We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julie McDaniel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Julie, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I have been through so much in my life, both blessings and heartaches. Every time I get knocked down, I take the opportunity to move on and get better. It would be easy to be bitter or accept defeat, but I try to use all my experiences to improve. Events such as my parents getting a divorce when I was six, the death of my grandmother I lived with when I was nine, moving across the state when I was 11, and court hearings as a teenager could have broken me. I feel everything led me to where I am now. I have been married 26 years and have great relationships with my grown children and am growing in my role as entrepreneur.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My focus in my business is now on larger events such as weddings, anniversaries, and milestone birthday parties. I am passionate about creating unique and special customized cakes for all occasions because who enjoys seeing a cake just like theirs when scrolling social media or going to an event? As I was making a cake this weekend I found joy in every new detail I piped. Each new border or decoration excited me and I was so pleased with the final product. After so many years of designing and decorating cakes, it feels amazing to still have the energy and elation when bringing a cake design to life!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I believe in every step we take toward our goals we should remember where we came from. If you don’t recognize how difficult it was in the beginning, you will never appreciate how far you have come and how much you conquered. Think of how you struggled and how easy the same tasks are for you now. The future is the same because what you struggle with now will become simple and you will move on to different challenges.
Instead of focusing on what others might consider competitors, view them as peers. We are all in this together and there is enough room for everyone. We are a lot more successful as a team of strong supporters than we are as opponents. Promote and uplift one another!
Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone else is to accept kindness from them. If you are offered advice, friendship, a gift, or even a drink of water, think of the impact it will have on the person you receive it from. It can help grow their confidence, or make them feel appreciated because someone like you welcomed what they had to say, took a gift of gratitude, or allowed them to care for you in some way. Do not feel like you are accepting advice because you need it, taking a gift because you are owed, or accept a drink because you cannot get your own water. Welcome the kindness as a way of acknowledging the other person and their desire to do something nice for you.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
I would say my perfect client is someone who has a good idea of the style or theme of an event they are planning with the desire for someone to pull everything together into a unique centerpiece for them. When someone trusts me with their design I feel they get a much more exciting cake in the end instead of requesting a replica of another cake they have seen made by a different cake artist. I welcome inspiration photos of cakes made by other cake designers as well as pictures of the flowers, decorations, invitations, venue, etc. though I prefer coming up with something new and unique over remaking the same design that has already been done.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.artfulcakery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artfulcakerybyjulie
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artfulcakerybyjulie
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-mcdaniel-ab1b30139
- Twitter: https://x.com/kahulamae
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@artfulcakerybyjulie
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/artful-cakery-by-julie-flowery-branch?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
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