Laura Jane Mackenzie
Creative Founder of Kelp Collective
Cornwall, UK
www.kelpcollective.com
instagram @kelpcollective_
pinterest @kelpcollective_
Q What do you do?
“I’m Laura and I created Kelp Collective creative virtual assistant services to help burnt-out and overwhelmed creative entrepreneurs get their time back and successfully manage their businesses. I provide innovative strategies and streamlined processes to help small creative businesses grow. ”
As a small team of three, we are the behind-the-scenes cheerleaders for creative entrepreneurs who are struggling to do all the things in their biz. While we're working on everything that drains the clients time and energy, they get to focus solely on doing the things they love the most and on building their business. Winner.
Our services specialise in marketing and design across social media, Pinterest, website, e-commerce, PR and email marketing. I also offer one-off strategy and planning power sessions to really help business owners thrive and grow.
I am obsessed with creative businesses and work with amazing clients all over the world from illustrators, to furniture designers, to photographers and bridal designers! It's super important to me work together with clients where we both feel like we're well aligned and I absolutely love getting to be a part of these creative business journeys. I'm here to listen to ideas and create dynamic results. I'm motivated, super creative and always positive.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
It's been a wild ride and creating Kelp was definitely never planned, it happened very organically and has grown so much over the last three years I now can't imagine doing anything else.
I'm from a fashion and design background, and after various twists and turns in my career, I set up my own re-worked vintage clothing business. It was a dream, and it all happened a lot quicker than I ever thought it would. I sold out at my first market, had consistent interest and enquiries, and I sold a clothing collection to a well-known brand.
But, what no one told me when you run a small biz, is how hard it is to keep up with everything else. I found myself struggling to make time for the creative side of things, actually making the clothes, because of all of the other things I had to do. Which then meant I started rushing the creative process and hating what I was making.
After a lot of soul-searching and some other life changes, I decided to pack away the sewing machine and focus my creative energy elsewhere. This energy was then unexpectedly redirected to other small creative business owners, struggling in the same way that I was.
I had developed the skills that you need to run the back end of a business and wanted to share them with others. I look back now and I know if I'd had a creative virtual assistant to help me out, I would have been able to focus a lot more on my business.
I still make clothes but now I just do it for the love of it, and my business focus is all about helping other succeed and scale!
Q How do you stand out in your field?
I believe Kelp Collective has a really strong personal brand, and our dream clients resonate with that when we connect. Our brand ethos is to be creative, vibrant, dynamic, playful and innovative.
We specialise in supporting small creative business owners and have proven years of experience of working together with these businesses helping them take things to the next level. Our niche in the market is the clients we work with - incredible, inspiring creatives.
The business is full of personality, which I hope comes across instantly. We're all friends here. I've always wanted the brand to be very friendly and informal, no 'Dear Sir or Madam' here. I can honestly say that all of my clients feel like friends to me, and I have a beautiful community on social media of likeminded creative souls who all feel very connected.
Q What are you working on right now?
Right now, I have just grown my small team of two to a team of three, all working remotely around the world. And we have a current client base of 12 amazing creative business owners that we're supporting with a variety of marketing, research, design and admin-based tasks.
Some of these include... Furniture Designer - After building a beautiful and successful website for this client, we create monthly blog and newsletter content to share their latest news and product updates with their community. Wedding Stationery Designer - We handle the day-to-day communications of their clients, create compelling social media and Pinterest content, and have also helped them build a successful education side to their business. Fashion Photographer - We manage all of the content for their business from blog posts to Instagram to Pinterest, repurposing a lot of the content across the platforms and creating new innovative content ideas for each platform. Bridal Designer - A brand new project that involves a complete website and SEO overhaul after they did a full DIY job on setting up their business, followed by a complete Pinterest overhaul and ongoing Pinterest management. These are just a couple of clients with an insight into the services I'm offering and what I'm working on right now!
Q What’s your style?
My style is retro, colourful, fun, bold, playful, creative, joyful, very 60s and 70s inspired, floral, a little bit hippy-ish, nature-inspired and relaxed. I think the website and our social media really represents my style!
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
I really love creative conceptualisation and could absolutely spend all day creating moodboards or choosing colour palettes. The research part of a creative project is one of my favourites!
I also really love doing one-off power strategy sessions and brainstorming for business growth, I find it super inspiring and absolutely love being able to share my thoughts and ideas for other business owners to utilise.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
Generally, I tend to put all things to do with Kelp on the backburner, as I prioritise client work. So I have some website updates I need to do for my own website I've been putting off for months, a couple of workflow changes I need to update, and I'm also procrastinating on creating content for my own email newsletter!
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Wow I love this question, it's quite ironic because I actually already have hired two people at around that rate to help make my life easier 😂
They definitely do make my life easier though! They help out with a lot of my client projects, and also help out with things to do with my own business. I definitely share less of the graphic design and creative tasks with them as these are the things I love to do the most, and would probably share out the more repetitive, mundane tasks that I get easily bored with.
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
I wish I could go back to my early 20s and tell myself I didn't need to stress so much about "what I wanted to do" - everything will work out exactly as it is supposed to be, and you're so young you just need to be enjoying life, finding your feet and learning new things. I put so much pressure on myself in my 20s to have a career, settle down, find where I was supposed to be in the world, when really it didn't matter at all!
I love the quote from Baz Luhrmann, Sunscreen which says "Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t."
THIS is everything!
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
I want to know ALL the things, so I love speaking to experts in any field and learning from them. My door is always open to learn things about marketing, PR and business. I've previously taken courses and joined classes on all things in that field, and am always learning new things, so anything creative marketing and building your business based - I'm all ears!
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
I really want to expand Kelp Collective to be part of a wider community and involved with other creatives on various levels. Whether that be through collaborations, connections or just general community - the creative community is something that is a huge integral part of the brand, and my favourite thing about social media is connecting with other likeminded individuals, so I envision this to be a similar experience.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
My dream client is a creative visionary who has a brilliant service or product and has all the ideas for their business, but needs someone alongside them to help them make it happen!
Q: What is your rate?
It varies per service but as a rough idea: Marketing services vary from £450 - £1,600 p/m Website services vary from £500 - £1,600 p/m Design projects are quoted on requirements but generally start from £250+
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
Head to my website: www.kelpcollective.com
Book a disco call
Fill out an enquiry form: www.kelpcollective.com/enquire
Follow me on IG: @kelpcollective_
Q Who is a creative you admire?
OMG how can I choose... OK so recent favourites have been:
Kalei Raher, Natashamedx, Good Spark Creative, Jenna O'Brien, Tess Guinery, and The Shiny Squirrel. I literally have a highlight on IG of all my fave creators!
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
Being outside, long walks in nature or dips in the sea always gets my creative juices flowing.
This member profile was originally published in August 2024.