A leap of faith in partnership
A year ago this June, Lisa and I took a huge leap of faith and co-founded iilo Creative Alliance, our creative services agency. Yes, it felt a little scary to launch a new business in the midst of the COVID pandemic! But, we both knew it was the right move. We’ve landed on solid ground, and I’m so happy to share that one year in, our business is thriving, we’re helping our clients deepen their impact in the world, and Lisa and I are loving our partnership.
Threading our values into everything we do is our top priority, starting with registering iilo as a benefit company. This designation commits us to running the business in a responsible, sustainable way and promoting public benefits.
After being friends and colleagues for 15+ years, we’re grateful to be the co-owners of a company we created to share leadership and truly live our values. We gave ourselves realistic timeframes to ramp up to being fully operational, so we could be ready to serve our clients to the best of our ability. Relationships are fundamental to our business (that’s why we’re called iilo Creative Alliance!) and we supported our team members closely over several months as they transitioned from working in our previous freelance businesses to working under iilo.
Here are some best practices we’ve implemented over the last year that really work for us:
- Lisa and I live by our motto, “Make it easy, keep it simple, have fun!” As recovering workaholics with perfectionist tendencies, we literally say this to each other every day when making decisions or tackling tasks.
- Fridays are iilo work days, dedicated to leading our business… except when we’re on vacation!
- Wednesdays are intended to be no meeting days, dedicated to uninterrupted work time… except when clients really need us, of course!
- We create Loom videos for everything, to share weekly team updates, provide instruction on tasks, and train clients to use their deliverables.
- Process nerds that we are, we have templates and process documents for everything — they’re living documents we use and refine constantly.
We’re excited about iilo year 2 and the opportunities ahead to deepen our connections with existing clients, serve new clients, and expand on our commitments as a values-led business.
Would you like to be on our client roster for year 2? Fill out our inquiry form!