Hello & thank you for stopping past to see what Black Cat is all about. I wanted to introduce myself here so you felt you knew me a little better. I’m Carly and have had an abundant career!
My background is Marketing, where I started out working for Sabco (the brush company) right after completing my Bachelor of Business Management with a major in Marketing. From there I moved onto McDonald’s where my Marketing Co-ordinator role entailed taking the Ronald McDonald characters out to stores, even at one stage having to step into a character myself for a day! I moved later into a Marketing Consultant role servicing the store licensees which was challenging and a really great part of my role at Macca’s. It was probably here that I started to really build a passion for branding, having seen the importance of brands and how they attract & build customers through loyalty, recognition, familiarity, linking a sense of fun etc etc.
I then started a family and popped out of the work force for a year but at that time I began a photography business on the side, photographing families and weddings and the occasional head shot. I returned to McDonald’s for another year but found myself looking for something more creative and in an area I could really make an impact. I decided to step out of my role and into a consulting role working for myself where I did the marketing for a Financial Planner in Adelaide. I loved it! It was a completely new area to me but the fundamentals are the same, just slightly different products to brooms and burgers!! We had more of a client focus as this is really what Financial Planning relies on. So with my photography business slowly building on the side, I worked with them for around 5 years.
I came to a point where I felt a change was needed and was frustrated I wasn’t throwing myself into my photography business as much as I had wanted so I took the leap of faith and did so full time, while juggling family life. In the past 4 years I began picking up more business branding photo sessions and truly loved them. Even designing the occasional logo for a client who was starting their own business. I loved to hear what my clients were looking to build in their businesses, what clients they wanted to attract, how they were going to do it etc etc. We were nutting out what sorts of shots, styling, colours etc with my photography client to get across to their clients that makes my next step even more logical.
It was here that again I decided to pivot slightly and wanted provide my clients a service that every business these days really needs – a website. I have always loved desktop design (even back at McDonald’s I did a lot of this – it was a sign that I should have seen!) plus I had set up and designed my own photography websites over the years, so I realised this could be a great path for me. Literally I reached out to the Universe and asked for something to pop into my life that would tick these boxes > and what do you know… into my life came the E-Business Institute Website design course. I was hooked! I loved every single minute of the course and after designing 3 new websites I knew this was where I was meant to be. And when I got 2 new clients within 24 hours of putting it out there, I knew I was on the right course! Best.Feeling.Ever!
So that’s my sweet little life story and I am proud of the journey (at times it’s felt more like being lost slightly around a noisy city) but it’s been a great experience and one I’ve loved and am super excited for the future of. I can’t wait to share more of my work as we go along and I hopefully will be working with you too.
If you are looking to have a website built or rebuilt, I’d love to hear what you have in mind and see if I can be of any assistance! Cheers, Carly
