The lovely thing about being a creative business owner is that you never run out of ideas.

The downside? You want to do it all. Now. You don’t know where to start. You don’t want to forget or miss anything. Your creative explosions are exhilarating…but they leave you fractured and frantic. You don’t want to miss anything or start with the wrong thing. 

As you start to believe in your dreams, and you begin to make it real, you have to find a way to keep navigating new new stratospheres.

You have to find a way to grow, launch that book, write that course, or rock that trade show, all while keeping your “normal” business humming along.

The only thing that works is what works for you.

Your workday, your habits, your customers, your contacts, your special sparkle.
Together, we can come up with the solution. We can craft a flight plan that gets you where you want to go, in a way that’s sustainable and enthusiastic.

“I had mostly given up on my email newsletter – I hated sending out what felt like repetitive ad copy, and almost no one was paying attention.  It certainly wasn’t bringing me any sales! When I hired Tara to help me with one of my sales pages, she said something that completely changed how I see my newsletter.

That’s changed everything. It’s easier to make now, and much more enjoyable! Dozens of new people have signed up in the last two months, and I’ve made plenty of sales!”

-Diane Gilleland, author, teacher and media maker, CraftyPod.com

My superpower is finding your star-studded sparkle. I ask the questions that bring out your best ideas, your shiniest strengths and your real enthusiasm. I’ll help you make decisions from that shiny place, so that everything you do is sparkling with your crystal-clarity.

And then we get into the granular level of how to do the next thing – the very next steps for you to take, the plan going forward, the way it fits into your real-world universe.  My work with authors, designers, and tech start-ups has endowed me with a zillion different examples of how things can work – together we’ll figure out what will work for you.

Let’s shine a little starlight into the darkness.  

We’ll craft your flight path through conversation and question-asking. When you register, you’ll get a Flight Manifest, with a series of questions for you to answer. You return it and we schedule your Flight Plan session. When the time comes, we get together and start sketching solutions. A Flight Plan is $150. 

Ready to soar?

Note: I have 2 flight plans left in July. If you wanna talk about if it’s right for you, beam me a message. 

We can create a flight plan to…

•  Launch your newest product, line or book. Toss that pile of Should-Dos and laser in on a plan that will attract your perfect buyer, explain why want it, and then sell it, with humanity, compassion, and authenticity (no sales-y, slimy tactics, here!) I worked with Heather to create a Flight Plan for her book launch and she tripled her list in the weeks before Publish Day!

• Get that Big Project done, while you continue to pay the bills. If you’ve got something bubbling away inside of you, but you’re not sure where you’ll find the time to make it, you need a Flight Plan. M + I crafted a plan to keep her old patterns selling while she writes her book! 

• Love your newsletter. Seriously. Your people want you to talk to them. And you want to talk to them. So let’s find a way to send them love notes, field notes, or secret messages in an enthusiastic way. (See Diane’s quote above for an example!)

“When you start a huge project (like launching a new book!), you need a sounding board—an intelligent one that can talk back to you—who can listen to you ramble around the jumble of what you do and come back with, “RIGHT! Then THIS is what you need to do next because THESE are Your People and THIS is what they want from you.“

Boom!

You can’t get that kind of understanding, that kind of I-can-listen-and-hear-what-makes-your-thing-special-to-you-and-Your-People from a website or a book or even a friend—because they probably aren’t marketing experts.

No. For this, you really need Tara.”

-Heather Ordover, author and podcaster, Craftlit.com

A Flight Plan includes

• A thought-provoking, question-packed Manifest (you fill it out before the call),
• Around 60 minutes of live path-finding*. Together we find solutions that you actually like, and then we find all of the next steps you need to do.
• Follow up! Even after we’re done path-finding, I keep thinking! I’ll send you notes, a recording, and a list of resources  after the session is over. If you have questions, you are welcome to ask them, for as long as you need to.  

*These sessions are so packed with ideas, that 60 minutes is about all either one of us can last. I won’t cut you off mid-sentence or anything, but most sessions come to a natural end around this time. If we are just alighting on some newfound epiphany, you better believe we’ll keep going, at no extra cost. 

“I think I might have sprained my wrist, I was scribbling your brilliant ideas so quickly. Seriously, I am in AWE of the sheer amount of usefulness your brain can spew out. It was all so crisp, so clear and so exactly what I needed. But my favorite part was how completely non-judgmental you were with the stuff I wanted to figure out, and how genuinely excited you got about my latest project-babies. (Anyone thinking about hiring Tara — you will get soooo much more than what you’re paying for. This service is basically the best thing in the entire world.)”

-Havi Brooks, The Fluent Self

Ready to soar?

Note: I have 2 flight plans left in July. If you wanna talk about if it’s right for you, beam me a message. 

I recently crafted flight plans with…

A designer landed a book deal. Celebrations! Except…she still needs to keep her sales hopping, to propel her through the writing. We found a way to keep introducing new people to her current designs, so things don’t get stale while she focuses on the book.

A maker enters her first trade show. So much to make and do! While maintaining her same schedule of order-fullfilment! The solution is to make for the show while she makes for the customers.

A teacher wants to branch into a new career as a speaker.  Together we identified contacts that could make introductions, and expanded topics that would slowly move her into those new jobs.

A multi-passionate designer and nature-lover has a long list to make and teach, on two topics. But she feels cramped to just pick one. Together, we found a few ways she could do both, while feeling peaceful and creative.

Where would your Flight Plan take you? 

Who’s flying this thing?

I’m Tara, an author, maker and Starship Captain. I’ve crafted flight plans for authors, tech start-ups, artists, and designers. Together we’ve worked on everything from newsletters to wholesale strategies to writing those tricksy emails. If you don’t know me yet, hang out on the blog for a while.

Want ME to write the just-right words for you? Yep, I do that right here.

How’s this work?

Click the Register button + I’ll shoot you an email within 24 hours. I’ll include information on scheduling your calla booklet to fill out before the call, so I can get to know you and your business before we start. Share your questions, concerns, or stuckness beforehand and I’ll be pondering and ideastorming before we ever get on the phone.

“The experience was a rewarding mixture of Tara’s own social media experience + a willingness to develop completely new ideas that were suited for our unique culture and community. She expanded the scope of what we had considered and opened my eyes to new possibilities.  What really surprised me was her solid business experience. Unlike a lot of “creatives” in the social media advice-giving space, she could chat Return on Investment and budgets and realistic expectations.”

- Garnet, Director of Finance & Strategy, Karina’s Dresses

 Semi-Secret Starship Stalker Special: If you’ve been considering the Starship for a while, and aren’t sure what to do, this is a good place to start! You’ll get a taste of what it’s like to work with me (Starship Captains get 4 free sessions a year), and if you DO decide to buy the Starship, I’ll apply your Flight Plan ticket to the cost of your Boarding Pass.