3 Tips for Getting a Business Mentor with Jamie Starcevich
Branding with Friends | Episode 12
Featuring Expert Guest: Owner + Creative Director of Spruce RD., Jamie Starcevich
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Jamie Starcevich, Owner + Creative Director, Spruce RD.
Annie: Today I'm so excited to introduce you to one of my friends from the business world. If you have been curious about mentoring, wondering how it's different from coaching, and wondering why you would maybe want to hire somebody who does exactly what you do to help you? You are going to love today's episode.
My guest today is the incredible Jamie Starcevich. Jamie S is the founder of and creative director at Spruce Rd, where she and her team create standout brand design for digital brands. She's pulling back the curtain on running a successful design studio, revealing what it takes to create a time-efficient design process and red-carpet client experience.
I had this random idea to have an episode about mentoring because you inspired me last year. I had taken your course. Jamie has an incredible course that teaches you how to have an amazing client experience as a graphic designer. If you know me, you know that I do graphic design but I also do copywriting, branding, all those pieces. She has run this really successful design studio for over five years. I have been following her on Instagram. She's amazing! I did her course and I was so impressed with it many years ago. I used it to help create a process for Greatest Story that many of my clients know really well. Which is so wonderful and I got a wild idea to reach out to Jamie, and ask if she could you mentor me. I really admired the work that she did. She has a successful studio, even though we do similar things. We do both do branding and we might potentially have a client inquiry from the same client. I was going into maternity leave in 2019 and I know that you have two kids, so you've done two maternity leaves. we're going to talk a little bit about this.
I was so inspired to bring Jamie on to talk about mentoring because I think that there's a lot of misconceptions about it. Some people don't know what the difference is between that and coaching and why you would hire somebody who's technically a competitor of yours. So, we're going to talk about that today and Jamie was so kind to come on and she's going to share three tips with us about how to use mentoring to grow your practice. So, we'll go through each of those and if you're new to Branding with Friends you are going to find out that we save that third tip for the end so make sure to listen to the end because Jamie's got something special for you and we'll close with that last tip.
Before we get to that tip, Jamie could you tell us a little bit about your history being mentored and mentoring other people?
What is mentoring? And how can it help you as a business owner?
Jamie: I think we'll talk about this a little bit more as we go through those three points but mentoring is something I felt was necessary from the very beginning, just having an online business as an entrepreneur. It's just tough to know what to do in specific client situations and how to price your services. There’re a million questions you have and so to have someone to come before you and say, I've gone through this even a year ago, if they're just a year ahead of you is so helpful. Or in a direction that you're wanting to pivot more toward has just been something I've pursued from day one and something that has been one of my core values. I didn't even know at the time like how influential those core values would be that I wrote down on that Google Doc from like the first few months of Spruce Rd. One of them has been about collaboration and mentorship so that's been my experience on my end.
Then over the past five years, I've hired coaches and taken courses and I'm a big proponent of learning from those that have gone through it before you. Learning from their successes and their missteps and it just cuts so much time and overthinking. I'm a chronic overthinker so that's so helpful for me.
Annie: Yes, me too and so many people that I talk with and work with are overthinking, overwhelmed, over complicating their marketing, over complicating their branding as I'm sure you help people uncomplicate. I think you touched on it but lets for everybody's sake define what we're talking about as mentoring today versus coaching. We are both talking today about mentoring in the context of paying somebody to tell you their experience. Jamie didn't take me to coffee. We live in completely different states. She did it out of the goodness of her heart but I also like invested in her time and said please can I pay you for your expertise and for your experience. It was one of the best investments I could have made last year. Even just in mindset going into a big break with maternity leave and trying to grow my practice, she's amazing. She helped me create a service for my existing clients that was fabulously successful even though I launched it really late in the year. Let's talk about that. Jamie what would you say is the difference for you between mentoring and coaching?
The difference between mentoring and coaching
Jamie: I would be curious what your thoughts are on this too because I honestly didn't research this. I've never talked to anyone about this before. In my belief, I feel like a mentor is in the same or similar space that you are in. For me as a designer that works with clients and does brand identity and collateral, it's helpful for me to learn from a fellow designer that does the same things. We have those shared experiences, those common things that come up that can really benefit for me to have a mentor. Even if it's like a peer in the same season that I'm in. Versus a coach, I feel like is someone more outside. It's so valuable to have both. A coach is more of an outside perspective. If you’re a service-based business maybe they specialize in coaching like a lot of different online service-based businesses or brick-and-mortar service-based businesses but not the specific service that you offer.
Annie: I think that that's how you've approached it. I know right now you have your share-worthy design course and you have a coaching program/mentoring program within your course –– so like it's limited to graphic designers which is amazing that you're able to lead them through. What I would say, having worked with a lot of coaches and what I've come to understand about coaching, I know everyone does it a little differently. But what I've heard a lot of coaches talk to me about is that coaching is really about helping you unlock your own answers. The thought behind it is that if you get coaching, the coach is really there to help you go farther faster using their framework, using their exercises, using their, of course, their experience and expertise but it's less about telling you the answers as it is about helping you discover them for yourself. That sort of mindset is so powerful.
I was trying to define mentoring. I think mentoring is this, for, for how I do it, I do mentor clients and people coming into my business who want to know how to run a profitable and passionate service business. Many of my clients do mentor with me, many people I just meet through speaking do it. The way I think about it is, it's this weird cousin between coaching and consulting. So, it's both because you are coaching people to help them apply the lessons to their own business. But part of the reason I call it mentoring and not coaching is one I'm not a certified coach. I haven't gone through that. I don't have that –– one day maybe I'll become a business coach. For now, I feel like where I can add the most value is somebody who sees my practice and wants to learn how I did what I did.
Could I take my mindset and what I've learned and apply it to their business and say well if it were me this is what I would do? To your point, I think in any case you are cutting the corner, you're helping somebody get to where they want to go faster. Because both you and I have sort of been in the trenches for x number of years. You've done it for five, I've done it for almost seven. There's a lot that we can provide either between our branding experience or even just our business ownership experience.
That's what I have learned is so valuable to people, which is to have that perspective. Having done mentoring for many years, I have over the years hired people. I hired Diana Needham who's been on Branding with Friends just for a few hours to consult on my book marketing stuff. I did most of it but I thought, she knows this stuff better than I do and for an hour of her time I probably set up myself 10 hours of my time. I'd say that's the huge difference between mentoring it's really about trying, actually getting some direct answers and targeted advice more than anything.
Let's get to that first tip. We've already given you some good advice here. When we think about mentoring in terms of getting some help from a mentor what would be your first tip about this?
#1 Action TIP
Humility Will Take You Far
Jamie: The number one thing I would say and this is number one for a reason, is that humility will take you far and that was also one of my core values. I think actually all three of these are some of my core values. Humility will take you far and I feel like just in general in life that's true. But in small business as well because if you're prideful about what you do, like you could be blind to certain things, unaware of tweaks you could make that could really help you grow, and having that humility will really only enhance. For my designers that I coach, only enhance their client experience, so you have to take a step back and be humble about that. Especially as designers, I know you know this Annie but you have to have humility with your design work because you can't just show it to a client and be like this is it and we're done. It's just not how it works.
Annie: You and I wish we could. I always dream about coming up with this is the price. This is it, we're done. This is my design take it or leave it.
Jamie: No, you have to listen to what your clients say, they know their target audience. They know who's buying their products and so you have to be humble to listen to that. I just remember going to school for design. I started out in architecture for two years. I had the hardest professors and I won't repeat what critiques they made but it was some really tough words. I learned at 18 years old, I have to humble myself. I don't know everything and I need to respect those that have gone through this before me. I did that for two years and then I transferred to another school that was more of an art school and from them they hardly critiqued anything. I learned freedom from them. I needed both but each of the schools had something that the other didn't but I learned humility from that first one and I'm so grateful for those hard lessons. Now I'm not attached personally to the design work that I send clients. I say give it to me that's fine, don't be shy about it it's your brand.
Annie: I think it's a good lesson of business overall and I'm glad you brought it up in that context. I'm learning even now, I think the best thing you can do is admit that you don't have all the answers. I definitely do not, spoiler alert, I do not have all the answers. I am learning and I am in a season of business just like many of my clients are. We're all in a process of growing and I think that you know mentoring is this wonderful door you can open.
It wasn't something you were advertising too. I want to highlight that fact. I had a hunch so I thought, I think Jamie does this, I don’t know. I was on my babymoon a year ago at Disney World. I remember I wrote an email to you sitting by the pool. We were about to leave that vacation because I was thinking about how overwhelmed I was. How am I going to go to maternity leave? How am I going to do all this stuff? You know who knows how to do this is Jamie because she's done it. I asked you, I don't know if you do this, but I'd be happy to pay you an hourly rate if you do. You wrote right back and you said yeah, we can make this happen. You happened to be doing mentoring at the time and that was such a gift to me. But it wasn't something that I even knew you did. Many people, especially if you're willing to pay for their experience –– there can be somebody you really admire, ask them and if you come to them humbly and say I don't have all the answers and I would love to get some answers from you if you feel like sharing your perspective with me.
What would you say is sort of the next piece of the puzzle, with that second tip?
#2 ACTION TIP
Collaboration is Key
Jamie: Collaboration is key is one of my other core values that I have. I feel like to come into mentorship, it comes along with being humble. You have to recognize it's not all about yourself and that collaboration can really take you farther. Maybe you're hiring a coach or a mentor or whatever it is, but collaborating with them like you said can shape an hour of their time can shave off like 10 hours of yours. It's something that I've had in my business since day one, is to intentionality to partner up with both designers in my same space as well as people outside of my industry and really to help each other and push each other up.
I'm sure I know firsthand that I did give my competitors some clients that I could have snatched myself. It's not about that for me. There’s enough to go around for everybody. I think that kind of prideful or like hoarding mentality is not going to take you as far as collaboration.
Annie: I'm glad you brought that up because I also don't think if you're a service business owner, or coach consultant it's actually not healthy to take every single client that comes your way unless those clients are like slam dunk fits for what you do. There’re many reasons for that. A lot of it has to do with, if you can't deliver the best solution for them you should make sure they get the best solution. If you're sort of shoehorning what you offer for example. Because they're not going to be happy and if you don't deliver something they actually, need to solve their problem. That's a very scarcity mindset of I must work with every single person that comes my way.
I often say that “no” is one of the most profitable words I've ever said in my business. It's not even that it's no. It's that I would love to help you and I want you to get the best solution. So, I recognize that's not me, you should talk to Jamie. I have really niched down. I really work with service business owners because that's where I can add a lot of value, not just in the branding but also in this business coaching and business mentoring piece that I'm doing.
Do I occasionally mentor product-based business owners? Sure. I don't do the whole solution for them so I send them to other people who can do that work better than I can. I would not be the right solution for everybody and you're not the right solution for everyone either. When you embrace that, you can then build these relationships and those things are so powerful to be able to have another colleague that's in your field. I think this underlines kind of one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode was to show you guys this is why you would hire someone who's technically a competitor. Now we have a relationship we were just talking before and you said “oh you can always shoot me a note or something.” Really? But you're Jamie, you're Jamie at Spruce Rd. You're like a big deal. I've really felt your support and I so value the time that I invested with you. What I got out of it was not just the advice but also a great relationship.
That's something I think where this collaboration is key is realizing that not only when you invest in somebody to get their experience, you then become kind of part of their world. You can support each other and continue to grow. I have been so grateful for that. I love all this stuff around mentoring. I'm really glad that you're here today. I know you wanted to share something special with everybody and its related to branding. So I'm doing the humility thing. Jamie knows her stuff. I have learned at her feet. So what do you have to share with us about branding?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Grab Jamie’s Brand Self-Care Guide at sprucerd.com/brandselfcare
Jamie: I've got a resource called Brand Self-Care is what I've named it. Essentially the premise is that for us and our own brands we need that time to do self-care. I don't know if you guys are like me that are listening but I can spend all day with clients, students, or my community serving them but it's hard for me to work on my own brand. To update my portfolio or update my own site and that's a classic like designer problem. We just can't do it, right?
I've created this resource called Brand Self-Care. If you head to sprucerd.com/brandselfcare. It's a free course and it's just all emailed to you and it's the most comprehensive free thing I've created. It walks you like step by step through the branding process and I share a case study I did specifically for this series. Even if you want to do it for your own brand, for your client’s brand or for just for fun, it's a great exercise to go through that whole strategy component down to the entire brand identity.
Annie: I'm going to say it's fantastic. I happen to be on Jamie's list. It's a lot of what I try to do for my clients that I teach. You should check out Spruce Rd because that's the abundance mindset. If you are you were thinking about doing branding with me and you find Jamie, you do her course and you think Jamie's my right person... have my blessing. I want to make sure that you get the right partner. Maybe I'm your right partner, maybe Jamie's your right partner, maybe secret answer C is your right partner.
I know that that's a fabulous resource and Jamie and I share a lot of design values in terms of how we design logos and what we believe in for brands. You're going to love that if you're curious about it. I'd also say too that for me, I do branding for coaches and consultants. I have a brand story solution of your clear marketing message, consistent visual brand, and the website. But then I'm also doing a lot of mentoring these days. If this got you curious and you want to talk to somebody who has a six-figure branding practice, been in business for seven years, I'm happy to talk with you. You can grab a free consultation at greateststorycreative.com. Just look at the big red button and you can literally talk with me privately. There's a chance to sign up to get on my calendar.
I am so glad that you were here with us Jamie. You shared these two powerful tips already which is: humility will take you far, collaboration is key. What is that last thing that we should take into our hearts if we're thinking about being mentored?
#3 Action Tip
Always be willing to learn
Jamie: Always be willing to learn. I feel like is something both you and I practice actively. I think our tendency, I guess it depends on your personality type but our tendency is to say, I can figure this out on my own. There's so much free information out there which is fantastic. That I can, I can do this on my own. I can go on Pinterest and find the right article, listen to podcasts, whatever it is. That's fantastic and that is a great way to learn but just to implement that in your business and make sure you're setting it aside the time to learn and be mentored and coached by other people is crucial. It’s not just this age, this information age we're in. This has been around for generations right books and everything.
Annie: I think in the early years of my business I don't know if you felt this way but I felt all this pressure that I had to do everything myself. I have the curse of I actually have a lot of the skill sets between, writing, and design to do a lot of this stuff. But that doesn't mean I should be doing all of it. I love this willingness to learn and I would also say too that I think a really good litmus test of whether you need a mentor is if you're looking at some tasks on your plate and they just stress you out and you're not sure where to get started, think about who's doing what you want to do really well. Ask them for an hour of their time. I would guarantee you that they are going to help you see things and maybe you're going to learn how to do it, maybe you're going to learn, oh gosh, I shouldn't be doing this, maybe you're going to learn how to outsource it or that you should outsource it. That hour of time is going to be phenomenally helpful.
We’re proof that there’s more than enough business and opportunity to go around.
That was what led me to Jamie was, she has done these things why don't I just ask her and pay her for that time because she's a mom and she's got stuff to do and she's a busy business woman. Value the people that you ask for help but ask for help. You do not have to do this all alone and we're here, we're proof that yes we do the same thing and yes we are happily friends and there's more than enough business and opportunity to go around. So even your colleague, somebody does what you do, could really help you turn a corner or turn the page. I'd rather you do that than stress about it. So, we've got your back right Jamie?
Jamie: Yeah amen to all of that. I feel like learning can only take you farther and it all just weaves together, having humility, be willing to collaborate, and be willing to learn because like you said before it can shave off so much time, anxiety, and overthinking if you can implement that in your own business. I find a lot of times just in myself when I'm on like someone's email list and I can tell they're in the middle of a launch or whatever... I think oh do I want this do I not. And it's like just think of the ROY, is it going to actually save me money? If I can book this whatever then can I book a day with a client and that'll be worth the price. It almost always is yes.
Annie: I used to like go back and forth about a hundred-dollar investment or something for my business, like a course. I thought, what the best question you can ask yourself is what would I need to pay for this in terms of would I get another client because I did this? Yes. And that more than pays for that, for all this time I'm agonizing and trying to teach it to myself. The other thing that we didn't really clearly point out but I just want to wrap it up with this note is that not only is it really valuable to get people's advice but remember that versus all this free content, you and I both have a ton of free content. But nothing's going to replace either of us looking personally at what you're doing. Giving you personalized advice of, “oh you have this you need to do this, this, and this.”
So, you could spend I don't know how many hours going through –– all the free content that we offer or spending one hour having that advice tailored to who you are and what you need and maybe get some gems that you've never heard before that are not publicly available. Can't say enough good things about mentoring. Let us know if you have been mentored or you want to start offering mentoring in your practice. We would love to hear from you and what your success stories around mentoring are especially coming out of today's episode.
Jamie thank you so much for being here! We hope that you guys enjoyed yet another episode of Branding with Friends. So many thanks my special guest Jamie of Spruce Rd. Tune in next time when we'll tackle another topic where branding meets business. Until then I’m Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. Find all our episodes branding resources, that free consult I talked about, and so much more at our website greateststorycreative.com. Stay awesome!
“Branding with Friends” Episode 12
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips for mentorship in growing your service business:
Humility will take you far
Collaboration is key
Always be willing to learn
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To learn more about mentorship or to seek Jamie’s help:
• Visit Spruce Rd at sprucerd.com
• Grab her brand self-care guide at sprucerd.com/brandselfcare
• Follow Jamie on Instagram @sprucerd
