Candy Phelps is the founder of Bizzy Bizzy Creative, creator of the 1 Day™ Website and other 1 Day services. We certify other web design agencies in our unique model!
This is her story…
Tell us about your business.
Bizzy Bizzy helps freelancers, innovators and creative agencies make more money, save time and find joy in their work. We offer tangible creative tools, digital assets and training. We also license and certify creative agencies and web designers in our proprietary 1 Day™ Website model so they can learn to build a website in a day for their clients.
Please tell us what being a business owner means to you and why you became an entrepreneur in the first place?
I became an entrepreneur mostly out of desperation. The economy had just crashed in 2008. I was miserable at my job, but no one was hiring. So I saved up some money and went out on my own, much to my parents’ chagrin. But what I quickly found was that I am an entrepreneur more than anything else that I am. I love everything about running my own business. As someone who is an ambitious, creative, problem solver and lifelong learner, entrepreneurship is a natural fit for me. I wake up every day excited about the work that I’m doing and the people I am helping. I measure my success in happiness — the happiness of me and my family, my team and my clients. After 10 years of working full time for myself, at this point, I’m pretty much unemployable.
What or who has been your greatest influence in business and why?
I’m so grateful for all the friends, family and mentors I have in my life. If I have to pick one, my best friend Heather, who is not actually a business owner, has probably been my biggest influence in business. She was the one who taught me about the power of positive psychology and gratitude, which I enact every single day in my life and business. She is a natural leader who has advised me extensively on managing people as I have grown my business. And she’s also my biggest cheerleader. Whenever I am feeling defeated, a call with her can always lift my spirits and keep me moving forward.
What would you say is your greatest professional accomplishment to date?
My greatest professional accomplishment has been to invent and now license the 1 Day™ Website model. When I started freelancing and building websites for a living, it seemed to me there were a lot of problems with the way things were being done. Namely, projects required months of back-and-forth emailing with clients even for basic projects. The work of building a website was in done bits and pieces over time and made terribly inefficient with so many stops and starts. It was a painful process for everyone involved. After some serious research, innovation and experimentation, I invented the model we now use today, where we work in real time with our clients and team to create awesome websites in one day. The model has been so successful that we are now licensing our process and tools to other web design agencies. Something that was just a crazy idea a few years ago has finally come to fruition. It has required an immense investment of finances and time on my part. But now, I have written my second book and designed and manufactured several tangible tools that our licensees will leverage when building their websites.
I’m really proud of the work we are doing with our small business clients, but I’m even more excited about helping other creative agencies and freelancers become more successful and happy by using our 1 Day model.
What’s the best advice you have received in business that you wish to pass on to our readers?
Get insurance! We went without insurance for several years until a very scary website hacking situation came up. Luckily it turned out fine, but I lost so much sleep worrying about all the horrible things that could happen. After that, we got the appropriate insurance. Around the same time, we leased our own office. A couple years later, our office building started on fire, and we had to use that insurance. Without coverage, we would have lost $10,000+ worth of furniture and computers and had to start all over.
Insurance is the worst. Until it’s the best.
What has been the most effective marketing initiatives or programs you have used to promote your business?
Search engine optimization and content marketing have long been the most successful pieces of my marketing strategy. Content marketing comes natural to me because I love learning and sharing knowledge, and I don’t like “selling.” Writing blogs, tutorials and other educational content helped get my website to the top of a lot of Google search results, which drives leads. Content marketing is my favorite marketing method because it doesn’t feel yucky or overly promotional. It feels good to help people!
What one thing have you learned as a small business owner that has served you well over the years?
I could fill an entire book with business lessons learned the hard way. In fact, I did! Like I always say, “What doesn’t kill you makes your memoir stronger!” But one of the most important things I’ve learned is that you have to focus to succeed.
As a creative entrepreneur, I can easily get carried away with ALL THE IDEAS. Because I design brands and websites for a living, it’s actually pretty easy to “whip up a new business” over the weekend.
At first I thought it was a good idea to try running two completely different businesses at the same time and see what stuck. I just kept waiting for one of them to magically “take off,” and then it would be clear what direction to take.
After having mild success with my creative agency and pretty much wasting a lot of time and money trying to build an art website, I finally called it quits with the art website. It was an embarrassing failure because I had actually gotten quite a bit of attention for the art site around my community (which is why I kept thinking it was just about to take off.) But I had so few customers, we were actually losing money by being in business.
Once I had that time and resources back to fully devote to my creative agency, we were able to grow more quickly than before. And I was so much less busy and stressed.
I truly believe any idea or business is possible with the right amount of attention, hard work and resources. So now every time I want to start a new business, I simply put it on a list of future business ideas and save it for another time. OK, if I’m being perfectly honest, I usually indulge and buy the domain name too. But no more starting new businesses just because I can.
Are there any resources or tools you’d like to share with other small business owners that have helped you run your business?
The Art of Money https://www.amazon.com/Art-
Also, Joy Inc. https://www.amazon.com/Joy-
What do you do for fun/relaxation?
I have toddler and a border collie, so there isn’t much time for relaxing! But if I find myself with some extra time, I love to hike, kayak, travel, miniature garden and have a mimosa on a patio.
What is Number One Business Goal you plan to accomplish over the next year?
My goal is to sign up 15 new licensees for our 1 Day Website licensing and certification program in the next year.
You want to write a book on sleeping …. I just finished my second book “How to Make a Website in One Day.” So besides that, I am really interested in sleep–how it works in the brain, what happens when people are sleeping, dreams, etc. I would love to spend some serious time researching it and then writing a dystopian novel about a future when only the wealthiest people get to sleep. It’s in the works but will probably be retirement before I get to it!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
If you’re having a rough time in your business or you’re at some kind of crossroads, go back to your core values. Realign with what’s truly important to you. Do some mind maps and pros-and-cons lists and talk it out. The answer is usually there if you just explore all the possibilities.
What’s the best way for the readers of WE Magazine for Women to connect with you?
https://bizzybizzycreative.com
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