The Peaceful Creatives Podcast

I think when we talk about becoming a creative expert, it's really easy to imagine someone who's super confident, has all the answers, charges enormous prices and walks into every client meeting knowing EXACTLY what to say.And if you're not naturally that person, you might start to wonder whether being an expert is really something you can become without changing who you are.But I don't think being a creative expert is about having a particular personality, being better than anybody else or suddenly becoming the loudest person in your industry.I think it's much more about how you see your own work, how much you trust your creativity and whether you're giving your expertise the space it deserves.So in today's episode, we're having a little chat about the difference between being a creative expert and simply providing a service, and what starts to change when you genuinely believe in the value of what you do.Because you can be incredibly talented, experienced and brilliant at your work, but still find yourself playing small, downplaying your contribution or feeling like your clients are the ones who should be making all the decisions.And I think there's something really powerful about recognising that you don't need to become a different person to change that. You can still be warm, kind, collaborative, quiet, funny or whatever feels natural to you.You just don't have to keep making yourself smaller. 💖✨ Watch my free Booked Without Burnout workshop: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshop💖 Join the Booked Not Busy waitlist: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/waitlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know those client projects that are supposed to take four weeks but somehow end up taking eight? Or the ones that seem to hang around in your project management system for approximately FOREVER, even though you're pretty sure you finished your part weeks ago? 😂I think project overruns are one of those things we can get so used to as creative business owners that we almost start treating them as inevitable. But when projects constantly take longer than planned, they don't just make our schedules a little messy. They can have a HUGE impact on our capacity, income and ability to actually enjoy running our businesses.And while we might be quick to blame late client feedback or unexpected changes, there are often things we can do much earlier in the project to make everything run a whole lot more smoothly.So in today's episode, I'm sharing five things that can make client projects overrun and what I'd do to avoid them, so you can create more predictable timelines, protect your working week and stop projects spilling into time you'd planned for something else.Because a peaceful, booked-up business isn't just about having wonderful clients and exciting projects. It's about having the space to deliver them without everything overlapping, overrunning and becoming unnecessarily stressful.✨ Watch my free Booked Without Burnout workshop: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshop💖 Join the Booked Not Busy waitlist: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/waitlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I speak to SO many creatives who are getting enquiries, working with lovely clients and creating work they're genuinely proud of… but somehow, everybody seems to want their cheapest package.They've got a brilliant signature service, they've priced it intentionally and they KNOW it's worth the investment. But whenever someone gets in touch, the budget just doesn't seem to be there.And I think it's really easy to start questioning your pricing, wondering whether you need to offer more or feeling like you need to become a much better salesperson.But what if the problem isn't actually your pricing at all?In today's episode, we're talking about why you might be attracting people who only want your lowest-priced service, and how to change your positioning to attract more clients who are ready to invest in your signature offer.Because I don't think getting people to invest more is about convincing them your work is worth more money.It's about understanding the value of the problems you're solving and making sure you're speaking to the people who genuinely need your expertise.And sometimes, a relatively small shift in how you talk about your work can make a HUGE difference to who sees themselves as your perfect client 💖💖 JOIN THE BOOKED NOT BUSY WAITLISTIf you're ready to attract more of your perfect people, feel confident in your expertise and get booked up with the projects you actually want, I'd love to support you inside Booked Not Busy.Join the waitlist here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/waitlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think one of the biggest reasons we can spend SO much time trying to make our businesses less stressful without actually feeling much better is that we're often fixing all the little things rather than looking at the business that's creating the stress in the first place.Because you can have the most beautiful project management system in the world, wonderful boundaries and a perfectly organised to-do list, but if your business is designed in a way that constantly leaves you worrying about money, scrambling for clients or working beyond your capacity, those things are only going to get you so far.So in today's episode, I'm sharing how I'd make your creative business less stressful over the next six weeks, without asking you to completely overhaul everything you've already built.We're getting back to the foundations of a peaceful, booked-up business, identifying where your biggest source of stress is coming from and looking at how you can make some meaningful changes over the next six weeks.Because I don't think you should have to become brilliant at managing stress to run a successful business. I think you deserve a business that creates a whole lot less of it in the first place 💖✨ Watch my free Booked Without Burnout workshop: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshopAnd if you're ready to build a business that's more consistently booked up AND less stressful to run, Booked Not Busy is currently open for enrolment!Inside, we'll bring together your booking strategy, positioning, pricing, offers and marketing to help you create 2–3 months of dream-client projects, more consistent income and a business that actually supports the life you want.💖 Find out more and join Booked Not Busy: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/bookednotbusy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about getting booked up is that it inevitably means getting busier. More clients, more projects, more work, more responsibility, more things to squeeze into your already pretty full week. And if you want to earn more money or feel more secure in your business, surely you've just got to accept that things are going to get a little more stressful?Well, I don't think that's true at all. Because over the last decade, I've built a creative business that's regularly booked up months ahead, with lovely dream-client projects, consistent income and a working week that's actually designed around my life.It's happened because I've been really intentional about how all the different parts of my business work together. And that's exactly what I shared in my Booked Without Burnout workshop this week!So for today's episode, I'm doing something a little different and sharing an edited version of the workshop with you.Now, I've edited out the live Q&A for this podcast episode, but if you'd like to watch the full workshop, including all the questions I answered afterwards, you can still register and get access to the complete replay!✨ Watch the full Booked Without Burnout workshop + Q&A here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshopAnd if you're listening to this thinking that you're ready to stop trying to make all the different pieces of your business work independently and actually build a strategy that brings them together, I'd love to welcome you into Booked Not Busy 💖Booked Not Busy is my group mentoring program for established creative service providers who want to get booked up peacefully for 2–3 months with dream clients, consistent income and a business that supports their actual capacity, goals and life.Inside, we'll work on everything from your booking schedule, pricing and offers to your positioning, processes and marketing, so you can create more security and steadiness without needing to work more and more to make it happen.✨ Find out more about Booked Not Busy here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/bookednotbusy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think we often see our booking schedules as the place we put our clients once they've said yes to working with us. Someone enquires, we have a lovely chat, they want to book and we open up our calendar to see when we can squeeze them in.But what if your booking schedule could do SO much more than tell you when your next project starts?What if it could help you feel more secure about your income, more confident in your pricing, less stressed about your marketing, more excited about your client projects and give you the actual SPACE to enjoy running your business?Because that's what mine does. And I don't think I realised quite how many parts of my business it affects until I sat down and started writing them all out 😂So for today's episode, I've made a list of 12 things that are pretty important to running my business, and I'm taking you through how my booking schedule affects every single one of them.We're talking about everything from pricing, cash flow and marketing to my offers, client experience, boundaries, creativity, time off and even the decisions I make about where I want my business to go next. Because the way I see it, having a booking strategy isn't about having a prettier calendar or being able to tell people you're booked until next March. It's about deciding how you want your business to work FIRST, and then creating a schedule that helps you make that happen. And when you know what work is coming, what it's worth, how much space you have and where your next projects are going to fit, it becomes so much easier to make decisions from a place of security rather than stress.That's the difference between simply being booked and being booked up peacefully.And it's exactly what we're exploring in my upcoming free workshop, Booked Without Burnout!✨ Join me here: mentor.gattoweb.com/workshopAnd if you already know you'd love my support building this into your own business, Booked Not Busy is opening soon too 💖Booked Not Busy is my group mentoring program for established creative service providers who want 2–3 months of steady dream-client projects, consistent income and a business that makes space for their actual life.✨ Join the waitlist for early access here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/bnb-waitlist-25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we think about becoming better at what we do, I think our brains naturally go to MORE. More experience. More clients. More training. More skills. Another course. Another qualification. Maybe another 47 hours spent learning something everybody else on Instagram apparently already knows 😂But when I think about the things that have actually made me a better creative expert over the last decade, some of them are a little more unexpected.Today I'm sharing 5 slightly unexpected things that I think have made me better at my work, more confident in my expertise and much clearer about the kind of expert I actually want to be.We're talking about doing fewer things for longer, knowing what I don't know, pushing back with clients, protecting space for creativity and choosing to celebrate other people's success rather than using it as evidence that I should be doing something differently.Last week we talked about the practical foundations that make a business more burnout-proof. This week we're looking at the other side: becoming the confident, clearly positioned expert your perfect people actually want to book into that lovely spacious schedule.And that's exactly what I'm bringing together inside my free workshop, Booked Without Burnout.✨ Join me here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshop I'll show you how to bring the positioning AND capacity sides of your business together, so you can create more consistent dream-client projects without filling every available inch of your calendar.And if you already know you want my support building this into your business, Booked Not Busy is opening soon too 💖✨ Join the Booked Not Busy waitlist here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/waitlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I don't think avoiding burnout should be another job we're expected to become really good at alongside running a business 😅Get better at managing your time. Take more breaks. Set better boundaries. Stop checking your emails in the evening. Learn to say no. And sure - all of those things can help.But if the actual structure of your business means you need to say yes to every enquiry because you don't know when the next one is coming, squeeze projects into an already-full calendar because you need the income, work with clients who drain you and spend all of your time delivering work with absolutely none left to think about where the business is going...There's only so much a Friday afternoon off can fix.So today I want to talk about what I think makes a business genuinely more burnout-proof.I'm sharing the 7 things I'd want built into any business that needs to give its owner good money, exciting work and plenty of bookings WITHOUT asking them to sacrifice all of their time and energy to get there.We're talking steady bookings, genuinely perfect-fit clients, joyful work, proper space for real life, secure pricing, room for the business to evolve and the kind of confidence that comes when you truly believe you're the expert your perfect people need.But more importantly, we're talking about how all of those things connect.They're not seven separate problems you need to fix. They're a system. And what if we could take the facts of how you want to work, what you want to work on, who you want to work with and what you want to earn... and turn them into an actual strategy for a business that supports all of it?That's exactly what I'm teaching in my free workshop, Booked Without Burnout.✨ You can sign up here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/workshopWe'll look at how to create more consistent bookings without filling every available inch of your calendar, so your business can feel steadier AND less stressful at the same time.And if you already know you want my support putting all of this into practice, Booked Not Busy is opening soon!Booked Not Busy is my group program for established creative service providers who want to get booked up peacefully for 2–3 months using a strategic booking system and confident expert positioning that draws in the dreamiest, calmest projects.✨ Join the waitlist here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/waitlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I want to talk about why your higher prices don't automatically need to mean stuffed offers - whether you're moving from £1k to £2.5k, £2.5k to £5k, £5k to £10k or anywhere beyond.It's about the client you're solving the problem for, the transformation they're investing in, your positioning and, importantly, your confidence in your own expertise.I'm sharing how my own core creative offer has gone from £1,800 in 2017 to £10–15k today without me handing over eight times as much work 😂, why I've absolutely fallen into the trap of overstuffing my offers in the past, and what I think we should be looking at instead when we want to move our pricing up.If you’d like to hear more about the behind the scenes of my business, I’ve recorded a mini private podcast series called Six Months of Peaceful Bookings, where I take you behind the scenes of the period where I booked £60k of projects that filled 6 months of my calendar, in just 6 weeks.✨ You can access it here: http://mentor.gattoweb.com/privatepodcastAnd my group program, Booked Not Busy, where you can get booked up peacefully for 2–3 months using a strategic booking system and confident expert positioning that draws in the dreamiest, calmest projects, is opening soon!You can join the waitlist to get early access here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/bnb-waitlist-25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is it that I can come back from a break, open up a client project and pretty quickly remember what I'm doing... but sending one little email to my own audience suddenly feels like an enormously vulnerable public event? 😂I'm back at work after taking some time away and, if I'm honest, I've felt a bit nervous about being properly visible again. There's something about stepping away from marketing for a while that makes something you've done hundreds of times suddenly feel MUCH bigger than it did before.And I know I'm not the only one.So today we're talking about how to restart your marketing after a break without convincing yourself that you need a brand new strategy, seven weeks of content planned in advance and one absolutely spectacular COMEBACK POST before you're allowed to show your face on Instagram again.I'm sharing why I think marketing can feel particularly difficult to return to, why you absolutely do not need to “catch up” on the content you didn't create while you were away, how I'm making my own return easier, and some of the things I'd focus on if your marketing is currently feeling a little bit rusty too.Because you probably haven't forgotten how to market your business.You just haven't done it for a little while.And sometimes the quickest way back isn't to think your way into feeling confident enough to start again — it's to do one small, normal thing and let it become normal again.If you’d like to hear more about the behind the scenes of my business, I’ve recorded a mini private podcast series called Six Months of Peaceful Bookings, where I take you behind the scenes of the period where I booked £60k of projects that filled 6 months of my calendar, in just 6 weeks.✨ You can access it here: http://mentor.gattoweb.com/privatepodcastAnd my group program, Booked Not Busy, where you can get booked up peacefully for 2–3 months using a strategic booking system and confident expert positioning that draws in the dreamiest, calmest projects, is opening soon!You can join the waitlist to get early access here: https://www.mentor.gattoweb.com/bnb-waitlist-25 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.