#224 - Brand Strategies for Growing Your Business - Being Boss with Emily + Kathleen

Episode Transcript
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Emily Thompson (00:00):
In a few short weeks, we're gathering together
with some of the most bosspeople we know that throw down
on the biggest event we've everput on. From bestselling authors
and seven figure business ownersto working creatives and diehard
entrepreneurs, we've gatheredsome of the best in the business
to come and share with you theirsecrets for finding the time

(00:21):
they need to do the work and howthey share what they do with the
right people to grow thecreative business of their
dreams. Join us in New Orleanson April 19 to the 21st 2020 to
hear from our amazing roster ofboss experts. For example,
you'll hear Mike Michalowicztalk about how to run your

(00:41):
business like clockwork. And incase you think his name's
familiar, he's the guy who wroteprofit. First, we interviewed
him on episode 126 of thispodcast. You can also hear from
Vivian Kay founder of KinkyCurly Yaki speak on building a
seven figure empire as a singlemom using her vibrant
personality and authenticity asher secret sauce to success, and

(01:04):
many, many more. There will besessions on automating your
business to help you worksmarter, not harder, hiring and
delegating to help you grow andscale. And that's just the
beginning. To see our fullroster of speakers and an
outline of the sessions you canbe a part of go to
beingboss.club/conference tolearn more. That's

(01:25):
beingboss.club/conference. Ihope to see you there.
I'm Emily Thompson.

Kathleen Shannon (01:35):
And I'm Kathleen Shannon.

And this is Being Boss. And this episode of
Being Boss, join Kathleen and Ias we discuss the ever evolving
nature of your business's brand,including what to do as your
business becomes more complexand what to do when your ideas
outgrow the business and brandyou've already built. As always,

(02:01):
you can find all the tools booksand links we reference on the
show notes atwww.beingboss.club.

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Okay, so Emily, you know that myjam is branding? I love thinking

(03:19):
about branding. I love figuringout the solutions and and
problems and questions andanswers around branding. I just
love it. I think that it's agreat way. Well, we'll get into
that. But recently, I got aquestion from someone who
follows Braid Creative onInstagram asking when do I need
more than one brand? Or when doI need to have multiple brands?

(03:42):
Do I need multiple brands? Andthis is a question that I get a
lot from my one-on-one clientsfrom people that like anytime
they find out I'm a brandingprofessional, it always comes
back to this. And then there arelike a myriad of branches that
come off of this tree of aquestion right? Where it? Do you
need to use your name or not? Doyou need an umbrella brand? Do

(04:04):
you need more than one socialmedia account? There are so many
different considerations. Andthis is a big conversation. And
I wanted to, I wanted to write ablog post about it. But it is
just too nuanced and tricky. Andyou kind of have to hash it out
because it all depends. There'sno black and white answer,

For sure. And this isn't just a conversation
That's exactly what I was goingto say like, you end up having
that you have one time andyou're done. It's a conversation
that you have in your businessconstantly, ongoing for years
and years. I know businessowners who have been you know in
the game 10, 15, 20, 25 years,and they're still saying what do
I do with this new thing thatI'm creating? Do I brand it

(04:43):
separately? Do I need to changemy entire business branding? Do
I need to put my name in it allthose things you just said these
are conversations that you haveconstantly for years so I'm
excited to dive into thisbecause it is such a topic. It
is something that I think aboutit, so I mean that I'm talking
to my people about as well. Andfor you who are listening, we

(05:04):
know that creative entrepreneursin particular are multi
passionate beings. We all have agazillion ideas. And one of the
things that will often keep usfrom doing the next thing is we
don't know how to brand it, orwe don't know how it fits into
our current business. And sosometimes that can stop us from
doing things, or it doesn't stopyou. And you end up having this

(05:27):
this crazy quilt of differentbrands that you have to maintain
insane quilt of brands.
and sustain, and pay attentionto and nurture. And that can be
tricky too.
Yeah, I mean, I've seen I'veseen businesses that again, 10,
15, 20, 25 years into it, theyhave these elaborate, beautiful

(05:51):
quilts of businesses andproducts and things that they've
created, and they don't knowwhat to do with them. So I'm
excited to talk about thistoday. It's something that we
have faced, it's something thateveryone we work with is facing.
It's something that so manypeople who are listening to this
are facing. Because it's areally long, big conversation.

(06:12):
And even in today's episode,we're only going to be like,
sort of touching the tip of theiceberg, basically.

Yeah, and it's an evolving conversation, it's a
conversation that you'llcontinue to have, because as a
brand. And as a business, yourbrand and business continue to
evolve. Even if you start from asingle idea, you're going to
have more ideas, more offerings,the markets change. And your
business can become very complexafter, especially after a decade

(06:43):
or two of business. But even Iwould say after three to five
years, you start to develop newideas and ways of working and
new offerings. I know thatwhenever I'm branding, someone,
the thing that always changesthe most that they can rely on
changing the most is theirbusiness offerings, how they
offer what they do, maybe eventheir process a little bit for

(07:06):
what they do people, you mightgo from one on one offerings, if
they're a service provider todoing group offerings or turning
their process into an ecourse,which we did at Braid, or you
know, maybe they are a maker orhave a brick and mortar. And
they want to pivot the directionof like what they're known for

(07:27):
selling, you know, so Emily, Imean, we'll get into so many
case studies, I cannot wait totalk about Almanac and how
you've grown that and whatthat's meant for your branding.
I can't wait to talk about whywe decided to make Being Boss
its own brand versus wrapping itunder either Braid or Indie
Shopography. So we've had theseconversations ourselves, and

(07:49):
even some of the topics thatwe're going to hit today. We
don't have the answers to whichis why I wanted to talk it out
on a podcast versus writing itinto a blog post.

Yeah, let's do it. So that's kind of what we're
looking at today. We're here tohave a conversation around
answering the question of how togrow your brand. In a way that
makes sense. So before we divein too deep, I'm going to grill
you, are you ready for this?

I love it. I feel like I'm taking a test.

You are taking a test. Are you an expert,
Kathleen?

100%, I have put in my 10,000 hours.

Perfect. So let's define some things. First,
what is a brand and why isimportant?

A brand is how you articulate what you do and
for whom. It is so incrediblyimportant because it
differentiates you from yourcompetition. I know as creative
entrepreneurs, sometimes we canget real intimidated or freaked
out whenever other people aredoing what we do. If you are a
coach, you maybe had noticedthat the coaching industry has

(08:55):
exploded. If your brand was, youknow, kind of, I don't know,
let's say witchy, that's becomemore mainstream in the past few
years, you know. So your brandis really what makes you
different. It sets the tone foryour business and it helps you
attract just the right dreamcustomer that is a good fit for
you. So if your business plan isthe foundation and like the

(09:19):
exchange of money of what you doyour brand is kind of like the
soundtrack to what you're doing.
And it helps set you apart. Ithelps you articulate who you are
and what you do throughmessaging, positioning, your
logo, your brand identity isyour brand is like what your
brand is like your palette ofwhat you're applying to your

(09:40):
website, your social media, it'swhat makes you look consistent.
And consistency is what makesyou look polished and
professional. And I don't meanlike a capital P professional
because sometimes a lot of myclients are worried about
looking too stuffy or I thinkthat a lot of people think that
branding means that you'redevoid of character. If anything
is the opposite of that. I'vebeen, I find that branding is

(10:03):
about blending who you are intothe work that you do, and doing
it in a way that is consistent.
Even if it looks like a crazyquilt, it looks like a crazy
quilt across all of yourplatforms.

There you go, so it's not just a logo. Number
one, it is both the look andfeel and really the words you
use to share what it is that youdo and with whom. All right,
next question for you. Whenshould a business owner get
branding, or branded?

Whoo, this is a good one, because it's tricky.
And it depends. So if you'reinvesting in a company like
Braid Creative, I would tell youto have two to three dream
clients under your belt. Likemake sure that you are already
practicing what it is thatyou're offering And actually
like doing. The last thing Iwould want is for someone to
hire me, whenever they haven'teven launched their idea yet, or

(11:03):
even beta tested their idea yetto see if it's something that
they actually like doing. I havebranded life coaches who end up
hate life, they hate doing lifecoaching, right. So I would say
whenever you find that, youreally want to show up without
any sort of like embarrassmentor shame whenever you want to be

(11:24):
able to direct people to yourwebsite, and feel proud of it.
Whenever you want to be able tohand out that tricked out
business card that looksbeautiful, and be able to give
that elevator pitch in asuccinct, you know, five second
message. That's whenever youneed branding. So for some
people, that means that theyhave already thought out their

(11:45):
business plan, and maybe they'vebeen working with our mastermind
group or with a business coach,and they've really hashed out
what it is that they want to doand how it's going to work.
They, they might be a goodcandidate for branding. But for
other people, I think that Iwill, I will say you know, get
one or two clients under yourbelt, make sure that or like if
you're a maker, you know, maybeyou've done a couple of craft

(12:07):
fairs before you sign a lease onthat building. Right? Like it's
really stepping into it. I alsothink that you can get
rebranded. So maybe you launchedwith what you had, and you, you
know, bought a logo off of Etsyor creative market. And now
you're ready to level up, I geta lot of people who are two to
three years in and they'remaking good money, and they

(12:28):
really want their level ofsuccess and where they want to
go next to match what they looklike on the outside. And that's
their brand.

Love it. I agree with the two year mark that was
I was gonna throw that in if youdidn't, but I feel like that two
year mark is a place whereyou're proving to yourself that
you can do this, you've beendoing it, you want to continue
doing it. So making investmentsinto having professionals to
help you get your look and feelas well as your the words that

(12:57):
you use in order succinct andclear and ready to go. That's a
good point to do it.

Yeah, because you just know yourself better.
You know your clients better,you know how to speak directly
to them, you know what theirproblems are. And that's a lot
of what branding is, is beingable to speak to your clients
problems, and telling them howyou're going to be able to solve
their problem.

Right. And you can't do that until you've done
that.

But I want to make sure that it's clear that
you can DIY your brand, just tohave something there to have a
place to show up. It doesn'thave to be perfect and use that
for as long as you can. And thenwhenever you're ready to invest
like you can hire professional.

Alright, next question, what's the difference
between a brand and an offering?

Your brand is how you tie in the emotional
connection between you and yourclient. It's how you say, it's
how, it's the tone in which yousay what you offer. So your
offering as the exchange, youroffering is you give me this
amount of dollars, and I'm goingto give you this thing, whether
that's coaching, whether that'scrystals, whether that's, you

(14:05):
know, whatever it is, the brandis what gives the offering
flavor. And it's what attractsjust the right people to that
offering.

Harder question.
What's the difference between abrand and a business?

I think that a brand and a business go hand in
hand like a very happy marriage.
For me, I have found thatbranding and business visioning
are so tied together thatwhenever it comes to how I work
with my clients, I have tounderstand their business and
their strategy behind wherethey've been and where they're
going in order to properly brandthem in a way that feels true to

(14:45):
them. So I mean, I'm trying tothink of a good metaphor here.
If your business is how youexchange money. Or it's like
your business is, is thefoundation. And then the brand
is like the decoration on thewalls. And so that's why a lot

(15:05):
of people might think thatdecorations are unnecessary, and
sometimes they are, right, wecan go real minimalist with
this, you can have a businesswithout having a brand. But you
still have a brand because everyinteraction and exchange that
you have with somebody, or thatthey have with you, that's a
brand experience.

Yeah. So that is intentionally hard question,
because I think we're gonna bewalking this interesting gray
line between offerings, brandsand businesses over the course
of the rest of thisconversation, to sort of show
that there are places wherethere is no difference between
them. And there are places wherethere they are completely
different things. And so that'sthe conversation that you will

(15:51):
be having, as you navigate,especially multiple years in
your business, and it's aconversation we're going to
start having. So we're going tobe using these words quite
interchangeably, I want to likelay down some some ground rules.
So you know, what we're talkingabout when we're talking about
it. A business is the structurethat you have built to serve a

(16:12):
person or group of people orwhatever it may be a brand is
how you design and articulate.

The words.

and articulate, thank you, what it is that your
business does, or offering,we'll get there in a second. And
the offering is the thing thatyou actually do for people. So
if you're a coach, then you mayhave several different
offerings, every severaldifferent ways in which you work
with people. If you are aproduct maker, you have may have
a couple different productlines, those are different

(16:46):
offerings, and that yourbusiness offers. So I hope I
like painted that in a way sothat you know that there, there
are differences, but we're goingto show you all the incredible
gray areas between them as well.
And that's what we're going tobe talking about today we're
going to be diving into what itlooks like to build complex
brand structures aroundbusinesses. Different kinds of

(17:08):
brands and offerings, we'regoing to talk about when it is
that you need to stick with onebrand for literally everything
that you do always, because thatis an option guys, totally an
option, we're gonna be talkingabout when you might need to
diverged from one brand intohaving more than one brand.
Maybe in the same business.

And I want to talk a little bit about when you
might need to combine or ditch abrand. If you have a lot of
irons in the fire, it might meanthat you're consolidating.

True story. And we'll be thinking about when it
is that you might want toconsider setting up an
overarching umbrella brand. Ilove the idea of this.

I know. I've had a client refer to, it's a
term that I've been using a lotumbrella brand and in large
corporations it might be like awhat that brand that owns the
toilet paper and the lotion andall like Johnson and Johnson?

Procter and Gamble.

Yeah, Procter and Gamble, like they own
Kleenex, they own seventh..

So many things.
Seventh Generation.

my gosh, speaking of brands, have you
seen that brand that's like anorganic brand that's called if
you care? It's so passiveaggressive, like if you care go
buy this.

I mean, if that's it, we need to save the
world guys, I will be passiveaggressive too.

True that.
Anyway, there are corporatelevels of umbrella brands that
kind of acquire these otherbrands that have been
established. That's not whatwe're really talking about.
We're talking about an umbrellabrand that might be more like, I
had a client refer to it as adollhouse, and you have all
these different rooms in yourdollhouse, but the dollhouse
still contains all of thedifferent offerings and services

(18:58):
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Alright, so let's say you've started your
business with one brand and youget a couple of years down the
road and you have your nextgreat idea. Do you start a new
business and brand it separatefrom what it is that you
currently have? Do you offer itwithin your current business

(20:35):
structure under a differentbrand? Or is it just branded
under what you're currentlydoing?

This conversation is so layered and I
feel like it starts with, Irecently did a blog post over at
Braid called Do You Need aBusiness Coach? Or Do You Need
Branding? Because sometimes whatyou need is a business coach to
ask you questions like, Okay,you've got a next great idea. Is
this great idea going to helpyou become what it is that you
want to be known for? Does itreflect your values? Is it

(21:06):
monetizable? Is this maybe justsomething that you want to try
as a hobby and not necessarilyturn into a business? Is it
going to distract from the thingthat's actually making you
money? Why are you doing this?
And how does it fit into thebigger picture from like, a base
level? from there? Do I need abrand or two? I think people

(21:27):
love the branding process.
People love giving a name and aface and a style and a tone to
their business. And that's myfavorite part of the whole
process. And that's why I have abranding agency and not 18
different businesses, right? SoI love the branding process. I'm

(21:49):
always erring on the side ofOkay, are you sure you want to
do this? And is there a way towrap it into the brand that you
have? There are many times whereyou do need a separate brand.
But again, it just depends. Soone of the biggest overlaps that
I really start to see is let'ssay it's a yogi who wants to

(22:10):
become a life coach. And afterseeing the patterns of this
happen, and unfold over the pasteight years that I've had Braid
Creative, I've almost everysingle life coach that I've
branded has been kind of a Yogi.
Right? And so now I can see howthat fits together. But in the
moment, you might feel superscattered, like, well, what is

(22:30):
this thing have to do with thatthing. So from there, I would
say, if you can get creative,and find a way to niche, maybe
you bring your yoga foundationsinto your coaching practice, you
know, and that would be a way tostart to blend it into one
brand. And you can start to rollout an offering under your
existing brand to test it. Likethat's a great place to beta

(22:53):
test it and see. So these areall cases for keeping one brand,
I suppose is to see how it fitsin and challenge yourself to see
okay, how would this fit in. Andyou know, our mantra of it's
only as weird as you make it.
Maybe try rolling out thisoffering, testing it out where
you already have an existingplatform and reputation because

(23:13):
your brand is also a reputation,roll it out there and then see
what happens. So I could go downso many different trains of
thought. But here we go, I'mgonna take us down this one,
whenever we started Being Boss,we could have wrapped that into
Braid Creative as a brand, or toIndie Shopography, which was

(23:35):
your web business as a brand.
But because we were two peoplecoming from two different
businesses, we decided to makeit its own brand. Now that was
for the kind of like logisticaland legal reasons. So that's the
thing too, if you're bringing ona business partner, or you want
to put it under a different LLC,there might be reasons why you

(23:56):
want to rebrand it differently.
Or if it's something you mightwant to sell down the road. But
for us back to Being Boss beingits own brand. I still shared
it, you still shared it, we bothshared it with the platforms
that we already had. So it kindof became like this sister brand
to both of our individualbrands. And I think that that
was an appropriate place.

(24:17):
Another example and then I'lllet you talk, I promise. I feel
like Kanye. I just get sopassionate about this topic,

Do it. Do it.

So um, here's an example of whenever this
happened with me, I becamecoaching certified while I was
still growing Braid Creative asa branding agency. I got
coaching certified under MarthaBeck, and it was kind of woo, I
didn't know where it fit in. ButI decided to just let people

(24:47):
know like, Hey, I'm gonna docreative coaching. And that was
the thing I branded it ascreative coaching or coaching
for creative entrepreneursspecifically. So it still fit
within my wheelhouse of what Iwas doing. I didn't know how it
fit in at the time. But a lot ofthe exercises that I have
learned have now been integratedinto the Braid Method process so

(25:08):
I can better figure out who myclient is, who their clients
are, and really hear them andunderstand them. So it's like
been more tools in my tool belt,that I've helped me expand what
I'm already doing. But it didn'tneed to be its own brand. But I
remember thinking like, is thisits own business? Like, where
does this fit in? And it's evenfit in like with our

(25:30):
conversations here at BeingBoss, there's oftentimes that
we're, you know, having hardconversations that require some
of that coaching skill set. Soanyway, that's all my thoughts,
what do you think?

Just as many things, just as many things, and
I think you hit the nail on thehead in a couple of different
areas, obviously, but one ofthem being, you know, what do
you, what are, what is your longterm vision for this project.
And one of the big things isbeing do you want to sell it one
day, I think is an importantone. If this is something that

(26:02):
is separate from your currentcore business, then make it its
own thing, and, you know, createit, make a do over there, and
then let it go at some point. Wehave some examples around that.
Actually, I want to talk aboutone interesting example of
someone who did do a separatebrand for a project, and I think
it came back to bite her in theass. And that is, I won't be

(26:26):
mentioning any names here.

I was like, are you about to name names
here?

Spill all the tea. No, no, no tea, no tea,
just some examples. So I dorecall a coach once, who made a
product that was very in linewith her dream customer. So she
had a certain type of dreamcustomer wanted to create a
product, and she was coaching,then product. And instead of

(26:50):
making it a product for herbrand, she made this product,
its own brand, I'm pretty sureit was still operating under her
business structure, but createda brand that was separate from
her brand for this product. Andshe did this because I think she
wanted to sell it, I think shewanted or to make it more

(27:12):
appealing to people to likelarger companies to acquire or
partner with her wherever shethought that making its own
thing would make it look a bitmore professional, and would
make it more appealing to thosesorts of partnerships.

Yeah, you know, sometimes I'm jealous of
people who have brands that arejust so say what you mean, like
painting your walls, like let'ssay that's like a brand, you
know, it's just likepaintingyourwalls.com. You know,
I that's a terrible example. I'ma branding professional and came
up with painting your walls, Imean, people who have like just

(27:48):
a very say what you mean brandname, yes. And it seems very
sellable.

Right.

Or like something that's even almost
more search engine optimized.
Like if someone's searching forthat specific thing, their brand
will come up.

You think that's a good idea, unless it shoots
you in the foot, which is whathappened with this person, she
created this product, create avery, like, say what you mean
brand separate from her coachingbrand, and with very good
intentions, and none of ithappened for her. And it didn't
happen for her because insteadof instead of allowing it to

(28:26):
live within the brand, and theexpertise and the you know,
place, the rapport that she hadalready built with her current
brand, she removed it from thatand because she couldn't, you
know, sell it to the people whowere already in her audience. It
never really took off. Byseparating it, she was unable to

(28:46):
leverage her expertise in thesame way she could have if she'd
kept it under the same brand.
And it kept it from beingsuccessful. So there's a lot to
be said about leveraging whatyou've already built. By keeping
things in the same house.
Basically, it can be verypowerful. There are times when
you should separate but thereare times when you should keep

(29:09):
it all in the same place. Andthen things can usually be
separated later, if they need tobe.

Trust is a huge factor whenever it comes to
your brand. It is an ongoingrelationship, either with your
audience or your newsletter listor your social media following
or your podcast listeners.
Building a brand is buildingtrust with people who reach
beyond just your directcustomers. It's really about
communicating with them, tellingthem your ideas. And this is why

(29:38):
I feel so strongly aboutpersonal branding and really
blending who you are into thework that you do. Because then
it really is just having anongoing conversation, building
trust. It's then simplyexplaining what you do, versus
that really hard sell that allof us find so icky. Instead you
can just say okay, here's what Ido, and here's how it works.
Take it or leave it either way,I'm here for you, you can read

(30:02):
my blog posts. And we've seenexamples of this, I mean, Being
Boss is that, for example, andso if you're launching a brand
from scratch, you have to work alot harder to build up that
trust.

And do not think that people will just follow you
from one brand to the next, Ialso have an example of someone
who was very big in one spacedecided to, you know, take her
experience, and move right intoanother space and had set some
very high expectations aboutbeing immediately successful,

(30:39):
because there was such a, such astrong presence and the other
thing that she was doing, and itdidn't happen, it didn't happen,
you can't just pull a crowd fromone brand to the next. If it
needs different branding, itwill have a completely different
dream customer.

Oh, that's a good way of really establishing
when you need a new brand is ifit's a completely different
customer. So I'm working with aclient right now who has a food
preparation, like meal planningcompany. And then she's going to
be launching a completelydifferent business where there's

(31:19):
very little overlap, both incontent and dream customer. And
that definitely requires twobrands, right. But for the most
part, not every new idea is anew brand. And if you can all
find any sort of connectionbetween the brand that you've
already built, or even the thingthat you're already known for,
let's say you're working a dayjob, and you're you've got a

(31:43):
side hustle, how does your sidehustle fit into your expertise,
you know, or fit into a networkor community that you're already
a part of, not every new idea isa new brand, I know it's so much
fun to name things and putcolors to it and put together a
mood board. You don't have to dothat.

Right. And it's okay to occasionally create
separate offerings. So let's sayyou are doing, doing a new
offering that's serving the samedream customer or maybe it's
even like a slightly tweakedstream customer. So let's say
you have a, let's say you havea, a yoga business. Let's go in

(32:23):
this direction, where you'reusually serving your, you know,
older millennial crowd. But likeone day you decide to do a
workshop series, where you arefocusing on

Scoliosis.

There you go.
Perfect. So like, you don't needto create a whole other business
to have this slightly tweakeddream customer by any means. Or
even, let's say it's a different

I actually, I have a yoga client that exactly
age group.
fits this model. So he has ayoga business, and he found his
niche and yoga therapy. Soreally to, dialing in on how
your joints are positioned, inorder to flow best for you. So a
lot of yoga is get in thisposition. Well, not everybody's
bodies can do that. So he'snarrowed in on everybody's

(33:13):
bodies are different. And yogacan be therapy. And then he just
launched a new offering. That iscannabis yoga. In states where
it's legal, and basicallygetting high and doing yoga. It
didn't need a whole other brand.
But what was fun about it isthat we created like almost a
secondary logo for that brand, Imean, within the same brand. So

(33:33):
one cool thing that you canthink of and I have this with
some of my bigger, moreorganizational clients is I
think about promotionalcampaigns. So let's say I'm
working for a credit union, apromotional campaign might be in
the summer, we're doing a hardpush on car loans, for example.
And then maybe in the fall,we're doing a hard push on home
loans or maybe a credit cardproduct. I know that sounds

(33:57):
really boring, but it totallyrelates to creative
entrepreneurs, you can almostthink of some of your offerings
as a promotional campaign oroffering. So you can still have
a fun look and feel that mighteven be a little bit of a
departure from your main brand.
But it still feels like it fitsin that same dollhouse. It still

(34:17):
feels like it fits in that samefamily. And so I've thought
about this a lot even wheneverit comes to book designs. We
have a lot of clients that havewritten a book and the book is
designed by a publisher whodoesn't care about their brand.
Ps, side note we had to fight had to get like our brand int
our book, but we wanted it toalso look a little bit different

(34:39):
like we use the hand drawn typface versus our being boss log
. We wanted it to feel a littlbit standalone and a little bit
like an offshoot. So this is al to say, you don't necessarily
need a whole new brand in ordr to have a promotional offeri
g or different kind of look andfeel to them to kinda highlight

(35:00):
something that's differe

Right? So I challenge everyone to consider
to first consider keeping thingsin your current business and in
your current branding. I thinkthat is where you should begin.
And then if you find things likethe offerings being completely
removed from how it is that youwork with people, in your

(35:24):
current business, or brand, how,if the tone of what it is that
you're doing is completelydifferent, if the dream customer
especially, is completelydifferent, or I think this
business partner piece is a hugeone, if there are other people
in your business that are takeninto consideration, then that

(35:45):
could be a reason to createanother business slash brand for
this new idea that you have. Butin most other cases, keep it in
the same house as everythingelse that you're currently
doing. Because otherwise, youend up with so many little
pieces of businesses and brandseverywhere. And that it can be

(36:05):
really difficult even for you tokeep it straight in your own
head.

I find that a brand and business is so much
more organic than we give itcredit for. And I think it's
because we have this idea thatwe need a five year business
plan and we're going to followevery single step along the way,
things change. So you might havean offering that really takes
off and maybe in two to threeyears, you come back and
reposition your brand to be morecentered around that offering.

(36:33):
You can always evolve your brandas you go. And it can just feel
like the next chapter in yourbook versus throwing the book in
the fire and writing a whole newbook.

Hey, boss, listening to us in your
headphones or in your car whileyou do whatever it is that
you're doing, all by yourlonesome. Guess what, no matter
what you think you're not alone.
In the Being Boss Communitybosses from all over the world
are rallying to do this thingtogether. Even if we're sitting
alone in our computer, with ourPJ pants on, you can connect

(37:06):
with bosses any time to askquestions, get help or just
chime in. Whatever you need toremind yourself that we're all
here. And we've got your back,learn more and join the Being
Boss Community by going tobeingboss.club/community.

One thing I want to mention before we go on,
Emily, is that whenever youstarted to evolve Indie
Shopography from doing websitedesign to masterminds before you
decided to ditch that becauseyou were feeling scattered and
wanted to just put everythingunder Being Boss. One of the
things that you did is youlooked back at your brand and
business vision guide and thebrand platform that my company

(37:49):
Braid Creative had created foryou. And correct me if I'm
wrong, but you noted that notmuch had changed, like some of
your offerings had changed. Butwho you were in that process was
still the same? Is that correct?

Absolutely. You could take the platform, like
the positioning of that brandplatform, and word for word
still completely related to whatit was that I was doing with my
clients, for sure.

So one thing that you want to think about
whenever you're thinking aboutyour brand, and this can even be
like a writing exercise for ourlisteners here today is write
down what doesn't change, likewhat does not change about. And
usually it comes down to whatyou value, or what your
expertise is, or how you helppeople the best, what you're

(38:42):
known for, your offerings canchange. But your brand, if it's
done well. And if it's reallyconsidered is the thing that
doesn't change. It's like yourtrue north. And like an anchor
at the same time. It helps keepyou grounded, so that you can
experiment and try new things.
Just want to mention that.

Right? And I will throw in there too, that
that positioning, even playedinto what we do here at Being
Boss like there is, you'll findthat there are these common
threads, and especially whenyou've been in it, as long as we
have. 10 I think 12 years for meat this point. You find that

(39:23):
whenever you get really centeredin on what it is that you're
doing and who you're doing itfor. Things don't really change.

You know, and honestly, for me, it's even
getting centered in what my ownmission is. I know it's kind of
self indulgent, but my thing hasalways been just be who you are.
Like if that's been my motto.
I've discovered as I've gottenolder that sometimes it's hard
to know who you are. You have todo a lot of work to discover who
you are. And so whenever I'mhaving to evaluate my

(39:53):
opportunities and how it's allgoing down like with Being Boss,
I thought okay, this is anopportunity to help people be
more who they are and to figureout more of who I am by having
these weekly conversations withmy business bestie and hitting
publish on them. But for me,branding is definitely like a
back door to our front door tofiguring out who you are, what

(40:16):
you're doing, why you're doingit and who you serve.

For sure. Okay.
Let's move into something that Ilove. I love the idea of doing,
I've been trying to talk Davidinto this for years, I want to
talk about umbrella brands.
Because this is fascinating tome. And it's something that I
see myself moving into over thenext couple of years, it's
something that I see. Andsomething that I see my you

(40:45):
know, 10, 15, 25 year in itbosses doing or having, because
as you are an entrepreneur andas you are growing things, and
as you are, you know, adding,adding brands or projects or
offerings to, you know, thatfirst idea that you had that one
time, you end up finding, oftenfinding that you need a better

(41:06):
structure to house all thethings that you're doing. So
let's talk about umbrella brandswhen you need one when you
don't.

Yeah, so I think about an umbrella brand as
literally drawing an umbrella ontop of a piece of paper and
labeling that umbrella, withwhatever it is it might be your
name, it might be your businessname, and then listing out all
the things that fall under that.
So using Being Boss as anexample that hopefully everyone
listening is familiar with, ifwe drew an umbrella for Being

(41:37):
Boss. Underneath that umbrellamight be a book, events like our
conference, and mastermindgroups. There's also what else
fits under our umbrella. Likewe've we've played with idea of
a podcast network, evensometimes, like our sponsor
relationships go under thatumbrella. And those things

(41:59):
aren't brands on their own, butthey could be. So we really like
to think about that umbrella asholding lots of different
things. I think that umbrellacan really help set the tone for
all of your brands. I have aclient who is a restaurant
group, and they are a dininggroup. And then they have, I

(42:20):
don't know, eight or ninedifferent concepts, or eight or
nine different restaurantsunderneath their umbrella brand.
But their umbrella brand. Andthis is Good Egg Dining Group
in Oklahoma City. Their umbrellabrand is Good Egg Dining Group.
And their main mission isextreme hospitality, like that's
kind of their tagline. And thatgoes into every single one of
their restaurant concepts. Oneof the things that they're

(42:43):
always really careful about andconsiderate about is their
interior design, you can alwaysknow that the interior design of
all their places, it's going tobe superb, and that their food
is always going to beconsistent. They set the
standards for all theirdifferent restaurants. But then
their different restaurants havetheir own unique look and feel
and vibe and food. But butthey're all glued together under

(43:03):
that umbrella brand.

Yep, I've always imagined having an umbrella
brand that is the sort ofresource manager for the other
businesses that I run.

I love that, say more. Resource manager.

Right? So So imagine if it was never employed
with Being Boss, because we're apartnership. And that sort of
plays into this whole otherlevel of complexity that I've
never really wanted to diveinto. But imagine that...

But you like it with me, right?

I do, I do, which is why it's like It's
fine. It's fine. I could see ithappening for other things that
I want to do though, but imaginehaving an umbrella brand that is
the resource manager in that it.
It hires the team that then goesand works at Being Boss that
works at Almanac because Okay,imagine a social media manager,

(44:01):
for example, could be hired byan umbrella company, but then
work equally for Being Boss andAlmanac to do both companies
social media. We're not thereyet. But I think that's
something that's something thatwill likely happen at some point
in the future in some capacityone way or the other. Because

(44:22):
whenever you start havingmultiple different businesses
that are multiple differentbrands, you often find that
sharing resources would besignificantly easier if they
were being managed by anotherbusiness.

You know, that's a really good point too
is that if you have onesuccessful offering or brand, it
can help you to afford to try anew offering or like kind of
child brand. Underneath thatumbrella. It can help kind of
offset the actual dollar cost.
That is associated with startingsomething new.

Yes. Another one that I thought about. And I
think the internet is full ofcreative business owners who
have been in it long enough thatthey simply have all these
opportunities that end up end upfeeding into a single, single
incorporated business or asingle LLC, or whatever it may
be. Oh, Joy was one that came tome, Joy Cho. She has her blog,

(45:26):
she has her Academy. She hascollaborations that she does
with large brands, all of theseand I don't know what her
business structure is like, butI think she has probably an
umbrella brand that houses allof these other individual
streams of revenue, or maybeeven different businesses, to
make it a bit easier to do atall.

Yeah, whenever I think about this, I really
think about leveraging anexisting reputation and an
existing brand to kind ofcatapult something else into
being I will say I'm not alawyer. So if you are thinking
about developing multiplebrands, or multiple offerings
under an umbrella brand, youmight and their crazy
successful, you might consideralso putting all of them under

(46:08):
an individual LLC, so thatthey're protected money wise,
even if, like so, for example,the restaurant group, I know
that each one of thoserestaurants has its own LLC and
trademarking process, but themain dining group is what helps
set the tone and the culture forall of those restaurants

And set them up.
And actually, like legitimatelystart them.

Right.

Um, one of the things that I've done in Almanac
sort of started creating thismyself and it was one of the
things I went into it knowing Iwanted to do as opposed to
getting into and thinking oh, Ihave other things that I want to
do. This was always the planguys. At Almanac we have our
main business. This is actuallyan interesting example of

(46:52):
multiple brands under one brandthat it's all operating as a
single business. So we haveAlmanac Supply Co which is the
parent company slash brand. Andunder it we're building sub
brands is what I call them. Idon't know what the technical
term is if there is one, butwe're creating lines of products
that have their own name, theirown branding their own look and

(47:16):
feel. It is all a tone set bythat umbrella brand of Almanac
that's been a very conscious,conscious decision throughout
designing them and positioningthem but we have a line of teas
that we have called Mother TreesBotanical Teas it has its own
branding guide, its own look andfeel, its own logo, its own

(47:39):
messaging.

But it doesn't have its own social media.

Not yet. It will.

Oh are you think about that?

Yeah, yeah.
Oh, okay. See, this is where Iwant to get into the
conversation about this. So doyou, what's cool about this is
that it fits into the vibe ofAlmanac. Right, which is like
seasonal goods for intentionalliving.
There you go. Good job.

All right.
Good job on you, goodpositioning. So it is a seasonal
good for intentional living. Ithas its own brand. Technically,
if someone wanted to buy you outlike if Pukka Teas you know, or
Yogi Teas wanted to buy you outand they were like this is cool.
We would like to own anddistribute this, we'll give you
a million dollars. Would yousell it for a million dollars?

I mean, anything's on the table guys.
We'll see. We'll see.

I'd sell it for $5. No, Not really.

Right.

I had someone try to acquire Braid very early
on and it actually made me feellike okay if they want us I know
that we can be successful

Right?

Anyway. But you sell Mother Trees Botanical
Teas on your Almanac websitelike right now it lives within
that umbrella.

Yes. And it likely always will though we do
you have the option of forexample, wholesaling that
completely separately as part ofAlmanac but just a line of
products that we've done sothat's what it is. It's a line
of products that we've createdits own brand around that we we
will create a small site for itthat just leads people back to
Almanac. We will have anInstagram account that is just

(49:13):
mother trees botanical teas andwe will grow that kind of like
its own little business but itis under Almanac Supply Co.

I have questions.

Yes.

So many questions. Why? Why? Like why
didn't you do Almanac teas Doyou feel like it would have been
detrimental because you sellcandles and crystals like it
would water down that brand?
Okay, not detrimental? Yes towatering it down. I really
wanted Almanac to, my plan forAlmanac is not for Almanac to be

(49:45):
the line of products. I wantAlmanac to be a retail concept.
So I had to get really clear asto what Almanac was and Almanac
was not just a producer ofproducts. It is a retail concept
that is curating products andnot just curating products that
has its own name on it. I wantedto curate products that, that

(50:09):
helped tell the story furtherthan just what the Almanac name
does for it.
And so then why did you decideto create your own tea blend
versus carrying other teas, likeas a retail concept? Profit
margin?

Partly a creative itch.

Oh. I'm like money?

Because I wanted to. No, if money had been the
thing it would have been createdwould have been curating already
blended tea options for thatline, but for this one, I really
wanted this to be much moreintentional. I wanted to bring
in the skills of herbalists thatI know this first set of 4 teas,
were actually blended orformulated by a friend of mine,

(50:50):
Lindsay Kluge, who we've had onthe podcast before, who owns
Ginger Tonic Botanicals, and isan amazing clinical herbalist.
So I really wanted them to bevery intentional, very high
quality, we are producing themlike it's the very first
packaging was literally meputting them into tea bags. And

(51:11):
so yeah, I could have but Iwanted something different with
this line. So it's all organicingredients, when available,
there is one in the set of fourthat is not an organic
ingredient, because it's notavailable, otherwise very high
quality, very intentionalformulations that are very
seasonally aligned. But I wantedthis brand to tell another side

(51:34):
of what Almanac is, in a waythat I couldn't have done if I
had just slapped the Almanacname on them.

You know, and sometimes you don't have to have
the answers to why you createdthe sub brands like sometimes it
is a gut check, like checking inand it definitely weighing your
options, and you're very logicalabout things. But even thinking,
Okay, I'm gonna try this. And itdoes make sense. And maybe not
even being able to articulatewhy it makes sense for it to

(52:03):
have its own standalone brandwithin Almanac. But it feels
right.

It does.

So sometimes there's that.

it does feel right, and I and I see what
happens five years from now withthis brand or where I want it to
go. I don't really know how toarticulate it yet. But at the
moment, it's just four littletees that are being sold on our
site under this brand name thatisn't related to anything else.
But give me a couple years andyou're going to be like damn.

But that is actually a really important
point that I want to note isthat your business vision is not
quite your business plan. Right?
A business plan is likespreadsheets and your
organizational chart and kind oflike figuring out what you have
and doing the math and all thosetechnical things, right? A
business vision is getting realdreamy about where you want to

(52:50):
take something and really usingthat dream to help. I mean to
really help manifest it in yourbrand by knowing where it is
that you want to go.

Yeah, right. So we've created this tea line at
Almanac we've also created ajewelry line called Wild
Fortune. It probably won't go asfar as Mother Trees will like I
have some good plans with MotherTrees. With Wild Fortune. I just
wanted a very interestingjewelry line and it's funny we

(53:24):
launched it like we didn'tlaunch it we started utilizing
it just before the holidays andthrough the holidays I realized
there's already tweaks that weneed to make to it in terms of
positioning and that look atlike the whole branding of it
needs to be tweaked and how itis that I use it within the
brand. So we get to go, go backto the drawing board with a
couple of things around thatone. So it's it's a really

(53:45):
interesting, really interestingexercise for me to build these
brands within this brand. Andthere are lots of technical
things to it as well for examplebecause especially our teas are
being sold with not Almanac onthe front of them we had to
create a DBA for it we have tocreate a DBA for each of these
sub brand

Which stands for doing business as.

So it's a form basically that you file with
your state government to saythat you are doing business as
for me, Mother Trees BotanicalTea, so it's Almanac Almanac
Supply Co LLC is doing businessas Mother Trees Botanical Teas.
So anything that sold that isMother Trees, it goes into
Almanac It is part of theAlmanac business but it is a

(54:29):
brand within an umbrella brandslash business. It's a fun
exercise in doing business. Ilove it. Love it.

I know and I remember we, you and I were
having a lot of conversationsabout this, you know sub-brand.
Does it stand alone?

Oh wait, let me ask my branding expert business
bestie if this is nuts or not.

And it was a conversation. Yeah, you know,
and I think ultimately you madethe right decision. And I also
want to point out that you'renot sub-branding every single
thing that you offer like you'renot creating a brand for just
the crystals like you can kindof let the crystals be what they
are.

So that's been very intentional too. For me,
Almanac is candles and crystals.
Like if like if the Almanacbrand is going to live on
something it's going to live onthose core products of candles
which Almanac branding is on ouryou know seasonal candles. And
the crystals. If you buy acrystal, you get a little card
that tells you what the crystalis and what it means and it's

(55:31):
Almanac branded. But I've had ahard time really seeing the
Almanac brand go beyond thatbecause again Almanac is not, I
don't see Almanac as a brand ofproducts so much as I see it as
a retail concept. And thatdifferentiation has led me to
think about how it is that I cangrow an environment of brands

(55:55):
that all fit really beautifullywithin this Almanac place. So
whenever you walk into Almanac,one of these days, it's not just
looking at all of our Almanacstuff. It's like Oh, they have
this amazing brand of teas thatI can only buy here, they have
these, this jewelry line that isyou know, custom curated,

(56:15):
whatever, looks fantastic that Ican only buy here, it creates a
retail experience that iselevated beyond me just putting
Almanac on everything.

Also, each of those brands have a story.

Yeah.

So the whole point of a brand is to have a
story to connect to youraudience. So whenever your
audience buys the teas, no, Iwill say from like a branding
standpoint. Whenever I, youknow, I rave about your teas on
your unofficial brandambassador.

Official.

But I always say Almanac like i always say I
got these seeds from Almanacprobably because it's shorthand
with people that I already know.
But funny enough, I got a set ofyour teas for my bestie Liz, who
is also my creative director atBraid. And when I returned to
her she was like so becauseshe's a branding expert. We are
these Almanac or are they? Arethey something else, you know,

(57:06):
and so she could kind of seeunder it and was really curious
about it. But as so I feel likeright now Mother Trees Botanical
Teas are really leveraging thereputation of Almanac and people
might be calling an Almanac teasfor a while and that's okay,
too. At some point, it will beable to establish its own brand.
And that's part of your visionwhere people are now talking

(57:28):
about it as Mother Trees versusAlmanac. So this is another
branding exercise for you all.
One of my favorite things to dowith my clients is to ask them
to pretend like they're sittingin a coffee shop, and having to
overhear one of their clients orcustomers talking about their
brand. And they don't know thatyou're there. You're kind of

(57:50):
eavesdropping, and what is itthat they're saying? And
sometimes you can hear themsaying things like, oh, the
Almanac teas? And you're like,oh, okay, what do I need to do
to really solidify that it'sMother Trees. And you can start
to see some branding problemsand start to work your way
towards solutions for those.

I love that.
Okay. All the brands, in all thebrands, with all the brands, got
it? Let's get you really thebiggest question of your job.
And this whole episode, I'm sureit's when to use your name and
your brand versus not. What doyou think where are you

(58:31):
standing? these days?

Yeah, if you had asked me six years ago, what
would I have said Emily?

Yes, use your name. Put it all over

Yep, six years ago I was like use your name for
everything.
everything. Personal brand, youwant to be Beyonce, you want to
be you know, you want to have aname, right? And because people
buy from people that's, that'swhat it is. Today, not so much.
Like as I need a little bit moreof a boundary between who I am

(59:02):
and what I do. I find thathaving a business name helps you
be a little bit more broad, anda little bit more flexible, as
much as I love narrowing in onyour niche. And I think that's
so incredibly important forlaunching your brand and
actually making money doing whatyou love. Narrowing in is one of
the best ways that you can dothat. But having a business name

(59:25):
gives you so much moreflexibility. Whenever it comes
to like even how you operateyour business and how you grow
your business and how you evolveyour business. That said, every
single client I have if they'rea solopreneur, I do a version of
their logo with their name inthe tagline. And sometimes I'll
even flip the hierarchy. Solet's say I just had a client

(59:49):
who's a bookkeeper, which was somuch fun, Emily, I can't wait to
show you this brand. I alwaysshow Emily the brands I'm
working on on Marco Polo. Butit's Bonfire Bookkeeping, shout
out to Lisa, she's a boss too.
And her name is Lisa Channell.
And so I wanted to do like aversion and with hers, I didn't
explicitly do like Lisa Channelland then Bonfire Bookkeeping

(01:00:13):
underneath it. But I would dothat, you know. So like,
especially if you're building uplike a speaker reputation like
as where you're selling yourselfas an authority in your
industry, you can almost createlike a flip flop of a logo,
where your business name is kindof underneath your name, but
that can change to in thefuture, like where it's not

(01:00:33):
hinged upon who you are. Andit's not hinged upon you not
growing like you can add on abusiness partner, or so for
example, Being Boss, we werealmost the Emily and Kathleen
show. Can you imagine if we hadbranded ourselves as that? And
then you bought me out? Like youdid this year.

Emily Thompson (01:00:50):
Ah snap? I never thought about that.

Kathleen Shannon (01:00:52):
I mean that would have been really
complicated. Yeah, it's stillthe Emily and Kathleen show on
the podcast.

It honestly would not have been as valuable
to me. Think about that.

Exactly.

It would not.

And I always think like, I don't necessarily
believe that you should justbuild a brand with idea of
selling it. I think, in someindustries, it makes sense.

I think it is a good practice. I think it's like
not that you actually intend to.
But I think it's a good practiceto go into business with the
idea of how would you do this,if you were intending to sell
it?

I completely agree. I think that you should
not go into a business sayingI'm going to build this business
and sell it. Because it'sprobably not going to happen.

Right? It's likely not. However.

I hate to say that. However, whenever you can
go into it with the practice ofthat it's going to shift the way
you do everything from youroperating agreements, to your
branding, to all of the thingsand so even though we never
imagined selling Being Boss tolike an outside investor, the
fact that I sold the majority ofmy shares to you means that it

(01:01:57):
having a brand name and a brandname that resonated with people
way more than the Emily andKathleen show ever would. It was
an asset.

Yeah, yeah, an asset. Oh, think about that your
branding is absolutely an assetto your business. If done well.
I want to give a fun example ofthis naming things your name,
because I'm right there with youwhere I don't lead without any,
I'm usually, like can we likethink about how to not name your
business your name, unless youare a freelancer, or growing a

(01:02:30):
practice of some sort. And so bypractice, I mean, like, you are
going to be the coach for yourclients for like you're building
a coaching practice foryourself.

I know but you know what, I have a lot of
therapist clients who build atherapy practice, like with
multiple therapists under theirbrand name. And so for them,
unless you're Brene Brown, buteven she has the Daring Way,
like she has sub-brands withinwhat I would say her umbrella
brand is her as herself, andthen all these brands that kind

(01:03:02):
of fit under it. I don't know,it's good to have, even for a
practice of branding.

I think so I'm talking like the flip of that,
like, you should only reallythink about using your name, if
you're going to be a freelanceror have a practice, you should
should also consider not usingyour name, for sure. But if
you're building a business,think about a business name for
it. And then adding your name toit as needed. I have an

(01:03:28):
interesting example of this,where I have a boss friend who
has a business that she's hadfor many years. And over those
years, it's become verymultifaceted. So standalone
retail, online, like digitalproducts, book that turned into
a book series. And they all haddifferent names for what it is

(01:03:53):
they were because they all livedin very different places. They
were all very different things.
But as she's grown, each ofthem, she's found the need to
make them more cohesive. So howis it that she can sort of bring
these separate things backtogether? And the way that she's
decided to do this, you know,on, we're in a mastermind group
together, and we talk throughall of these things like what

(01:04:15):
does this look like? What are wenaming? How are we doing this?
We encourage her to add her nameinto the front of each of them
so that she becomes the cohesivefactor around all the things
that she's done. So all that tosay, too, I think that that's
sort of this natural cycle ofbeing creative entrepreneurs who
are building and doing andcreating all of these things. We

(01:04:37):
go through these ebbs and flowsof like, sometimes it's very
appropriate to use your name,sometimes it's not and then it
will always cycle back of like,yeah, you should probably put
your name in it. It's fine.

Yeah, and I think I mentioned that earlier
is like find the commondenominator between your brands.
Usually it's just you.

Yeah.

And if you can just trust that you are the
common denominator. You don'thave to worry about things
feeling, too, too much of adeparture from each other or too
different or too crazy.
Sometimes it is you that is thecommon denominator.

Right, in which case, it's fine to use it.

I've also found that like, you can still
build your personal brand, evenwithin your business. So at
Braid, the way that we've builtour personal brand at Being
Boss, a lot of people who listento Being Boss, go on to follow
Braid and sign up for ournewsletter and hire us for
branding. And so I will hop onInstagram and say, hey, it's
Kathleen here to remind peoplethat there is a real person and

(01:05:36):
it's me, that is running oursocial media, or answering
emails. So that's another thingto consider is that you can
still have a personal brandwithin the context of your
business, for sure.

I feel like we just talked around so many
solutions, like possiblesolutions, but no real
solutions, because I thinkthat's the point here is, there
is no like rule to branding,except do it and do it well.

In which case, you might need to hire a
branding professional. Or, youknow, again, this is a
conversation. So if you don'thave a business bestie, if
you're not in a mastermind, ifyou don't have a branding
professional, you need to findthose things so that you can
have these conversations becauseit's not a black or white
answer. It's usually a longconversation that needs a lot of

(01:06:28):
consideration and perspective.
And sometimes expertise.

For sure, for sure. And not just once, but
over and over and over again.
And like we mentioned earlier,you know, getting my brand's
platform done for IndieShopography, like 10 years ago
ish, being able to look back atthat. And sure the look and feel
hasn't been used in a very longtime ago. And he's that logo in
a decade, not quite but a reallylong time. But to know that my

(01:06:52):
positioning is still very muchso in line with what it is that
I'm still showing up and doingis incredibly powerful. But it's
also the relationships that Ihave that keep me thinking about
how it is that I can continue togrow and evolve and navigating
all of the questions that youhave around, you know, is it

(01:07:15):
time to change my businessstructure to house more brands?
Or is it time to you know, startanother business that's separate
from the one I currently have?
Or what happens whenever I wantto create a suite of brands that
fits under something? Or is thisoffering needing its own brand,

(01:07:36):
or just a tweak of the brandthat it's currently under? What
like a million questions cancome up. And I will say that
it's been invaluable to me tohave a crowd of people that I
can talk to as I've navigatedeach of these and it's something
that it never is not aconversation that happens in you
know, mastermind groups, orwhenever we're traveling with

(01:07:58):
bosses like someone's going,Okay, guys, I have this issue
where I created a business cardwith this. And now I'm doing
this, what do I do? Do I reprintall my business cards? Like
maybe, but also, maybe not.
Let's talk it all out. So withthat, I guess we're done. Go do
some branding, figuring out whatyour brand is doing next,
because it's probably not justgoing to sit there and chill.

Hey, so go to our show notes. And be sure to
check out some links becausewe're going to include some
additional resources, includingconversations that we've had
with my business partner, andsister Tara Street from Braid
Creative, and you'll be able to,there's so many resources on
this. So just go to the shownotes and we'll share all of
them there.

Thanks for listening. And hey, if you want
more resources, we're talkingworksheets, free trainings in
person meetups and vacations andmore. Go to our website at
www.beingboss.club.

Do the work.
Be boss.

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#224 - Brand Strategies for Growing Your Business

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