plus every day commuting to work while running on maybe 4 hours of sleep and somehow managing to write complex copy for an insurance company — yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Throw in the fact that I also couldn’t fathom leaving my baby for 50+ hours a week, I knew it was time for me to part ways from the corporate world.
In a nutshell, 2017 did not go according to plan. But, do you know what comes out of broken plans? Boundless potential.
Broken plans =
Boundless Potential
In the beginning of 2018, my sweet sister came to me and asked if I could help with her social media marketing at the time. I said yes, and before we knew it, we were feeding off of each other’s energy and strategizing ways to truly scale her real estate business in Denver (very enneagram 3 of us). Around that same time, a former corporate colleague of mine decided to start her own business, and she reached out to me that year for similar marketing assistance. By the end of 2018, I had officially caught the freelance marketing bug. 2019 was a year of planning and brainstorming. I probably changed the business name 5 times. I explored all sorts of color palette and logo options. And, just when things started to finally fall into place, I ended up getting diagnosed with thyroid cancer. By God’s beautiful grace — we caught it early enough and my prognosis from the get go was a rather a positive one. But, the diagnosis, the surgery and the many weeks waiting for results definitely threw me for a loop.
So, 2020 rolls around, I’m healed up from my surgery and ready to tackle the year, then this thing called Covid comes into the picture. And, in yet another plot twist — my husband ended up losing his job because the oil and gas industry got hit extra hard. But, yet again — by God’s beautiful grace — I had great clients who had ample work for me to do, and so I shuffled all resources, time and energy to client work earlier this year and let my business marketing take the back seat. Fortunately, life has somewhat normalized for our family the second half of this year (as much as it can during a pandemic). That has allowed me to now shift my focus back to Beyond Design Co. and this blog. Come to find out, through the all the what ifs, ups and downs, plot twists, and surprises — I have learned a valuable lesson. You can plan and strategize all you want, but learning to roll with the punches is equally as, if not more, important.
Hopes for Beyond Design Co.
So, speaking of rolling with the punches. For that reason, I’m actually hesitant to list out any specific plans or visions for this business. I truly have no idea where this business will take me in the following years. Had you told me pre-motherhood in 2017 that I’d be a thyroid-cancer-surviving, business owner in the middle of a pandemic in 2020 — I would not have believed you. But, such is life, right? I will admit though, I have always wanted to start a podcast or maybe even create courses or website templates. But, I’m keeping all doors open right now, and ultimately whatever path God wants me to take, I’ll follow. Call it cliche, but that’s my vision.
ABOUT BEYOND DESIGN CO.
Beyond Design Co. is a branding and website design studio located in Oklahoma, serving clients nationwide. Head over to the services page to learn more. Ready to start your next project? Contact me today!