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Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue.
Speaker:And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.
Speaker:These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and
Speaker:things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.
Speaker:If you'd like to submit a topic,
Speaker:DME, over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped,
Speaker:gosh, this year I've rolled out a number of new opportunities
Speaker:for you here.
Speaker:There are the bashes where you have a chance to showcase
Speaker:your business to this entire listening audience.
Speaker:There's the new owl app.
Speaker:When you have a quick question where you'd like my input,
Speaker:and now I'm excited to bring you gift biz boosts.
Speaker:Think of these as free strategy sessions,
Speaker:leaving you with a clear action plan to boost you forward.
Speaker:Whether you're at the beginning of your business journey and need
Speaker:concrete steps on how to start,
Speaker:or you've been doing this for a while and could use
Speaker:a fresh approach.
Speaker:These boosts are for you you'll know,
Speaker:a podcast is a boost.
Speaker:If you see that word in the title,
Speaker:want to get your own free boost.
Speaker:I'm taking these on a first come first serve basis.
Speaker:Head over to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com/boost and sign up for your session today.
Speaker:By now,
Speaker:I'm sure you're very much aware of how important your product
Speaker:photos are on Etsy.
Speaker:For example,
Speaker:where you're up against many others who sell handmade products,
Speaker:similar to yours,
Speaker:a photo will most likely be the differentiating factor in choosing
Speaker:who gets the sale.
Speaker:In the past.
Speaker:Having high quality photos was an investment of both time and
Speaker:money. You either hired a professional photographer or purchased your own
Speaker:high quality camera that required a level of skill and photography.
Speaker:Not to mention editing software knowledge today.
Speaker:The continual upgrades of mobile phone cameras has come to the
Speaker:rescue. Now there's no excuse for not capturing great images of
Speaker:your products since your phone can do the trick in terms
Speaker:of enhancing your photos in the past,
Speaker:you only had software options up until a few years ago.
Speaker:I used Photoshop exclusively that in itself was an investment of
Speaker:time learning the program and trying to figure out the advanced
Speaker:effects I wanted to make my images stand out today.
Speaker:Things have changed now that canvass on the scene,
Speaker:I haven't opened up Photoshop for at least two years at
Speaker:this point.
Speaker:And I'm able to accomplish everything I once did there and
Speaker:more with as professional or even better results and less stress
Speaker:too. I might add.
Speaker:This is what I wanna share with you today.
Speaker:What I find particularly valuable with Canva,
Speaker:if you're already using Canva,
Speaker:you'll know a number of these,
Speaker:and they may only serve as a reminder,
Speaker:but who knows?
Speaker:You may learn something that you never knew was possible within
Speaker:this program,
Speaker:too, if you've heard about,
Speaker:but never used Canva before perk up your ears,
Speaker:because game changer is the word that comes to mind.
Speaker:If there's one tool that can dramatically affect your Workday and
Speaker:the quality of your images,
Speaker:it's Canva.
Speaker:I have the paid pro version,
Speaker:but many of the qualities I love and we'll be talking
Speaker:about here are in the free version as well.
Speaker:To my way of thinking though,
Speaker:Canva pro is the way to go.
Speaker:And I think it's only about $120 totally worth it.
Speaker:Why don't you see what you think you can try it
Speaker:out for free at gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com/canva. So now let's run down these 10 things that I
Speaker:think make Canva stand out among all other quality photo and
Speaker:video options available today.
Speaker:The very first thing is the ability to customize your account
Speaker:for your brand.
Speaker:The program allows you to identify your specific brand colors by
Speaker:hex code and even import your own fonts.
Speaker:If what you use,
Speaker:isn't already available there,
Speaker:staying on brand,
Speaker:regardless of what your images are used for is important for
Speaker:your company recognition.
Speaker:Secondly, just as you customize your brand assets,
Speaker:you can also upload your own images,
Speaker:logos, photos,
Speaker:and videos can all be added in and then adjusted with
Speaker:all canvas features.
Speaker:Speaking of images,
Speaker:you also have royalty free access to hundreds of thousands of
Speaker:images of all sorts,
Speaker:just do a search and numerous options come up.
Speaker:And not only images,
Speaker:you can find shapes,
Speaker:numbers ready,
Speaker:made frames for things like computer and cell phone screens.
Speaker:These frames that I'm talking about,
Speaker:give you the ability to add in a screenshot of your
Speaker:own website,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:and it will automatically fill in correctly onto each of the
Speaker:tech images.
Speaker:There are really too many creative assets available to list here.
Speaker:So going in and playing around to see what you can
Speaker:find will definitely prove satisfying.
Speaker:And since the royalty free,
Speaker:you don't have to worry about getting a CSUN desist letter
Speaker:because you innocently used a photo.
Speaker:You don't have ownership rights too.
Speaker:These first three points give you all the base elements for
Speaker:upping your image game.
Speaker:Having instant access to all your branding features using your own
Speaker:photos and being able to resource other images,
Speaker:covering unlimited topics.
Speaker:Now let's talk about things that you can do with these
Speaker:elements. Number four brings us to a huge library of professionally
Speaker:designed templates that you can choose from.
Speaker:There are templates for promotions,
Speaker:grand openings,
Speaker:holiday specific,
Speaker:you name it all are customizable,
Speaker:where you can replace images,
Speaker:fonts, colors,
Speaker:whatever you like no longer do you need to hire a
Speaker:graphic designer to make your company look great.
Speaker:Canvas got you covered.
Speaker:And of course you can create your own project from scratch
Speaker:in any dimension you want.
Speaker:You can also bring in templates from third party designers to
Speaker:up your game.
Speaker:Even further.
Speaker:I've been subscribing to the template TRIBE since Saul started creating
Speaker:templates for Canva and I can highly recommend them.
Speaker:I'll drop the link to her information in the show notes,
Speaker:but you can also find her on my website under resources,
Speaker:business tools.
Speaker:Again, it's called the template TRIBE in terms of editing tools.
Speaker:This is my fifth favorite thing about Canva.
Speaker:You can do everything there that you could possibly want.
Speaker:Text effects of all kinds,
Speaker:layering shadowing,
Speaker:opacity levels.
Speaker:One feature they've added recently that I love so much is
Speaker:the background remover tool ever wonder how to add just your
Speaker:body or your face to an image on top of another
Speaker:photo or just a solid color background.
Speaker:Here you go.
Speaker:The background remover also for those who haven't experienced Canva,
Speaker:yet, I should mention that you can create your products here
Speaker:as single images only,
Speaker:or multi-image projects,
Speaker:which are great for carousel posts.
Speaker:Additionally, you can add animation to any page you want.
Speaker:These animations are ready,
Speaker:made for you.
Speaker:So it takes all the guesswork out,
Speaker:just click on the options and see which one you like
Speaker:best with this animation.
Speaker:You can turn photo and text into video just by downloading
Speaker:it as an MP4.
Speaker:No doubt.
Speaker:You've heard how focused social media algorithms are on video these
Speaker:days. If you've never wanted to be faced a camera talking
Speaker:to make your video.
Speaker:Here's the solution.
Speaker:Canva is an amazing tool for your business overall as well.
Speaker:Once you get into the program,
Speaker:I know like me,
Speaker:it will become your go-to for so many different tasks with
Speaker:your business.
Speaker:You can use it to design new business cards,
Speaker:signs for your show,
Speaker:booth presentations and even newsletters.
Speaker:You can also duplicate projects you've already created.
Speaker:So if you just wanna switch out certain things in a
Speaker:post or a newsletter,
Speaker:the majority of the work is already done for you.
Speaker:This saves a ton of time and brain power versus starting
Speaker:from scratch over time.
Speaker:Having all of these individual projects in Canva can get overwhelming.
Speaker:However, do you find something that you created a few months
Speaker:ago have no fear through a project naming and folder system
Speaker:you can arrange and file your projects right inside Canva for
Speaker:easy reference.
Speaker:At any time,
Speaker:I'm finding that with this folder system,
Speaker:I'm beginning to use Canva as a storage center,
Speaker:similar to how I've always used Dropbox,
Speaker:but for my images,
Speaker:videos and presentations,
Speaker:since I have multiple people who access my Canva account,
Speaker:my content manager,
Speaker:my podcast editor,
Speaker:they can go in and do their work there,
Speaker:save the projects and not have the extra step of transferring
Speaker:the images over to another program.
Speaker:That's a huge time saver over the course of a week.
Speaker:Plus, I can go in and look at or comment on
Speaker:any project there.
Speaker:Finally, I love that I can access Canva from anywhere it's
Speaker:an online program so I can get to it from any
Speaker:computer, anywhere in the world.
Speaker:I just log into my account and get to work.
Speaker:And yes,
Speaker:even from my phone,
Speaker:if I have a few minutes,
Speaker:I can upload pictures for future use or go in and
Speaker:work full force on a specific project,
Speaker:no more having to get in the mood to tackle a
Speaker:project. Only define that you don't have everything you need.
Speaker:So you have to delay or do a work around until
Speaker:you can backfill.
Speaker:What's missing.
Speaker:Let me summarize these 10 things.
Speaker:I love so much about Canva one.
Speaker:You can customize your account to your brand two.
Speaker:You can upload your own images.
Speaker:Three, there are royalty free images to access.
Speaker:Four are the professionally designed templates.
Speaker:Five are all the editing tools.
Speaker:Six, you can do single or multi-image projects,
Speaker:including animation seven.
Speaker:Use it for business cards,
Speaker:signs for your booth presentations,
Speaker:even newsletters eight.
Speaker:I love the naming and folder system to keep everything organized
Speaker:and easily accessible.
Speaker:Nine I've started using this as my storage center versus always
Speaker:having to pull things into Dropbox and 10.
Speaker:I can access Canva from anywhere on my phone or computer
Speaker:as I consider all the tools I use in my business
Speaker:in any given day,
Speaker:apart from my website and my CRM program,
Speaker:Canva is the most important and most used resource I have.
Speaker:If you've not considered this program in the past,
Speaker:I encourage you to look into it and there's no reason
Speaker:not to.
Speaker:You can try it out for free.
Speaker:As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker:by going to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com/canva, check out all the features,
Speaker:download and use what you've created for your social media and
Speaker:see for yourself why I call it a game changer,
Speaker:happy canvasing.
Speaker:That's a wrap.
Speaker:I'm a get to the point kind of girl.
Speaker:And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek
Speaker:sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream
Speaker:of yours.
Speaker:Share your handmade products with us.
