22. Stress-Free Holidays: How to Take Time Off from Your Calligraphy Business

In today's episode, we’re so excited to chat about something we all deserve and definitely need: taking time off as a business owner! Join us as we share how we're planning our own well-earned holiday breaks and show you exactly how to prepare your calligraphy business for some blissful downtime. Because, let’s be real, stepping away from your creative hustle shouldn’t have you stressing over missed emails or client confusion!

We cover everything from setting up vacation responders and closing out those lingering projects to making sure your clients feel extra appreciated before you sign off. And we’re not stopping at the holiday break—let’s get proactive about your post-holiday game plan! We talk about refining your services, updating pricing, and polishing all your client-facing materials so that when you come back refreshed, you’re ready to rock 2025 like the boss you are.

If you’ve been wondering how to take time off without sacrificing your customer relationships or business momentum, this episode is your roadmap. Grab a cozy drink, settle in, and let’s get you ready for a stress-free holiday season. You’ve earned it!

🔗 Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

• Get the details about Alane's Group Coaching Program and snag one of the last remaining spots for January!
• Start your business over the holidays: Shaochen's Pro Wedding Calligrapher Course
• Join Shaochen's Masterclass to start learning for free 
• Pricing Resources mentioned:
  • Get the Creative's Pricing Toolkit (Income Planning, Price Book & Pricing Guide)
  • Listen to Episode 11, Advanced Pricing Strategies
  • Listen to Episode 20, Grow your Wealth with Erinn Bridgman (note: this is episode 20, not 19 as mentioned in the recording!)

Transcript

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Introduction

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 0:31

Hello and welcome back to Calligraphy Biz Corner. I'm Alayne.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 0:35

And I'm Xiao Chen. And with the holidays around the corner, we thought we would bring you an episode that's all about preparing your business for time off so that you can really enjoy the holidays and decompress. So before we dive in, Elaine, I'd love to hear a little bit about what you're planning for the holidays.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 0:52

Yeah. So I am definitely planning on taking some time off. I feel like it's been a long year, lots of good things this year, but I just feel like I haven't actually taken any like full time off since April or May. So I am going to go out to my parents for a couple of days, definitely want to do some gingerbread houses with the niece and nephew that's been like our tradition the past couple of years. So, and I feel like they're getting to the point. At least Evie is like at Halloween, she was watching Hocus Pocus and they were watching Nightmare Before Christmas. So I'm hoping that this year maybe they'll be into like Home Alone or the Santa Claus or like those classic Christmas movies.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 1:32

Yeah

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 1:33

so yeah, I'm excited to just kind of unplug for a couple of days, maybe catch up on some reading and just spend some time with the family. What are your plans?

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 1:41

Well, Emmett just turned two and he has been more into like Christmas lights and things like that. Um, When we are driving at night, he'll be like, the lights are on, the lights are on. We just went to the botanic gardens and saw the lights there and then we're doing like a drive thru light. So we're doing a bunch of like fun kid friendly stuff too. And then I'm taking a couple of days. We're headed to Michigan where my husband's family is, but yeah, I think I'm just going to take December pretty easy. It's, so easy for the end of the year to be really hectic and really stressful. And I actually want to take this month to really. Recharge and rest if I can. So other than taking on like a couple live events here and there I'm not really doing a lot this month by design. I just feel like I need a little bit of downtime.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 2:32

Yeah, I feel like we really need to think about that balance because we do work so hard all year and especially if it's wedding season or, you know, now is also like a high time for live events, obviously with the holidays. So I feel like being able to schedule in that time off when needed and listening to your body rather than like. Feeling like you got to push, push, push to the end of the year, like hit those goals or whatever the case may be. I feel like the, the sentiment that I've been hearing from even just calligraphers that I've been mentoring is like, we're not really setting any goals for December. We're just going to look ahead to 2025. And I'm like, I am on board with that.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 3:09

At this point, we're all just like tired. And I mean, I just got back from Taiwan a little over a week ago, so I'm also still physically tired. The jet lag from being halfway around the world is like pretty intense and it takes a while to get over. So I think I'm just going to lean into that, like renewal rest energy.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 3:29

I love that. I love that for you. And I am going to try to do the exact same thing. And that's also why we wanted to bring you this episode so that if you are also feeling like I just really want to take, even if it's just two or three days to unplug around Christmas, New Year's, whatever, you know, holidays you're celebrating at the end of this year. We want to make sure that you feel set up for ultimate success and confident that you can step away from your business for a couple of days and nothing will be falling apart. But it's also just so crazy that the holidays are already here because that means that we've been working on this podcast for literally a whole year now, like this time last year. I think we were probably trying to figure out all the tech pieces of it.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 4:10

Yeah, it's, it's. It's cool to look back and also think about a year from now, what else we could be doing that we can't even imagine right now or dream of right now. But I have just absolutely loved doing the podcast this year. So we just feel so grateful for you guys listening and tuning in and sharing all of your thoughts and sentiments and DMS. And I saw a couple of those like Spotify wrapped Top podcasts that we were in your top five. And I just absolutely love that. Thank you guys so much for listening this year.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 4:41

Yeah, that was so cool. I was like, when I saw those come through, I was literally like getting teary eyed because I was like, oh my gosh, we're in somebody's top five. That's like not something I ever Thought would, I don't know, be, you know, or like, that's something that you picture for yourself.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 4:59

Yeah. Just knowing that like we made a difference for you, hopefully in your business and we want to continue doing that. So thank you for all your support. Let's dive into this episode. Let's close out this year strong. We're going to divide this episode into two sections. The first part is about preparing your business for time off so that you can disconnect. And the second part is about how you can set yourself up for this. That's just a tongue twister.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 5:24

I was going to say, that's a really big tongue twister.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 5:28

And the second part is about how you can set yourself up for success during this time for when you do come back from your break or from the holidays.

Set Up Your Systems to Handle Things While You're Away

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 5:39

So first part, preparing your business for time off. The first thing that I want to touch on and obviously I feel like you guys probably won't be surprised to hear me say this, but you want to set your systems up to handle all of the admin things while you're away, so that's The first thing that I would recommend doing is if you use Gmail or probably any kind of email platform, I'm sure has this, but to turn on some sort of vacation responder, that way, anybody who does reach out while you are out of office will get notified that you are not in the office. You are not checking email at this time. And it will just manage expectations for response times, let clients know when they can expect to hear back from you. I would recommend like putting. Your actual audit out of office dates in that vacation responder. You could also put in like, when I am back in the office, please allow one to two business days or one to three business days for a reply back from me. That way, you know, you can also kind of set yourself up for dealing with. However many emails or new inquiries, whatever the case may be, you have waiting for you when you get back just in case you either can't or don't feel like just plowing through all of them in the very first day back in the office. Um, My other recommendation for your out of office responder. Is to just bring a little personality into this message. I think that, you know, we can just be like, I am out of the office from this date to this date, and I will respond on this date, but maybe share like a warm holiday wish, something that, you know, just brings your personality into it, or thanks your clients for their support throughout the year. And then, you know, if you do think that anything. Urgent will be coming through. You can always include alternative contact information if needed. Or you can also direct them to come hang out with you on social media, if you're still going to be active there over the holidays, something like that. So that way you're creating some other touch points for people too.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 7:34

Yeah, and in addition to setting that up in your email, make sure that you are also setting this up in your CRM system. If you use one this is something that I tend to forget. I'll remember to set up my email reply, but then forget that inquiries actually come through my Dubsado account. And my Dubsado has like a workflow set up where it automatically responds to people. So I just remember to update that as well and what I like to do is I'll take my existing autoresponder and put it in a calendar invite for when I return so that when it's time to switch it back, I just like copy and paste the old text that I have back into my autoresponder so I don't have to like think about what I had in my previous autoresponse.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 8:14

That's really smart. I'm thinking I'm going to steal that from you. And also just for anybody who's listening, who also uses honey book, honey book is the same. So you want to make sure that you are. setting up that same auto response in that program as well for any new inquiries that come in.

Close the Loop on Outstanding Projects

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 8:31

So then the second thing that I like to do is to make sure I'm just closing the loop on any outstanding projects. First I kind of go through my active or pending client projects that need attention before the end of the year. So I'll just kind of make a list of anything that's In the works and kind of take either mental note or check my, you know, project management system if I'm waiting on final approval, or if I'm needing to get feedback on something or any necessary updates, like mock ups, signed copy, things like that, I want to make sure that I am checking in with those clients to either like. Remind them about the next steps or an upcoming deadline at the start of the new year, or, you know, whether it's going to be finalizing details, something like that, that way they feel taken care of, they're confident about what the next steps are. They're not going to be stressed out that you're out of the office. And then you can also. Leave the office feeling like okay. I know that all of my ducks in a row are in a row for when I come back

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 9:29

Yeah, I feel like we're kind of in the point of December, especially by the time this episode comes out where everyone's just like punting everything to January. So if you have like calls that you plan to have in January, see if you can get those scheduled now. So they're already on your calendar when you come back so that when you are catching up with other emails and things, you already have time blocked for like Your discovery call or your proposal call with a new lead or something like that. It's already on the calendar. And the other reminder as you're thinking about closing the loop with clients is also are there any outstanding payments? That should be paid this year. So as you're closing your books for 2024 for your accounting and things like that. If there are ones that are overdue, just make sure that you're like following up with them. Seeing if you can use the end of the year as like a motivator to get that invoice paid. Or if there are invoices that are due when you're out of the office. Just make sure that in your CRM system, you have an auto reminder for them so that you don't have to be manually chasing people down for payments while you're trying to enjoy your time off um, that they'll automatically get an email reminding them to pay that invoice.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 10:38

Yeah, that's a really great reminder. And I love that honey book and dubsada will just take care of that for us So we don't need to be like hello, please see me so I can go buy my holiday gifts

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 10:48

Right.

Show Appreciation to 2024 Clients & Vendors

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 10:49

So then the last piece of preparing your business for time off is to just take a moment to show appreciation. I like to kind of try to work this into my end of year wrap up in December. So a couple ideas for different things that you could do if you are either looking for new ways to show appreciation, or you're just looking for kind of something new to maybe workflow. You can send personalized thank you notes, either snail mail or email to your 2024 clients, just to show your gratitude and thanks for their support this year. You know, not only is this a nice thing to do, but it also just kind of helps put you top of mind for referral or repeat business opportunities in 2025. This is just kind of getting back to like this whole idea of client experience is basically free marketing. Right? So while you may not be actively on social media or posting blogs or updating your SEO or whatever the case may be in December, tapping into the clients who have already worked with you and who love you and want to rave about you is a really nice, And genuine way to kind of tap into that marketing before you're diving into the new year. And then the other thing that I like to do at the end of the year is to make a list of the vendors who have sent a lot of work my way during the year. So whether it's planners, venues, florists, Photographers I'll make sure that I put them on a list to send a small holiday gift to, again, just to show my appreciation for the work that they sent my way. You know, that's kind of, again, part of your like marketing or advertising budget, I guess. But I like to let them know that, you know, I just appreciate all of the work that they. Set my way this year and to just set us up on a good note for 2025 to it just kind of helps reinforce the importance of these relationships and that mutual support that drives business. Both of our ways.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 12:39

I love that you're client experience extends beyond even like closing that client and finishing that client job. I want to definitely incorporate some of that into my workflow as well. Um,

Revisit Your Inquiry Workflow

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 12:51

Okay, so let's kind of head into our next section of this episode, which is proactive things that you can do to set yourself up for success post holiday. So don't stress yourself out if these are not things that you have time to do in December. We know that there's lots of things going on, but we did want to share some ideas if you find yourself with a little bit of downtime during this time.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 13:14

Yeah. So the very first thing that we would suggest doing is to take a look at your inquiry workflow and just make sure that it is up to date. See if there's anything that needs to be changed or tweaked. You really want to be ready when new inquiries start rolling in. Like the holidays are usually aligned with engagement season and booking season. So you want to make sure that your responses are prompt. Probably even automated, which would be helpful because that is just going to help you stand out from other vendors who clients may be contacting as this inquiry and engagement season start to pick up, you know, in December and into January and February. The first thing that I would do would be to update your contact form just to make sure that it's still doing a good job of pre qualifying your leads, making sure that it's getting all of that necessary info. So maybe just start to think about like, I asking new leads the same questions over and over again. If there's something that you feel like you're always trying to get out of somebody, maybe pop that onto your contact form. Also make sure that your contact form is aligning with your services. We're going to chat about services and pricing in a little bit, but just make sure that your contact form is aligning with whatever you see your services and your pricing. Being in 2025, that way that is all aligned. And then the next thing that I would do is to pull up your initial inquiry email template. So like the very first email that you're sending to new inquiries. Pull that up or create one if you don't have one in place yet. And making sure that that is like really up to date and it's doing a good job of communicating who you are, your value, including something personal or a spot where you can put something personal to show the lead that you took the time to read their inquiry and that you're kind of understanding your, their vision and you're going to be a good fit. And then what I also like to do is have a template ready to go for anybody who I am either not available for, or I'm not a good fit for. For that way, you know, those new inquiries too. I can still just quickly get back to them because. Even if maybe I'm not available for them or I'm not a good fit, I still always want to be putting my best foot forward because maybe they have a friend that I am available for or I am a good fit for. So I try to like treat everybody equally, I guess.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 15:30

Yeah, that's great.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 15:31

And then of course, if you are able to set up any of this into a workflow in your CRM and automate it, then you get bonus points. So just having everything kind of run on autopilot. You know, just helping you kind of be that like very first vendor that's getting back to a new lead when they're inquiring, even if it is just an automated email, that's like. I got your email. I'm so excited to read it. I will be in touch in one to two business days. That's still just kind of helps you stand apart from the crowd. So all of this is actually what I help calligraphers with. And the very first group coaching container that I'm doing is kicking off on January 6th. So if you are feeling like you could use a little bit of help with mapping out your entire client process, building all of those templates, implementing them all into a system, then I would absolutely love to chat with you and see if this could be a good fit for you at the beginning of 2025, we'll include a link in the show notes so that you can learn more.

Review & Update Your Pricing

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 16:33

Awesome. So the next thing that you can do proactively and something I recommend that you do every year is review and update your pricing. So the longer that you're in business for the more experience you're gonna have The more your skill set in calligraphy and also running your business is going to grow. Your client experience is probably going to improve all these things. So you want to take into account the additional value you're now providing with the added experience and make sure that you're updating your prices accordingly. And make sure that those prices are still supporting your business and your personal goals. Take a few minutes to think about this past year where you feeling really overworked. If that if so, then that's a sign that you want to make sure that you can make the revenue you want to make without burning yourself out. If you're in my pro wedding calligrapher course, or you have our pricing toolkit. I'm going to kind of go through a step by step of how I think about updating pricing every year. So the first thing I recommend doing is taking a look at your income planning worksheet. And this is a tool that I have that helps you plan out what different services you're going to offer what their average deal size is, and how many you want to take in. Each month, and you can kind of tweak and play with the numbers to come up with basically a revenue plan for your business. And that helps you to understand how many clients you need to book every month to attain a certain amount of revenue or net income. And it helps you plan out your business. When you fill out that income planning worksheet, it also calculates what a suggested hourly rate should be for you. So then you can take that hourly rate and plug it into step two of my. Kind of pricing update process, which is your price book template. And that price book template is going to help you figure out the pricing for your individual products and help you raise the prices of the individual products that you sell for this coming year, whether that's Like place cards, welcome signs, seating chart, et cetera. You can plug that hourly rate into your price book to help you update individual product pricing. We've talked about pricing before in a previous episode, episode 11, if you're pricing a product, a very base level formula is that you want to multiply your hourly rate by the amount of time it takes to make that product and add in your costs. That's like a very simplified version of the formula, but. I want to share that because that's why your hourly rate is important, because ultimately it goes into the pricing of your individual products. So once you know what that new hourly rate for 2025 should be, plug that into your price book template to help you start updating the prices of your individual products. And then step three is to look at your minimums. Look at your minimums based on your average deal sizes that you booked this year and also your desired financial goals. So for example, if your minimum projects for 2024 were 500, let's just say, but your average bookings were 750, that's Basically telling you it's a good time to raise your minimum because your average bookings are actually higher than your minimum. So you have the ability to set that at 750 and people are still, there's still going to be demand to book your work and it's going to allow you to make more money by booking fewer clients. So that's just 1 example, but make sure you are evaluating your minimum. And then the 4th thing that I would recommend when you're evaluating your pricing is to look at your design and management fee. And this is again, where I would revisit the pricing episode we had, which is episode 11. And we talk more about the design and management fee, what it is, how we think about it, what goes into it. But basically other than your individual product pricing, you want to include a You know, we call it a design and management fee, but some kind of like additional fee that covers your overhead admin time, your client management time, all of those things that it takes to deliver an incredible product, but also an incredible experience for your client. So those are kind of like the four steps that I think about and that I take when I'm updating my pricing for the year. Um,

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 20:50

Are all really great tactical tips that, you know, people can kind of do, like, like you kind of laid it out step by step by step. And the other thing that I was also going to suggest would be to, as you're doing your pricing, you're probably just also going to be naturally like revisiting your financials. So if you haven't already listened to episode 19 with Erin Bridgman, I feel like that would be a really good one for people to go back and listen to because she dives a little bit deeper into like. How to pay yourself a salary and how to figure out that number. She has a salary calculator tool that you can also download, but really starting to think how can your business finances start to work in tandem with your personal finances. So if that is a goal for 2025, as you're restructuring your pricing, I feel like those two episode 11 and episode 19 could be really good to listen to kind of back to back with pen and paper.

Evaluate Your Offerings & Update Your Service Guide and Website

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 21:42

So in tandem with evaluating your pricing and making sure that that is up to date for the new year, we would also recommend doing the same exact thing with your services that you're offering, you know, over the course of the year, you're probably saying yes to a variety of different inquiries. Especially, you know, if you are a little bit. I'm just going to say newer in business. Cause maybe you're still trying to figure out what you really like and what you don't like. So at the end of the year, that's always a good time to. Take a step back, reflect on the past year and kind of start to think about what services really lit me up. What ones kind of drained me? What ones do I want to bring into 2025? What ones do I want to delete off my plate? And then as you're also doing that, you can go back to your income planning worksheet and make sure that you're updating that with the services you're keeping, deleting off the ones that you're not. But you can also use that worksheet as a really good guide to see, you know, what is your actual return on your investment on your services? Like is, you know, our live events giving you a higher profit margin than, you know, custom home prints or something like that. I'm just making these things up. But you, you should be able to actually see those numbers too. So as you're evaluating your pricing, also taking a moment to evaluate your services is a great way Time to be doing that, you know, at the end of the year, as you're starting to plan ahead for 2025 So once you have your pricing updated, once you have your services updated, then the next thing that you're going to want to do is make sure that you update a service guide, service brochure, pricing guide, whatever you want to call it, so that that is now also accurately reflecting the services that you actually are going to be offering in 2025. What your, you know, new pricing structure or new pricing minimums is going to be for 2025. And then, you know, any availability for the upcoming year. So. If you're sending out a PDF or if you're linking to, you know, a hidden website page or something like that, you just want to make sure that new inquiries are getting accurate pricing and accurate services. Cause the last thing that you want to happen is to somebody inquire and you give them your 2024 pricing and then have to be like, Oh wait, my minimum is actually, you know, 250 more than what I sent to you.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 23:56

very much.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 23:57

So then while you're also updating your service guide, the other piece that you want to make sure you're updating is obviously your website. So a service page on your website or pricing page on your website, again, making sure that your contact form is reflecting these changes that you may or may not be making in your pricing and your services. So just make sure that all of those things across the board, anything that's client facing is the way that I like to think about it is accurately reflecting. Whatever you're offering and your pricing is going to be for the new year. And then the other piece that you can do for both your website as well as a service guide is to update it with new images, new testimonials. You know, I'm sure that you've been doing a ton of beautiful work this year. So, yeah. Start to update your portfolio a little bit with any new images from events, weddings, et cetera. And then any new reviews that you've gotten in. So what I like to try to do is even if I'm going to unplug over the holidays and I don't want to take on like. a whole website update project, then you can kind of break it down into pieces. So maybe you want to just download some photos before the end of the year, or, you know, pull some new reviews into a Google doc that you can copy and paste from at the start of the new year, but that way it's less of an overwhelming task and you already have some of the pieces. Now you just have to put them all together.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 25:13

or even just asking for the photos from the weddings you did this year, because they don't always get sent to us and then asking for the review if you haven't done that already.

Make a List of the Vendors and Clients You Want to Work with in the New Year

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 25:23

The other thing I like to do while it's still fresh in my mind is make a list of the planners or vendors that I worked with this year or the vendors who like referred me this year. So I like to track these folks so that I can, I remember what. Our relationship was, if we enjoyed working together, any notes I have so that as we go into January, those are people that I can reach out to with a proactive email, sending them my new services guide or my new pricing page or website or whatever it is just to keep myself top of mind. And if you're in my pro wedding calligrapher course, I have. A template for this to um, it's my vendor tracker. And it just really helps me to remember all the people that I work with, their key contact information and kind of like their status, like whether I've worked with them in the past before, or whether there's someone that I'm kind of aspiring to work with, and they're more of like a target vendor that I'm trying to reach out to, but. I know that some people feel like it's not something I need to really write down. But when you're a business owner, there are so many things like that are in your head. And it is so much easier when you can just put these things on paper or in a spreadsheet somewhere. So it's not taking up your mental space from all the other things that you're trying to do. So highly, highly recommend if you. You're in my course to grab that vendor tracker If you're not in my course just start a spreadsheet for yourself to keep track of all these people that you've worked with and just Start to document You know the people that you liked working with that you would want to work with again so that you can make sure that you Reach out to them in january and so that you're top top of mind, especially like elaine said engagement season is Around November to February and typically after that planners and venues get booked first and then kind of all the other vendors get booked after that. So I definitely see a lot more inquiries around February around March, like early spring as a calligrapher. So these are all great prep things that you can do to make sure that you hit the ground running in January and are reaching out to people to help you get more of those inquiries.

Work with Us to Uplevel Your Business!

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 27:29

So the suggestions that we've given you so far are things that you can use every single year to kind of prepare your business. But I also know that some, there are some points in your business where you're really ready to kick things up a notch and really up level your business. And so if you have some downtime, you want to take the holidays to really like. Build up your business for a really incredible next year. And maybe you want to operate your business a little bit differently in 2025. And here are some ways that you can also work with us.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 28:00

Yeah. So I am kicking off the flourish and biz group coaching experience on January 6th. I'm super excited about this. Cause I feel like it's. Like Xiaochen said, it's the perfect time to gear up for engagement season and booking season. And really make sure that your business is set up for success. So it is going to run over the course of 12 weeks. So it'll go till the end of March. But this is really for calligraphers who are ready to cut their admin time in half, increase their average project value and really grow a sustainable calligraphy business with clarity and ease through systems that elevate your client experience. experience without adding extra work to your plate. So if that sounds like something that you are interested in 2025, then this could be the perfect fit for you. We are going to work together to really hone in on your specific services, your ideal client and your unique value. And then we are going to map out your entire client journey from inquiry. All the way through to off boarding for your services. We're going to make sure that you have all of those templates and additional pieces built out in place and ready to go. And then I am going to help you implement all of that into HoneyBook so that your business can actually just start to run on autopilot and we can have, you can have some of those automations that we were talking about before. And I am very excited about this group experience because it's just going to give you the. Added accountability and peer feedback from not only myself, but also from your fellow calligraphers. So we'll include a link in the show notes that you can head over to if you want to chat and learn more.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 29:35

And there's only 10 spots for that program, right?

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 29:39

Yes, there are 10 spots. And at the time that we're recording, I actually only have three left. So yeah, yeah.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 29:46

Awesome. So definitely get on that if you're interested. And if you're in a place where you've been dreaming of making money with calligraphy, you're ready to make your business a reality in 2025, or maybe you've been taking some jobs from friends and family informally, and you're ready to like make this a real business and income stream for yourself. Then you can join my self paced course over the holidays called Pro Wedding Calligrapher and you can be ready to take clients in the new year and take advantage of those wedding inquiries that are be coming in in January through March and moving forward. The pro wedding calligrapher course is a step by step course that starts from the very beginning of building your business, from defining your vision to getting the business side of things all set up, defining what your services and products are going to be pricing them, booking your first clients and beyond. So I will put a link in the show notes to the course information page, as well as a free masterclass so that you can get started learning from me for free and get your business started for free.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 30:52

Yay. Yeah. I feel like that's such a good way to spend the holidays or the start of the year, because like you said, if they go through this self paced course, then the fact that they can have a business ready to go at the beginning of 2025 is so cool.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 31:06

Oh yeah, for sure. the videos are all like super bite sized 20 minutes or less. And it's kind of like on the job training. So by January, you could totally be at a point where you're like ready to take on client inquiries or, you know, building out your first portfolio and things like that. So yeah, If you want to use your holidays to be super productive and kickstart your business, you absolutely can.

alane_1_12-09-2024_151731 31:30

So we hope that this episode has helped you feel more prepared and more confident about taking some time off over the holidays. We hope that you guys can all. Unplug a hundred percent stress free and just enjoy time with family, friends, kiddos, but before we sign off, we just wanted to thank you again for your support and for being a part of calligraphy biz corner this year. We have so many good things in the works for 2025 and we can't wait for what's to come.

shaochen_1_12-09-2024_131731 31:59

Happy holidays, everyone. Happy new year.