Creating a Mentor Relationship That Works

Both the mentor and the mentee contribute to the success of a mentoring relationship. Create the most productive relationship by following these tips.

BE A GOOD MENTOR

Acknowledge natural strengths and coach weaknesses. Listen for what your mentee’s doing right and for her own good ideas. Be honest about your thoughts for improvement.

Share your big lessons. Tell your own stories, good and bad, but most importantly, what you’ve learned from your experience.

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The Importance Of Business Card Design

Technology in our society of ever changing. With so many things becoming digital, business cards are still such a vital, crucial, and tangible element for any brand. It's amazing that something as small as 2" x 3.5" can make such an impact on our businesses! Similar to a 15 second commercial, you have about 5-10 seconds to make an impact with your card.

Why you need a good business card.

The design of a business card, and the importance of it reflecting your brand, is much overlooked. Your business card needs to convey what you're about. Since a business card should reflect your personality, come up with something that represents you, not someone else.

Here are great examples of creative outside-the-box cards:

Excellent typography - designed by Amy Brewster

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Setting up a Portfolio Site: Look Professional - Look Legit

If you are a photographer, stylist, or a designer, you need more than just a blog. You need a part of your online presence that provides a quick review of your work. Clients shouldn't have to scroll through all of your blog posts to find past work. When you have a blog and a portfolio site, it can be even more challenging to have everything look good and work together cohesively. How do you know which platforms are best for you?

Here are a few of my recommendations for the creative just getting started:

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Friday Links

Have you begun to feel the slight shift of fall that is begining to creep in? Something about the snippets of cool weather and the lines of back to school supplies are inspiring us to get organized online and off! Here are a few links to help you in the process:

• A time management podcast by David Allen 
• A primer for online calendars
• A pretty way to bring organization to the wall
• Perfect pencils for color coded lists
• Organize your inbox quickly
• A new favorite way to organize and view your reader

Photography by Tom Blanchford.

Business Card Design Tips

Tips on designing your business card:

• Come up with a logo, identity, and a slogan or phrase that best represents your brand 
• Choose legible fonts 
• Keep the design simple and sweet 
• Include a perk they can receive if visiting your website (a free download, coupon, etc.)  
• Use high-quality paper 
• Never use free cards - pay the extra $5 to remove the line, "printed free at," so no one is visiting a website other than yours  
• Consider including some extra swag (a sticker or tattoo) to make it memorable  
• Create a series of different cards to create excitement about collecting all of them  
• Print in CMYK and if possible, design in vector - a pixelated low-resolution card is never a good idea

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