The Bourn Creative Blog | Bourn Creative

International Food Blogger Conference Hits Sacramento, California

October 2, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at the ninth International Food Blogger Conference on What Bloggers Need To Know About SEO. Speaking and training is one of my favorite things to do, and the conference was happening at the Sacramento Convention Center near my home, so saying yes was a no brainer.

Plus, in April 2016, I started my own personal blog Inspired Imperfection, where I share recipes, family adventures, and candid commentary on life, so this event was also going to be an awesome opportunity to meet other local bloggers! While I travel to business events and conference after, the International Food Blogger Conference was actually my first blogging-specific conference.

The two-day food blogging conference ran Friday and Saturday with back-to-back sessions and add-on events happening the Thursday before the event and the Sunday after. Sessions were delivered by a mix of individual expert speakers, moderated panel discussions, and sponsored sessions.

WPBlab: Encouraging Community Members To Speak At WordPress Meetups And WordCamps

September 25, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

This past Thursday Bourn Creative founding partner, Jennifer Bourn, joined Jason Tucker and Bridget Willard for WP Blab, a WordPress-focused, conversational interview show. WPblab streams live every Thursday at 7:00 pm Pacific and is part of the Watercooler Network.

As a co-organizers for the Sacramento WordPress Meetup, co-organizers for WordCamp Sacramento 2015, and lead organizers for WordCamp Sacramento 2016 and WordCamp Sacramento 2017, Jennifer and I book a lot of speakers and beg a lot of community members to share their knowledge with us through speaking.

#FREECON: The Freelance Conference In Austin, Texas

September 13, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

The Freelance Conference claims the spot as the longest running, industry agnostic, freelance business conference in the world.

#FREECON is an event created by freelancers, for freelancers. It was born in the spirit of those who leave or are desiring to leave a job with the dream of time, freedom, better income, and the ability to control your own careers and life. The conference combines that shared vision with the reality of what it takes to make the dream of self-employment come true; a set of skills that few of us come equipped with in full.

Until this fall, I had never attended the Freelance Conference… But earlier this year, I had the opportunity to connect with event founder Emily Leach for a personal and frank conversation about freelancing and our experiences over the many years of being our own bosses. Not only were our experiences similar, but our views and philosophies were aligned so well that she extended an invitation to speak at the Freelance Conference — and of course, I said yes right away.

Creating Profitable Project Plans

August 16, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

What do your project plans look like for client work? Are they working for you, or just more work for you? If you’re looking for a better process for your business, I teamed up with WPSessions to share a practical system that Bourn Creative has not only tested and refined over five years, but used on hundreds of real client projects. This is a battle-tested solution that will help you relieve stress, boost your profits, add value to your service offerings, and create happy clients.

Have you ever felt like you’re drowning in your business and just can’t get ahead… like you’re so busy doing the actual work, it seems like you’ll never have time to work on your own projects and ideas?
Did you begin freelancing to have more freedom and spend more time with your family, but that isn’t exactly how things shaped up?
Are you making good money, but wish you had better margins and higher profits so there was some “wiggle room” in your business?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this webinar was created just for you!

How To Achieve Higher Profits While Working Less And Enjoying More Freedom

August 9, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

“I want to work less and make more money,” is a common desire among internet business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs, but often with so much work to do, it seems next to impossible.

If you focus on sales and marketing, you end up falling behind on client work, and if you focus on client work, you risk losing potential new business. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get ahead of the work you have so you can take the evenings or weekend off… and maybe you’re even so busy that things are starting to slip through the cracks? I have been there, and almost 10 years ago, it all came to a head one night when I realized that I had a big problem in a very embarrassing and public way, and that it needed to be fixed as soon as possible or my business would begin to suffer greatly.

After celebrating Bourn Creative’s twelve year anniversary this July, I decided to share my story, the lessons, learned, and how I overcame exhaustion and stress to run the streamlined, freedom-based business Bourn Creative is today.

Selling A Million Dollars In Design Side Projects

May 18, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Development is clear cut. It works or it doesn’t. The code is well-written or it’s a mess. Design on the other hand, is subjective, with the success of a project often based on the client’s ideas, perceptions, opinions, and personal experiences of what good design is.

Jennifer Bourn (that’s me) is founding partner and lead designer of Bourn Creative. While she spends her days designing high-end, complex, custom WordPress sites and brand suites, she has also sold well over a million dollars in just side projects and add-ons ranging from in price from $75-$3,000 — and the journey has been good, bad, and at times, down right ugly.

Jennifer recently teamed up with iThemes Training to deliver a free webinar called Selling a Million Dollars In Design about selling design services that skips the hype and sugar-coating, and gets right to the mistakes made, lessons learned, and business practices implemented over the 12 years Bourn Creative has been in business.

You Need A Break To Get Things Done

April 15, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

WordCamp San Diego is a WordCamp that we attend every year. Yes, we have many friends in San Diego and I was invited to speak — which makes the event extra fun — but more important, the event offers an curated business track.

A lot of WordCamps offer a business track or business related content, but the sessions are all based on whatever happens to be submitted. WordCamp San Diego does it differently. More specifically, Chris Lema does it differently. Instead of relying on what gets submitted, Chris takes a more proactive approach. Each year, he hand-crafts the entire business track, selecting the topics of each sessions so they build on each other and create a cohesive curriculum. He then identifies the right people to deliver those talks. It makes for a much better attendee experience because all of the talks and speakers compliment each other.

Your Website Contact Page Deserves To Be A Priority

April 7, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

When anyone thinks of creating a new website, writing website content, or interacting on an existing website to improve user experience, the onsite customer journey, or conversions, they almost always begin with the key services, products and sales pages. They then look at the checkout pages for online purchases, the home page, testimonials or reviews, the about page, maybe an FAQ or support page. They even look at the blog. Rarely does any website owner prioritize the website contact page.

When it comes to the contact page of a website, most people barely give it any thought.

Even some of the most beautiful, well-designed websites in the world have ho-hum contact pages. A basic contact form is added to the page, the page is checked off a list of website to-dos, and focus is given to something that matters more. Or worse, the website contact page is viewed as a necessary evil and is created to be more of a barrier than an invitation.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

E. F. Schumacher

How to Build a Strong Brand and Design for Your Learning Platform

April 4, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

I’ve been lucky enough, at industry events and at CaboPress, to spend some quality time with the talented folks over at LifterLMS. Not only do have they created a great product, the LifterLMS WordPress Plugin, they are also really good people. So when Chris Badgett reached out about being a guest on their podcast, LMScast, to talk about branding, of course I said yes!

In this podcast episode, Chris and I talk about branding as it relates to creating an online course.

Brand To Boost Referrals, Attract Clients, and Expand Possibilities

March 31, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Your brand is your core business asset. It is the reputation you have in the market, the perception your audience has about your business, and the feelings and thoughts they associate with your products or services. With a strong, clear brand, decision-making is easy, your value is clear, and you can charge your worth with confidence and certainty.

Today, I led a one hour, free webinar for the awesome iThemes Training community on branding. More specifically, how Clarity Breeds Opportunity and the steps needed so you can Brand To Boost Referrals, Attract Clients, and Expand Possibilities — and the recording is posted FREE for you to watch anytime you want.

This webinar provides you an overview of five critical stages of effective brand development, then focuses on a few of the foundational steps needed to get true clarity and begin transforming your business into an extraordinary brand. You will leave this webinar with a deeper understanding of how to communicate your brand message and stand out from the crowd, and the difference branding makes in securing new clients and receiving more opportunities.

If you have ever struggled to communicate your value or speak effectively with prospects about what you do and why you’re the best choice, this webinar helps you do just that with confidence and ease.

WordCamp Sacramento 2017 Embraces Peace, Love, And WordPress At The Sacramento Convention Center

March 23, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

After an incredible inaugural WordCamp Sacramento in 2015, that sold out in only two hours, it was clear that our Sacramento WordPress community wanted to improve their WordPress skills and meet other WordPressers in the greater Sacramento region — and that a weekend conference, separate from the monthly Sacramento WordPress meetup was very appreciated. I signed on to be lead organizer for WordCamp Sacramento 2016, moving the event to the Sacramento State University Alumni Center, where we welcomed 31 speakers and 350 attendees of all skills levels for a weekend of learning, eating, networking, and fun.

For WordCamp Sacramento 2017, I am once again lead organizer, and once again moving to a new venue — a larger venue we won’t outgrow and hopefully can continue to host WordCamp at years to come. WordCamp Sacramento 2017 will be held September 16-17, 2017 at the Sacramento Convention Center, just steps from the California State Capital, historic attractions, and amazing restaurants, as well as mere blocks from the brand new Golden 1 Center and K Street Mall.

It was really difficult to turn people away after tickets sold out last year because of venue capacity, so I’m really excited that this year we’re taking over the entire second floor meeting space of the convention center and will have enough space to welcome everyone who would like to join us (as long as they buy a ticket by the pre-event cutoff date). We’re expecting around 500 WordPressers this year!

Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017

March 14, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

This past weekend, Brian and I traveled to sunny San Diego for some gorgeous weather and an enormous internet marketing conference hosted by Digital Marketer. While Traffic & Conversion Summit has some “basics” sessions for beginners, the conference best serves more seasoned marketers and marketing agencies — those who have existed for a while, have data to look at, products to sell, and systems to improve.

Brian and I co-organize the Sacramento WordPress Meetup, we helped bring WordCamp to Sacramento in 2015 and I was lead organizer for WordCamp Sacramento 2016 and WordCamp Sacramento 2017, and we speak at and attend WordCamps up and down the west coast. But every once in a while, you’ve got to get out of the WordPress Bubble.

At times, the WordPress community can sound like an echo chamber, views can become limited, and understandings of how WordPress is positioned in the market can get warped. WordCamps, WordPress meetups, and other WordPress focused events like Pressnomics, WooConf, CaboPress, and Loopconf all, not surprisingly, focus on WordPress, and while the events are very valuable for those of us in WordPress, too much of that like-mindedness or only that like-mindedness can be dangerous.

This is why we go to non-WordPress business events and invest in attending at least one non-WordPress conference every year. We also believe that if you ever stop learning, you’ll plateau and be less valuable and helpful to your clients. Part of the reason we invest so heavily in traveling to and attending conference of all types is to:

Brian Clark of Rainmaker Digital Interviews Jennifer Bourn for the Unemployable Podcast

January 26, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Many people have asked me if I would ever take a job and go to work for someone else again. I always answered, “Maybe. I’m always open to possibility and at least a conversation.” Over the last few years, Brian and I have both been offered jobs — jobs normal people would jump at. But really, neither of us are interested in giving up the freedom we have as design agency owners.

While some years were rougher than we’d like, Bourn Creative turns twelve this summer, and we could be happier. We’re fortunate to have a full roster of amazing clients we enjoy working with. We get to work on projects that fulfill us professionally and have time to pursue passion projects and hobbies that fulfill us personally. We can work from anywhere in the world and travel as much as we want (around the kids’ school schedule of course). Business is good. Life is good.

After almost twelve years of making my own schedule and managing my own day, I’m basically unemployable. So when Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Rainmaker Digital, reached out about being a guest on his Unemployable Podcast, I of course said yes.

Build Your Email List Fast With An Irresistible Free Offer

January 10, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

While brands and businesses are all but racing to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat and Instagram, they still are only reaching a small amount of the market. The irresistible email opt-in offer can change that.

The cornerstone of any successful business, online or offline, is its coveted marketing list — the list of customers, clients, prospects and other interested folks who have given you permission to market to them.

Email lists are critical to the success of your business because while not everyone uses social media (it’s crazy, but true), everyone has an email address.

Want to sign up for a social media site? Go ahead. They’ll require and email address.
Want to buy a product? Sure. They’ll need your email address.
Want to subscribe to a publication? No problem. Give them your email address.
Want to become a member? Great. They’ll also ask for your email.

“Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer… But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable… They are people willing to take social risks — to do things that others might disapprove of.”

Malcolm Gladwell

How to Build a Sustainable Referral-Based Business

December 29, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

If you’re a business owner, freelancer or entrepreneur, you’re probably going to networking events and conferences, being present on social media, and investing time and resources in blogging, cold calling, advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization, free offers, teleseminars, webinars, online challenges and direct mail. You’re doing it all to chase new leads, make more sales, gain new clients… and it’s exhausting.

Yet even though you’re working hard to close new sale after new sale and avoid the dreaded self-employment income roller coaster, it feels like you’re always behind.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to stop chasing clients and instead have them chase you? How transformational would it be to have all the new clients and customers you need seek you out, and all you have to do is serve your clients and do what you do best?

This shift in new client and custom acquisition strategy can happen by focusing your efforts on building a sustainable business based on referrals.

How to Create A Website That Works When You’re Not Working

December 21, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Today, a website is a fundamental requirement for every business. The process of planning, designing, and building a website is a critical step in establishing and launching a brand, yet website building is often fraught with problems caused by common misconceptions, misinformation, dangerous shortcuts, and poor guidance.

While no one thinks it will ever happen to them, even the most careful and savvy business owners fall victim to potential threats that sabotage their website’s success from day one.

Luckily, with the right mindset about your small business website, the right approach to creating your site, and the right website strategy to gain conversions, you can create a powerful website that works when you’re not working.

When you’re beginning to think about building a new website, the first step is getting in the right frame of mind so you avoid these three common website fallacies:

10 Simple (Non-Technical) Ways To Improve WordPress Security

December 12, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

At Bourn Creative, we have been building websites since 2005, and working solely with WordPress as our platform of choice since 2008. Over the years, we have said the same thing to every client we work with: WordPress security starts with you.

I can’t emphasize enough how important this idea is when it comes to caring for and maintaining your WordPress website.

Many website owners think that all of the work to build their WordPress website happens up front, but in reality, the design, development and creation of a WordPress site is just the first step. When you launch a new WordPress site, you become a website owner, and as a website owner, it is your responsibility to take care of it, to care for it, and to keep it safe and healthy.

Owning any website, not just a WordPress website, requires ongoing maintenance. Your WordPress website is powered by the WordPress software, and all software — like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Apple iTunes, and all of the Apps on your phone — has ongoing updates that you must manage.

Ignoring software updates can cause a bevy of problems:

You don’t have access to new features that make using the software better and easier.
You don’t benefit from bug fixes that solves problems in the software.
You don’t benefit from compatibility fixes that helps the software play nice with other software.
You don’t benefit from security patches that fix vulnerabilities in the software, which means you’re leaving your website and/or your phone or computer open to being attacked or hacked.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a tech-wizard to keep your WordPress site secure. Even if you’re non-technical, you can take steps to improve WordPress security. Here’s how.

Understand How Consumers Make Buying Decisions To Increase Sales And Fill Your Pipeline

December 2, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Imagine what business would be like if you didn’t have to pitch and sell or seek out and convince new clients to hire you. Imagine how different your business would be if your pipeline was consistently full and potential clients said “yes” with excitement after only a conversation or two.

Over the years, our project size has increased dramatically, but our approach to consistently making high-value sales with ease is still the same. A successful sales process requires a core understanding of what is most important to buyers and how they make buying decisions.

Learn Your Clients’ Wants And Needs

Before you can even have a sales conversation, you first have to understand what your clients need — and not just their surface wants, but their secret inner desires. They might tell you they want to sell more books, fill a program, sell out an event, fill a practice, or help more people. Every clients wants to achieve those things.

Every client wants to make more money.

But you need to explore beneath the surface wants to figure out why they really are reaching out to inquire about your services — and it’s often not what you think.

Clients want to be heard and validated

Everyone has a varied set of life experiences that shape their views in different ways, especially when dealing with design, which is subjective and emotional. One person might think a design is amazing, while another thinks it is awful. Both perspectives are right, they just have different background stories.

Kyle Maurer Interviews Jennifer Bourn For WP Roundtable

November 29, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to chat with Kyle Maurer for the WP Roundtable podcast. Our conversation was really organic and natural and it covers some WordPress, some business, some personal stuff that I’ve never shared in an interview before.

I’m not sure how much caffeine I drank the day we recorded this interview, but this is probably my most honest, animated, candid, and feisty interview ever.

How To Create An Ideal Client Profile And Use It To Make Your Marketing More Effective

November 7, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Last week I shared some thoughts on the gut of surface-level blog posts about defining an ideal client and why it is helpful in business. My article on Defining Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages walks you through what an ideal client profile is, why you need one, and how it helps your marketing efforts. I even provided some tips on how to identify who your ideal client is.

The feedback on the article so far has been amazing, so I wanted to take it a step further and really dig in deeper to share exactly how to create an ideal client profile, in another article I wrote for GoDaddy, Narrow Your Focus: Tips For Creating An Ideal Client Profile And Putting It To Work, including:

9 Ways evaluate data to create an ideal client profile
How to get the data needed to create an ideal client profile
How to use an ideal client profile

Here is the full article:

“Good designers must always be avant-gardists, always one step ahead of the times. They should–and must–question everything generally thought to be obvious. They must have an intuition for people’s changing attitudes. For the reality in which they live, for their dreams, their desires, their worries, their needs, their living habits. They must also be able to assess realistically the opportunities and bounds of technology.”

Dieter Rams

Define Your Client Persona To Create Targeted Marketing Messages

October 31, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

There is a lot of talk about defining an ideal client profile or ideal client persona online and throughout social media, especially in the entrepreneurial, freelance, solopreneur, online business, and internet marketing arenas. Some of it is good, some of it is okay but a bit misguided, and some of it is downright incorrect — yikes!

The problem is the same for anything that becomes a marketing buzz-word or assumed magic pill for success: everyone, even non-experts, jump on the hype bandwagon and start writing blog posts to earn extra traffic and capitalize on the buzzword. This means that many of the blog posts attempting to teach you about ideal client profiles and how to use a client persona aren’t teaching from first-hand experience and wild success, but from mere regurgitation of what they themselves have read online.

If you’re not quite sure what an ideal client profile or client persona is, or even how to use it, this article I recently wrote for GoDaddy, Cast a narrower net: Define your client persona to easily create targeted marketing messages, will get you started in the right direction: