Laura Kåmark
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Be Bold Make Waves Podcast, a show bringing you inspiring stories of women who are growing and scaling their business. I’m your host, Laura Kåmark, a website and tech integration specialist who works with online business owners who love their work but NOT their website. Join me as we have incredible conversations about business mindset, productivity, and of course, the website and tech behind the business. Let’s go ahead and dive in to this week’s episode. Hello, and welcome to this week’s show. I’m so excited for you all to be here today. And for those of you who don’t already know me, my name is Laura Kåmark. I’m a website and tech integration specialist for women who love their work, but not their website. My guest today is Maria Mesick. She’s a certified photo manager and digital Document Organizer. With a background in tech and professional organizing. She’s helped 1000s of busy professionals, by ensuring their most important digital files are safe and easy to find. Her clients refer to her as a Marie Kondo of computers. Maria, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here. Can you tell our audience just a little bit more about what you do and how you help people?

Maria Mesick
Well, it’s a little bit tricky to explain. But basically you said it my clients call me the Marie Kondo of, of digital files. And basically, I help people organize their technology, their personal technology, their work technology, so that everything is easy to find. And that’s going to look different for everybody. Because there’s no one size fits all solution, it really is personalized to each individual. Oh, I love that. How

Laura Kåmark
did you get started in this? Well, I

Maria Mesick
was working at Apple and I worked at the Genius Bar, which for those of you who don’t know, that is it for Apple customers. And I was responsible for fixing phones and computers. And I saw everything that could go wrong. I saw a lot of people’s into people’s personal lives on their phones and their computers. And I saw all the ways things go wrong. All the ways people get confused, and really discovered that I specialize in speaking about technology and layman’s terms. So I always avoid getting super techie or using super technical terms. And so from there, I was actually promoted to trainer because of this gift for speaking in plain English. And I found that a lot of the problems that people encountered were due to a lack of organization and a lack of education. So from there, I started thinking about what would this look like to have my own business. And I partnered with a space organizing, I called Digital organizing one side of things. And then there’s the space organizing, which is like Marie Kondo home at it, I started speaking with a space organizing company, simply spaced. And we started to talk about what that would look like. They had a ton of clients that they were cleaning out their closets, and they’d find all these old hard drives, old phones, old computers, and they didn’t want to hang on to them anymore, because they weren’t using them. But they didn’t know what to do with them. And so I started working with simply spaced clients to get all of their data off of those old devices and saved onto an external hard drive. And then we just got to organizing it all and recycling all those older devices. I was still working at Apple at the time, so I kind of got to stick my toe into having a business without having to commit. Yes, it’s been it’s been amazing journey. Oh, I love that.

Laura Kåmark
So did you also. So you got a piece of this? Did you do anything with the space organizing to where you just worked with them to do the digital piece?

Maria Mesick
So I started out working with simply spaced clients. And while I was working at Apple, and during that time, I started to have some major health problems. I didn’t know what it was, I had no idea that I was having migraines. But I was having what’s called chronic vestibular migraines, and the main symptom is actually vertigo so you can have it With these type of migraines, you can have a migraine with no pain. But the main symptom is vertigo. So it wasn’t even something that I would go to a doctor and say, Hey, I’m having a headache. I just felt kind of sick. And so obviously, the Apple Store is not the best place for someone with migraines. And so it became clear that I was going to have to move on and find something else. So from there, I went over to simply spaced and that was how I kind of got my business going. And as we’re building the book of business for digital clients, I did help out with the space client. So I did some closets, kitchens, bedrooms. Oh, we did a garage once that was in the summer, that was something I will never do again. So yes, I did do the space organizing. And it was really helpful to see that process and take that process and incorporate it into the digital area.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, I love that. So tell me, okay, so you do digital files? And you also do photos? Yes. Would you say that most of your clients are one or the other? Is it kind of split 5050?

Maria Mesick
I would say it’s split 5050. I, I always fantasize as a business owner about really focusing and narrowing it down into a super niche. And every time I think that I’m going to I’ve got the answer that all the clients have been photo clients, all of a sudden, I get a ton of clients to need help with their email, or their documents. And so I’ve I’ve just kind of resigned myself to being a digital specialist where I work within the digital space, whatever that looks like, often I’ll be working with a photo client. So for example, today, I was working with a client on their photos. And they mentioned their notes and how they have all these ideas in their notes. And they’re planning on writing a book. And it’s totally disorganized. And I said, Well, you know that that’s something I do as well. And we can work on that if you like. So it’s really not just specific areas, I kind of look at the whole computer for a client and how to make that whole experience streamlines.

Laura Kåmark
Would you say because like I’m, I’m an Apple user, we have iPhones I’ve been Mac user for as long as I can remember, I think back in college, I had a compact and it broke and the computer guy that I worked with was like, you want a computer that’s gonna last you get it, get a Mac, you want a PC, he’s like, that’s what keeps me in business, because it’s gonna break em, I switch then and I think I’m on my fourth one now. But I mean, those first couple have lasted me a good like 10 years, seven years. Like usually it wasn’t necessarily the machine breaking down, it was just technology advanced so far that it wasn’t able to just couldn’t do the things I needed to do anymore. But do you specialize more in like Apple because of your background? And Apple? Or do you PC? Also, like I know, for me, I get very confused on a PC. My husband has one and I’m like, I don’t know how to do anything. Frustrating?

Maria Mesick
Yeah. That’s a great question. I do both I do PC and Mac. Some things are easier to do on a Mac, they require. I guess the phrase is they’re more user friendly. So they require a lot less technical knowledge. And so there are some things that are just easier on a Mac. But I do both. So it’s photo organizing documents, emails, I have a lot of clients that use both Mac and PC. So a lot of people will use Mac for their their work and PC for the business that they’re working in. So talking about how do those two different platforms interface with each other? Because usually you’re looking at email on both you’re maybe transferring files from one to the other. So it can get pretty, pretty complicated. So I I call myself software agnostic. Because I’m always looking for a solution that is unique to the client that’s in front of me. It’s a lot of research. So I’m always looking at new programs, new software, and making recommendations based on what is going to be the easiest to use or the easiest to understand for a client.

Laura Kåmark
I love that and for our audience’s sake of knowing a little A bit about our background, which I think is really fun we met because we’re both in a group program together. And it was, I think, your first time on a call, and you were like, Oh, I’m a digital, like photo organizer. Or you might I don’t know, if you said photo in it, I feel like you said something with photos. And I was like, I need help with that. And immediately, we booked a call. Because for me, I am a mom of two kids. And I have three pets. And let’s face it, they’re really cute and do a lot of really adorable things. My husband’s like, Well, you wouldn’t have 64,000 photos on your iPhone, if you would stop taking pictures of the dog like, but I can’t. It’s not gonna happen. He’s just so cute. Yeah. And then we also live at the beach. So I take a sunset photo almost every single night, because it just makes me happy. So for me, I take a lot of photos. And I’ve been actually trying for years to find a way to organize my photos. Because I also have like, my husband takes a lot of photos in his business, he creates custom boat enclosures. And so he has all these job photos. And he’s always trying to like organize them in a way. And we’ve spent years trying to come up with a system. He’s also very not techie, like my husband has this technological black cloud that follows him around. He actually went in to get a bagel the other day, and he came back out, we’re waiting in the car, me and the kids. And he came back out. Like, there was no line, it took that long because I broke three computers just standing there while trying to order my food because he literally puts off this like magnetism, where he breaks technology, it’s very fascinating thing, a lot of times I just will have to tell him to step away, and then things will work again, but he can’t wear watches they break. If this again, it’s like an energy he

Maria Mesick
puts off. Oh my gosh, that’s so funny.

Laura Kåmark
So there are people that really, really struggle like on that end with technology, because I’ve had friends too, who like F technologies can’t like their phones always breaking again, just like my husband, like they can’t wear watches. It’s the thing I promise. So we were always so I’m the tech person in the family. We’re always trying to like come up with a system. So you and I’ve actually been working together for the last few months trying to like, take this hot mess, duplicate madness that I had going on and like combining it into something duplicate free and cohesive and come up with a plan of attack. So I’d love if we could kind of talk about if someone is feeling like, I have a lot of photos because I’ve also talked to other moms, I’m like, what do you do? They’re like the thing. They’re just unorganized. And like how do you go through life? Like, I need it to be organized? So there are other people like me in the world? I’m sure I can’t be alone. How like, How does someone identify like, what are the pain points that you’re seeing that they’re like, they the things they want to solve when they come to you?

Maria Mesick
Usually, the main problem is that my clients can’t find the photos that they need on a regular basis. And they feel like they’re losing things. It’s kind of like a needle in a haystack, finding photos, because there’s 1000s of photos on our phone and our computer and how do you find one photo. So that’s the biggest pain point. And from there, there’s anxiety of I want to do things with these photos, I want to make photo books or if I’m working with a business, I need to share these photos with a team as I expand my business. So it’s usually it’s worked for them for a while where they don’t need it to be organized, because they’re not searching. They don’t require as much from their photos. And eventually it gets to a point where they’re demanding more of their photos. And they come to me and they’re they’re really usually there’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress by the time they get to me.

Laura Kåmark
What’s your thoughts on like backing up? I know for me, I am a very firm believer in having like an an external Cloud Source of backup for my digital devices. So I use Backblaze, which I will link up my affiliate link in the show notes. And I’ve used them for years because I know like my parents there. They their house burned down a number of years ago. And luckily my parents were able to evacuate before the fire came through. But she grabbed her computer she forgot her external hard drive. But the thing that I always tried to tell people is like, it’s great to backup your computer to external hard drives. But if something happens to where it’s all living, that doesn’t do you any good. So I’d be curious as to hearing like kind of your thoughts on how to manage that.

Maria Mesick
Well, first I have to say that it’s a personal courtesy crusade of mine to convey the absolute importance of backing up your files. working it out. Well I met so All many people who either thought they were backing up to the cloud. Turns out they weren’t, or had never backed up at all. And we either had to tell them that they’d lost all their files, or it was a matter of them being at the Apple Store for the grueling hours, sometimes all day as we tried to save files off of a device that was starting to fail and wasn’t working. So it happens more than anybody realizes, I believe it’s one in three people will lose photos due to hard drive failure. It happens all day, every day. I see it on my clients all the time. So it’s, it’s something that can’t can happen to anybody. So the standard for backing up industry standard for photo organizers is that you have at least three copies of important files. And the first copy is going to be the original, which is on your computer. The second copy could be on an external hard drive. And then the third copy should be cloud based. And that’s the ideal for backing up because like you said, if if there’s a fire, you still have that cloud based backup. But the local backup is usually a lot easier to recover from the local backup being that hard drive. So it’s good to have the hard drive as well. Speaking of stories, I cannot tell you how many Apple customers told me that their home was robbed, and their computer and their backup hard drive were stolen. I think I heard it from about four different Apple customers. So obviously, having a cloud based backup is very, very important. You don’t want to rely 100% on the cloud, because you could forget your password, different things could happen that would lock you out of that. So you want to have a hard drive backup as well. And you want to make sure that you’re using a special software to backup your computer. So Backblaze is one option. Time Machine is another

Laura Kåmark
Oh, if someone’s listening right now, and they’re like, I’m supposed to betta Wah, backup, my who first step they should take if they have never backed up their computer or their phone or anything if they’ve never. They’re like, I’m not techie. I don’t even know how to do that. Where do I start?

Maria Mesick
So I created a quickstart backup guide specifically for that, because I know that, first of all, backing up is not sexy or fun. And so that’s why most people don’t do it. They’re like, Oh, I’m going to put that on my to do list. And then every day that that gets bumped because it’s not necessarily urgent or fun. So I say do something 10 minutes take 10 minute action. And the first step is to identify where most of your important files are, what devices that. So if that’s your computer, you want to focus on backing up your computer. I recommend using Backblaze because it’s so easy to set up. It’s I think it’s 799 a month. And it’s just a quick fix. So if you’re backing up your computer Backblaze works on Mac or PC. If your files are on your phone, if it’s an iPhone, then you would want to turn on iCloud backup. And if it is on your Android, you could turn on I believe it’s called Google one, which is a cloud based software for backing up files. But if you’re interested, I can share that little PDF with you.

Laura Kåmark
Yes, I would love to link that up in the show notes. So tell me a little bit. I want to talk a little bit about some of the tech you use in your business. As a web designer, I love talking about like, tell me about your website and tell me about the tech you use. So can we talk a little bit about like your website, where did you build it? Did you hire someone? I’d love to hear all about that.

Maria Mesick
Oh my gosh, so I purchased a templates and it’s through a software I think it’s called show it that allows you to edit your own website. And I am happy with it. I’m happy with the layout and the aesthetic. It’s got my branding in it, but I I deeply regret building it myself. It was it was such a huge project it never seen was like, it’s gonna be that big of a project, it seems like, Oh, I know exactly what steps I’m going to take. But in reality, it just took so much of my energy and so much of my time. And what’s funny about websites is they are evolving a lot. So I think this is probably the fourth iteration of my websites. And I’ve switched platforms, I’ve switched templates completely. I feel like I’m finally in a place where I am relatively happy with my website. It’s I don’t think it’s something that’s ever really done, though. So I already have like, little projects in my head of of things I want to do as my business pivots, basically.

Laura Kåmark
Yeah, um, websites are never done. Yes, 100%. And I do find, why was there a reason you decided to DIY it with a template instead of hiring out? Was it just you had more time than you want to spend like the funds on at the time or?

Maria Mesick
Yes, I had, I had more time than I wanted to spend the funds on. I’m trying to think I believe it was around when the shutdown in the pandemic hits. And I was kind of transitioning to an online business model. So So I did have the time. That being said, I still kind of regret it, I don’t, I’m not entirely sure that the money saved was worth it for me for my energy. Because you think you think as a business owner, you always think about how many built billable hours you have to work and how much work you have to do in your business. But you never take into account other things like personal life, and mental health and physical health. So I think with the website building, I would become really obsessive. And I could easily wake up in the morning and get up at 7am. Sit down, start working on my website, and not really even look up until that night, like I might get up to go to the bathroom, I’d grab some food, but I’d be in front of the screen all day. And it was fatiguing, cause migraines. I just don’t know that it was really worth it.

Laura Kåmark
Yeah, I, it’s interesting, because I was talking to a friend the other day who was talking about she’s a web designer as well. And she was talking about like going in for a client, and just changing out a couple of links. And she’s like, Oh, I feel really bad, like billing for that. Because it only took like six minutes of my time I said, But what how much think about the value, you just gave that client of her not having to probably figure out how to log into her website, having to not figure out how to update the links, the stress of having to do it, the stress of knowing that it was on her plate and just keeping pushing aside, she didn’t really want to do it. Just what’s that worth? What’s the value of the peace of mind of knowing it’s just taking being taken care of? I said, That’s right there is what you’re billing for is the value in that feeling. It’s not it only took six minutes, it’s, it’s now done.

Maria Mesick
It only took her six minutes, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s taken years to hone her skills. And it’s easy for her. And maybe she’s thinking, oh, you know, I could teach my client how to do this. But even then that’s gonna take some time and energy. So I think that you know, what I did for my website, I probably spent I hate to say this, but four or five times more energy and time on my website than if I had hired somebody to do it.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, I can relate to that so much, just with Yeah. All the things for sure. I would love to also talk to you a little bit about some of like, the technical side of things that we don’t always hear about in people’s business. I know I launched my DIY Website Launch Kit at the end of last year, and I was you know, preparing it for months. Let’s be honest, it was a year it took me over a year to pull that together. And I got it ready to launch. I got the email ready and I sent out that email. And I immediately got a reply that said, Hey, Laura, you didn’t include any link in this email. And then I got another like and then I got a Facebook message from my the designer I work with and she’s like, I hope you don’t have a heart attack right now. But there’s no link in that email. And I didn’t even send a link to the sales page. I was like,

Unknown Speaker
Oh no. And

Laura Kåmark
like you Honestly, I was very calm about it, which is surprising for me because I overanalyze everything. But I was also surrounded, I was at a retreat that week, which I was like, You guys are here to support me for all this kind of things and be like, that’s fine. So they didn’t let me get down on myself. So I just didn’t oops, email and like, it’s fine. It happened. I don’t know if there’s anyone online entrepreneur, or any entrepreneur at all, who hasn’t launched something and had something tech break or not work. I mean, I always joke with clients, the whole reason for first launch is for the tech to all break, and to just test it all out and make sure all your systems are set up and in place so that then when you’re actually ready for the volume, that it can create down the line after future launches. Like you’ve already kind of gotten a lot of the kinks out.

Maria Mesick
Yeah, you figured it out. Well, it’s funny, I recently have gotten into funnels. And I’m one of those people who I’m curious about technology, I’m curious about how things work. And so I’ve started to build small funnels, it’s not something I plan on doing myself forever. I’ll probably outsource it pretty soon. But I still like to know how it works and play around with the different elements. And I built one funnel, figured it all out, took my time, test it out with my sister, and everything was great. And then I built a second funnel. And I think what happens is the second time you do something, you think, Oh, I know how to do this, I’m not going to worry about it. Well, there, I should have made a checklist of things that you’re supposed to do, because I forgot some major elements. And so when a client went to download the freebie, it said that they didn’t have permission to download. So I’ve had that where it was like, Oops, gotta fix this now. And you just go into the back end and fix it. But I think that’s where like having checklists, when even the first time you’re doing something, write down exactly what you do. Because you’re gonna forget,

Laura Kåmark
yeah, oh, absolutely. I’m, I’m, I understand it in theory. And I wish I could say that I practice it. But I’m not good about that. And every time I have something, I’m like, why don’t I document this better and like, make a checklist, like when I do the podcast production, and I even I know all the steps. But sometimes I’m in the middle of producing episodes, and then, like the kids come home, hurt, just like, my days get broken up a lot with my children. And I come back to it later. And I’ll start at the wrong spot. And then I go to do something and like, I already get this, I already transcribed it all like, where was I? Where did I leave off? And I’m like, Man, if I would just put it through asana and checklist and check off the items, I could jump back in here a lot more efficiently. And again, not sure why I don’t do that. But I should and listeners.

Maria Mesick
Yeah. Oh my gosh, it’s so true. And you know, it’s funny because I have I have a checklist for photo organizing, for every every different type of digital organizing, I have a checklist. And what happens is I do these things all the time. But because it’s so familiar, I stopped looking at the checklists. And there’s still little pieces that are so important that you miss like, they’re not very exciting. And so you you forget. And that’s that’s where it really trips you up. So not only having that checklist, but then taking it slow and actually looking at it. And then I also wanted to add that being in the tech business, I have seen so much technology, I’ve seen so many different computers, people’s different phones. In fact, at one point, I was working with somebody at Apple, and I didn’t recognize them. And we’re looking at their computer screen and I suddenly thought, oh my gosh, I know you you were in here two weeks ago, you’re you’re the one with your mom is living in a lie. And I told them all about and you so I didn’t even recognize her face. I recognized her computer. So that’s funny. But um, I have to say that technology fails. It has problems that have glitches. And you may not encounter it as often because you’re just working with your computer, you’re working with one phone and one computer, sometimes maybe two. But for me, I’m seeing it all the time. Everybody’s going to have some technical problems at some point. And it can be scary. I think people their first reaction is to freak out and panic. And for me because I know what happens and Everything is figured out double. I think Marie Forleo says it’s true. You just take a deep breath, slow down, and then you figure it out.

Laura Kåmark
I think that’s such great advice. And yeah, every like, we rely as a society so much on technology. And on the idea that technology works 100% of the time, and it doesn’t. And I mean, I can’t tell you how often I say that to people, because they’re like, Oh, I sent this email. Like, that’s great. It may not have been delivered. I remember I had opened up or I sent an email to Kajabi support back when I had Kajabi, a number of years ago. And I never heard back from them. And so I emailed them again. And that second time I emailed, I got an automatic like we received your email, your support email, and I hadn’t gotten it before. And I like in that email. I said, Hey, I’m just following up. I never heard back and they said, We never got this. And I believe them. Because I didn’t get the replot the automated reply, and I’m like, it probably just got lost out in the world wide universe of technology where sometimes things go, and they just disappear. And

Maria Mesick
yeah, well, I think technology’s gotten so good now that it’s effortless. I remember when I first my parents got their first personal computer, I think I was like 10. And I’m sure you remember this where you would log in on the internet. And then you would go get a cup of coffee or go do something else, because it would take like five minutes to log in, or you click on a website, and then you go do something else is bloated because it took so long. Technology has become so effortless now that we don’t realize the complication that’s an on the back end of things that we don’t see. And the truth is, the more complicated something is the more ways that it can go wrong. So that often, the way that I think about it is I think of it as typos in the tech in the software, and mild typos, if you’re reading them, you can figure out what they’re saying. So you can still read the sentence, you’re just like, oh, yeah, they misspelled this word. And they forgot a period here. But you still know what’s going on. But the worse the typos get, it might take you a little longer to read it maybe or it slows you down. Or the typo is so wrong, that it says something else. And completely, the instructions are totally different. I don’t know if you’ve ever like had auto, an embarrassing AutoCorrect and text messages. And that’s what’s happening with technology. There’s a lot of typos. And it’s just a matter of how serious they are. I love that analogy

Laura Kåmark
too. And yes, as you were talking, I was thinking exactly about the AutoCorrect fails that happen. And like and then like you type in the right word, it keeps auto correcting it and you’re like, oh.

Maria Mesick
And sometimes those auto corrects can be pretty embarrassing and hilarious. Yeah, I’m

Laura Kåmark
really excited about the new newest feature I’ve noticed on my phone where I can now edit my text after sending I even recalled a text to my husband the other day, after I figured out the answer to the question I had sent him and I was like, Oh, look, you can do this. Now. That’s fun.

Maria Mesick
It’s amazing. I love it. You can do it with email, too.

Laura Kåmark
How long? Do you have to unsend? It?

Maria Mesick
I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t think you have too long.

Laura Kåmark
Okay, because I have 30 seconds setup as the max, I think three seconds. On my it might be a minute on my Gmail, you can set it in there. I know that. Can you do a couple on the

Maria Mesick
on Apple Mail, too. So you can send and do all of that. Oh, fascinating.

Laura Kåmark
I need to look at all these things. I have a photo question for you. Sure. Where do you do you have a recommendation for when getting photo books of where to go get those through?

Maria Mesick
So it really oh gosh, this is tough to say this is? It really depends. If you Okay, so I’ll I’ll answer with my personal preference, because that’s the easiest, but I like classic timeless photo books I want. If I’m going to make a photo book, I’m not going to make a bunch of them. I want something that is almost like a family heirloom that I’m going to be passing on that I’m going to have for a lifetime. So I want something that’s really beautifully made high quality, timeless, not trendy or anything like that. And for that I like milk photo books. I’ve done a bunch of photo books with them. And I’ve given them as gifts as well and they’re a bit more pricey, but they do have some coupons if you sign up for They’re their mailing list. But I feel like less is more. I’m a minimalist, I don’t have a ton of things in my home. So the things that I do have, I want to have really high quality. I also like milk photo books, because it interfaces seamlessly with Apple photos. So I’ve downloaded the app, and it allows me to make photo books within my native photo app. So I love that. And that’s always what I’m looking at when I recommend photo books companies for clients is what is going to be the most seamless experience for them because photo books are a project. And if they take too long, and they’re too complicated, you’re not going to make them

Laura Kåmark
100%. And so then if you have a photo book that doesn’t need to be that high of quality, only because my husband, I were talking about one of these, he wants to make one for a trade show that he’s going to Oh, good recommend. But then I also need one, like I never did anything with our wedding photo.

Maria Mesick
I’ve done mix books. I’ve liked them, they have really great customer support. And their photo books turn out beautifully. And they have a wide range of photo books. And then I’m trying to think there’s one that I want to check out right now. I think it’s called M pecs, that seems to have a range of photo books. So there’s like the high quality ones. And that there’s, you know, some mid range and some more affordable options as well. So there’s so many photo book companies. I mean, I could really I am not kidding you. I have a spreadsheet, photo book companies. And that’s what I refer to when clients are asking me, you know, what photo books company should I go with? Oh, I love

Laura Kåmark
that. Oh, that’s fun. Yeah, but my husband has a trade show. He’s going to have a booth that coming up soon. He was like, Can we make it like in two weeks? I’m like, that’s not enough time to make a photo book and have it printed and shipped to you, honey?

Maria Mesick
Well, you could,

Maria Mesick
it would be a lot more expensive. And you’d have to stay up pretty late at night putting together

Laura Kåmark
not doing that. Remember, I’m the technological one. So this is all gonna fall in. Let me

Maria Mesick
say no, sorry, honey, you missed the deadline. That’s what I told.

Laura Kåmark
But for future and again, he was like, I don’t need it. Because I mean, he wanted to just like print them out and put them in a binder. And one and he was like, Can we do that on the computer? I said are on the printer here? I said no, we cannot.

Maria Mesick
Yeah. So with photo book projects, that’s, that’s something that I get clients who come to me and they come because they want a photo book made. And they don’t even have all the photos gathered, they’re just scattered across their entire photo collection. So if if you’re planning on making a photo book, you have to start out with organized photos first. That’s the first step. And that can be a huge project. So sometimes it can take months to get to a place where a client can have a photo book made. If your photos are organized, you’ve got your photos gathered. That’s still going to take a few weeks, and it’s not something you want, you want to have some time to put it together, step away, do something else and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Because you’re going to catch a lot of mistakes that you’ve made. So you don’t want to have to rush because that’s going to result in you getting a beautiful photo book and finding mistakes inside of it after you’ve spent a lot of money.

Laura Kåmark
Absolutely. Oh my gosh, I had years ago when I think it was like when my husband had been dating. It was our first anniversary and I had printed out all right, like I ordered it. And it’s looks like Polaroid photos, all made into the shape of a heart like a collage. And so I ordered that was so pretty. And there’s one photo in there that’s duplicated. Because it was all photos of us like the first year together. And I totally have the same photo in there twice. And I see it all the time because it’s hanging in the house and I’m like me. I mean, there’s lots of photos and there’s tons of them. You know, it’s a big flush. It’s really was a cute layout.

Maria Mesick
Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. Yeah, that kills me. i That happened for me too. i My mother in law. She has eight children. And so she right before we got married she was giving all of the childhood photos each child because they were downsizing and of course my husband isn’t going to do do anything with that. So they all went to me. So I had this big box of my husband’s childhood photos. And he was number seven. So of course, he never had a photo book made or a baby book or anything. So for our wedding, I put together a beautiful book of his childhood. And I gave one to him. And I gave one to his parents. And it’s funny because my sister in law was flipping through it. Everything looks great. It was perfect. It was wonderful. And Molly, my sister in law, she’s looking she’s like, I don’t think I don’t think this is Dennis. I think this is his brother Casey.

Maria Mesick
This wasn’t even any one of them.

Maria Mesick
But you know, I didn’t know I thought it was his sports team. And they kind of looked like at that age. So you know, things, things like that happen.

Laura Kåmark
That’s fun. Wow. So what did you do with all those? Like printed out photos? Did you then scan them all? So you have them digital in case of like, like, what do you do with all those?

Maria Mesick
Yes, so printed photos, those printed photos, I scanned all of them, and organized them into a file structure. And then from there, I choose my favorites and put them in a photo

Unknown Speaker
book. I love that.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, my gosh, we are getting close to our time. I have had so much fun talking to you about all of this. I do have one question that I ask everyone that comes on the show. And I would love to know, what is one piece of advice you would give to someone when they’re first starting out that would help them be bolder, be louder and make waves in their business?

Maria Mesick
Well, there’s this infographic that I saw early on in my my business and it, I’ll have to send it to you so you can share it. But basically, it’s the day in the life of an entrepreneur. And it starts out at the beginning of the day where the thought is, oh my gosh, can I do this? I don’t know if I can do this. And then a little bit later on. It’s

Maria Mesick
like, oh, my gosh, I’m

Maria Mesick
doing this, this is amazing. And then it drops down. And it’s like, I don’t think I can do this. I’m failing. And then you pops back up to I’m gonna be a millionaire. And then it drops down to I’m going bankrupt.

Maria Mesick
I think I’m gonna fail. And then it’s like, okay, actually, yeah, this

Maria Mesick
is good. I’m smooth sailing. And it’s so true. Like, within one day, you can have such highs and such a lows. And it is absolutely normal. You just kind of ride through it, and it ends up working out just fine. So that’s my advice.

Laura Kåmark
I love that so much. Maria, thank you so much for coming on the show. Can you tell our listeners where they can hang out with you find out more about you find out more about your services, all the things? Absolutely. And thank you, Laura for inviting me.

Maria Mesick
This is so much fun. So I have a website, Maria messick.com. And that explains a lot about my services. But you can also find me on Facebook, just as Maria Messick or Instagram, Maria Messick photo organizing. There, I do share tips and tricks. And I’m open to questions right now, because I’m looking for things to talk about. That’s always the question. As a business owner, what do you talk about on social media. So those are some great places to reach out to me. And then of course, if you want to talk, I am open to coffee chats, so feel free to reach out for that.

Laura Kåmark
Wonderful. I will link all that up in the show notes. Thank you again, so much for being here today.

Maria Mesick
Thank you so much, Laura.

Maria Mesick
This was wonderful. I loved being here. Thank you.

Laura Kåmark
Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at Laurakamark.com/podcast. And if you’re ready to turn your website into a marketing machine, get more sales, save time and simplify the back into your business. Grab my free resource power integrations for your website. Head on over to Laurakamark.com/power. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week. Bye now.