Meet Annette Thull

We were lucky to catch up with Annette Thull recently and have shared our conversation below.

Annette, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

My purpose overall is to make things beautiful and function as well as possible. I love helping people, whether it is creating a space in their home, designing a landscape or helping a local business with advertising. I believe that a strong local community is very important, so I have always volunteered in the community and worked locally to help businesses prosper.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I have been a graphic designer since graduating college. I have worked with big and small companies, local, national and international businesses. I am a freelance graphic designer and co-own a Landscaping/Construction company called Real Estate Renovators. Since moving to Lafayette in 2004, I have become increasingly involved in our community. I have volunteered for elementary, middle and high school organizations as well as community events such as Home for the Holidays. I designed the City of Lafayette logo. In all the work I have done, what has become clear is that a vehicle was needed for nonprofits, schools, businesses and other organizations to help promote their events with limited budgets. It took me over two years to create what I think is the answer to this: www.lafayettecoevents.com

On the website, any business, individual or organization can list any event they are having for free. Advertising is available for purchase on the site at very reasonable rates for anyone that wants to get their event in front of more people. Advertising also helps to pay the hosting fees, so if you value the website as a resource, please support the site by purchasing a low cost ad. The main rule of the site is that the event has to take place in Lafayette, Colorado to ensure that it stays local. Events can be tagged so that they are easy to search on the Calendar page of the site. Some searchable tags we currently have are: kids, kids camps, art, music, festivals, teen, classes, wellness, shop small and sporting events. The Calendar page also has images for each event making it an easy visual way to search for events.

I see Lafayettecoevents.com as a marketing co-op. If every business that held an event used the site and gave us a shout out on their social media pages, in time, each business would be helping their neighbors to market their events too. So this creates a community where we are all helping each other to succeed. And that is a beautiful thing.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Clear Communication, constant education, and patience! All of these are so important, and I think reading what you can about whatever your area of interest is key. Talking to others to get their viewpoints is a good way to go too and this really helps you to create good communication channels. I have learned patience by shoveling dirt of all things, one shovel at a time. Breaking your goals up into small attainable pieces or steps is very helpful in anything you want to achieve.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

My current challenge is getting the word out to both residents and local businesses to use the site. People can follow our Facebook and Instagram pages that both give snapshots of events happening. Submitting events is free and I’d love for more local businesses to do that as well. The more events that are submitted the more valuable it makes the site to everyone.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lafayettecoevents.com
• Instagram: @lafayettecoevents
• Facebook: Lafayette Co Events

Image Credits

Oliver Thull