Student Spotlight Series #7 - Lucy manning
Overview
Welcome to my ongoing Student Spotlight Blog + Instagram Live Series.
I created this episodic adventure to:
Flex the incredible wins my students are stacking while blazing their own paths.
Reveal the adversity they’ve overcome and/or are currently navigating in their day-to-day.
Showcase how they persistently show up like creative professionals who take their shit seriously.
Below, you have 2 ways to consume this interview:
Watch the Instagram Live full interview below where students expand on the 7 questions.
Read the Blog Post 7-Questions-based interview further down this page.
Note: Scroll to the bottom of this page if you’d like to be a student I feature here in the future!
Meet Lucy MANNING
This 7th session highlights Fall 2021 12-Week Alumni rockstar, Lucy Manning.
Lucy specializes in illustrative branding with the food, beverage, and travel space operating out of Raleigh, NC.
Her love for eating and drawing donuts has shaped the entire trajectory of her current creative biz: Creating things she’s interested in for people she enjoys working with.
If you’re looking to take the next step of going from hobbyist to professional creating the work you truly vibe to…
You'll love this session!
Instagram Live Interview
Click to watch the full interview.
7 Questions Interview
1. Give us a little elevator pitch: who you are, what you do, and why you do it?
My name is Lucy. I’m an illustrator and my work is focused on food, beverage, and travel. My goal is to help locally-focused businesses tell their stories visually with unique and eye-catching artwork.
2. Before we started working together, where were you at with your work, confidence, and direction?
Since Fall of 2019, I knew my “pie in the sky” career dream was to be an illustrator, and I had a good idea I wanted to do something in the food and beverage space.
Right before the 12-Week Side Hustler’s Coaching Program, I finished a 100-day project (100 digital illustrations), which I started in 2020 because I wanted to get better at drawing digitally on my iPad.
During the 100-day project, I started drawing local restaurant storefronts and those started getting some traction. One of a taco shop got 129 likes, which is more than I’ve ever gotten on any post.
So when I came into the program, I knew I wanted to do more of the storefronts and more in food & beverage…
But I had no understanding of how to get there or how to turn what I was doing into legit, paid client projects.
Additionally, I’d been doing a lot of work on products for my Etsy shop, and I was feeling pulled between continuing to invest there versus focusing on other illustration work (that wouldn’t lend itself to products quite as well).
3. What were your top 1-3 biggest hurdles you’ve had to work hardest on to overcome—and what are some lingering blind spots you’re continually improving on?
1. Time Management
I’ve had to figure out how to make time for my work and set boundaries.
It’s especially hard because mornings really don’t work for me. And evenings can get eaten up with other stuff if I’m not super intentional and careful.
The balance of my time can still be a blind spot, particularly when I have to choose between my work life and my social life.
Sometimes it felt like my only updates at happy hour with friends were about my work, and upon reflection at the end of the year, I know I want to balance things out a bit better this year.
2. Organization
Organizing my projects and social media content has been a major hurdle for me.
A lot of what I learned in the coaching program has helped with that…
But I got way off track this summer and didn’t post for weeks, even though I had stuff in the calendar technically.
3. Other Blind Spots
I struggle with the balance between staying in my lane to build a niche brand for myself and my work, versus taking on work outside of my lane in order to hit a revenue goal.
And every so often I get caught up in “passive income” streams and I start to feel overwhelmed because I don’t quite know what makes sense for me and my brand and business yet.
4. Was there any defining moment(s) of getting fed up AND/OR waking up to start taking your shit seriously?
I’ve definitely had a slow journey toward realizing that illustration is what really lights me up, and there were a few moments in time that stick out from that span of time.
But I would say one of the bigger defining moments was a conversation I had with my “bosses” (now friends), Baxter and Ryan, in 2019. They do photography and content marketing for a lot of big names and establishments in the food and beverage industry.
They were asking me about my dream career, and when I said I wanted to be an illustrator, they explained that there was a lot of opportunity for that in food and beverage. So with their encouragement, I started to wade into that arena.
It was a really simple conversation, but it validated an interest and talent that I had, which empowered me to start taking things seriously.
And I should note this was not an overnight change! But looking back, that’s where the seed was planted.
5. What have been your biggest wins since we worked together?
I hit my goal of making $10K in revenue in 2022, which was a goal I set in 2021 at the end of the coaching program. The goal is to double that to $20K in 2023.
Hitting this revenue target also paid back my entire coaching program investment and more!
I did illustrations for a NIL (Name Image Likeness) partnership between UNC basketball player Leaky Black and Ease Plumbing. They created a full ad campaign, and my artwork went on t-shirts that were sold as part of that.
I got an inquiry from a local marketing agency that’s been on my dream client list! Still in the works of what it could turn into, but the inquiry alone was a big win for me!
I landed my first licensing buyout agreement with an illustration gig for Piedmont Pennies, an oven-baked cheese snack company in North Carolina.
6. What was your biggest highlight/takeaway from working together?
Discipline and consistency!
Working with an editorial calendar to stay on track with my content and my illustration projects was huge for me.
The consistency is what resulted in my first paid illustration client at the end of the coaching program.
I also learned a lot about optimizing + repurposing content like how to take a single drawing and turn it into multiple posts.
7. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone who’s dealing with the same struggles as your past self?
Get organized and be really clear about what you want to get out of the creative process, be it paid client work, a bigger Instagram audience, or just for fun.
I would tell someone to make an editorial calendar with deadlines for projects, and a schedule if they’re posting things on social media.
And start keeping a list of your creative ideas accessible and easy to edit—see what continues to come up.
I took all of my random project ideas from years of journals and put them into a spreadsheet.
Now they’re all in one place, and it’s cool to see what continues to come up in your mind once you start to track it.
Connect With Lucy Manning
Make sure to show them some love and connect with them if you found this helpful:
I’d love to work with you!
I’m always looking for the next Lucy to make moves with, if that’s you, learn how we can work together below. 👇🏻
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Consider this a Creative Biz 101 Master’s Degree without the major price tag and debt that comes with a traditional education!
You'll get direct daily/weekly access to me within a personalized, yet intimate setting of ~6 total hungry souls such as yourself.
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SCOTTY HERE 👋
I’m a full-time Coach for Web 2 + Web 3 creatives and I side hustle my own art in the rapidly evolving NFT space.
I’m also a designer, podcaster, speaker, + husband, and rad dad to 2 kids (and 3 cats), making moves out of Cedar Falls, Iowa.
After 5.5 years of side hustling outside my Corporate Cubicle, I made the full-time leap to Side Hustle Coach in January 2020.
I’ve since scaled this into a 6-figure creative business and have coached well over 1.5k students worldwide. 🤯
My mission is to put you in a position to get paid to play creating work you vibe to that impacts the people you care about the most.
I’d love the chance to work with you in a future 3-Week Boot Camp or 12-Week Coaching Program.