Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Hinrichs.
Brittany, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in a small town in Northern Wisconsin. The accents were thick, hunting was the towns’ biggest “holiday” and with only 2,000 people, everyone knew everyone. It was quiet the change for my family having come from Chicago. While it was fun to grow up in such a close knit community, as soon I graduated high school, I moved back to Chicago to attend school at the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago where I later received my Bachelors Degree in Fashion Marketing.
Having a degree in marketing allowed me to dip my toes into many different sectors of the fashion industry and in my 4 years at school, I was able to intern for a wardrobe stylist, blogger, PR Firm and the Michael Kors Retail division in the Chicagoland. On top of interning, school, and working part-time, I decided to start my own fashion blog – it was obviously apparent I didn’t want a social life.
While each internship (and eventually my first job out of college as the Marketing Manager of a small local fashion brand) helped me develop and grow, it was my blog that ultimately allowed me to start my own business. Much like what Voyage is doing, I made it part of my mission to interview kickass Chicago entrepreneurs and highlight their work on my blog and social media channels. After interviewing each person, I would do my best to support and keep in touch with them and in doing so, I started to recognize a common theme among these small business owners – they had no idea how to market themselves on social media!
What started out innocently enough as research to help a friend grow her business’s social media following, turned into me becoming engulfed in the digital marketing industry. Fast forward 4 years, 6 freelance clients, 2 really bad corporate bosses and countless articles, classes and case studies later, I took the plunge to start my own company!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely NOT and if there’s anyone that tells you differently, they’re lying. Both to themselves and to you! Starting and running a business, has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.
While I could keep you here for days, chatting about all the hardships I’ve experienced as an entrepreneur (you can soon read more in my upcoming “Entrepreneurship Unfiltered” series on the blog), I’ll share one of my biggest struggles that I’m still coping with today.
Being a perfectionist (like many other entrepreneurs are), my biggest struggle has been the ability to accept that I will make mistakes. BIG, HUGE, WTF were you thinking, mistakes for that matter. I’ve been smart enough not to make the same mistake twice, but I will admit I used to beat myself up over some pretty trivial things. Thankfully, I can look back and laugh about that stuff now! Plus, two years in and you realize as long as your business is still running, your team is working well together and your clients are happy, that’s all that matters – not whether or not you forgot to send an e-mail back within 36 hours or spelled something wrong in a social media post.
Stuff happens. As long as you learn from it and move on, you’ll be golden!
Please tell us about BH Creative & Honestly Unfiltered.
BH Creative is a boutique branding, design, and social media management agency that specializes in branding with an edge! My team’s individualized and interactive approach to modern media increases cohesiveness and solidifies brand recognition to all digital media platforms after a careful consideration of the brand’s vision, voice, and demographics. This brand revitalization process allows our clients to stand out from the competition and become bold industry leaders.
I wanted to work with clients in industries that I was passionate about so we specialize in the art, beauty, fashion and music industries. As a leader, I have a strict “no BS” policy so we also pride ourselves on being sincere, transparent and sometimes downright blunt when it comes to improving our client’s brand – we settle for nothing less than extraordinary and this translates into our project output! Our company motto is “Don’t be basic, be bold” and we stick to that!
Speaking of being bold, that brings us to my other baby – Honestly Unfiltered!
As I mentioned above, I started a blog back in college, but it wasn’t until this year that it truly became my passion project. When I started blogging, I didn’t know what I was doing or where I wanted to take my platform. and as the blog started to develop, I couldn’t help but realize that something was missing. The blog slowly became more of a chore rather than the fun past time I had imagined. My weekly posts slowly started to dwindle; before I knew it, I wasn’t posting at all.
After a few months off and quite a bit of soul searching, I realized what I needed was a purpose. If I was going to be working a full-time job (sometimes up to 16 hours a day — cheers to being an entrepreneur) and then come home to blog, I knew in order to stay motivated there had to be a reason behind every post. Working in a digital world where cyberbullying, body-shaming and unrealistic life expectations are all common practices, I knew I needed to help change that.
Now, on Honestly Unfiltered, we not only highlight some of the most badass, entrepreneurial and inspirational men and women, but also put a heavy emphasis on being true to yourself and living a life that’s really both on, and off, social media. I still post about style, beauty products (who doesn’t want gorgeous skin) and other common lifestyle concepts some bloggers use as their podium, but all that fluffy stuff isn’t important. What’s important is me showing/teaching to do what makes them happy in life and not give a shit what others think. People who read the blog should always feel empowered to DO whatever they want, and BE whomever they want – that’s the bottom line!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I know this may sound cliche, but I’m not sure I would change anything. Have things been easy? No. Have I thought about quitting? Yes, many, many times. Did I do everything perfectly? Haha, hell no! Have I grown and developed into the person I am today because of it? Absolutely!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brittanyhinrichscreative.com/
- Phone: (715) 699-3841
- Email: bhinrichs@brittanyhinrichscreative.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brittanyhinrichs_/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brittanyhinrichscreative/
- Other: https://www.honestlyunfiltered.com/
Image Credit:
BH Creative, Alain Milotti
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
