This week on Messy in the Middle, I was able to talk about building an aligned business with Kelsey Kerslake- my former business coach!
Kelsey is the CEO of The Aligned Business, a program for creative entrepreneurs to learn how to sell their services with ease and hit six figures with their online business. She and I met through Instagram several years ago when I reached out to interview an agency owner for a presentation for grad school.
When we first met, her business was called Pine Gate Road Academy and she was coaching designers for two years before turning it into the Aligned Business Academy. She started noticing her clients getting results and realized those results could be attainable outside of just designers. She opened the program up to all kinds of service providers, coaches, and consultants!
The Agency
Kelsey really started freelancing accidentally. After graduating with a graphic design degree in 2021, she went to grad school and started freelancing as a great way to earn a little extra money. She started Pine Gate Road in 2011 while in grad school and also started a blog as an outlet to escape from grad school work.
Because of her design background, she designed her blog website. People took notice and started seeking out her services, and that started to grow and evolve into her business for brand and web design. After graduating, she started growing her agency, publishing on Pinterest, and things blew up (in a good way)!
She got so many inquiries that she couldn’t keep up and knew it was time to hire some help. This turned into her hiring some design friends to take on additional work while she was still working a full time job. Over time, she started considering having a family and a bit more independence, and ultimately chose the agency route.
Scaling The Aligned Business
Once she decided to go full throttle on owning her own agency, Kelsey had to face the challenges that come with the territory of scaling. At the time, she was trying to get pregnant, and her end goal was to scale the agency to a place where she could feel confident taking 3 months off. This involved doing a lot of work up front to get to that place.
First and foremost, this required her to get her processes and procedures down. There was a lot of problem solving that needed to be done, including figuring out client communication when the communication wasn’t going directly through her. Figuring out the nuances of that was a big step. When getting an abundance of feedback from a client, it can be easy to revert to feeling discouraged, but how you and your team handle that workload is extremely important!
We also talked a bit about setting boundaries during vacations and our first vacations as entrepreneurs. It can be really difficult to completely detach from work during holiday breaks and the lead up can feel so taxing, but we are happy to report we’ve both made leaps and bounds in this area as our businesses have grown.
Putting a Pause on Things
As the coaching side of Kelsey’s business has started to take off, she has ultimately decided to put a pause on the agency side of things for now. She just isn’t sure where she’d like to go with it and is figuring out the next stage. When the coaching business started taking off, she wasn’t able to focus as much on her agency and wasn’t bringing in new clients. Inquiries died down, her contractors were finding other work, and with her most recent pregnancy, she knew she couldn’t bring on a whole new team.
This proved to be a bit messier than she had anticipated, but she simply had other things she needed to prioritize at that time. Her messy middle feelings on this? She noted that she wished she had checked in with her team a bit more, but everything’s meant to be how it will be!
Kelsey’s Recent Wake Up Call
Kelsey noted:
“I will just say we had a really great year last year, and I hired a team to support the business, staying at the same rate or growing. And this year, based on lots of factors, including pregnancy and the economy and team turnover and stuff, we have not grown as much, and we’ve actually had way less sales than we had the year before. I also hired a salesperson last year, and it’s been about three sales people over a year and a half, but have never been able to sell the way that I have.
And I had a team that was all full salaried. Recently, it got to the point where we cannot sustain the team for the amount of students that we have. I did have to let some of my team go just for the sustainability of the business. That was a really hard thing. My heart is open and raw about it and I’m still processing that.
In general, it’s just really hard because the people are good friends at this point and they’ve been through so much. This year has been a lot for all of those factors that I mentioned. My business is called the aligned business. I truly believe in having that alignment in your life and your business. Even though I had my business designed to a place where I had a lot of time back, my energy and my mind was always on the business. I reached this state of burnout that I didn’t realize that I had.”
After a series of personal instances, Kelsey realized she was in a state of burnout and needed to start prioritizing her joy again! This involved reintroducing some of her favorite pastimes back into her life and schedule, and putting less stress on business and its inner workings. Work will happen, and it will come from a better place if she is fulfilled and joyful in her daily life.
End of Year Musings
As we head into Q4, Kelsey noted that listeners shouldn’t expect anything from Pine Gate Road, and the same may go for Aligned Business. She is looking forward to putting less pressure on herself and the business. Serving clients that she does have is what is most important in the business. This may also mean limiting her team rather than trying to grow to some huge entity.
The Aligned Business: Looking to 2023
Kelsey said 2023 will be a stabilizing year for her, limiting the amount of people she is serving, and doing things that are profitable and joyful. She noted that she is very excited to build up the business’ savings and be in a place where it feels good to be in business. She’s ready to feel aligned again!
Where to Find Kelsey
You can find Kelsey on her personal Instagram or at the Aligned Biz!
