Ep# 102: Is Now the Time To Hire a Branding Designer? Creative Director Shares When and What To Look For, With Gabi Anderson
Episode Summary
Are you unsure if now is the right time to invest in professional branding or if the designer you’re considering is right for your business?
This episode will help you make that critical decision and ensure you're on the path to visual success.
As an entrepreneur, you know that strong branding can set you apart from the competition.
But hiring the right designer at the right time is crucial.
This episode dives into the common pitfalls of branding too early or too late and guides you through the steps to make the best choice for your business.
In this episode, you will:
Gain clarity on the optimal timing for hiring a branding expert.
Learn the key qualities to look for in a designer to ensure a cohesive and impactful brand identity.
Discover how a well-executed brand can elevate your business and help you attract premium clients effortlessly.
Don't miss out on these essential insights—listen to the episode now to unlock the full potential of your brand and transform your business.
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How To Contact Our Podcast Guest
Gabi's Website: https://www.gabiandersonstudio.com/
Gabi's Branding Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabiandersonstudio/
Gabi’s Art Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabithecreative/
Gabi's Shop: https://www.gabiandersonstudio.com/shop
The Uncommon Way is led by business coach Jenna Harrison, who helps women entrepreneurs feel confident, find their ideal clients effortlessly and avoid overwork so they can manifest money and abundance in their business and life.
This podcast empowers female entrepreneurs to overcome imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and limiting beliefs through somatics, mindset, and spirituality, create 7-figure offers, and build an online coaching business with clarity and alignment.
Episode Transcription
Is this the right moment to hire someone to help you with branding? And if you do, what exactly should you be looking for?
You're listening to the Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the podcast that helps women entrepreneurs get clear on signature offers and strategies that sell themselves so you can lean back and stop the hustle. You will learn to maximize your mindset, messaging, and strategy, and step into the uncommonly successful business and life you are creating. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach and reformed overanalyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.
Welcome back to the Uncommon Way. Last week, I had our creative director, Gabby Anderson, on the show, and she gave us so much helpful information that we decided to break the episodes into two parts and just not try and edit things out, but to just give you everything in some bite-sized chunks. So today, we're going to be sharing exactly when you should be hiring somebody to help you with branding and when you should not. You're going to hear about the pitfalls of hiring at the wrong time and the pitfalls of not hiring when you should be. And you'll also find out exactly what to look for in a designer so that you can feel assured that all of your bases are covered and you are getting the cohesive brand look that you really want.
Now, as I mentioned last week, Gabby worked at very impressive large companies before she went out on her own, like Shutterfly. She absolutely knows what she's doing and is someone you will want to listen to. Plus, she's very uncommon way in her approach, and she's also an amazing artist and illustrator. I'll be linking to all of her things in the show notes so that you can go check her out.
Okay, let's get down to the good stuff, shall we? Gabby, you've worked with so many different types of companies and people at all different stages. So where would you say it's important for people, where and when is it important for people to brand themselves?
Yeah, this is a great question. Like you mentioned, I work with just a ton of different types of businesses from the consumer space to more like you work with client services and you're working directly with your people. So for me, I think that there is a big distinction between sort of the business to business or client services space and the consumer product space. When you are in the consumer product space, I would definitely recommend establishing your brand very early. There's been a lot of studies about what really resonate with people in purchasing products. And unless you're going the sort of cheap route or the easy route of an Amazon, which I wouldn't recommend because they're very hard to compete, the brand really matters because consumers these days really want to see themselves in the brand and really visually connect with it.
And then when it comes to the client services space where you're maybe consulting individually with people or you're creating more of an agency style, I do think there is a little bit more leeway in when you want to either create your brand's new brand or you want to read. I think that there is space for say starting with just yourself as the brand and really being out there and networking and talking to people and using your networks to market for yourself and your own reputation to market for yourself and to create your sort of base of client. And then with that, you can get more insight into sort of the projects that you like, the direction that you like, and then get the clarity that it's something that you always talk about. And through that process, I think then there is the shift that happens where you have more clarity in your business and more sort of a structure for what you want it to be. And I think that is a good time to then really re-evaluate and level up your visual, level up your brand and own it. I think having a visual brand identity that's really strong and consistent is a really good way to step into owning this is my company, this is who I am and being visually bold and impactful in how you express it.
Yeah, because I think you and I both agree that branding really is a visual representation of your clarity, but it has to start with clarity. I've talked to, I don't know if you feel this way, but I've talked to, I've had clients that are web designers and branding people and they would complain about clients that came and really had no clue about who their people were or they weren't clear or they were in a transition period and really, and it made the other, my client's jobs really challenging. It's like, what are you trying to convey and if they don't know, who does?
Yes, that does make it challenging. I would say it's impossible to create a strong brand if you don't know who your people are and what differentiates you, what makes you special in the market.
Yeah, I know that what you've helped me also lean into is that especially when you are scaling your business and you're going into more streamlined funnels and group coaching that then it's really important to have a strong brand. So could you talk about why that is also for people?
Yeah, so the branding work when it's established and it's strong will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, especially in your marketing spaces, like social media, email marketing, your website, places that you aren't able to physically be. You can then have your own presence or have your business presence in these spaces and have this cohesive world that you've built that you're inviting people into. So it really allows you to scale and to level up so that you can bring in a broader audience and impact more people with just the awesome services or products that you offer.
I love it. So when people are thinking about how to think through their visual makeover, give them some guidance here. I think it's also going to speak a lot to what to look for in a designer because they're going to hear how you think about it having been a creative director and having needed to think about it for larger companies and smaller companies and everywhere in between.
Sure. So there are several steps that I would think about when thinking about what to look for when you're looking for either a branding individual, a branding firm. So when you're thinking about yourself strategically or your business strategically, are you looking to do a brand from scratch? So that would be starting a new company either with a completely different focus, a new name, it's all starting from scratch, or you're doing a rebrand, which is a bit more like a refresh. You're looking, you're hiring a company to look at the asset you have and figure out, okay, what's working? What pieces do we need to reinvent? What pieces do we maybe need to paint? But then reimagine how they're visually used across the board. And that will help you just ground in, okay, when I'm looking at the portfolios of these different options, do they have rebrand, rebrand examples in the portfolio? Do they have new brands? What kind of projects have they worked on strategically? And then I will say it is important to look at people's portfolios and ask, do you like their work? This is maybe a bit obvious, but if you don't like the pieces in their portfolio, the work that they've done, that they've shown you, then you're likely not going to like the overall outcome. And then I would have at least one call with them and really dig into what their process looks like.
So for me, when I'm working on a project, everything is very grounded in strategy. I ask all of my clients a lot of questions about their audience, about where their audience shops, about their competitors, maybe what their competitors are doing better than them, what they are doing better than their competitors, what differentiates them from their competitors.
So my friend, if you are excited by this talk of stepping into new next levels and next versions of yourself, you have got to join me for the first live event that I've held in years. Come on, it's going to be so fun. And I can't wait to talk to you face to face. It's a workshop. We're calling it the reinvention experience, where we're kickstarting your reinvention together. What will you walk away with? Awareness, clarity, activation, and the opening of a portal. You're going to be like, holy shit, is this what's next for me? Now, do not come if you want to stay where you are because you will be changed. When a group of women come together with this kind of intention, doing this kind of work, the energy is really high and always transferable, so you will be infected. I know you've heard lots of theory and stories about other people's reinvention on this podcast, but it's different when you're doing it in real time with me there. No wondering if you've gone as far as you could because you're sewing your head and it's really hard to step outside of it. And definitely no putting off the real work for another day because your brain is conveniently keeping you too busy to get to it. This is the moment where you decide to heed the call and explore what's ready to awaken within you. I mean, it's probably already awakened, which is why you're here. So let's say what's ready to emerge. So let's go. Head to theuncommonway.com forward slash reinvention dash experience and sign up now for more details. That link is in the show. See you there.
So there are a lot of strategic questions that are very important to discuss prior to even starting anything visual. So I personally, if I was looking for someone, would ask them about their sort of process before they start designing and see, okay, what is it that they are thinking about before they even think about the visual? And then I'd also ask them about their process going through the overall branding process. So for me, I have different deadlines for deliverables where we meet and talk about it. This is the first round. What is your feedback? And we have this schedule and this platform where we're talking about the feedback and the work. So I really make sure that there's a lot of structure in place so that my clients don't feel, A, they don't know where their designer is and they're confused about where they are in the process. And B, so they feel very supported and they know exactly, okay, this is when I can expect all the deliverables.
And then I would also ask about what the end deliverables are. So for me, when I think about creating a brand, it's really about world building. It's not just about the logo, it's not just about color, not just about type, it's about all of those elements combined, plus photography and plus illustration. When I am delivering something, I'm delivering sort of a brand identity, but which goes into all of those elements, but it also shows like rules for all the type. For instance, you can have two fonts and they can be used in wildly different ways that look super different. So I create a lot of examples of do's and don'ts for stuff like your typography kit or the way colors are paired so that it can feel very consistent across the board.
So Gabby, I know that's so obvious to you as a designer, but let's talk about just pinpoint the fact that we want to have all of that cohesively together because it really helps you convey who you are and it then makes it really easy to make decisions for your team and everybody. Talk about that.
Yes. Again, it's really related to clarity. It's really helping you, it's a tool to help you showcase how clear you are about the rules of your world basically. It's like in this world, we don't use all caps. We only use sentence case. It really does help you hire people on or hire agencies to help you do your social media or other elements that you don't necessarily want to focus on and it helps your team create consistency across the board. It feels very cohesive and it feels like everyone that's interacting with your brand is living in the same world.
Yeah, and now that I see it all coming together, it looks so good and I remember us even joking about how there may be a potential client who sees me and the brand and says, I'm not sure if I necessarily needed clarity or alignment, but I want that. I want that kind of focus. And so that's just a testament to how your branding can do some of the work for you.
Yes. Yes, it can do a lot for you and it can help you get the premium prices you want. It just helps build this world that you can be really excited about. For me, my branding really helps me show up in an excited way. I'm excited to showcase everything that I do.
Oh, I love that. I'm excited for my client to feel that way too.
Yeah, and when you say creating a world, I love that because I feel like what we do here at The Uncommon Way, it is our own world and it's come in, be with us, we live this way, we think and relate to each other this way. It's very much a community, so I love that it's also represented through the kind of you step into this world and it feels different. Feels exciting. I feel excited about the branding.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the clarity first strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit the uncommonway.com. See you next time.