Wednesday, January 21, 2015

How I Write for Artists & Why I Love Doing It



Recently, I was hired by a local artist/entrepreneur named Angela Smith to rewrite her LinkedIn page for her company, Purl & Loop.  Angela, a former Houston real estate agent, who had little time for creative pursuits, had dreamed of the idea of producing needlework kits.  She saw a niche in the market of fiber kits, envisioning creating kits that had every item you needed included with clear instructions. With a full-time job, she had limited time to create, and ordering kits that required her spending time sourcing more materials, instead of creating, were frustrating.


I went to Angela's place of business, interviewed her for 2 hours, going through her operations and looking at her product line.  This is how her LinkedIn profile read before we met.


Purl & Loop provides contemporary needle arts kits and supplies with a focus on crewel embroidery, knit & crochet, and needle felting to the time pressed individual. We also have some magnificently inspiring books loaded with quick gratification projects and ideas to spark your modern creativity. We seek to the primary resource to those who want to spend more time creating and less time searching for all of a project's components.



After talking with her, I realized she was doing much more then selling online retail kits, she was selling products she was designing and manufacturing through wholesale markets, like the wooden loom pictured below.  These handmade birch looms are made here in Houston in her studio.  Who knew?




This is how we changed the first paragraph:

Purl & Loop specializes in creating contemporary fiber art kits for the online retail & wholesale markets. Focusing on knitting, needle felting, and weaving, our mission is to create kits that provide every component needed to complete our projects, which makes the consumer/crafter spend more time creating and less time sourcing materials.

I added an additional paragraph to her LinkedIn profile elaborating on what her responsibilities were, and how her MBA, that focused on operations, was used to create a whole new aspect of her business. 



This is another type of loom she produces made out of acrylic.


Here is the copy for the second paragraph...

Responsibilities include conceptualizing & designing both the kit and finished project, writing/editing copy for instructions, sourcing supplies, streamlining production and creating packaging. To establish and maintain an effective website, studio and wholesale business, along with profitable trade shows, Angela utilizes constant resource management skills including, but not limited to, cash flow management, appropriate staff planning, supply chain management, freight considerations, and photographic styling. Purl & Loop manufactures, assembles and hand finishes their looms and kits in-house with supplies purchased from US or North American companies. Graduating with a Masters of Business Administration, with a focus in operations, Angela has been able to utilize her education to create and merchandise her product, market her company, hire and efficiently utilize productive staff.

Along with selling inspiring books loaded with projects on her website, Angela has produced how-to video tutorials to spark modern creativity amongst her customers.



I was also able to help Angela with the Bio of her on the website page.  This is sort of my dream job, listening to people describe the spark that got them started, the steps of how they got things going and watching them tell me about what they feel passionate about.


If you need some help writing about yourself, or what you do, I am here to listen, feel your passion and help you communicate that belief.


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