Excerpt: Clare Hefferren found her new niche by repositioning Callosum Creative Ltd., her 4-year-old solo graphic design firm, as a corporate image consultancy. After realizing last fall that ad agency layoffs were flooding the market with freelance competition, Ms. Hefferren, 40, hired a strategic adviser to help her determine a new revenue stream that drew on her background in fashion as well as marketing. They came up with a service called People-First Branding, which offers coaching in communication, business etiquette, appearance and other aspects of “personal branding.” Wanting to focus on the repositioning, Ms. Hefferren stopped seeking new business in the first half of the year. “Clearly this affected our goals, numbers and my personal finances,” she says. This year, she brought in only $20,000. But the upshot is that her new personal-branding business is on track to bring in 70% of her projected revenue in 2010. | Read full article
Shopping with Callosum is like consistently redefining fashion. They challenge what I consider “appropriate” for work and proves professional does not always equal stuffy and conservative. My company President compliments me on outfits I might not have considered “work-friendly.”
Kathleen St. Louis | Program Investments Manager, The Chicago Public Education Fund | Personal Branding Client
