Starting a Business 101

When creating a brand or persona, I think it's important to play and have fun with it all. Everything you make should stem from joy. If you're not having fun, even in your work, what are you doing? Seriousness and isolation in work can lead to burnout or crippling mental/physical health problems.

You attract more when you are shining your light and having fun in business; whether that be attracting more customers, more followers, more interactions, more money, more sales, more expansion or growth.

If you're creating a business and the goal is for people to follow, you always have to ask, why do they want to join us? Why do they want to follow us? To buy from us? Interact with us?

Is your goal to inspire? To bring creativity to their life? To bring them humor? To give them some grounding? To bring them comfort and ease? To improve their health? To get them out of trouble? To teach them something? You likely want to help in some way.

At Soul's Mark, the mission is simple: To create a colorful, fun spunky space in which people feel inspired to be their true selves. To unleash their authenticity in a bold way that leads them to a free life full of optimism, abundance, joy and peace.

Being a free human means you are free of judgement towards yourself. It means you feel an inner peace and inner knowing in your life and its direction that no one else can take away from you. Every human deserves to live in this way.

Who are you? It took me about 5 years of deep diving through travel, art and self reflection to find myself. I am honestly quite shocked by the result; Abbey Starr is colorful, bold, sparkly, and incredibly intuitive. She is an Edgy Barbie full of quirky ideas who dances barefoot on the dance floor and has a complex brain that trusts wildly in the divine wisdom of God and the Universe.

Unleash your inner self. Be the Starr of your life.

Graduation

Starting a business is a surprisingly introspective and spiritual journey. I started mine (Soul's Mark) about 4 years ago now when I decided to buy a Sewing Machine and DJ Deck. I love music and fashion, and decided to teach myself how to make both clothes and music.

Over the years, as I've sold very little, but learned A LOT and made a tremendous amount of art, I've come to realize that the journey wasn't really about selling anything, but about finding myself through the art and the business I created.

I felt so defeated for so long that I wasn't able to convert sales and pursue this business full time, but I'm now seeing that it wasn't fully formed, and I wasn't fully formed either. Neither of use were ready to fly. We were still in the stages of blossoming and forming.

I've waited a while to say this, but God tells me that now it's time; both Abbey Starr and her business, Soul's Mark, are ready to be seen.

Share Your Voice!

When finding success in a business, I believe you have to find your voice and your power, because this spills out into your work. You have to talk to people, sell your brand, share the word.

This is why I started a podcast called "I Think I'm Different" which focuses on art therapy techniques. Art has helped me tremendously over the years to safely explore the darkness, emotions I don't understand, and many mental health struggles.

I also sing, DJ and produce music. Music is the most euphoric experience for me and the closest I've experienced to heaven on Earth... it is my greatest passion and joy. I'm currently working on producing music, stay tuned! I sing as often as I can and share both my speaking voice and singing voice with as many people as possible, even when it terrifies me.

Make a Book

Sharing your story and your testimony in the form of a physical book people can read, can help them get to know you and your brand.

My proudest accomplishment: finishing a 200+ Art Therapy Ibiza Travel Magazine (also for sale on my website). It recounts my 6 week stay in Ibiza this past summer, all of the art and outfits I made, the artists I met, the concerts I went to, the musicians I discovered, and the stories I will never forget.

I didn't want to make any old regular book, I wanted to make a visual experiential book. I learn so much from traveling, exploring, and talking to people from all around the world and so sharing this information through handwritten stories and visual photos only felt right. I love stories, and how each person has a unique story to tell. SO I made Soul's Mark Magazine so that I could share mine.