Hey Reader, It’s parent-teacher conference season— aka the annual reality check for how my kids are doing in school. As I sat there listening to their teachers, it hit me: this is exactly how my clients feel when they peek at their online reviews. They’re your practice’s progress reports, written in real time. The glowing ones give you pride and validation for all your hard work. The not-so-great (or fake) ones sting, but they’re also opportunities to learn, adjust, and show integrity. Just...
29 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, For years I’ve been working from my home office. I even invested in an adjustable desk and walking pad to increase my productivity. But six months ago, I realized that too much of my time was taken up by distractions around the house (piles of laundry and dishes – I’m looking at you). I took a tour at a local co-working space and to my surprise, it was just the right amount of hustle and bustle with comfortable furniture and access to conference rooms. The facility I chose also...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, In what seems like another life, I was an Army wife. I’m only now starting to realize how much it shaped my day-to-day life. It became second nature to be the glue holding everything together — managing the household during weeks-long training or deployments, staying calm through every rumor of relocation, and making family decisions on my own when he wasn’t available. Those are some of the harder civilian vs military life differences to explain to friends. But one of the easiest...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I hope summer has been treating you well & you’ve been able to enjoy some sunshine! Summertime is usually more laid back at Tracy Mak Studio, which gave me the chance to explore partnering with some social media management companies to lighten my workload and keep things running smoothly. As a one-woman show, I realized that I need some backup for some of my business tasks. While I am capable of creating social media posts, it’s not what I’m passionate about and I felt like my time...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to bring up a boring topic with my clients… website policies. WAIT, DON’T GO! 😜 This Black Friday, I am focusing on helping customers get up to speed with compliance related to their website, and I’m recommending a solution I use on my own website, Termageddon. Let’s start with the basics… Your website is collecting (and sharing) personal information Generating leads is essential for just about every website owner. Websites with contact forms...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
Happy Halloween Reader! Last week, I was on a mission to earn cool mom points by finding the perfect video game truck for my son’s birthday party. After sifting through search results, I was left frustrated with no available options for the date I needed. I finally hit the jackpot after I reached out to a friend who recommended a local business I hadn’t even found in my Google search. This experience got me thinking about the power of being easily discoverable online – and how important it is...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, It’s been a rough few weeks over here. I unfortunately had an impromptu anatomy lesson during my work out when I heard a “pop” and immediately felt pain on my left side. Apparently, the bottom few ribs are called “floating ribs” and you can pop them out of place, causing an injury like a sprain in your ribs. Standing at a whopping 5 feet tall, I already had issues reaching things on the top shelf. But after this injury, reaching up to grab food in our pantry ain’t happening. Our...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, There are lots of things I pride myself on: my ability to design and code, swapping faces in Photoshop, and Rick Rolling my 9-year-old. But one of the things that I’m most proud of, that I don’t get to talk much about, is my onboarding and project management systems. It’s one of those things that isn’t very exciting and is only really noticed when it doesn’t work. But the time I’ve put into fine tuning different systems is probably the one of the most important investments I’ve...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, At the end of my son’s hockey season, I found myself surrounded by shouts of “skibidi toilet!” and I instantly felt like an old lady grumbling about “kids these days”. My sons are at an age where Gen Alpha slang has infiltrated our house. Gone are the days where my Millennial phrases were the sole influence of their vocabulary (“whatever!” has definitely slipped out on occasion when my son has had an attitude and it was like looking in a mirror). But every time my son says “Bet”...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read