If you have been a part of my journey you may have noticed that I’ve made quite a few updates and edits to my brand every year. Even though I always harper on about staying constant is a must. I wasn’t sticking to my own advice and would change up my look. And actually this reflected negatively in my analytic so I was basically telling you do what I say and not what I do!I need to re-brand from the ground up again!
Simple grown out of you’re current branding
However, I found one of the main reasons why I was constantly changing my brand was because I you’d simple grown out of it and maybe you’re currently in the same position. As a brand designer I had evolved and essentially just knew so much more about what I wanted and who for. Things that I may not have been so focused on in the strategy when I first was starting out. It’s sometime difficult to find the time to work on your business or you’re feeling overwhelmed by trying to make enough content to keep your head above water who has the time to re-brand everything?! It’s a big task to take on specially when your doing it by yourself you might have to pause with client projects or even disable your online shop to re-design everything meaning this phase you won’t make as much or much less income. This is a choice you have to make sure is right for you.
Do You find yourself constantly updating surface level tweaks?
But sometime it a necessity I got the point where it didn’t matter how many times I made little surface level changes like logo, colour maybe a font which it just wan’t solving the root cause of the problem. So if you’ve found you’re self on the hamster wheel constantly re-edit your brand and website it might be time to consider a complete re-brand. If you decided to go with a brand designer this can be do much quicker, more accurately and much less stressful! I do have lots of helpful how to episodes if you choosing the DIY route as well. So also you can already guess I decided to give my brand a completely rebirth.
Re-Brand because of Personal Decisions and needing implement Boundaries
The second reason you may find a full re-brand is worth the effort is because it’s not working for you on a personal level. We live in a world with influencers, youtubers etc. and they create very compelling personal brands. But sometime branding yourself as a personal brand for a business just doesn’t work for some one-led business owners. I used my name as my brand mainly because I bought my domain when I referred to myself as a graphic design freelancer. However, now I’m more established and niched into branding by all means I could have kept my name as my creative design studio name.
However, on a more personal decisions I didn’t want my name to be my business name anymore. I wanted to created just a little more space between my own identity and my studio identity. I realised through some strategy questions that actually personally a brand that’s not shinnying a huge spot light on my name and more on my studio the work if easier to promote. I still show my face etc and very much am my studio, so I still am feeling like a personable brand. But without my name pasted everywhere! Maybe you can relate? We see so a lot of personal brands doing well but just because your not using you name doesn’t mean you can’t be just as compelling! A good reason to re-brand because you simple have a new personal decision and or boundary you wish to implement, and that your current brand doesn’t allow you to do this.
One-led Business has developing in you’re offering
I’ve already slightly touched on this earlier but I want to revisit it more in-depth. So we need to be more mindful that your one-person led business will grow and maybe at the beginning it was just about making pottery and selling original work or simple meditation workshops. But, now you’re a couple years in and you’ve got a course and podcast etc. Therefore, your business has really blossomed into other avenues that let’s face it you weren’t aware of when you first moulded your DIY brand. And this has meant you’ve possible just been trying to keep adding onto of the very fragile or wishy washy exist branding you started with. When we keep adding things to a brand that has had the strategy re build it can start to feel a bit mix and match you know like the bikini’s the set just the top isn’t working with style of the bottoms. And things quickly started to feel a tad disjointed and confusing for people.
Well I started to feel this in my own branding, I too didn’t know everything at the beginning I started out as more freelancer, I also started this podcast about a year and a half ago now.Having these extension of you brand things can start to feel less unified specially as I was still growing from a brand concept that wasn’t up to date with who my business is now. A strong re-brand can helps you aligned these extra avenues of your business and help you understand the best approach to introducing them into your brand. I don’t have a huge following so this make it hard to be seen so I think with podcast name being more reflective to my studio name will make it effortless for people to find me. So re-branding is an opportunity to make everything feel much more streamlined and cohesive!
Again I understand build your brand strategy from the ground up is a long process but in most cases it’s so worth it. So just to recap for you, it might be time for a re-branding if you find yourself constantly re-designing surface level elements. If you having a personal boundary or conflict that your current brand wont be able to enable you. Lasting your one-person led business has grown and these extra elements aren’t feel cohesive to your current brand but rather causing you more disjointness within you branding. Another great way to know if you brand needs a facelift is by doing a brand audio and seeing how you rank, go listen to episode 2