Mind and Emotion Around Starting a Creative Business with Mackenzie Belcastro
What is something you would consider your biggest success that you’ve had ever since you started your own business?
I think it’s the point where you can leave your parents and pay for your own rent. Honestly that was pretty big for me. It never feels good to move back with your parents when you’ve been out. It feels like “what’s happening?”, your sliding back, is this all a stupid dream? And you feel very self-validated when you finally accrued enough work to be independent and lead the lifestyle that you want. I love people, but I also really love to have my own atmosphere, and that was an issue with me in office work. Being home a little bit more suits my tendencies.
I never thought I would get to a place like this, I heard from inspirational people and I knew it was probably possible, but I didn’t know if it would be possible for me, until it happened.
What would you say has been your biggest success so far?
Even little things like that, it’s not like I had a huge win with one client, it was really small things that all came together that created a monumental shift. Being able to move into your own place and being able to support yourself. This wasn’t a huge work success in a sense but it was definitely a huge life success.
How can creatives and freelance business find work?
For me, accruing clients , I don’t know if it’s said often , for me I have been on all those platforms and made some money off of freelancing sites, but I feel like the consistence work has always come from word of mouth, or people that I have met before and in person connections.
There are a lot of writers who write for free to put their words out there. One of my friends, who is a great graphic designer contacted people on Instagram, and said “ I love your brand, can I make something for you?”, and just kept going and kept going with that. I think if you are starting from scratch then that is definitely a great way to go, and like mentioned before, freelance sites such as Fiber and Upwork.
Do you have any big plans of where you want your creative career to go?
What really holds my heart and what is the core of everything, which might sound weird because it doesn’t have to do with social media, but is my social media presence is my writing. I’ve been writing this book for two or more years or so. This spring I should be at the point where I can sit down with an agent and start to go through that process. My big dream is that I can get this book into the business process of this stage this year, because it’s been in the creative process for approaching two and a half years. To begin to get that out there and to continue to do that, is really what I want all the other stuff to support that.
In terms of social media and working with other people and bringing communities together - one of the main reasons that I started to work with creative agencies, is because of someone that I admired and is also a coach. I don’t necessarily have the knowledge at this point in time, but I know in my life it’s going to feel really good to connect with somebody one on one. Whether that is helping them bring their writing out in the world, or helping them with their craft or whether the means helping build their social media presence or help them build their business presence. I haven’t really narrowed it down, but working with her is showing me that, and shadow her with her clients. I found that to be something that must be so rewarding verse constantly creating and being on the outskirts of the impact.
Follow along with Mackenzie!
IG: https://www.instagram.com/mackbelcastro/
Website: https://mackenziebelcastro.com