Shownotes
How many times have you put "write brand values," "update logo," or "redesign website" on your to-do list only to keep moving it to another day, another week, another month, and on and on until it's at the bottom of the list, or deleted altogether?
This happens to the best of us. As creatives, we all have so many things on our minds and our to-do lists that it's easy to keep pushing something that doesn't feel as “urgent”. But branding is urgent and important, and if you're reading this, I reckon you know that already!
Today, I'm going to share some practical tips on how to finally make progress on your branding, stop relegating it to the bottom of your to-do list, and transform your creative business.
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Transcripts
How many times do you think you have put right brand values, update logo or like redesign website on your to-do list? Only to keep moving it to another day, another week, another month, and on until it is at the bottom of the list or deleted all together. This happens as creatives. We all have so many things on our minds and on our to-do list that it's really easy to keep pushing something that doesn't feel as urgent.
Off to work on tasks that do feel more important. But branding is urgent and important, and if you are listening to this, I think you know that you just happen to keep moving it further and further down the to-do list. So today I'm gonna give you some tips on how to finally make progress on your branding.
Stop pushing it to the bottom of your to-do list and transform your creative business. So let's get started.
I have talked to so many creatives about their brand and about their business, and. So many of them, and of you have told me that you know that branding is important.
It's something that you should be doing and that you should work on, but there are so many other things in your creative business in your life that mean that it just keeps getting pushed further and further down the list. So if that's you're definitely not alone, but I wanna give you some.
Insight into why we really need to put it further up on the list, why it is important, and then tell you how you can do that and practically how you can actually take action, make some progress, and build the brand that you wanna build.
Why Branding is Urgent and Important
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So first things first, why branding is urgent and important and needs to be like held at the same level as other things in your business, if not higher.
Number one is that we wanna stop putting the wrong things out there. You might think that, oh, branding doesn't really matter to me. I'm not like a corporation or anything like that. It's not important, but it is because every single person and every single business. Already has a brand including you, and right now your brand might be doing you more harm than good, which is, I know, not the easiest thing to hear, but maybe the truth that you do need to hear.
So I want you to take a look at your website, your social media, your sales processes, any situation where somebody encounters your brand and your business. If you were a customer, what would you think? If it is inconsistent, messy, confusing, overwhelming, maybe just non-existent, you have a problem. And if you and your work are maybe like bright and fun, but your brand is really bland and boring, you are sending the wrong message.
So that's another problem. Or if you love your audience or you would love your audience to be relaxed, neutral, loving moms, for example, but your brand is chaotic, overwhelming, and rainbow colored. You're not attracting the right people. I. That's a problem. So all of these misalignments, whether it's like that or something else, means that you are losing customers opportunities and money, but intentionally building an aligned brand that addresses all of those things is gonna transform your business with the opportunities, the audience, and the.
Sales that you need to succeed. So we really need to stop putting the wrong things out there and make sure that we are putting the right things out there and not missing out on those sales and opportunities and audience members because of what your brand is currently saying. Your brand is not currently saying the right thing.
We have a problem. We need to fix it. Relating to that.
Common Branding Problems
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Number two is that we wanna stop solving the wrong problems. So for right now, you might be struggling with things like low engagement, slow audience growth, lack of customers, those kind of things that are real problems that creative businesses have.
You might think that solving those problems, like getting more views, increasing the engagement, converting more customers are important, but often the truth is those problems are branding problems. You are likely not attracting the right people, communicating clearly or showing up confidently, all of which are parts of branding and impact the problems that you think you are currently having.
So when you actually work on your branding, you can figure out who you wanna attract and build a brand that actually does that, which will mean you'll attract more new people. You will grow your audience, you those people who are engaged will be the right people. It will be aligned, and so you'll get more engagement.
So figuring out who you wanna attract and building a brand that does that is amazing and will have clear results and impact on the problems you are currently having. Another example. You can decide what you wanna communicate and tell the world all about your work and do that through your messaging and your content, all of which starts and is branding.
So right now, if you are communicating the wrong thing or you don't have a clear message that is losing you, like we've said, the that engagement, people are gonna be confused. You're not gonna be appealing to the right people. So building your brand. Figuring out the messaging and the content is gonna solve those problems.
Also you can like finally feel confident in who you are, what your brand looks like, and what makes you different, which means that you're gonna show up more consistently with more confidence, which is gonna lead to more views, more engagement, more customers. So branding really is at the root of everything in your business and solves.
A lot of the problems that we think are coming from elsewhere, the problem that you currently have, look at it and think, is this actually a branding problem? Because chances are, it probably is. And lastly, I just said, everything is connected to your brand. It's the root of everything in your business, and so this is why we wanna stop working on the wrong projects.
Branding really does impact every other part of your business. And so if you are working on projects like social media, content, creating graphics, customer service. All of these things are a waste of time if your brand isn't right. So if you are creating social media content that is saying the wrong thing or designed in a way that doesn't appeal to your ideal audience, or is you're just putting it out there for the sake of it, and it's not intentional with the aim of actually growing and building your brand and shaping it in a way that you want it to, you are just putting it out there for the sake of it, and it's not actually the most.
Intentional, useful use of your time. Same for if you are creating customer service, right? Or doing customer service. If you're not doing that in a way that actually talks to your audience in a good voice that like represents you and makes them feel good, and all of those things. You're not achieving the goals that you want for your brand because your customers are experiencing something different.
They're not getting the best version of you. They're not really experiencing what your brand is all about in a way that makes them wanna keep coming back and telling all their friends and buy again. So customer service as well starts with branding. We might be thinking that these are the projects we should be working on and they are gonna be the most productive for our business.
But if you haven't started with branding and sorted out your brand and feel like your brand is in a really good place that you're really proud of and that you can use in all of these other projects, then you really are just wasting your time. So you need to work on your brand first and get that in a great place because it impacts every other part of your business and is important to do before you start working on all these other projects.
Okay. I've given you some hard truths about why branding is urgent, why you really need to reprioritize it and put it higher on the, on your list, because we wanna stop putting the wrong things out there. We wanna stop solving the wrong problems, and we wanna stop working on the wrong projects, right? So the opposite of that, we wanna start putting the right things out there.
We wanna start solving the right problems, and we wanna start working on the right projects for your business. Now we know that.
Steps to Prioritize Your Branding
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How do we actually stop putting branding and pushing it to the bottom of our to-do list? Number one, you wanna set time aside, I talk about this all the time in every aspect of branding, but if you want to improve your brand and see the results that you can do from that, you need to be intentional about it.
You can't just keep saying, oh, someday I'll work on it. I'll put it on my list, but I won't give it a deadline, like anything like that. You need to actually be intentional, set time aside and say, this is when I'm gonna work on my brand because it's important to me and I know I need to work on it. So you wanna put time in your calendar?
Maybe that's every day, every week, every month, whatever is gonna work for you. Just set some time aside and maybe start small, right? Like 10 minutes a day or 10 minutes once a week, or half a day, once a week, something like that. Put that time in your calendar to actually work on your brand and stick to it.
That's the important part. Don't just put it on your calendar and say, I'm gonna do it. And then when it comes to that time, you push it aside again. No. You wanna set that time aside in your calendar and say, okay, Thursdays in the morning, I am working on my brand for an hour. That's it. That is the rule.
That's the guideline. That's what I'm doing. So number one, set that time aside. Protect that time and commit to it. Commit to working on your brand. Number two is to break it down into achievable steps. Instead of just putting branding in quotation marks on your to-do list, break it down because big, vague tasks like that are hard to dive into because we don't know where to start.
So instead, you wanna decide what you wanna do and figure out the steps to do that. For example, if you wanna get clearer about your ideal audience, you could start with, okay, I'm gonna write down the top five clients or customers that I've had and why they were my favorites. That's one task you can do to figure out who your ideal clients are, or maybe you wanna look at the analytics on Instagram to see what I can find out about my current audience.
Those are much more concrete, small, actionable, achievable tasks that feel doable rather than these big, vague, daunting ones like branding. So have a look at your brand. Think about what you wanna do and what you wanna improve and what you wanna change, and then break it down into those really actionable tasks.
If you're not sure what tasks to break things down into, then in the brand, your passion collective, we have lessons for each part of branding that give you a list. Of tasks you can do to make it happen. So for example, in module one, which is all about your purpose, we talk about your vision, and there are three steps or tasks to help you to write your vision.
You could do one of those every day, right? Or you could do them all three tasks all in one day, but you know what those three tasks are to help you write your vision. Definitely check it out in the brand, your patient collective. If you want some help figuring out what to work on and what small tasks you can break it down into.
Okay.
Accountability and Community Support
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Number three, get some accountability. We all know that working on your own can be really challenging when it comes to actually making progress on the things that matter, but it is so much easier when you have something or someone holding you to that or motivating you to make it happen. I know that when I have someone else waiting on me for something or I have a.
Call scheduled and I wanna make sure I've made progress before that call. It helps me so much. So a couple of ways you can do this. You could get a friend, you could get a coach, or you could get a community to help keep you accountable so you could work on your brand together with another creative.
Maybe you commit to making progress and checking in on each other and working towards your goals. Together. You might set a to-do list that you're all gonna do, or you're both gonna do and have regular calls, either or regular meetings or something like that to help you and your friend both achieve your branding goals.
Another option you could get a coach who will meet regularly with you. There are branding coaches, business coaches who will help you with your branding. They'll meet with you regularly, give you the task to work on and check in on your progress to make sure that you are achieving your goals. Or you could join a community that gives you tasks to work on, dedicated time to work on your brand and the people to support in Chicken With Your Progress.
There are so many ways to get some accountability. You could also post publicly. That's a great way to get some accountability is to like, share publicly and say, Hey, I'm working on this thing. I'm gonna do this series where I'm gonna talk about it. And that can help you stay accountable as well when.
External people know what you're working on or what you've said you're gonna be working on. So whatever way works best for you, whether it's one-on-one with a friend, with a coach, or in a community, you wanna get some accountability to help you actually start working on your brand. Again, the brain patient collective is a perfect option for this.
If you want the community vibe and the community way of getting some accountability, we have the intentional curriculum for you to work through regular coaching and co-working calls to keep you motivated and give you the time to work towards your goals and check-ins for me and other people in the community to keep you accountable and moving forward.
So that is a great option if you want that accountability too.
So that is three ways that you can stop pushing, branding to the bottom of your to-do list. Now that we know how important it's, so just to recap, set that time aside. Whenever, however, works for you, how often, how much time set that time aside, protect it and stick to it.
Break your tasks down into achievable, actionable steps. So we are not putting branding on our to-do list. We are putting like, write my vision statement, look up inspiration for my logo, small actionable tasks that we can actually achieve and know what we need to do and take action on those. And lastly, get some accountability.
Whether it is another person, like a friend, or a colleague or another creative a coach or a community. Get some people around you who can help you actually make progress towards your goals. Okay? Now hopefully you have some motivation knowing how important branding is and why you can't keep pushing it to the bottom of the to-do list, and I've given you some actionable steps for changing that so you can finally make progress and build the brand that you deserve.
Join the Brand Your Passion Collective
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I've mentioned it a couple of times through this episode, but if you do want help making that happen with all of the dedicated time actionable tasks and supportive accountability that you need, do come and join us in the brand Your Passion Collective. We are a community of creatives who are actively committed to working on their brands together so that they can lead to and build a creatively fulfilling community building financially stable art business and do it together.
You can head to brand your passion.co or click the link in the show notes to join us and for being a listener of the podcast, you can use the code Passion, P-A-S-S-I-O-N to get 20% off your subscription. Otherwise, if you don't wanna join the community, totally fine too. I hope this episode has been helpful.
Feel free to always DM me on Instagram at Maker and Moxie, and as always, keep creating and I'll talk to you in the next one. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Brand Your Passion. If you enjoyed this one, it would mean the world to me if you could share it on social media and make sure to tag me at Maker and Moxie so that I can see and share it too.
It really does help to get the show out there, which means that we can all work towards that maker and moxie vision of making the world a more creative place, one brand at a time. Thanks so much in advance and I will talk to you in the next one. Until then, keep creating!
