How to find time to work on your business

Lynne Testoni: We all work differently, and I think it doesn’t matter. No one’s right or wrong. I think we both get good results the way we do it. So, it’s just people, some people might relate to the way you work, and some people might relate to the way I work, and it doesn’t matter.

Rachel Smith: Hello and welcome to The Content Byte, a podcast for freelancers who use their words to make money. I’m Rachel Smith, a freelance journalist, copywriter, and content producer. I’m also the founder of Rachel’s List, a jobs board and community for Australian writers and other creatives. 

Lynne: I’m Lynne Testoni! I’m a journalist and content writer as well. Rachel and I are your weekly co-hosts, and every week we bring you all kinds of tips, tricks, and some fabulous guests to help you make the most of your freelance business.

Lynne: Hey, Rachel. How are you? 

Rachel: Good. Busy as always. 

Lynne: Yes, me too. It’s getting really crazy around here, so, I’ve got a couple of huge projects coming up, so I’m doing all the prep. 

Rachel: That’s a good problem to have. 

Lynne: Yes, it is. I know. But this week, we’re actually doing something different. Well, it’s just the two of us this week, and we’re answering a question from one of our listeners.

Do you want to tell us about it?

Rachel: Yes, it’s from Stephanie and she wrote to us asking us to do another episode just with the two of us, which we’ve started to do once a month. So, if you have a burning question, that’s a really good way to get us to consider it for one of those episodes. 

But this is what Stephanie had to say, “My suggested topic is making time for your business, how and why you should do it. I would love to hear how you ladies manage it and maybe some practical tips for working it into our schedules.” So, we’re going to do that.

Lynne Tackle that.

Rachel: We’re going to tackle it.

Lynne: I think it’s interesting when we did the prep for this, is that you and I have quite different ways of working. 

Rachel: Yes. 

Lynne: So, I think that’s good, because I don’t think we’re all, we all work differently, and I think it doesn’t matter. No one’s right or wrong. I think we both get good results the way we do it.

So, it’s just some people might relate to the way you work, and some people might relate to the way I work, and it doesn’t matter. So why don’t you start with your first tips?

Rachel: Okay. Stephanie’s really keen, and I think this is really interesting when you learn from other freelancers and how they do things, how they run their business.

She’s really keen on how do we make time for our businesses, and how do we manage our businesses. For me, it really is about clawing back time wherever I can, and I try things a lot. I’m trialling and testing things a lot to do that. 

The first thing that really works for me is how to – finding a system that works for you in order to keep track of things, and for me, that is the mixture of a paper diary and a digital diary. I use Creator’s Friend. Hot tip, if you’re a gold member, you get 15% off Creator’s Friend, so, that’s just a little aside. 

Lynne: What is Creator’s Friend? I have no idea. 

Rachel: It’s a new notebook brand in Queensland. Very, very cool, but it has notebooks on all kinds of things, from hobbies to future planning to workouts to actual diary, like week to a page type diary and you just choose the notebooks. They’re quite slim, and you just choose the ones that you want to track, the things that you want in your life. So, in my diary, I’ve cobbled together a training notebook, which covers all my workouts, a running sheet, which is literally just a brain dump of everything I need to do, and then I tick it off. It’s got a special thing where you can move things across if you want to move them to a different day. It’s just the most brilliant thing for me to get everything done. And future planning, so you can plan your year ahead and the goals and finances and all that kind of thing, and you can put it in a folio and have all your notebooks there.

I think it works for me because every diary I’ve got doesn’t include all the things I need, so having the chance to create this bespoke diary has been really good. And then I sort of use that in conjunction with Outlook. And so, Outlook links to my calendar, and everything goes into Outlook, but I sort of cover off on both.

So that helps me keep track of everything. The other thing I do, everyone always asks me, how do I gather everything for the wrap-up? And a really easy, quick way is I use Google Keep, and it’s like this kind of bowerbird app where you can grab links, dump them into Google Keep. It syncs between all your devices. It’s free, and it saves me so much time. So those are the three things. That’s what works in my system to keep me on track every week. 

Lynne: Oh, wow. So, I don’t like paper. 

Rachel: No. 

Lynne: I don’t use paper. I don’t even take notebooks. The other day I did a story and an interview, and they were horrified I didn’t have a notebook. 

Rachel: Very paper-free. 

Lynne: I write everything in my phone on notes if I need to take notes or do things, and I do all my interviews on my phone or on my computer.

Rachel: You would love the Remarkable, I think.

Lynne: I also think you mentioned that you like trialling different things. Well, I don’t. I’ve got the things that work for me, but I’ve gone deep into them. So, instead of trying lots of different projects, I keep minimising the apps that I use, and I find that all the apps have now got extra capabilities. So, I use Zoom to do a lot of my interviews, and I’m now using their transcription thing occasionally, and I use their meeting notes, whereas they used to have different apps for each of those.

Now because I’m quite confident with Zoom, I use all the tools that they do and I spend time. Now, I think you’re talking about project- management and you use Creator’s Friend. I use Trello, so I have everything there. As soon as somebody emails me about a quote or a project that they’ve got coming up, I do a card in Trello.

Rachel: I do something else for project management, but we can go into that later. 

Lynne: Oh, right, okay. 

So, each week I know exactly what things I’m working on, and I even put things like, doing the transcriptions for the podcast, uploading scripts for all our guests, all that sort of stuff. I also have an electronic calendar that I use for everything, and it’s got everything in it. It’s got all my personal stuff, including my Pilates, any functions, and all my meetings. So, everything’s in one place, and I find that really helpful. I think also you’re a big fan of batching, and I call my technique, “salami tactics”. 

Rachel: I did love that when I saw your notes. 

Lynne: “Salami tactics” – a slice at a time. I find it hard to sit down for a period of time and do stuff. I get interrupted and things, so I’m always doing little bits at a time. I do a little bit of it each day or work on my business every day, and often at the beginning of the day. I do bits and pieces, that’s how I carve the time. I don’t do everything. I just do something. 

Rachel: Okay. Interesting. Salami technique. Okay. 

Lynne: Salami. That’s what I do. 

Rachel: Where’d you learn about that technique?

Lynne: Honestly, I can’t actually remember. I’ve done that for, like, thirty years. That’s been my mantra. But I have a feeling it was from the old Italian deli that I used to work at because, there’s that Italian heritage thingy. So yes, I think that’s what it is. Somebody told me that ages ago, and I think it was the deli owner. But anyway, that’s how I work. That’s what I do. And everything I do about working my business is done in little, small bits and pieces at a time, often less than five minutes.

Rachel: Yes.  Okay. Oh, well, I have to say I really love Trello, so I’m kind of sad I don’t use Trello anymore because I think it’s an amazing way to organise lots of information and keep track of things, and I love how you can slide cards around and move things according to what you’re doing.

Lynne: I used to organise my projects in the files of client. But now I do it in the week when it’s due, and I move them across. I move the weeks, and then I move them into completed, waiting for approval, and invoiced and then I archive them.

I use it a little bit, but then actually one of my best tips is I went onto YouTube and I said, “How do you use Trello best?” I got some really good videos and people doing it, and I went, that’s the way I should do it. And I sat down that day and redid my Trello, and it’s been amazing ever since.

Rachel: Wow, so you do training sometimes. 

Lynne: Well, that’s probably the only one.

Rachel: You were saying you don’t test out things. Well, I like Trello. My project management system, I started off with a spreadsheet that is actually in the shop at Rachel’s List.  It’s a project management tracker in Google Sheets. But I’ve since moved because I wanted a pipeline system that went into my calendar and automated a lot more stuff. So, I have Moxie, but I’ll talk about that in a minute. I wanted to go back to batching, because you mentioned I do a lot of batching, and it’s a bit similar to how you do it and Stephanie, I think she just works on one sort of business. So, because I’ve got two businesses, I’m really careful how much I take on, because everything has to slot into this puzzle throughout the week. And any work that I can’t do, I put into the Facebook group. I always try and be booked up one to two months in advance.

My big workdays are set as Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday’s a short day, but I’m always trying to pull all the threads of that day together, and I really guard my time a lot about that, because I’m working on having Friday as my work on the business day. And that’s something I’ve been working towards for ages, ever since I hired my VA, and she has a whole day off to work on her business and I thought, “Wow, I never knew anyone who’d actually done that, any freelancer that had managed that.” I just thought it was such a good idea. 

So that’s what I’m trying to do for Fridays. Bit of a work in progress. I try and work on one thing at a time, so one story, one web project, web copy project or something and the other big thing that I do to kind of plan out my week is on Sunday afternoons, I fill in my diary, fill in the running sheet with all the tasks that need to be done, and I set up work folders and then I batch. 

If I’m doing a heap of interviews for a project, I’ll try and batch them all on the one day and get them all done that day. Or if I have to do a story, I’ll try and do all the things for that story, including the draft, in one whole day, and then I let it breathe and go back to it. I don’t want to chop and change too much. I don’t want too many salami pieces in my week.

Lynne: Oh, see, I chop and change all the time.

Rachel: Because I can’t, then I have to revisit and get back to projects and get my head back in that project, whereas I’d rather just try and get it all done or a draft at least.  

Lynne: I find that switching projects keeps me fresh.  So, I bring new energy each time, otherwise I can sort of get bogged down in the details.

Rachel: Interesting.

Lynne: I write best in the morning, so I try and do my writing in the mornings, and then I tend to do my interviews and my admin in the afternoon, if I can. It’s not always possible. A lot of people prefer to do interviews in the morning. But as you know, an early person, so I’m usually working from about seven in the morning, and if I do an interview at ten, I’ve usually had a few solid bits of work, a few hours of writing first.

I also love Austin Church’s idea of Marketing Monday. So, when it comes to marketing, I do a little bit every Monday, and I do lots of small things frequently. That could be anything really. It often is just replying to an email. I often update my website. I probably update my website probably twice a month with something. Sometimes it’s just tweaking a couple of words that I think I should have. I also, if I have any new pieces of work, I upload them into my website and at the same time as I put them on LinkedIn. So, when I’ve got, if I have a PDF of a story or a link to an online thing, I tend to do both.

So, whenever I update it on LinkedIn, I usually update it on the website, and because I’m already in there it doesn’t take much. I might do a little comment. I open LinkedIn, have a bit of a scan, and I’ll see something interesting I’ll make a comment or something. So, I do lots of those little bits and pieces.

I might do a big chunk of work, and then I’ll do some LinkedIn, and then I’ll go back to the story. I prefer to work on a story over as long a period as I can. I reckon my best work is if I take four days to do a story. But I might be working on three stories at once.  So, I tend to dip in, dip out, and then I go back and sometimes they’re getting approval and stuff like that. 

I do think being active and then I might also do something, you know, go into the Rachel’s List gold group or something and have a read of what’s happening. So, I tend to be much more in and out, which I like. It keeps me fresh and that works quite well. I’ve always got something going, and usually I probably do three to four stories a week, but they vary in length and complexity really. Some might be really easy and others might not. I’ve got one at the moment that involves three interviews for a small piece.

But on Sunday, well, Sunday I spend working on the podcast. 

Rachel: Because you’re uploading the new episode. 

Lynne: Upload, writing this, briefing Heidi, who does our transcriptions, checking it, listening to it, writing the show notes, and all those sorts of things like that. And I’ve been uploading to YouTube as well.

Rachel: I do think that working on your business, setting up your business, it takes time to find out what works.  So that’s kind of what we’re talking about today. The way that I’ve done that really consciously in the past couple of years is trying to set up automations and hacks that bring me back time.

So instead of, I do still answer the phone. I get a lot of calls from Google My Business, so I will pick up the phone if those calls come through. But generally, I try to protect my time. So, I mentioned I use Moxie for project management, and I’ve set up the calendar so people can only book meetings with me on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, which is really easy to do, and it’s just brilliant to have that time blocked out just in case.

I’ve set up automations in Moxie, and I actually hired someone to help me do this because people can fill in a form on my website, go into my sales pipeline, then I can tag them appropriately. So, say that they book a call with me and they become a client, I can tag them, and then they will go into an automation that creates a Google folder for them in my Google Drive, and fills it with the documents that I need and stuff to start that client project. So that’s really useful. 

I have canned responses which I modify, but things for proposals, things that I’m constantly sending out to clients that have an attachment, like my services guide. Try to reply to all leads within 24 hours or send proposals within one to two days of the call, and those canned responses really speed it up, and I use Typedesk for that, which is also a perk for gold members in the perks page if you wanted a cheaper deal on that.

What else do I do? I send invoices as soon as I’ve filed. It’s so funny doing this, preparing for this episode, because I realised all the little habits and things that we do are designed to actually keep things streamlined and bring your time back. Otherwise, you’d be constantly doing this ad hoc stuff all the time. So, as soon as I file a story or do something, I file the invoice with the story, or straight away after.

Lynne: Sometimes I do. It depends on the client. Mostly I do it the next day, or with newer clients or a bigger project I might wait for an approval. Or at least, largely maybe they might come back with a few small changes and then I’ll send the invoice. 

Rachel: So, the invoice might change, so you’re holding off on sending it? 

Lynne: No. Most people prefer to action an invoice once they’re happy with the work. If it’s a lot of the corporates that I work for, they’re not really, I mean, a lot of the stuff I do, I don’t get any changes back at all. So, if it’s those clients, well, I just send it in and send the invoice that day or the next day well, whenever I get a purchase order. It’s more, like, bigger clients or bigger projects that I might wait. I think that one of the differences that I have a lot of regular clients, whereas you have a lot more project basis for newer clients. So, you might do bigger projects. I do a lot more smaller, regular work. 

I probably have at any one time about fifteen clients. But I might be only doing, there’s a trade magazine. I write at least one article a month. I usually write at least one article a month for Bunnings, and then I might do a big project for them, and I’ve got a few other clients that it might be seasonal. I might do, four blog posts at some point, and then nothing for six months. But they’re recurrent clients. So, I don’t do tend to bigger projects.   

Rachel: Well, I think when Stephanie emailed us, she mentioned she doesn’t have time to do certain things. She doesn’t have time to network, she doesn’t have time to do trainings, and all of that.

So, I thought it’d be interesting to talk a little bit about what we do in those areas because we do things quite differently. But I actually do think those things are really important, and are things you need to make time for, even though it’s tricky. I do a lot of training, and I pay for a lot of training, but I’m often watching replays, late at night when I’m putting my kid to bed, on my laptop with earphones.

So, I have to squeeze in the training. I’m not often doing it in work hours, but I still do it. I’m currently in Nadine Nethery’s Retention Lab membership, so that’s another sort of form of training and trying and testing things out, but I’m really enjoying that and seeing how else someone runs their membership. Seeing as I run Rachel’s List. 

I post on LinkedIn quite a bit, but I try and do it in the morning. So, you do all your writing in the morning. I find if I’m going to do a post for LinkedIn, which I’m not crazy about doing, I’m fresh in the morning. I can get the right tone and the right sort of topic, and I’ll tend to do that.

I’ve got a monthly newsletter, but I’m terrible at sending it. I probably do more commenting on LinkedIn than posting because I read that that is better for reach and engagement. 

Lynne: I do a lot of commenting as well.  

Rachel: I try and do that as more of my relationship building. But it is something I do build in, Stephanie, because I think it’s really, really important for networking – I do go to the odd big event, but I find it more valuable to meet with smaller groups of freelancers, and I probably do that once a month and it’s all about unpacking business problems and then having lunch or something like that. So, that’s really how I do face-to-face type stuff, networking.

Lynne: I do go to a lot of functions. I don’t really do a lot of training per se. I do more industry events. So, I go to a combination. I do the odd sort of freelancer thing, but most of the events that I do are within my niche of design and architecture and then I guess I’m learning different things.

I’m learning about, because the sort of things I write about are things like homeware and interior trends, new products, product development. So that’s, it’s a different type of training.  But I feel like it’s really important for me to be right on the edge of what’s happening. At the moment, like every year I’m going to say I’m going to do this, but at one year I will go to Milan to the Salone de Mobile. 

Rachel: Oh my God. Lovely. 

Lynne: Which is just finished and pretty well a lot of clients and a lot of industry friends of mine went. So, at the moment there’s a lot of industry events with people coming back from Milan and talking about what they saw and what they see as the upcoming trends, so I’m trying to go to a few of those if I can.

That’s important. It does mean, so instead of, putting my kid to bed and watching them on that thing I’m out chatting to people at functions. And there’s a few breakfast events I go to. So, I say yes to most of those things, and I think they’re good for learning about the industry and learning about what’s happening and that helps inform my work, and I do feel that I also meet a lot of – I get a lot of contacts for stories there, either to pitch stories or also I’ve met so many interior designers at these things, and I’ve always got stories where I need a quote from an interior designer. I have a good idea. I’ve already established a nice relationship with them. So, it’s easy for me to reach out to them.

Karen Eck, we had on the podcast ages ago, she showed me, which apparently came from Teresa Miller – the LinkedIn hack where you can connect with somebody via your phone on LinkedIn. The little QR code there. So, wherever I am, I have cards, but I don’t pass them out so much. But I connect with people on LinkedIn. And I think that helps reinforce. So, if I do things on LinkedIn, people see it and that keeps me front of mind.  So, I probably go to one function a week.  

Rachel: Wow. 

Lynne Not always. Not always a big. Sometimes I might go to two in a week and then I don’t go one for a while, and sometimes they’re just like an hour lunch or a breakfast or something, and I think I’m lucky I’m in Sydney because a lot of them are in Sydney.

So, I think that’s probably what I do more than networking, and I do like things with writers as well, but I don’t always have the time. I find I get more value out of industry things.   

Rachel: It’s interesting. Well, that is kind of like we’ve encapsulated a bit of how we work on our business and how we work, which hopefully is helpful to Stephanie who might be listening.

Lynne: I haven’t, we haven’t talked about finances. 

Rachel: Okay. Well, I did mention a bit about invoicing. You go deep into finances. 

Lynne: That’s a really important part of running your business

Rachel: Absolutely … and having some really good habits there.

Lynne: Otherwise, there is nothing worse, and I did it, like, when I first started. I’ve been freelancing for ten years. I finished the year and ended up with a big tax debt and didn’t put it aside. That’s a classic thing that…

Rachel: You’ll only do that once … new freelancers do.

Lynne Testoni: You do it once. So, I do things like I use accounting software, and I reconcile every day and my invoices and stuff, and I, as you say, we talked about invoicing the day after I work. I also put money aside out of, in each invoice, 10% for GST into a separate account, a business account, a tax provision account. And then I also do a quarterly spreadsheet to my accountant. So, any expenses, usually on my credit card, things like subscriptions to things like Trello or whatever it is. And then so she manually updates them, and that helps me keep a tab on my expenses. I think that’s important. 

Rachel: I do similar to you. 30% into a separate account, 10% into a super account, and I transfer that over when it reaches a certain level – transfer it into super and I have my own business account.

Lynne: Well, we have a different structure because I have a company set up. So, I don’t put aside money for tax as such because I pay myself a salary out of my company and the tax goes that way. So personally, it’s already taxed, if that makes sense.

Rachel: Trying to think of what else I do. Well, obvious, I use Rounded for my freelance business. So, I do keep an eye on it and how it’s going and how my income goals for the month and that sort of thing.  And that informs how much I hustle, I suppose. And then we mentioned invoicing. I just send my invoices pretty much straight away or the next day, and I then I try to do all my invoicing for Rachel’s List on a Friday as well, if I can. 

Lynne: Oh, right. Well, I do invoicing as I go. So, I pay all invoices when I receive them. 

Rachel: Oh, right. Okay.

Lynne: Just because I don’t have a lot. I don’t have as many, but I pay them all and all the invoices for the podcast, I pay them the same day, and then they’re done.

Rachel: Oh, you’re so good. Okay, I need to start doing that. But I get them at all different times, so in my whole batching philosophy, I batch the invoices and pay them as a batch.

Lynne: Yes. 

Rachel: It works for me. 

Lynne: But in my “salami tactics” then, I do it slice at a time. I get it, I do it, and then I delete their invoice, so I know it’s done.

Rachel: Oh, wow. You delete their invoice? Okay.

Lynne: Otherwise, I just would have hundreds of invoices in my inbox. I also think I use a lot of the techniques in Mail. You talked about automation, and over the time, I do work a lot of weekends, because I have a lot of family commitments at the moment, and I do a lot of mornings helping the family. So, I tend to work most of Saturday and Sunday because I’m not working as much during the week. So, I do batch.

Well, I do all my invoice emails, all my work, and I send it off. I use the schedule in Mail to send it all at 8 am on the Monday. I love that because I don’t really want to answer emails. But I like the time. And I also use the follow-up thing which is in Mail as well. So, if somebody hasn’t replied to me in three days, it sends a, it pops back up in my inbox and asks me, if I want to follow up, and I do.  

Rachel: That’s good. 

Lynne: And I also use the reminders in it. So, if somebody says, we’re going to do this project in, say, September, I will just say – great and then I put a reminder on it for September, and it’ll pop up in my inbox in September, so I don’t have to think about it in that whole time. It just pops up, and I go, oh, how’s that project going? You still on track? Or something minor. 

Rachel: So ultimately, I think all these little habits save you time, and it’s about learning out what works for you, I think. But do we have any final tips for Stephanie?

Lynne: Well, I guess similar to what you said, that no way is perfect. As you can see, you do things certain ways; I do it there. It’s about what works for you. I do think, this is just me, I think you’re different here, but I do think before you go buying the next clever online tool, look at the tools you know and use and see.

That was a tip that somebody gave us on the podcast years ago. Look at the tools you already use and see if they can do things. I mean, Zoom has a lot of capabilities that I didn’t realise. If you’re already using Canva, you can use a lot of their AI tools. If you’re already doing it rather than go and say, oh, I need another this. Otherwise, you end up with millions of different subscriptions and really scattered.  I think a calendar, an electronic calendar. Everything I have is connected to the calendar personally. So, you talked about, with Moxie, people can do appointments. I use Calendly. 

Rachel: I don’t have to pay for Calendly now because it goes through that system, it’s built in.

Lynne: Oh, right. I use Calendly. I just use the free one. But because everything’s in my electronic calendar, it’s clear when it is. I’ve got all my appointments and everything. 

The other thing is a good financial package – software. We both use really good software. I love Rounded and I just think sending invoices and tracking it, and it makes you look so professional. I think use all those tools. So, what are your tips for Stephanie?

Rachel: My tips for Stephanie, and take these with a grain of salt, Stephanie.  If you are feeling stressed out and you want to start making some changes in your business, I would choose half a day a week or half a day a fortnight and make that your business day or your half day, and get an agenda and a task list and just work through those things.

Start setting up some automations, blocking out some time for different things that you need to do, whether that’s social media or blogging or doing a client newsletter, that would be the time. I think we would probably both agree on this. Choose one in-person thing to go to per month. Non-negotiable. And that could be meeting a freelancer for a coffee, going to an event, going to a lunch. We both love a lunch called Collaborate Women. Things like that can really help expand your network, and it’s great to get out of the office and you really do make connections and building relationships is what it’s all about.

Lynne: You also see different ways of doing things. As we’ve said, we do different things and things a different way, and somebody will say, oh, this is a better way, or this is a good thing to do. And you just think, oh or you just get stuck, and sometimes you just need to debrief.

Rachel: Totally. 

Lynne: Just before this, I had a close friend who’d had a really difficult meeting with a client, and she just rang to debrief and have a vent. And I think we all need to do that too, and you can sometimes do that. Sometimes you think, you get caught up in stuff that isn’t important.

Rachel: Yes. So, get out of the garage and do one in-person thing a month. And the other thing that I would say is choose two things per month to automate so that you can get more time back, if you don’t do that already, because I honestly just think it will really help. 

Lynne: And things like, there are quite a few ways and again, use the tools that you have. It’s amazing what you can automate in your mail or in your accounting software or whatever. Schedule stuff. Fantastic.

Rachel: Okay. Well, that brings us to the end of the podcast this week.

Lynne: Wonderful. We’re back again next week with another exciting guest and we’re tackling some really good issues coming up. 

Rachel: So, if you want us to do another episode with just the two of us and you want to send us a question, you can email it to hello@thecontentbite.com and we will come back to you. 

Lynne: And there’s also even a form on our website to pitch something.

Rachel: There is. That’s right. 

Lynne: Yes. So do that as well. 

Rachel: Okay.

Lynne: Fantastic.  

Rachel: Thanks, bye.

Lynne: Thanks, see you. Bye.

Credits:

Find Lynne www.lynnetestoni.com

Find Rachel www.rachelsmith.com.au

Rachel’s List www.rachelslist.com.au

Thanks (as always) to our sponsors Rounded (www.rounded.com.au), an easy invoicing and accounting solution that helps freelancers run their businesses with confidence. Looking to take advantage of the discount for Rachel’s List Gold Members? Email us at: hello@rachelslist.com.au for the details.

Episode edited by Marker Creative Co www.markercreative.co