Stationery Academy, The Experience of a Lifetime

This past July I attended my first in-person big business conference. After following along for a couple of years and taking some of their online webinars, and a couple of coaching calls, I set my sights on attending Stationery Academy. 

I met up with 24 creative professionals in Phoenix, Arizona for the 3 day conference, and I will say that it has changed me and my business for the better and I look back on it only with gratefulness. It was so fun to meet people I'd been following on Instagram like Stephanie of Winnie Jean and social media, to meet the amazing Jennifer Faught behind Stationery Academy, and the handful of speakers with their own amazing businesses I've admired for years (yes you Cara, of One Swell Studio). To sit down with them to share and learn, and realize that we're all just people with to-do lists, families, goals, stresses, and fears and to realize that I was not alone. 

From the start, we opened up things to the group we've probably barely admitted to ourselves regarding our businesses, our fears, and our goals. We got some pretty fabulous swag along the way, and a fresh new seating arrangement each day so that we had the opportunity to visit with just about everyone.

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The meals. Oh my, the meals.. so delicious, with beautiful place settings and place cards all laid out for us at every single one of them. We all whipped out our phones snapping away photos before one thing was moved out of place!! The love in each setting was not lost on this group of ladies who are used to being the ones putting out the final touches instead of being treated to them. These little touches were just what makes Stationery Academy special, they mean "You deserve this," "You are worth this," "You can do this."

I know you're probably looking at these beautiful photos (taken by Life Created) and thinking that this looks more like a vacation than a business conference, but let me just clarify that we did some SERIOUS work here. Six modules in just three days. We focused on our Core, our Client, our Brand, our Money, our Call (marketing), and our Plan. There was a lot of digging deep, a lot of planning, focusing, crossing out, note taking, and maybe even a few tears. Best of all, there was sharing successes and failures, sharing of stories about business goals and our families, a lot of tough questions answered, and a lot of laughs and hugs, and yes, some carefully planned sweet treats for the modules like Money that make our creative brains hurt.

If you're like me and you've been following along with Stationery Academy for a few sessions now and you just don't know if you're ready, you are. Take the plunge and sign up to attend this spring in Pensacola, Florida. I'll be over here watching from the outside wishing I was there too, and being thankful that I got to be on the other side of this conference. 

​Now six months later, I'm still thumbing through my binder, keeping tabs on my goals, and making new ones, looking up answers to questions I'm just getting around to focusing on, and continuing to grow my business with an incredible amount of knowledge from people who have been there and truly want to see you do great things. 

I am thankful for the community that still thrives away from the conference, across many states, and in many different stages of our business timelines. I am so grateful for my capability partner and our phone calls to check in on each other and the friendship that has blossomed there. If you have the drive, but you need the tools, Stationery Academy is for you. If you have a creative business calling your name and you are ready to take it to the next step, Stationery Academy is for you. Do yourself a favor and get there.

There are just a handful of seats left for the March 2016 conference, and you will be so glad if one of them is a beautiful place setting just for you.