JM The Creative

TL;DR

Outcome: Defined and positioned JM the Creative as a fractional design leadership business.
Project: Designing the business itself as a service.
Artifacts: Business Model Canvas, Customer Segments, and Customer Journey Map.

Context / Challenge

At the beginning, I knew I wasn’t “just a freelancer” anymore — but I needed a way to show that. Clients weren’t going to understand the difference unless I could make it visible.

The challenge: how do you present a design leadership business in a way that people can actually imagine, not just read about?

The Shift

Instead of only telling people what JM the Creative was, I treated my own business like a client project. I mapped it, tested it, and visualized it as if I were running a design sprint.

This made my role as a Fractional Design Lead tangible: not abstract positioning, but structured, strategic, and real.

**Lean Business Model Canvas:** *A one-page map that framed JM the Creative as a business — showing how services, value props, and revenue streams fit together. (**whimsical.com*)

**Customer Segments:** Clear personas representing the founders, growth leaders, and enterprises I serve. Their fears, failure, plateau, rigidity, became the anchors for my services. (theydo.com)

**Client Journey Map:** *A walkthrough of how clients experience working with JM the Creative. From first conversation to measurable outcomes, I visualized the entire journey. (**theydo.com*)

Outcome / Impact

These artifacts weren’t deliverables for someone else — they were proof-of-concept for my own business.

They made JM the Creative credible and concrete.
They showed potential clients what fractional design leadership looks like in practice.
They gave me a foundation to explain not just what I do but why it matters.

This shift in presentation — from abstract to visual, from “services page” to design maps — is what helped JM the Creative stand apart and establish authority.