Shownotes
Welcome back to Branded: your comprehensive guide to creative branding.
In today's episode, we're focusing on brand guidelines—one of the most critical aspects of ensuring your brand stays consistent and recognizable. We’ll break down the importance of fonts, visuals, logos, and even the tone of your speech as pivotal elements in crafting your brand’s identity. We were introduced to Red Hat, a new font brought to us by a client named Scott Houston. Initially, we were die-hard fans of Montserrat, but Red Hat captured our imagination and felt more in line with the essence of our brand. However, we also experienced the harsh reality of internet fame through a parody video that garnered thousands of views but attracted unwanted and hurtful comments from trolls. That experience made it clear: garnering attention is only valuable when it aligns with your brand. Moreover, we reflected on how our own brand uses unique, hand-drawn designs and speech bubbles, abstaining from stock photography to ensure genuine representation. We also touch upon the necessity of having various logo versions for different mediums and the importance of documenting this thoroughly in your brand guidelines. We’re really excited for an upcoming Spark Media Conference where we’ll showcase our branded booth, complete with our custom stickers and consistent color schemes. This brings us to the primary focus of today’s discussion: the significance of maintaining consistency across all your brand’s touchpoints. Key takeaways: 1. Importance of Consistent Brand Formatting: We emphasize that having viral posts and attention isn’t enough; these need to translate into brand recognition and value. Ensuring that your formatting, from fonts to visuals, remains consistent is crucial for this. 2. Role of Visuals in Brand Identity: Our brand opts for hand-drawn designs and speech bubbles, avoiding stock photography. It’s essential to choose visuals that truly represent your brand's unique voice. 3. Versatile Logo Usage: Documenting various versions of your logo, like black and white formats, and specifying their application ensures that your brand is consistently represented across different media, whether it be in print or online. 4. Speech and Tonality’s Impact on Branding: Paying attention to your speech patterns and tonality can significantly change how you present yourself to clients. Being aware of and working on smoothing out your delivery will enhance your brand’s professionalism. 5. Value of Brand Taglines and Catchphrases: Reiterating our tagline "use your outside voice" has resonated strongly with our audience. It’s important to find and consistently use a tagline that reflects your brand's passion and message across all platforms. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Branded. Remember, building brand guidelines and documenting them meticulously is an investment in your brand’s future success. Stay consistent, and let your voice be heard! [embed]https://youtu.be/MKI62c0BHvc[/embed]Transcripts
Hey. What's happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:Hi. I'm Sara Lohse, and this is Branded, a comprehensive guide to creative branding.
Larry Roberts [:And on this episode of the podcast, we're going to be talking about branding guidelines.
Sara Lohse [:Branding guidelines are that set of rules that just kind of define what you're going to do with your brand. It's the look, the feel, and just how you're going to use your branding and all of your marketing, all of your messaging, and just everything that you do when you put your brand out there. So we have
Larry Roberts [:6
Sara Lohse [:Components of brand guidelines that if you follow these, it'll help you create a really clear and consistent brand across the board.
Larry Roberts [:You just nailed my favorite word in the whole wide world, and that is consistency. Yeah. It's so tough, man, because you see that so often. in in people that are trying to build their brands and trying to get their message out. I I I see it sometimes even on various social media platforms, you know, they'll show up on on Facebook one way, but then they'll show up on Instagram a different way. And then they show up totally different even on something like LinkedIn. And then if you look at their business cards, shoot. They might be different too. And, yeah, that just sends a whole lot of confusion into the mix that doesn't need to be there. And you know, I know it can take time, and I know it takes energy. And a whole lot of times, we're we're already focusing that time and energy into building our business. And we think, I'll get to my brand guidelines later, but it's really worth the time and the energy to invest in actually building these out and documenting these 6 bullet points that we're gonna be talking about through this episode so that regardless of where your brand shows up or who is representing your brand and what format or what what type of media your brand is showing up in that it's consistent across the board.
Sara Lohse [:I feel like one of the reasons that people do have that inconsistency, especially across social medias, is because the different social media outlets kind of have different goals or different, brands themselves So I feel like people try to conform their own brand to fit the brand of that. social media. And I think that it kind of makes sense when you think about it, but you're doing yourself and your brand a disservice. by getting rid of that consistency.
Larry Roberts [:Well, I think a lot of times they get to chasing that algorithm. And they're thinking that if we do this, this will make the algorithm, give me more attention, and more people will see it. But the problem there is even if you do have that one hit wonder, that gets you a ton of attention because you did something to go viral. If it's not your standard branding, it's not gonna resonate as well with your audience. It's not gonna be as memorable as it would be if it was your standard brand. and and that is a problem when it comes to trying to convert attention from social media into sales or even clients.
Sara Lohse [:and it comes back to our other favorite word, authenticity. You will not be authentic if you're trying to conform your brand to fit what you think these different outlets want to see.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. And and the prime example. I mean, the other day, it's been a couple maybe a week or 2 now. I had a video on YouTube that did pretty decent. You know, it got up in the thousands and thousands of views, but it was a parody video that really did nothing for my brand, and it got a ton of attention, but what did that that attention translate to? nothing other than some internet trolls telling me how ugly I was, and it hurt my feelings a lot. But beyond that, I mean, it was cool to see the numbers going up. But when we look back at it, you go, okay. So so what? But if I had managed to get that attention from a branded perspective and got that recognition that attention on the red hat or on the branded podcast. That would have related into much more value for me in the long run. And I think that should be at the forefront of everybody's thought process. How am I going to format my brand consistently so that when I do get that viral post and I do get all that attention, that carries over to my brand. So what's the first step that we have outlined, Sarah?
Sara Lohse [:The first one is your colors. and this is, very important with your visuals. The branded brand has for distinct colors. We have our pinks, our blues, our greens, and our yellows, and they're very vibrant. They pop, and we put those colors everywhere. And Larry just loves that our main color is pink.
Larry Roberts [:I might be feeling a little tension in the ear on this episode. This may be from a conversation we were having before we kicked off this recording. I don't know.
Sara Lohse [:No tension.
Larry Roberts [:Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit. You know, I I love the pink. I love the our branding. I love our colors. I love everything about it. it it it it being the middle age white male that I am, the pink doesn't necessarily resonate with my generation as much as maybe it does with some of the more current trends that we're seeing in colors and branding. So at times, maybe I do blush a little bit and maybe my little rosy red cheeks end up matching the background of our video more than --
Sara Lohse [:It's on brand.
Larry Roberts [:But is it is it is it is it? But, no, the pink is good, man. Because if you look, our brand stands out. our branded sticker, you designed that. You did an amazing job with that. I I love the layered effect that it has the colors that are there regardless of what you put that on, whether it's a business card, whether it's a a 22 ounce, ice shaker mug that you did the other day, regardless of what it is. It looks amazing, and it really pops and it really stands out. and and I think we're gonna really be able to take this thing for a test drive because I mean, and hopefully this episode comes out before then. I'm pretty confident that it will, but we're gonna be at the smart media conference here at the end of September. and we have a booth. It's our branded booth, and everything is in these colors. But guess what? it's consistent across the board. So we show up with our podcast with this color scheme, with this branding, with our chat bubbles. We show up in our reels with our branded logo, with our pink background, with our chat bubbles. And when we show up at the Spark Media Conference in Houston, Texas, September 8th to 30th. Maybe a plug there. We're gonna be in pink with our chat bubbles and our branded logo there as well. So that consistency is gonna carry through regardless of the medium or regardless of the environment that we're in.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. And I personally love the pink because if you look at my personal brand, which is favorite daughter media, everything is pink. My whole I might as well be Barbie, and that is my childhood dream anyway. So here we are. But Everything is pink. So whether I'm sharing something personally branded or I'm sharing something branded branded, it all kinda matches and it flows. So works out really well for me, and you can deal with it.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. You know, Man, friendly. the the way I look at pink and go, it's just a it's just a lighter shade of red.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. If you add some white, it becomes pink.
Larry Roberts [:Just a lighter shade of red. That's all it is. So but, again, be consistent with your colors, establish those colors, and understand what they are. Don't just tell somebody, oh, my color's pink. What color pink? I mean, paint comes in infinite shades. So it's critical that then going back to what I was talking about earlier, documenting your colors. Exactly. What color is that blue chat bubble we have? What color is that green? What color is that darker pink that we have up there in a chat bubble? And what's the lighter pink that we use for our background? Knowing those hex codes or the technical definition of those colors is absolutely critical. So take the time to find out exactly what your colors are and document those so that you can pass them on to advertising agencies or anybody that may be looking to leverage your brand locations or their programs, whatever it may be. You wanna make sure that it's consistent, so make sure you document that.
Sara Lohse [:Absolutely. The second one is your font. you want your fonts to be very consistent. You want the multiple funds that you have to be very complimentary of each other. And, Larry, you actually changed your font because you discovered a new font.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. I was actually a huge fan of Montserrat. Right? And I may not even be saying that right, but that's what it sounds out like to me. but I Lohse I loved it. And and it was it had so many different variations to the font itself. You had extra bold. You had light bold. You had medium. So there was a lot of versatility in that font, and I used it all over the Lohse. But we were playing around. I think it was in Canva. Not too. No. Actually, I had a client that brought me. Oh, he brought me his brand guidelines. And he goes, hey, man. You're really gonna love the font that we selected. and the name of the fall was Red Hat. So, Scott Houston, I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. That was amazing. but I have to be honest. As soon as I saw that the font was called red hat, guess what happened? I went in and I had to. I mean, I just had to. It would have been totally against my nature and totally against my brand if I didn't start leveraging red hat as my branded font.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. We have, our main font here. It's called peralta. And then everything that we do, all of our body text is usually in a typewriter font. and just having those set fonts, if things like social media graphics, you can play around with more fun fonts, and you can switch that up to go with the aesthetic of that post. But on things like your website, on things like your marketing materials, you really want to have a fun and stick with it so that everything comes out super cohesive.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. 100%. And it's it's not that difficult to do, but one of the things you wanna make sure that you avoid is having too many fonts. You know, I I'll see podcast cover art out there, and I'll look at it. And there'll be 5 or 6 different fonts on that thing and fonts from different families. Now we're kinda getting into nerd tech talk here when I start talking about families of fonts, but we wanna make sure that we're consistent across the board. If you have a a sans serif font, meaning that there's no tails on the letters, then stay consistent across that and don't have any sans serif type fonts like a times new roman or that sort of thing.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. Sarif?
Larry Roberts [:Isn't that how you say it? Sarif? Is it Sarif or Sarif?
Sara Lohse [:I say Sarif.
Larry Roberts [:I say Sarif.
Sara Lohse [:Okay. You know, I usually do.
Larry Roberts [:New York, so you don't say it right.
Sara Lohse [:We just insulted every New Yorker. but it's fine because we know we're better than you. But I usually do 3 fonts.
Larry Roberts [:I think threes threes a good number.
Sara Lohse [:I'll do the whatever font is the headline font.
Larry Roberts [:Mhmm.
Sara Lohse [:I do whatever font is my body font.
Larry Roberts [:Uh-huh.
Sara Lohse [:And then I'll usually throw in some kind of, like, cursive for just, like, an accent or even, like, a handwritten if I wanna make something look like handwritten, I'll do that a lot if I have that.
Larry Roberts [:-- with the by Larry Roberts and Sarah Lohse. So we got --
Sara Lohse [:Exactly.
Larry Roberts [:-- here just as a just kind of a highlight.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. Or if I if I have a QR code on something, I'll do in a handwritten font, like, scan for more or, like, you, like, scan to schedule something like that. So it just looks a little more. It stands out a little bit. It looks, a little, like, custom handwritten. Like, I just wrote that on the card for you. so I love doing that. I really love having those 3 fonts. Some designers will be like you can only have 2 or some might even say only do one, but if you have an an extra little fun font that's just for those accents and your your body font and your headline font really, complement each other, I think you can get away with
Larry Roberts [:3.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. I wouldn't go past
Larry Roberts [:3. Yeah. I definitely wouldn't, unless it's just a really, really busy type image. Yeah. 3. And if you think about podcast cover, which is what we talk about the vast majority of the time here, you don't wanna go beyond 3. you you see those 5 or 6, and it's just there's so much going on. if if you think about podcast cover art, it's usually really, really tiny. about the size order on whatever device you're you're you're listening to your podcasts on. And when you get too many fonts or even just too much text, it becomes a problem, and you can't really make out what it's saying, and it it just really throws off the whole image. So just be aware of that. Regardless of what you're doing, whether it's a business card, whether it's podcast cover, or Whether it's a freaking billboard, you want consistency across the board and you wanna maintain a nice well crafted design in everything that you're doing.
Sara Lohse [:So the next one is your logo. And this is kind of the simple one. You have your Lohse. Your logo is set, but there are some guidelines around how you should use that logo.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:so for some things like you and I for our personal brands for red hat media and favorite daughter media, we have our logos in white and our logos in black. So that whatever the background color is on something we put our logo on, it's still gonna pop. Right. having that built into those brand guidelines of using different colors is one of the things you wanna think about when you do think about that Lohse. But then also if you have different versions, I have versions of my logo that are just the graphic. I have versions that have the brand name, you should have versions that are stacked, and then you should have versions that are horizontal. So there's different things like that to think about. So it's not just that one logo file you need to think about. You wanna have a few different variations so that it really fits whatever you put it on.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Exactly. And you do that really well with our branded logo. You know, we have certain applications where we just use the b, the first letter of branded. and it's by itself, and it's kind of just an identifier. And very similarly, you'll see some of the things that I have that literally just have the little graphical red hat It's literally just a red hat with no font whatsoever. So depending on what I'm doing there, I might just kinda rubber stamp it with a red hat, but it's the same red hat. that you see in my logo. So it's consistent across the board. I just removed the font from the background. So you may actually have version and how that was a weird sounding word. You may actually you may actually want to a black and white version of your logo as well. So keep that in mind. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier too and that you're gonna wanna document this. you're going to want to have this written someplace and documented someplace so that once again, regardless of who's working with you and your logo and your branding that they can reference this guideline and know exactly, oh, where can we use the black and white version? Oh, we can only use that in print. where can we use this colored version? Where can we use just the icon part of our logo? So make sure that you understand the applications and you've thought those through. and you identify those so that you can hand these guidelines over and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your brand's gonna be represented accordingly.
Sara Lohse [:I have a few rules of thumb for that too since for my personal yes. Those are your thumbs. for my personal brand, since I do have my graphic logo and then the name underneath. Anytime it's, like, the first time someone is seeing my logo, I make sure the name is there. because they don't have that recognition of what that graphic piece is because it doesn't say the name. But if I'm doing, like, presentation deck, and I want my logo on every page. On the cover page, it's gonna have the name, but I don't necessarily need that full logo on every single slide. So now that they've already seen the name and they have that association, I can just take the graphic piece. You can just take your red hat and remove that text. So it makes it cleaner in the presentation. There's less going on, but it still has the brand there.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. 100%. And I do that on my slides whenever I'm speaking. you'll see just the red hat. On the initial slide, and typically the closing slide, I'll have the whole logo with the the font and everything. but typically slide to slide, you're just gonna see that red hat that keeps popping up to keep reinforcing that brand recognition. Alright. So another really critical component to getting that brand recognition and staying consistent is your tag lines or your catchphrase or your verbal logo. If you go to my LinkedIn and look, yo, I think it's the headline as you just pointed out, that it's building better brands through podcasts. and we've adopted that here. It branded as well. one of the things that I tend to say, especially in in it varies, talk to talk. if somebody asked me, you know, what is Red Hat Media? I typically fall into the, well, we build better brands through podcasts. But if I'm giving a talk and I give talks quite a bit on branding. And I typically, in those talks with, find your red hat. So it's a call to action for everyone in the audience to figure out exactly what their red red hat is and how they can apply it to their business or their brand recognition So, Sarah, I know you've got one for favorite daughter as well.
Sara Lohse [:I do. I honestly love mine. It is use your outside voice. And when I launched that as my tagline when I launched my company, I got so much positive feedback. People really loved it. And I love it because All all of our lives were told to use inside voices, and we're told to quiet be quiet, and we're told to speak softly. But when you're so passionate about something and you just really wanna share it, it's so hard to use that inside voice. It's you just wanna scream about it. You wanna be loud about it. You wanna be boisterous. And as someone who really is a kind of soft spoken person. I'm not that loud in person. My, conference persona is a little different. We all know that, but In my regular day to day life, I'm pretty quiet, but when I get really excited and really passionate about something, I accidentally scream it. And that is, I think that's important. I think everyone should find that thing that they are so passionate about that they just cannot use their inside voice.
Larry Roberts [:Well, you know, growing up, I mean, I always got in trouble for using my outside voice on the inside. If I was in trouble at home, typically it's because I was being loud. If I was being sent to the principal's office, which, happened often, or just meet me on the hall, Larry. It was because I was being loud. So, I love the fact that your tagline is use your out side voice because I naturally and there he was. How you like that? I naturally use my outside voice. So I I Lohse that. And I I think people that are listing right now, if you find that tie tagline, keep it short, keep it sweet, keep it concise, and keep it consistent and really let it reflect exactly who you are and what it means to implement or use that tagline.
Sara Lohse [:I'm not sure what the exact, rule of thumb is, but I usually say 4 to 5 words max.
Larry Roberts [:No. I do.
Sara Lohse [:Every time I say rule of thumb -- Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:It's just --
Sara Lohse [:Larry puts both of his thumbs up. I guess that's his rule for his thumbs.
Larry Roberts [:Hey, Nate. It could be worse. but anyhow, tagline's absolutely critical. Let's let's move on to our next point, which is what? It's tone.
Sara Lohse [:Tone, a voice, tone of your messaging. All of the tones how do you want your brat your brand to sound? How do you talk? How do you write? And this one can be difficult for people, but I don't think it should be. And I think it's difficult for people because they try to sound different than themselves. I think if you have your tone of your company be your own tone of voice and you write in your voice, you write the way that the words just come to your head. It's going to be so much easier to be consist it because you don't have to put thought into it. It's just how you talk.
Larry Roberts [:That's that authenticity. Right?
Sara Lohse [:Absolutely.
Larry Roberts [:Well, go ahead.
Sara Lohse [:I was just gonna say that it became so much easier for me when I launched my personal brand because when I was representing other companies, you have to adopt their brand. And depending on the industry, you have to speak in different ways. You have to maybe use jargon. You have to maybe sound more polished. And for clients, that's still something that I do, but it's so refreshing to be able to have my own tone of voice really break through when I do everything for my own brand.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and it's funny with my tone. It varies so much. You know, it varies depending on the environment that I'm in. It varies depending on exactly what I'm doing. You know, if I'm doing a real by myself, I typically have a real voice, which is little higher pitch, a little more excited, a little more emphatic when I'm looking at the camera and recording that reel with whatever message it may be. when I'm on a podcast. Well, I go into my podcast voice, and that's the tone for my presentation for that moment. at conferences. Sarah, you were one of the first ones to point this out. I have different tones, depending literally on the topic If it's a client that I'm a potential client that I'm talking to, I use one tone. If I'm talking about something technical or it occasional or reinforcing a point that I made in a talk I gave or a talk I'm going to be giving. It's a totally different tone. And I didn't necessarily have this recognition until you pointed it out. And now I see it all the time. but I do have a variety of tones that I use depending on the application.
Sara Lohse [:You definitely do. I think you're more consistent written. so the way that you post on social media, the tech that you write is a lot more consistent. And but it is still very much how you speak. You just don't really get the different voice variations in it, but the amount of times I've been on the phone with you or on Zoom with you, and I have to say stop red hat guy ing me. because you have your red hat guy tone of voice that is a little bit different than your just normal Larry Roberts.
Larry Roberts [:Well, and I I mean, I even hear it here, you know, and I I I some of the some of the the things that we've been talking about even today, I hear the way I'll wrap up a sentence. I mean, I'll I'll wrap it up super tight. I'll put a little bow on it, and you'll hear my voice just kind of trail off because I've wrapped that point that I'm trying to make. And I've driven that home with the emphasis that I need, and I feel that once I'm done, I can call it a phrase, and I can wrap it up. But it's it's funny to see that happen, and I'm more cognizant of it now, and I can actually see when I do it. And I I I did an appearance, on a show not too long ago, actually, just yesterday, and I was watching it back. And I was like, okay. I see exactly the the interview would ask me a question, and I would answer that question. she'd ask another question. da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da and everything just wrapped up super smooth, super tight, and it just led into the next question, but that's not how I have conversations. That's how I have interviews. So it's different. The and and I I think if we are if you're listening right now, if you paid a little more attention to the way that you talk and the way you present yourself to potential clients or existing clients, I think you're gonna see a drastic change in the tonality that you use. And that's just something that we have to be aware of and consistently work on to smooth it out.
Sara Lohse [:For me, I think my only variation is I have a customer service voice. I was in customer service for so long, so it but it it comes out when I speak to other customer service people, I know you know I'm right.
Larry Roberts [:No. I know because I noticed it. We're I think we were talking to a client yesterday. Everything just happened yesterday. And you were at, like, 2 to 3 octaves higher pitch. than you normally are. Yep. And, oh, I know exactly what it was. We were on a Zoom call. We were in a group Zoom call. it was a networking Zoom.
Sara Lohse [:Yes. I
Larry Roberts [:know. When you spoke, the the the host of the Zoom call said, Sarah, come on up and tell everybody about what you've given to us and what your giveaway is. And, boy, you hit that that unmute button, and you were just in there, and your boyfriend said, Jesus. I have, sir. And I did this. And I was like, oh my god. That's not her voice.
Sara Lohse [:No. It's my customer service voice. It's the voice that I use when I feel like I need to sound, like, polished, I guess. For people that are listening and not watching, my face perfectly matches our branded pink logo. I'm so embarrassed.
Larry Roberts [:I was dying last night when you were talking. I was like, And it was my best because, I mean, I was on camera too, and I could be laughing while you're talking because people are gonna go, what's he laughing at? But inside, I would roll it because that just was not your voice.
Sara Lohse [:It's not. It's like, that's how I I order at restaurants. Like, it's how I answer phones. It's not my voice. It is such a customer service voice. I don't know how to turn it off. I don't do it on purpose. And anyone who has had the the awful having to hear that voice. I'm just so sorry. I don't know that girl. It's none of my business.
Larry Roberts [:No. It's fine, but it just goes back. I mean, you know, again, I do the same thing depending on the conversations that I'm having. So we just need to be aware of it and try to be as consistent in our tone as possible.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. But it's mostly we're mostly talking about the written tone, so don't worry too much about it. Everyone used your customer service voice. It's fine.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, see, Sarah's talking about written. I'm definitely talking about spoken because I I don't do that much writing. If anything needs to be written, I go, hey, Sarah. Can you put this together for me?
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:When I don't use that GPT. So
Sara Lohse [:I am your CAPT. Anyway, the final point, the 6th piece that you need to put into your brand guidelines and put that into are your visuals. And this will that does include your logo, but it also just includes all the different types of visual components that you include in your brand. So for us, everything has our logo. It has the little speech bubbles. It's very hand drawn type of design work, not as not our hands because I don't know about Larry, but I can't draw anything. but everything looks a little bit hand drawn, a little bit pop art cartoon, which is a little bit different from my personal brand. But the one thing that I have been very I kind of didn't do it on purpose, but I noticed I do it is I do not use stock photography in my own brand. I don't use people. And if I do, it's like a piece of a person, like, I posted a blog that had, like, legs. because it was a Barbie blog, so it's she's wearing pink roller skates. But that's the closest I get to posting people and stock photography because if you see a person behind my brand, I feel like it should be myself. So I've stayed away from that, and that's just a decision that I made. You are a little different. You do use some stock photography in your branding.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. I use it a little bit depending on exactly what the application is. Now if you go to my website, you're not gonna find any stock photography there. but, like, when I sponsor conferences and I have banner ads, that sort of thing, I will use some stock photography in those. but the vast majority of the photography that you see is, well, me. I am the vast majority of the brand. I am what's under the brim of the red hat. So, and I'm slightly narcissistic. So I like to see me. No. I'm just no. I really don't
Sara Lohse [:like -- You also do have a stock photography on your website. I don't know. why you're talking about.
Larry Roberts [:Really? What?
Sara Lohse [:It's on your services page. The your your header you use for everything is like stock photo of a city skyline.
Larry Roberts [:That's not really I I don't look at this. I don't look at the city last size. I don't look
Sara Lohse [:at your services page. It is it is stock photographer fee. I'm very sorry to break it to you.
Larry Roberts [:Well, we're adding this part out. I'll tell you that right now.
Sara Lohse [:No. We are not.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, yeah. We are.
Sara Lohse [:This is a lesson to everybody. know your branding, know your brand guidelines so that you don't get on a podcast and say you don't use stock photography when your website is riddled with it.
Larry Roberts [:And don't do a podcast with your web designer because she's gonna know more about what's on your website than you really because you're more about what you present on the outside, not what's on the inside.
Sara Lohse [:And and she also came up with the brilliant, beneath the brim, line that you said, and she's very proud of it. Could you give me -- She's proud of it.
Larry Roberts [:Can you give me the I'm obviously proud of it too. I used it. Give me something.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah. I gave you that line and all of your branding.
Larry Roberts [:Give me give me an outro for this episode. Let's do that.
Sara Lohse [:Now you know the 6 pieces of your brand guidelines, go ahead and make it into a document, put it on paper, make sure that you know that any brand managers you work with know what your brand guidelines are so that you don't do what Larry just did. Is that a good -- Alright.
Larry Roberts [:Alright. Alright. Cool. Yeah. That sounds great. Thanks for listening, y'all. seriously, though. If you got some value out of this episode, do me a favor. Please. Please add somescribe button. Now, whatever podcast platform you are listening or watching on, we appreciate each and every one of you, and we can't wait to see you again next week. Once again, I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:I'm Sara Lohse. Thanks for listening.
