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Rockbridge Weekly Article - May 2008

the News-Gazette Article - July 2008

"Show Me Creative Opens In Natural Bridge"
By: Show Me Creative

Based in Natural Bridge, SHOW ME CREATIVE  combines website design, integration, hosting, and online security development with multimedia development and print services, all at affordable prices.

Jessica Swartz owner of Show Me Creative“There's an obvious need in Rockbridge County for affordable advertising, print media, web development, and web hosting. We fulfill that need by providing comparable business solutions that can greatly increase corporate identity, traffic and produce a higher return on investments. My team of associates bring years of experience in various fields of marketing and web design to SHOW ME CREATIVE,” notes owner, Jessica Swartz.

Swartz began her career in web design in April 2004 as a way to fulfill a personal need for a website for her Siberian Husky breeding program. By 2006 she was developing websites, business cards and letterheads for local and national companies. By March 2008 she felt there was enough business in the area to launch SHOW ME CREATIVE as a full-time endeavor.

Based in Natural Bridge, SHOW ME CREATIVE primarily serves Rockbridge County, but has clients as far away as Texas and California. “I keep overhead low through the use of part-time experts in their respective fields, but offer the same level of experience as other local resources—but at a more competitive price,” says Swartz.

 
"Web Work Growing For NB Businesswoman"
By: Isia Jasiewicz

When Jessica Swartz first got a Siberian Husky seven years ago, she never imagined that her passion for pets would turn her into a successful Web designer and the owner of Show Me Creative, a new multimedia development company based in Natural Bridge.

Swartz, who was raised in Rockbridge County and left Rockbridge County High School with her GED, bought her first huskies with the intentions of starting a dog-breeding program that would cater to families rather than to show dog owners.

"I was willing to provide people even in Washington state with our dogs," Swartz said, "so I needed a way t o get our name out across the US." The solution came in the form of mountaineerfarm.com, a web site describing Swartz's services and breeding options.

"It was horrible," Swartz said with a laugh and a toss of her long dark hair. She recalled how her brother - then just 14 years old - came to visit her from Illinois, saw her web site, and told her how "horrible it really was." Swartz's bother told her about Dreamweaver, a web production software. From there, Swartz took matters into her own hands.

"I taught myself everything," she said. "What I do now is a collaboration of all the things I learned from that initial web site." While redesigning her own site, Swartz discovered that she enjoyed Web design and wanted to continue doing it "at any cost." So when the owner of the Natural Bridge Speedway - a colleague of Swartz's husband, Jason, who does custom trim work and hardwood flooring - approached her when he needed a web site done, Swartz jumped at the opportunity.

Swartz launched the redesigned nbspeedway.com three years ago, and she still maintains the site on a weekly basis. But Swartz wasn't satisfied with the simple web coding techniques she had used on the site, so she decided to try out some more difficult methods, making a web site for herself, puppybrowser.com, which provides descriptions of dog breeds and breeder directories and helps owners advertise their puppy sales.

While working on puppybrowser.com, Swartz had problems with some of the more difficult aspects of the software she was using. She turned to online forums looking for help; what she found was a business partner. Tim Amie, a Houston-based server security specialist and a web coder, was so useful with Swartz's software question that she hired him to do coding for her. Amie, meanwhile, discovered Swartz's designing talents and hired her to do graphic design and layout for some of his web site projects.

Through Amie, Swartz found herself working on websites and advertising for about 20 different companies nationwide. When she saw there was a demand for marketing and design work locally, Swartz launched her current business, Show Me Creative, this past March.

"I want this business to stay local," Swartz said. Though the nature of her work is such that she can communicate online with clients around the world, Swartz enjoys working with people face-to-face. "I like to be able to meet and greet and see the people that I help," she said. "Show Me Creative allows me to do that."

Show Me Creative goes beyond Swartz's specialty web design and offers other marketing and advertising services, including business card printing, letterhead design, brochure development, and even radio advertisement production. Swartz said that the expansion into other forms of marketing was a natural choice for her because she is hardly new to the advertising business: Since the age of 12, she has done all the ads for her father's business, Coffey's Body Shop.

Swartz runs the operation full-time from the three personal computers she keeps in her home office, and she delegates tasks to half a dozen employees - among them both local residents and people scattered across the US. Swartz said that each of her employees brings his or her own specialties, whether they lie in marketing, research, web coding or graphic design.

"My time specifically is spent of layout design and working up business plans," Swartz explained. "When a client approaches me, I figure out exactly what they want. It depends solely on what they need whom I contact within my company." Because all of Swartz's employees work freelance on an on-call basis - and because she is able to keep overhead low by working from her home - Swartz is able to offer competitive prices that appeal to local markets in particular.

Since the company's launch, Swartz has found even more potential clients than she had initially hoped for, working mostly through the Rockbridge Chamber of Commerce and spreading news of the launch by word-of-mouth. The speed with which Show Me Creative is developing has prompted Swartz to slow down her husky breeding - "though I love my dogs and they aren't going anywhere," Swartz is quick to add.

It's no surprise that Swartz has to make some compromises in juggling her business enterprises, considering that she is also a mother of two. Swartz said that her children - Aubrie, 7, and Hunter, 5 - "love their mommy walking around with a briefcase." Aubrie has even shown some interest in graphic design by playing in the paint application on the family's computer. "It's really neat because I started like that," Swartz laughed, "and now she'll come in and see what I'm doing and say, "Mommy, those colors don't match!"

Still despite the hectic hours she spends balancing family and business, Swartz said she enjoys putting the necessary effort into Show Me Creative. Swartz willingly spends hours a day finding the most advanced software, keeping up with web compliancy protocols and hiring printers (which can be easier said than done, considering that Swartz insists that all her paper products be based on recycled materials).

"What I love most is that this business presents a different challenge every day," Swartz explained. "It's almost like an art, to take the client's input and create something truly unique just for that person. I love it.