Author Archives: Charlene Precious

We conducted stakeholder analysis – it’s really quite incredible how much you discover by doing this. And then because this analysis leads to a mish mash of ideas and potential focuses, defining the vision, mission, and values of the business becomes critical in helping with the decision-making process and navigating through millions of options. What does the business stand for? Why does it exist? Where does it want to go? These are hard questions! I’ve never even thought about them until now, with an amazing team. It’s awesome.

(See here for reference of what this is all about.)

Here they are! We’ve officially thrown them all in the mail yesterday and I am now offering the photography, design, and print service for brides and grooms looking to do something a bit unique and untraditional with their wedding invitations.

Here’s an a la carte menu of my services:

Design – $170
If you’d like to have your postcard invitation designed and if you’d like to use an existing photo that you own to feature on your postcard, you can choose the Design service. Vintage-style editing will be applied to your photo to achieve the vintage look and feel of the postcard. I will then supply you with a final print-ready file.

Photography – $200
If you’d like a Charlene Precious original photograph to feature on your postcard, you can add the Photography service. This would be a 30-minute photoshoot at a desired location and one hero photo to be chosen and edited for the postcard. This option is only available to local customers in the Greater Toronto Area.

Print – $1.50/pc.
If you’d like to print your postcards in the Charlene Precious original format, you can add the Printing service. Shipping charges will apply based on weight and quantity of cards. Here are the exact specs of the postcards you’ll receive:
– 12 pt. stock
– Matte on the text side
– Gloss on the photo side
– UV gloss finish on the photo side
– 5″h x 7″w final trim size

If you are interested in a packaged combination of any of these services, please send me a message and we can customize something for you! This listing is now up and available at my Etsy Shop.

The invitations process was so much fun. We’re looking at cakes now and chiavari chairs then moving on to bridesmaid dresses and accessories in February. :) I have a million things to read, so I gotta run! Happy Sunday!

The program does not take its time to drown you in work. I told myself that there’d be a small window of freedom left as classes got ramped up. So, in thinking that the first two weeks would be the calm before the storm, I stocked up on personal action items but as it turns out, we skipped the calm altogether. It is extremely busy and an absolute mad house.

My touch pad stopped working at random and Apple couldn’t fix it so I have to buy a new one. My iPhone is as slow as a snail nowadays and the Safari browser keeps voluntarily shutting down. My laptop is also slowing down despite having ample of memory left. What’s happening? I might not love Apple as much as I used to.

I’m taking a course called Strategic Capability Development and the course focuses on one main project that requires us to pick a business initiative to pursue, strategize for, and execute within the next 10 weeks. Ideas, plans, and strategies tend to be great up until the point of implementation, which is always the hardest part! And so the core purpose of the course is to provide us with the right tools and frameworks that help bring strategy to life. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to share my fine art photography business with the class to see who would be interested in helping me take it to the next level, and here they are! My all-star dream team for the next 10 weeks who I adore and am grateful for. We have quite the natural team chemistry and I couldn’t ask for anything better. This is the beginning of an amazing experience! We are missing one member though, Jie, she is sick with the flu but should be back with us in the next meeting. There were tons of fabulous and ambitious ideas today but the key is to pick something significant yet still small enough to be executed flawlessly in the timeframe that we have. We now have to put a brief together to obtain approval for and then… all hands on deck! :):):) Go dream team!

A quick post before I head out for lunch! Notice I changed the colour scheme of the blog? I got tired of the true pink colour and am now more in love with the blushy/peachy pink. Then I thought some accents of mint green would be a nice complement. :) CharlenePrecious.com has also been updated with the new colours. That also means my business cards are getting reprinted. The domino effect. Anyway, happy Tuesday!

It almost killed me but I killed it instead. Forgot to mention that I got an A- in Managerial Finance. It was one hell of a course but I liked it a lot anyway.

Sometimes I browse through Pinterest for inspiration and read quotes about love that turn me into a putty. And then when there’s one that turns me into an extra large putty, I just smack it on a photo and hope that it works. If someone else’s happiness is your happiness, that is love. This is really true because by nature, we actually like when people are unhappy. It’s shameful and not something we like to admit but it’s mostly true. It’s what the German term Schadenfreude describes. Funny enough, we were talking about this in class the other day and how we live in a world of narcissism and we want to see others fail; an interesting article on it here on CNN and discussion here on Reddit. But my point is, we all love someone and we know that with the people whom we love, their happiness is our happiness and their pain is our pain. The same experience exists among real friends and the opposite, “Schadenfreude”, exists among so-called “friends”. Therefore, the answer boils down to genuine love, care, and compassion for others. But in a world of capitalism and competition? Tough. It takes awareness and a conscious effort.

I provided pre-press approval today on my wedding invitations! They look quite pretty, I’m really excited to see the final product next week. I will post them here, too! Tuning in to a movie now, so we’ll leave this short and sweet.

I’ve been updating all of my web assets little by little over the last week before classes started back up so that I’m all set to go for the year. Here’s a quick hit list!

What’s been updated?

CharlenePrecious.com: Re-structured the content a little bit. I updated the About and Shop page and added the Services and Contact page.

My bio: Re-wrote to share a bit more about my professional side.

About page: Revised a little bit. I read this every now and again as a check-point because I find that sometimes I write something a certain way, love it one day and hate it the next.

Etsy shop: Created a new shop banner and have started to improve the categorization of the listings. I’m realizing that there are way too many items now and it’s probably making the shopping experience inconvenient and harder than it should be.

LinkedIn: Updated and filled in my profile quite a bit to get it network-ready.

What’s in the works?

If you know me, you’ll also know that I’m obsessed with greeting cards, especially the ones by Papyrus. I swear by Papyrus cards! You’ll also know that I love stationery in general and could easily spend hours in a stationery shop. Re-purposing my photography for stationery has always been on the radar and that journey began with postcards. This year, we build on it with greeting cards and invitation cards, which I am hoping to be able to post on Etsy by March. I’m being ambitious about this because I’m anticipating to have more time to dedicate to it this year than last. The invitation cards were actually inspired by designing my own wedding invitations and incorporating my photography into it. It was one of those a-ha moments, realizing that it’s value that I could create for others. All that said, I’m in design phase now. :)

Facebook fan page. I really need to do this, I just haven’t taken the plunge because it’s going to require attention and maintenance and there was absolutely zero bandwidth for it last year. I may get to this in the next couple of months. When I do finally launch the fan page, I plan to throw a contest along with it to get the Likes going! :)

And that’s a wrap for today!

It’s incredible how busy you can be even without having to go to work. I was running around all day today and am exhausted.

I was working with two different print shops (The Printing Team and Sherwood Copy) to get my wedding invitations printed and was pretty taken aback by the service provided by Sherwood Copy, Mississauga location. When I arrived at the print shop, hardly anyone wanted to help me, let alone acknowledged me (no, the place was not busy.) And when someone finally did tend to me, they had this rotten, disappointed looking face that had “ugh, a customer” written all over it. At least pretend to be happy, right? And when I asked questions, I got these careless, lazy one-word answers. This, my friends, I don’t understand. If you have uninspired, demotivated staff who dislike their jobs, get rid of them before they slowly but surely drive your business to the ground. What happened to a little bit of service quality? The worst part was, their quote ended up being double the amount of The Printing Team’s for print quality that was a whole lot shabbier. Say what? The poor quality was likely the result of not properly calibrating their machines before printing out samples for a customer, in which case, more staff issues to address. I was at a loss for words at that point. No further comments.

Needless to say, The Printing Team was a billion times more pleasant. They’re always pleasant. I’ve done work with them in the past and they’ve done a great job. My “due diligence syndrome” thought that I’d be doing myself a favour by checking out another place to compare and contrast. Apparently not. So the lessons here are ones we’ve all learned before: do not fix what’s not broken and the grass isn’t always greener on the flip side. :)

I got a B+ in my Skills for Leadership course. It’s a shame that it didn’t make it to A-. I’m still waiting for my Finance mark to be published; been holding my breath for that one.

I’m getting a head start on readings for classes next week, partly to stay ahead, but also because the articles we read are such nuggets of wisdom that get me excited. Tonight I read “Discovering Your Authentic Leadership” by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew McLean, and Diana Mayer. It’s a Harvard Business Review article – I love having access to the HBR goldmine of a database. The article goes on for 10 pages but I’ve pulled out some points surrounding self-awareness. Self-awareness / self-reflection is the next best thing to get to know and I’ve been all over it for the last 6 months. Knowing and understanding how and why you behave a certain way enables you to continuously take corrective action. There is really not much sense in paraphrasing what has already been written perfectly, so here are direct quotes:

“When 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness.”

“An extremely hard worker, Pottruck could not understand why his new colleagues resented the long hours he put in and his aggressiveness in pushing for results. “I thought my accomplishments would speak for themselves,” he said. “It never occurred to me that my level of energy would intimidate and offend other people, because in my mind I was trying to help the company.” Pottruck was shocked when his boss told him, “Dave, your colleagues do not trust you.” As he recalled, “That feedback was like a dagger to my heart. I was in denial, as I didn’t see myself as others saw me. I became a lightning rod for friction, but I had no idea how self-serving I looked to other people. Still, somewhere in my inner core, the feedback resonated as true.” Pottruck realized that he could not succeed unless he identified and overcame his blind spots. Denial can be the greatest hurdle that leaders face in becoming self-aware. They all have egos that need to be stroked, insecurities that need to be smoothed, fears that need to be allayed. Authentic leaders realize that they have to be willing to listen to feedback – especially the kind they don’t want to hear.”

Guilty of some of these? I know I am. For certain things, I feel comfortable asking for feedback and for others, it’s like pulling teeth. Sometimes, you just don’t want to hear it because it’s uncomfortable to hear it. It’s worth noting though that my blind spots have gotten smaller ever since self-awareness forced its way into my life. And it’s so good.

I’ve also updated my bio page to reflect some of my recent life changes. Happy new year to you and yours! Go out and make things happen. I wish you happiness, health, and success.