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What are Visualizations – Manifest What You Want

The blog post What are Visualizations – Manifest What You Want is from heartmade.es.

Hello!

In this video I’m explaining you what are visualizations and how you can do it every day to help you achieve your goals faster using the law of attraction.

I’m currently doing between 2 and 3 visualizations per day and I recommend everyone to do them too, because it’s super easy and IT WORKS!!

I hope you find this useful and feel free to check my other video in which I explain you my morning routine, including visualizations and many other exercises to have a happy day

My morning routine

Remember that you can download this free guide to help you create your own personalized morning ritual:

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Morning Ritual for Happy Days

The blog post Morning Ritual for Happy Days is from heartmade.es.

Hello!! Today I’m coming with a very personal video to share with your my morning ritual routine to have a happy day.

It took me a while to arrive to these exact steps, and I recommend you to try different things to see which ones resonate with you. We are all unique and we need unique rituals

You can download the free workbook here:

In the video I explain all the things I do, but if you prefer to read, here you have it:

Visualizations

The first thing I do right after waking up is to decide what do I want to focus on and do a visualization to achieve that goal.

Sometimes it will be around work, others around mindset, personal success, etc…

The idea of the visualization is to allow yourself to connect with the feeling you want to have once you arrive to that point. So if you want to win an award, picture yourself receiving it and celebrating it. Put yourself in the movie and live it, don’t watch it from outside.

Journaling

There’s not much to say about journaling. I don’t think there’s any rule or correct way to do it. Just open yourself and throw all your thought in a paper. For me it helps me get clarity and stop messing around with my thoughts.

Morning gratitude

This is one of those exercices that might sound stupid or unnecessary to many people, but that when you start trying it you really feel how powerful they are. Pick 3 things you are grateful for this morning and write them down in paper, don’t just think about them. Sometimes I even do a short visualisation to feel that gratitude with all it’s power.

Goals & Focus

Each morning I connect with my goals. It can be my life goal, my yearly goal or my daily goal. Whatever you want to focus on today, write it down and be clear on the things that can help you achieve that goal, which will become your focus tasks. If you find it hard to focus in one thing, I recommend you to watch my video about the book “The One Thing” and read the book. It has helped me a lot!

Plan

After reminding my goal and my targets for today, I schedule the tasks and plan my morning in blocks of 30min (like that I can work with Pomodoros).

Positive Statements

The more you work on your mindset, the more limiting believes you will discover in yourself. Every time I discover a new one I make a list of positive statements to repeat them until I believe them to unblock the limiting believe.

Happy Song

I know that after listening to a happy song and dancing as if there was no tomorrow makes me smile and connect with my deepest happiness, so if you feel the same with this or with other actions, do that every morning and you will see how your day starts with the best energy!

You can download a workbook to put all this in practice here:

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Easy Levels and Curves Photoshop Tutorial

The blog post Easy Levels and Curves Photoshop Tutorial is from heartmade.es.

This week I’m coming with a video tutorial requested by Kim on my Youtube channel. She asked me “would you please guide on how to use level and curve since these are so scary to use, really complicated.”

I hope with this easy levels and curves Photoshop tutorial you find it less scary and more fun to use those tools to edit your images. I honestly can’t live without levels and curves, so even if I’m not planning to edit a photo or drawing, at least I’ll apply these two effects to add a little bit more of contrast and brightness to the image

This is how I do it:

As you can see in the video tutorial, I love using levels and curves to brighten my images and saturate the colors, but you can achieve any effect you wish:

You can edit the intensity of the black, white and grey shades of your image and you can also edit each color channel independently.

Remember to practice by using intelligent layers, like that you can always go back and edit them again if needed. That’s the best solution to stop feeling afraid to use them!

I hope you like this tutorial and as always, don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel here and leave your comments and requests so that I can make a video tutorial for you too

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The One Thing Book Review for Productivity

The blog post The One Thing Book Review for Productivity is from heartmade.es.

I just finished reading The One Thing book and I can’t wait to share my thoughts with you.

I will be forever grateful to the people from The Happy Boss Club who recommended me this book. At that time I was in Malaysia and I tried to buy it there, but they did not have any copy

I ended up buying another book and it wasn’t until a couple of months later that I remembered the title and decided to buy The One Thing on Amazon. I was on the way to buy other books so I felt it was the perfect time to ship them all together

Now I must say “Oh my!”, I wish I had read it before! It’s the perfect book for people like me, who feel overwhelmed by never-ending to-do lists and don’t know how to focus on one thing.

I tend to feel excited about so many ideas + I’m always (let me correct that and say “I was always”) putting others first.

Now, this last thing (the fact of putting myself first) has been a major change for me, and although the book could have had something to do with it, the change came before thanks to other mindset work I’ve been doing

But coming back to The One Thing Book: as I was saying, it’s ideal if you find yourself prioritizing tasks just because others ask you to do them, or because they come to your mind at any time, or because you read an email, etc…

And it arrives the end of the day and you realize you haven’t moved a finger towards your goal, instead, you have been adding more and more things to your to-do list.

I was like this. I was feeling overwhelmed, especially days before a major change such as traveling to a new country or having a due date for a project…

And the worse is that I felt so overwhelmed that I ended up without motivation and energy to do anything. So those days instead of being more productive, they were procrastination power.

If The One Thing book has taught me something (I have learned tons of things but let’s chose one) it’s been that saying NO is not only good and important, it’s necessary! 

By saying NO to other things, you are committing to your One Thing, which when you read the book will understand it can be anything and it can be changing all the time. You can have a One Thing for Today, another one for Right Now, another one for This Week, etc etc… And if you connect them all together to your ultimate life goal (or if you don’t want to be so idealistic and just stick to your yearly goal) you will really move faster and end up achieving anything you desire.

So, to recap, if you feel you struggle to know what to do, how to achieve your goals and how to focus in one thing, the book “The One Thing” is a must read for you

Here you have the link to Amazon in case you are ready to change your productivity forever.

And before you go, don’t forget that on April 26th at 10 am UTC I’m hosting my first ever webinar, talking about productivity for bloggers. You can save your spot by registering here:

Or visiting this page for more info: https://ift.tt/2J4529J

Hope to see you there!

The blog post The One Thing Book Review for Productivity is from heartmade.es.

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Save time selecting your blog post images

The blog post Save time selecting your blog post images is from heartmade.es.

In today’s video-tutorial I will show you how I save time selecting my blog post images.

I started blogging back in 2013 and although I enjoy writing, it’s never been my main passion either the main task in my business. That’s why when I discovered how much time I was dedicating to blogging I questioned myself if it was really worth it.

If you are anything like me, I bet you’ve felt the same at some point.

Feeling you dedicate too much time to these marketing techniques, not even being sure if it’s really helping your business growth or if it’s just something you continue doing because it’s the common path…

I even stop blogging for a while.

But today I’m here to share with you the solution I found to save time blogging and avoid throwing the towel.

During the past years, I’ve created a system and discovered many techniques and tools that had helped me grow my blogging productivity. If you want to learn more about them I would love you to join my first ever live masterclass.

You can register here for free and in one hour I’ll share with you my favorite tips to stop wasting time blogging and never feel lazy to do a blog post again

>> REGISTER WEBINAR <<

But today, as I mentioned before, I’ll talk about how I save time selecting my blog images because that’s one of the tasks that was taking me longer. To reduce the time I spend curating the best images for each blog post, I did the following:

1. Having a list of favorite bank images

With time, I’ve come up with a selection of websites where I can find photos with my branding style. All I need to do is visit them every time I need new pictures and finding the best ones for my upcoming blog posts.

For now, my favorite places to search for images are:

Unsplash: it’s a modern and free stock bank with high-quality images. The photographers who participate in that website never disappoint me, and I usually find very nice shots to illustrate what I need.

Creative Market: but if you have been following me for a while, you would have noticed that I don’t use a lot of images. I mainly use illustrations painted by me. If I wasn’t painting my own illustrations, what I would do would be to download them from Creative Market. That’s the place where I actually sell my paintings as clip arts, so if you need watercolors don’t hesitate to check my packages here.

But in Creative Market you can find many other images too. One of my favorite stock photographers is Twigy posts. She takes beautifully styled pictures that can bring the professional touch to your blog post and even to your social media posts.

Plus, Creative Market offers a selection of free goods every week. All you need to do is open their reminder email every Monday and check the new products they are giving away for free.

These are the available free downloads for this week:

If there’s something you are interested in, go ahead and download it. I do it every week and now I have a very big database of graphic elements thanks to that

Stock photographers freebies: Finally, let me remind you that there are many photographers offering free downloads to promote their pictures. You can search for your favorites and check them regularly to see what they are offering. Also, if you subscribe to their newsletter you can usually get a discount on their packs and be aware of the newest releases.

But although knowing where to find your images is crucial for what we are talking about, it’s not the key to save time (it can actually become a procrastinating problem). The key comes at the next point…

2. Batch the task

Instead of searching or even taking the time to shoot my own pictures/paint my own illustrations for each single blog post, I batch the task.

I must be honest and tell you that until now I haven’t been regular on scheduling this in my monthly calendar (which would be the ideal situation), but I still do it.

Every few weeks I find out I’m running out of material, so I find a moment to dedicate to grow my database.

The system goes like this:

Since I already have a list of my favorite websites, and I know in advance the kind of images I will need (because I know in advance what I’ll be posting about), then is easy for me to search and save all the images that fit my requirements.

3. Organization

Downloading tons of images and leaving them in your downloads folder is not gonna save you time, it’s only gonna take memory out from your computer.

And then when it comes the real moment to select the images you will use in a particular blog post, you will not remember where it is and you will find it even easier to download it again.

So in order to get the most from your research, you need to dedicate some extra time to organize the images properly and tag them with good names.

There are multiple ways you can do it.

In my case, when it comes to blog post images I save them with keywords related to the theme I’ll be writing about (because I usually don’t know yet the real keywords I’ll be using for the post, but at least I know the main theme). Also, I add in the image name some keywords describing the image itself.

This will help me find the image easier when it comes the day to use it, but it also helps in SEO once I publish it on my website. If you want to know more about SEO for images, don’t miss my blog post about it. You can find it here:

If you have a broad selection of themes on your blog, I recommend you to create individual folders on your computer for each theme. Then you can save the images inside and it will be easier for you to find them when the day comes.

4. Optimization

Now that we have researched and organized the images, it’s very easy to select the best ones for each blog post.

Let’s move ahead and image you already have your blog post written and you just need to complement it with some media. You would go back to those folders, move the ones you want to use to the blog post folder (or you could have a folder named “used” to not repeat them all over your blog).

Then you need to optimize your images.

You can find more detailed instructions in my video how to save images for web, but here you have the key points:

– Edit their names adding the keywords you will be using in your blog post, the ones you want to rank for. Remember that those keywords need to be repeated in your title, description, first paragraph and of course in your images.

– Avoid using white space between words. Instead use a dash (-). Also, never use accents or special carachters such as ç,ñ, etc… And never, never, nerver use points (.). The point is used only to add the proper format extension on the files, which in this case will be .jpg or .png.

– Now is time to open them in Photoshop, scale them at a smaller size (ideally your maximum width for blog posts), and save them using the option “Save for web…”.

– If you really want to save time, check my video on how to batch and save your blog post promo images all at once using Photoshop automation

These are the steps I take to save time selecting my blog post images.

I hope you find them useful and you start applying these systems as soon as possible. Remember that the sooner you start, the more time you will save!

Let me know in the comments if you found it useful and if you have any doubts, don’t hesitate to contact me

With love, Claudia

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Best way to organise and schedule your blog posts – Save time blogging

The blog post Best way to organise and schedule your blog posts – Save time blogging is from heartmade.es.

Today I come with a group of two videos. On the first one I’m showing your how to install my favorite WordPress plugin to save time blogging and in the second video I’m showing you the main feature of Nelio Contet: how to use it’s simple editorial calendar to organize and schedule your blog posts.

When I started blogging in 2013 I did not have a system. Every time I had an idea I sat down and start writing,  searching for images and when I felt I was ready I just publish the post.

Years later I discovered the amazing feature of WordPress to schedule your posts in advance. So I started trying that and my blogging life quality changed a lot.

But the turning point was when I started using a blogging editorial calendar. I searched online for different options. I tried Evernote, Asana and Trello. But I needed something inside WordPress itself, to have it all together.

And that’s when I discovered Nelio Content Calendar for WordPress.

So in order to start making your life easier as blogger, the first step is to install this time saver plugin. Here you have a video or if you prefer reading the instructions, you will find them below:

It’s very easy to follow, all you need to do is:

1. Log into your WordPress Admin Panel 2. Navigate to Plugins on your left-hand menu 3. Click Add New 4. Search for Nelio Content on the search bar 5. Click Install Now 6. Click Activate

And you have the plugin installed and ready to start being used!!

Now the next step is to understand how awesome this plugin is to help you save time blogging. It has a drag and drop calendar view that makes is super easy to organize and schedule your blog posts directly in WordPress.

You can see it in use here:

These are my favorite features of Nelio Content:

– How to create your list of upcoming blog posts – How to automatically create and schedule your future blog posts – How to easily modify your editorial calendar with this simple drag and drop tool – How to edit your blog posts directly from your editorial calendar

And there’s much more coming. Because Nelio Content also offers the feature to automatically share your new posts in your social media accounts without you needing to log in and do it manually.

It’s a time saver in all its features. I wish you find it useful and feel free to ask me any questions or let me know your thoughts in the comments below

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How to add a watercolor texture to your logo with Photoshop

The blog post How to add a watercolor texture to your logo with Photoshop is from heartmade.es.

I just received a message from a client who bought my Watercolor Texture kit in Creative Market asking how could she add my watercolor texture to her logo with Photoshop.

There are multiple ways to apply watercolor textures with Photoshop, and although in the package there are 7 seamless patterns ready to be used as it, I decided to record a video showing another technique that can be very useful for all of you who want to add a watercolor texture to your logo with Photoshop

Ready? Here you have it!

Please feel free to write me any comments or questions you may have. I’m always happy to get new ideas for video-tutorials to help you and your business

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How to Register your Website Domain & Hosting

The blog post How to Register your Website Domain & Hosting is from heartmade.es.

Hello! In this video tutorial I’m teaching you how to register your new website domain & hosting in Fozzy.

This is a question I receive every time I start a new website with a client: How and where can I register my website domain and hosting?

That’s why I decided to take this video tutorial (which is part of my online course “Create your professional website without coding”) and post it here in Youtube so that anyone can learn for free how to register your website domain and hosting.

There are plenty of companies offering domain and hosting options, and I’ve tried many but of course not all of them.

Do you want a 10% off on your registration? Use this link and coupon code “byheartmade”

After years of experience, I’ve come up with a list of favorites, which you can find here in my blog post review “Best hosting companies for WordPress websites”

I’ve also created a guide to help you decide the best domain name for your new website. You can download it for free here:

I wish this step by step tutorial helps you move forward. Registering your domain and hosting is crucial to start your website, you can’t really have a website with those things… And because I know it can be hard to understand what they are offering, compare their packages and find the right one, I’ve decided to record this video tutorial showing you the step by step on how to register your website domain and hosting in Fozzy, one of my favorite international companies.

Please let me know if you have any doubts, I’ll be happy to help you!

xo,

Claudia

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JPG to PDF: How to combine multiple files into a new PDF using Acrobat Pro

The blog post JPG to PDF: How to combine multiple files into a new PDF using Acrobat Pro is from heartmade.es.

Ana from Bella Ibiza asked me the other day: How can I combine multiple files into a new PDF document? It’s a very interesting question because I’m sure you will find at one point or another the need to convert many JPG to PDF.

What I always use is Adobe Acrobat Pro. It’s a great tool that allows you to edit PDFs, and in between all its features there’s the one that helps you combine multiple files in a single PDF, which is amazing and super easy!

Here you have it explained in detail:

If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed in your computer and don’t want to download a new tool, I’ve also found some free online websites that seem to be doing a similar job.

I honestly don’t use them because I’ve been using for years Adobe Acrobat Pro and I’m very happy with it, but I wanted to give you all the options

Here you have the links:

http://jpg2pdf.com

https://www.ilovepdf.com/jpg_to_pdf

https://smallpdf.com/jpg-to-pdf

  And now is your turn. Please let me know here in the comments if there’s anything you would like to learn to make your daily business tasks easier.

What are you struggling with right now? I’ll be happy to help you and do a tutorial for you!

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What is a mockup? + 5 ideas to use mockups

The blog post What is a mockup? + 5 ideas to use mockups is from heartmade.es.

 When I explain that my couple and I are selling mockups online from pictures we take during our travels, many people ask us: What is a mockup?

So I thought that since it’s something super useful and practical for many businesses, it would be a great idea to do a video explaining what is a mockup and showing you 5 different ways to use mockups for your brand.

By definition, a mockup is “a model or replica of a machine or structure, used for instructional or experimental purposes.”

That’s how most of mockups look like: like a model. For me, that’s too flat and sometimes I need images that express more, that tell a story and convince people that what I’m showing is what they are looking for.

That’s why when we started traveling we found it was the perfect time to take photographies of any new place we visit and create photo mockups from them.

Now we have a huge directory and we are sharing it with anyone who needs a mockup in our Creative Market shop.

You can see all our mockups available at www.creativemarket.com/travellingmockups

The files we sell are .PSD (photoshop) layered files with an intelligent layer that you can simply double-click, copy and paste your design there and it will automatically apply the perspective and light to the main picture.

Mockups are great because:

– you get a super realistic result – it automatically adds perspective and any filter you need – it’s super fast – you show your product in the most professional way – and it’s super easy to use!!

In the video, I show you an example of how to change the design of any mockup, but in case you want to try it yourself, you can download for free a mockup sample from here:

Get this mockup for free here:

Simply add your info in this form and I’ll email you the PSD file so you can see how easy it is to use!

Now let’s talk about the 5 ideas to use mockups for your business:

1. You can use it in your portfolio 2. You can use it to present your design proposals to clients or to showcase your products on an online store without having to really produce all the colors and variations before selling them 3. You can use them to promote your digital free downloads in an appealing way and grow your email list with it 4. You can use them with your lettering and inspirational quotes 5. You can use them to post lifestyle and work in progress posts on social media

Do you want to see examples? They are all in the video

I hope you like this video, remember that you can find the full directory of photo mockups in our Creative Market

xo, Claudia

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Design gift wrapping paper with seamless patterns

The blog post Design gift wrapping paper with seamless patterns is from heartmade.es.

In this video tutorial I’ll teach you how to design your own homemade gift wrapping paper using seamless patterns.

Homemade gift wrapping paper can be a great idea for a personalized gift, and using seamless patterns is the best solution to have the wrapping paper printed at any size you need

In this video I’m showing you the easiest way to design your gift wrapping paper with Photoshop and with Illustrator, so that you can choose the one you feel more comfortable with.

Let me know in the comments if you like it or if you have any doubts!

You can DOWNLOAD a FREE pattern to try this exercise from here:

If you want the full bundle of Valentines seamless patterns, you can find it in this link.

And finally, if you want to learn how to design seamless patterns with your own illustrations, I have another tutorial explaining my step by step to create patterns with Photoshop.

xo, Claudia

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How to paint watercolor hearts

The blog post How to paint watercolor hearts is from heartmade.es.

Hello!!

Today I’m showing you 3 different ways to paint watercolor hearts.

As you know from my previous tutorials, I paint without drawing or sketching first. It’s a great way to lose the fear to watercolors, just play around with the brush and embrace any texture that comes for its uniqueness.

Ready? Here you have the tutorial:

Materials:

My favorite watercolor pigments are from the brand Winsor & Newton, and for brushes I use a variety of brands but my favorite ones are the round brushes with mixed fibers and the water brushes.

You can download for free a list of my favorite materials and tools for watercolor painting here. Simply add your name and email and I’ll send you the list right now!

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How to change the color of a watercolor painting

The blog post How to change the color of a watercolor painting is from heartmade.es.

Do you want to how to change the color of a watercolor painting to another color with Photoshop?

In this video tutorial, I’ll show you how easy it is to change the color of any watercolor painting with Photoshop.

You can download a free sample to try my technique here:

Changing the watercolor color to a new one can seem something very difficult, but using the right tool in Photoshop you will see how easy it is!

We will be using the hue/saturation option and I’ll be showing you how to add it directly to the layer, but also how to add it as a filter that you can save in your layered PSD to open and edit as many times as you need.

The examples I’m using are part of my watercolor clip arts that you can find here

All my clip art paintings are clean and with a clear background, ready to use for any project you may need.

Here you have a free sample:

You can also use your own illustrations, but remember to scan them at high resolution and take the time to clean the files until you have a transparent background like me.

I really hope you enjoy this tutorial

Feel free to share your designs with me or ask me any questions you may have. Remember that you can download any of my watercolor clip arts from my Creative Market shop here: http://ift.tt/2h5En2Y

xo, Claudia

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How to vectorize any watercolor painting with Illustrator

The blog post How to vectorize any watercolor painting with Illustrator is from heartmade.es.

Hello!!

Today I’m sharing a very quick but helpful tutorial: how to vectorize any watercolor painting with Illustrator.

If you need to use a watercolor painting for a project but the size of the original file is too small, you can always scale the image but it will end up pixelating and the design will look bad. The solution to continue having high resolution at any size is to vectorize or digitize your watercolor art with Illustrator. In this quick video tutorial, I’m showing you how to vectorize my watercolor heart clip arts, but you can do it with any painting you have!

In case you want to skip the video and just read the instructions, here you have it:

1. Drag and drop the watercolor painting to an Illustrator file.

2. Select it and click the option “Image Trace”

3. Open the tracing panel and tweak the options until you get the desired result

4. Remember to select “ignore white”

5. Click expand and you are ready to scale your new vector watercolor art!

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Getting things done without time (productivity tips for busy people)

The blog post Getting things done without time (productivity tips for busy people) is from heartmade.es.

Hello!! We are starting a new year and everyone is talking about productivity tips, getting things done and goal setting & planning.

And that’s perfect for people like me, who quit their job and are working full time in their projects.

But the most common situation is that you may have your busy daily routines, your corporate job, your family and your responsibilities and can’t find the moment to get things done.

I get you.

Even though I’m working full time in my business, I still feel I don’t have enough time to do all what I wish.

And that’s why today I decided to share with you 3 tips to get things done when you are too busy and you feel you don’t have time.

Ready?

Here you have them explained:

And for those who feel are loosing the time and can’t focus enough, I have the perfect solution:

How to stop procrastinating and get things done

It’s a free guide with super useful exercises that you can implement to your daily routine and discover how to avoid procrastination and become more productive! Simply add your details here and I’ll email you the exercises

The blog post Getting things done without time (productivity tips for busy people) is from heartmade.es.

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Photoshop Loop Animation to celebrate New Year

The blog post Photoshop Loop Animation to celebrate New Year is from heartmade.es.

New Year is almost here and I thought it could be a nice idea to create a Photoshop loop animation to celebrate it in our Instagrams or websites

Here you can see the example of my Photoshop loop animation to celebrate New Year with a gold foil effect in the text.

I’ve recorded a video to explain you the step-by-step of how to create this loop animation Here you have it:

As always I’ve put together the materials ready to download for free. Just fill your information here and you will automatically receive the foil texture and the Happy New Year quote. Easier, impossible!!

You will need these materials: – Computer – Adobe Photoshop – Gold foil texture & New Year quote. Download them for free here:

Please share with me your thoughts and comments about this tutorial. I love hearing from you!

xo, Claudia

The blog post Photoshop Loop Animation to celebrate New Year is from heartmade.es.

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#Photoshop Loop Animation to celebrate New Year

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Getting new clients is like making Christmas gifts

The blog post Getting new clients is like making Christmas gifts is from heartmade.es.

Discover how getting new clients is like making Christmas gifts! In this blog post, I’m explaining all the similitudes between both processes and how beneficial it can be for your business if you follow these steps

Hello!! Two days ago I was sitting on a bus in Sri Lanka and thinking about Christmas. This year will be my first Christmas without family, gifts, traditional meals, etc… And I’m kind of nostalgic! I love making gifts, it’s something I really enjoy because the reward of seeing someone happy thanks to what you’ve done for them is amazing. But is true that other times I get lazy or lose the track of time and end up making what I like to call a “checklist gift”. And you may be wondering why the hell I’m talking about Christmas gifts here on the blog, right? Well, the thing is that the other day on that bus I found out how similar it is getting new clients to making Christmas gifts! Wait, what? Yes, my friend… I truly believe that making Christmas gifts is like getting new clients, and here you have why:

1. The similitude between getting new clients & making Christmas gifts

1.1. Same objective: When we think about Christmas gifts the objective is clear: to make someone happy. It can either be by giving them a surprise, by helping them with something they’ve been struggling, by giving them something they really wish… But the goal is the same: happiness. Also, if we go beyond that, we can say that there’s a selfish goal behind gifts too, which is to feel well with ourselves, to get gratitude from the others, to get their love back, to be happy because we see them happy… And that’s exactly what I feel every time I work with a client in Heartmade or share a new tutorial with you! I like to think that I’m using my skills and creativity to make you happier. My goal is to see my clients happy with their new brands or websites, to help people who want to be their own designers by teaching them all I know, and to give you what you really wish: a memorable brand. So as I said, the objectives are the same. When we do Christmas gifts we want to make people happy and receive their love back, and when we get new clients we want to make them happy and get nice reviews from them. 1.2. Same process: Another common point is the process we follow. Either if we do it well or if we do it wrong (more on that later), we follow the same steps. For example, let’s think about the best gift you ever received: how did you feel? I guess you thought “they really read my mind”, “this person really knows me”, “they care about me”, “I’m so lucky to have someone like that in my life”, “she/he made my dreams come true”, etc… That’s what you want your clients to say too, right? So to achieve this results the process is the same. – You first think about the current situation & state the level of relationship (you don’t do the same kind of gifts to your couple or mother as you do to the girlfriend of your cousin, right?) – Then you put your Sherlock Holmes hat and start investigating what this person likes, what she wishes, what she needs… – From there, you decide what you can do to make her happy. In other words, you choose your gift or you create your products/services. – Finally, you wrap it up the best way possible. You choose a nice paper according to their taste, you tag it with a personalized message… Or you do a nice packaging for your product, you design your website with attractive graphics for them, you use a language they understand and they can feel identified to… You see? Same process!!! And what’s the key to it? Knowing your clients (or person who you want to do a gift) better than they know themselves! I have a free course in which I give you all the details and explain how you can know your clients better than they know themselves. You can sign up for free here: 1.3. Same rewards: Finally, the rewards are also the same. As I mentioned before, if you do it well, you will get a nice smile back, tons of compliments, thanks, and your self-esteem will blow up. And there’s more! If your clients are happy with the overall experience of working with you, they will totally recommend you to anyone who needs your services or products and you will keep getting new clients from referrals! Same happens with gifts: every time someone asks where they got that from they will talk about you. The next time they feel like making you a gift will remember how great was yours and will definitely try to do the same for you! In both cases, you will feel loved long after you made them happy. They will not forget you, you will become memorable.

Not sure how to do it well?

Sign up here for my free course on how to know your clients better than they know themselves and you will get my tips in your email!

It’s hard work to get the perfect gift idea, same as it’s hard work to create a memorable brand, but once you’ve done it, the rewards have no price! But hey, this only happens if you do it well. Most of the people tend to get lazy or don’t really understand the benefits of doing things well, which leads them into giving anything just to feel they’ve done the job, or designing their brands with a nice but not special branding that will not attract their ideal clients.

2. What happens when you do it wrong

The wrong way to do it is by thinking more about you than about them. We’ve all received that kind of gifts that instead of making us happy make us even sad… I remember that at school we used to play the “invisible friend”. We were more than 30 kids at class, and we had to pick a paper with a random name and make a gift to that person. As I said, I love making gifts so it was a challenge for me to get to know better that person (secretly, because they could not discover my identity) and make a gift they loved. But I tend to receive the wrong gifts. Two years in a row I got a teddy bear (and I was already in high school!). Of course, they did not mention to hurt me, but they did. They made me feel not special enough to care about what I love. Receiving general gifts like a common perfume, a teddy bear or a candle is like treating your potential clients as mass consumers. You need to let them know you care about them, you need to show them they are special to you and you recognize their uniqueness. If you have a general logo, a simple website and you just share your products all over your social media, people will end up feeling you only care about you and they will not want to become your clients. Instead, if you design your branding thinking what they like (not what do you like), if you create new products or services based on their needs (not what you like to do), then they will think “this brand is the best”!!

3. What happens when you do it right (and how to do it well)

So now you know what happens when you do it wrong and what can happen when you do it right. But how exactly can you do it right? Here you have a recap of the process: 3.1. Define the relationship: Start by making two groups: cold relationships and warm/hot relationships. In online marketing, they use the same terms, and it’s very easy to understand. When you have a cold relationship, it means you barely know each other so you need to be more careful with what you give/offer and you need to work harder to convince them that you are what they need. In business, cold people will be new subscribers to your newsletters or social media followers. On the other hand, warm and hot people will be past clients or people who have already shown interest in your products/services. 3.2. Investigate: Now is time to investigate what do they need, what do they crave and what do they like. When you are making gifts you think “he likes to hike in nature”, and then you investigate if they need some special gear, or maybe you get them a hotel night near a nice mountain, etc… So with clients has to be the same: what is their current situation? What do they want the most? What do they need? What other brands they follow and why? I go into more detail in my free course about knowing your ideal clients better than they know themselves. Join it here and I’ll send you all the details: 3.3. Be unique: Now that you have defined your relationship and you know what will make this person happy, it’s time to find a unique offer! Don’t give them what everyone else is doing. For example, I don’t want to offer only logo design to my clients because I know they need much more than a logo. So although many people don’t know yet how important is their branding to attract their ideal clients and they think they only need a nice logo and some colors + corporate fonts, I always explain them the benefits and do the whole branding for them. Offering them what they really need (even though sometimes they still don’t know they need it) will make them happier. During the design process, I make them a personalized strategy, I give them tips and recommend them tools or action steps depending on their unique situation. When you know your ideal clients better than they know themselves (and you can do this joining my free course here) then ideas come easily and you can be sure that they will love everything you create. 3.4. Surprise: The same as you wrap your gifts and make them look beautiful and exciting even before discovering what’s inside, you want to give the same experience to your clients. From the first moment they find your brand, they need to fall in love with it. This means having a strong branding (which means much more than a logo). Having a strong branding will mean that you will have a unique voice, a unique way of writing your texts & captions, a unique design style, a unique customer experience, a unique packaging, a unique social media feed… And all of it will be designed especially for your ideal clients, not for you or your brand. You and your brand are the offers, the gift inside the nice box. But without the nice box, they might not feel tempted even to open it!! So that’s all I think about the similitude between getting new clients and making Christmas gifts. Crazy post, right? haha Hope you liked it and please let me know in the comments below: What’s been your biggest AHA from this post?

The blog post Getting new clients is like making Christmas gifts is from heartmade.es.

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