Things I Added to My Contract After a Client From Hell | EP 228

The longer you run a business, the less your systems are based on theory and the more they're based on experience. Every process, every boundary, and every clause usually exists because something happened once and you decided you never wanted to solve that problem again.A simple Instagram post about my contract unexpectedly started a much bigger conversation about business boundaries, difficult clients, founder standards, and why clear systems aren't there to make your business harder to work with. They're there to protect your time, your team, your creativity, and the quality of your work. This is a conversation about entrepreneurship, service businesses, client management, contracts, and the small decisions that quietly shape the kind of business you end up running.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

Welcome to Off By 2 with Kady Sandel.In this episode, I'm sharing why I decided to rename the podcast and move away from teaching graphic designers how to grow their businesses.Over the past year, I've realized I'm more excited by conversations about entrepreneurship, business, leadership, branding, and building a life that actually fits the way you want to live. That's the direction this podcast is heading.I also share the story behind the name Off By 2, what it means to me, and why I believe every founder gets to define success on their own terms.If you're building a business and want honest conversations about growth, difficult decisions, ambition, and creating a business that supports your life instead of taking it over, you're in the right place.Welcome to Off By 2. I'm excited you're here.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

A business can work perfectly on paper and still leave you feeling completely disconnected from it. The invoices get paid, the clients are happy, and by every external measure you've built the thing you said you wanted, and yet you open your laptop and feel nothing. That flat hum of boredom is easy to dismiss when the money's fine, but it's often the most useful signal a founder can get, and this episode is about what happens when you finally decide to listen to it.I'm talking honestly about the years I took every client, ran a coworking space, and kept saying yes to work that paid but didn't interest me, and how a business that functions can quietly become a trap. I get into the nap-time decision that made me raise my pricing from three thousand to twelve thousand, the slow narrowing toward skincare branding, and the five thousand dollars I spent on ads that taught me the difference between busy metrics and real alignment.If you're building a business that feels slightly off, one that's making money but doesn't fit the life you actually want, this is a grounded look at how alignment gets built through small decisions over years rather than one dramatic pivot. It's about the difference between a business that runs and a business you genuinely want to run, from a branding studio owner who spent too long confusing the two.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

Building a profitable design business isn't just about attracting more clients. At some point, it becomes about deciding which ones deserve a place in the business you're creating. That shift is much harder than most people expect because it forces you to stop measuring success by how many opportunities come your way and start measuring it by how your work actually feels every day.Over the past twenty years as a designer and eleven years running my agency, I've gone from designing for anyone who would hire me to becoming incredibly selective about the founders I work with. That journey has changed my approach to branding, niching, client relationships, and what I believe a successful creative business should actually look like. If you've been wondering whether it's time to niche down, raise your standards, or build a business that feels more aligned with the life you want, this conversation might resonate more than you expect.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

Most creative businesses do not stay small because the owner is not talented enough. They stay stuck because the business was built too broad, too reactive, and too focused on proving something instead of building something with a clear shape underneath it. Scattered services, unclear positioning, systems that live entirely in your head, and visibility treated like an afterthought. These are not beginner mistakes you grow out of automatically. They are patterns that compound quietly for years.This episode is a honest look back at what I would do differently if I started Aventive Studio over today, after two decades in branding, over 350 brands, and a lot of hard-won clarity about what actually creates momentum in a creative agency. From narrowing services earlier to building around the life I actually wanted, this is less about tactics and more about the thinking that changes everything underneath the surface.If your business feels harder than it should right now, or like it has never quite found its shape, this one is worth a listen.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

Your design style usually does not appear overnight. It slowly reveals itself through the things you naturally keep returning to over years of building, creating, observing, saving inspiration, buying products, designing spaces, and paying attention to what emotionally resonates with you.This conversation explores branding, creative direction, positioning, minimal design, quiet luxury branding, skincare branding, personal taste, entrepreneurship, and the emotional connection between your identity and the business you build. I talk about why I never wanted to chase clients, how my personal taste slowly shaped my agency, why I became so drawn toward minimal and elevated branding, and how narrowing into skincare finally made my business feel creatively aligned.I also share the difference between having a recognizable design style and making every brand look the same, why I believe strong branding is emotional first, and why I think many creatives ignore the very thing that could actually become their strongest positioning.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

There is a difference between building a successful business and building a life that actually feels good to live.For years, work life balance was framed as either laziness or some unrealistic fantasy. But the older I get, the more I realize balance has very little to do with working less. It has much more to do with alignment, ownership over your time, and building a business that supports the type of life you actually want long term.This conversation explores entrepreneurship, motherhood, freedom, creative alignment, ambition, business growth, lifestyle design, productivity culture, and the emotional difference between looking successful externally versus feeling connected to your life internally. I also talk about raising my prices during COVID after becoming a mom, growing up in Europe versus living in America, building a slower and more intentional lifestyle, and why I no longer want success that comes at the expense of presence, relationships, creativity, or peace.The older I get, the less interested I become in building a life that only looks impressive from the outside. I want the business itself to support the way I actually want to live.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

Hustle culture became aspirational because, in the beginning stages of business, hard work genuinely creates momentum. But eventually many entrepreneurs realize they built identities around being busy instead of building businesses that actually align with the life they want.This conversation explores hustle culture, entrepreneurship, ambition, creative alignment, burnout, founder psychology, business growth, and the difference between working harder versus building more intentionally. We talk about overworking, business evolution, identity shifts, pricing, motherhood, building a calmer business, and why clarity eventually matters more than constant movement.I also share the story of raising my prices from $3K to $12K after becoming a mom during COVID, why I shifted away from teaching designers full time, and how narrowing my agency into skincare completely changed the way I think about business and alignment.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

There is a difference between being productive and being aligned.For a long time, I thought my problem was focus. But eventually I realized the real issue was that I had too many open directions at the same time. The agency was growing, the education business existed, the podcast existed, new ideas kept appearing, and externally everything still looked successful. Internally, though, I felt creatively scattered.This conversation explores business coaching, creative alignment, founder growth, entrepreneurship, personal branding, focus, business evolution, and why clarity becomes one of the most valuable things ambitious people can invest in. We talk about hiring coaches during different seasons of business, why some conversations change your direction completely, and how I finally realized what I actually want to build long term.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠

A lot of people still look at branding like they are purchasing individual design deliverables. A logo. Packaging. A website. But once businesses start growing, the conversation changes completely. Founders stop asking whether a logo is worth a certain amount of money and start asking whether the brand itself reflects the level they are trying to reach.Building a premium skincare brand involves much more than visuals. Positioning, perception, customer trust, packaging systems, messaging, website experience, and strategic direction all start influencing growth at the same time. And that is why premium branding projects are rarely about decoration. They are about helping businesses become clearer, stronger, more intentional, and more aligned with the market they want to compete in.This conversation explores premium branding, skincare branding, creative agencies, positioning, pricing, business growth, customer perception, packaging design, Shopify websites, and the difference between freelance execution and building a real strategic branding agency.Links to Connect:Media & speaking: ⁠⁠https://kadysandel.com⁠⁠My skincare branding studio: ⁠⁠https://aventivestudio.com⁠⁠For designers: ⁠⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/profit⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/kadysandel/⁠