On paper, rebranding your small business sounds exciting and — don’t get me wrong — it absolutely is. I am positively over the moon about the new branding (and website!) Erin Lindsey of The Happy Brand Studio helped me bring to life.
Ugh, just look at it! I see myself in it. It’s who I am. It’s where I’m going — wait, it’s where we’re going together. But I’d be a complete liar, liar pants on fire 🔥 if I told you I went into my rebranding adventure motivated and totally ready to burn everything to the ground as I looked ahead to the future.
In reality, I’ve been dragging my feet on making this change for a very long time. Because, as fun and liberating as the rebranding process is, it’s also a painful one for small, independent business owners and solopreneurs (like you and me).
Rebranding will challenge you in surprising ways
You need to separate who you are right now from who you want to become. You need to look critically at the work product you’ve created over the years and admit you’ve outgrown it. That what once felt like effortless, organic extensions of your brand are no longer serving you.
You need to be like Madonna who is willing to say she doesn’t like her earlier songs like “Material Girl.†Although that song shot her right to the top of the charts, over time, she viewed version of herself as outdated as she evolved as a performer.
Or, for those of us who have never starred in A League of Their Own or kissed Drake on stage at Coachella, it’s kind of like looking at yourself in photos from high school — or that one time you decided you’d look great with bangs.
Back then, you loved how you looked.
Today, however … yikes.
I used time as an excuse to delay rebranding
“The last thing I have time for is a rebrand.â€
I clung to this excuse for ages, the way Rose clung to that door in Titanic. I’d tell myself that I was too busy with work, I was too busy at home being a mama to two beautiful kids, and on and on. So, the thought of adding something else to my plate that would take up more time made me feel physically ill.
Still, even though I couldn’t find time to shower every day, time was a convenient excuse that allowed me to skirt around the real reason why I didn’t want to move on.
I knew this rebrand you see in front of you right now would take me way outside of my comfort zone. Yes, I needed to move forward, but I had grown comfortable with my old platform and how I presented myself:
I think this is something anyone who has gone through rebranding a small business can attest to — even though you may not change anything about the actual bones of your business or the services you offer, a rebrand forces you to embark upon a radical transformation in every other way that counts.
It’s like when you buy a house that you know, from day one, you’re going to renovate. Leading up to your close date, you scour Pinterest for renovation tips, paint swatches, and inspiration photos.
But once you move in, you start to resist the idea
You might have to move out while you renovate … and you just freaking moved in. You may have to use the creepy half bathroom in the basement while your master bath gets remodeled. You may wonder how you’ll feed yourselves when your kitchen gets demolished. Is there such a thing as too much Chipotle?
Soon, renovation dreams that thrilled you are overshadowed by feelings of dread and doubt and insecurity. So, you stay “comfortable†with all that doesn’t work for you, because it’s “easier†than doing all it would take to enact change.
In a way, I started feeling trapped in my own branding “house” before I finally made my rebranding leap. But that wasn’t always the case, of course. As I transitioned from wedding photographer to community builder, this branding worked perfectly for what I needed at the time:
As I moved through that season of life, I leaned into my brand being a gentle, soft, and nurturing place where you could come to connect and share with others. I wanted to create a safe community for small, independent business owners and solopreneurs to land.
Then something snapped.
You, the community, lit a fire up under me
For the past six years, I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with you all. In early 2020, I literally drove across the country and hugged nearly 2,000 of you. I listened to your pains, what you were going through, and what you needed.
And it made me want to fight for you and advocate for you …
You’re busy growing your businesses and cementing your legacies, so you need someone who can come alongside you and act as a vocal ally when you can’t.
That’s who I am today.
Small, independent business owners, I am your fiercest advocate.
And I was born ready to fight for you.
And I say that with sincere gratitude and reverence for the branding that brought me to this point, to this significant shift in how I’m choosing to show up:
I look at that branding and still see its unimpeachable value. And even though it represents where I’ve come from rather than where I’m going, it would not have lasted me as long as it did if it wasn’t of such high quality and exactly what I needed.
That’s because powerful branding is a lot like a great pair of running shoes. The most top-of-the-line pair of kicks will carry you across countless trails, tracks, and paths … but there is a limit. In fact, you should replace a pair of running shoes, on average, every 300 to 500 miles.
Branding can do the same for you. It’ll take you on endless adventures and help you achieve greater things than you could have possibly imagined. But there comes a point when it will have done its job. So, you thank it and then look for a new brand to take you on the next leg of your journey.
Is rebranding your small business the right move?
Now, some of you reading this may feel echoes within your own business of what I’ve shared. The brand that doesn’t quite fit the way it used to. The logos and fonts and colors that seem more like a callback to who you once were, but not who you are today.
While I can’t prescriptively tell you if now is the time for your rebrand, I can share with you a few questions that pushed me to finally make the time for the rebranding I so desperately needed:
- “Am I starting to blend in?†What was once unique (and maybe even edgy) for you now looks a lot like what everyone else has for their branding, and that can be a problem. Sure, it can feel nice to fit in, but if all of you look the same, you’ll sound the same to your potential clients. In essence, you become invisible.
- “Am I excited about my brand anymore?†You used to feel incredibly proud when you created graphics or showed up in your branding online. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Now you’re bored … and you know it’s not just a case of “grass is greenerâ€-itis.
- “Have I aged out of my branding?†We all get older, which means we can simply age out of the branding assets that worked so well for us in the past. For example, when I went to get new brand photography done not too long ago, I was asked who was handling my redesign … the answer was no one, but it was assumed because of the big changes I was making in other areas.
- “Did I choose this branding based on my preferences alone?†When you’re first starting out, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of making design choices based on your own aesthetic preferences. Today, however, you need to have branding that was built with your ideal clients in mind. That’s how you stand out from your competition.
- “Do I have all the branding assets I need?†Rebranding six years ago vs. today was a lot less complex. Back then, all you needed was a logo, fonts, colors, and a snappy website design. Today, it’s way more complicated. You need social media headers, video thumbnails, Canva templates, and more. When you’re having to DIY most of that on your own, you’ve got a problem.
That last one is particularly important if content creation is a meaningful portion of what you do — either because you’re a content creator by trade or because content creation is how you drive sales for your business.
Choosing the right rebranding partner for your business
If you’re ready for a rebrand, I want to challenge you to think bigger. Don’t immediately sign on the dotted line with a designer because you loved their portfolio. To be competitive today, you need and deserve more.
But before you contact a designer, you need to look inward …
- First, determine if you need a full redesign or just a facelift. Going back to our house analogy, you don’t always need to strip your kitchen down to the studs. In some cases, all you may need is a fresh coat of paint and new fixtures. The same holds true for your branding. You may need to give it a little polish or work with someone to expand what brand-ready assets you have available to enable you as a content creator.
- Next, get clear on what it is you really need. Don’t just think about what needs to change. Ask yourself, “What do I do with my brand on a daily basis?†Do you do a lot of social media posting? Do you create a lot of branded presentations for clients? Do you have design needs for print and web? What are your NICE-to-haves, not just your NEED-to-haves?
- Now, get clear (and realistic) about your budget. There are designers and visual brand strategists out there who fit most budgets, of course. That said, you need to be ready to invest in a rebrand if you want to get it right. When it comes to branding projects, you get what you pay for … and you also get what you don’t pay for, if you catch my drift. Or, more to the point, don’t expect champagne results with a tap water budget.
Then you need to proactively evaluate potential designers to see if they’re the right fit for you. For instance, from the moment I started talking to Erin about my rebranding project, she blew my mind in two specific ways:
- Erin asked probing questions about my audience — who you are, how you’re feeling, and so on. Like me, she understood that creating branding around trends and preferences is a dangerous game to play. Never once did she ask me to create a mood board; every decision we made was based on who I serve (you), and what you need from me.
- Erin met my much more complex rebranding needs. Again, six or seven years ago, my demands as a rebranding client were much simpler. For this rebrand, I not only needed a designer, I needed someone who was a true visual brand strategist. I didn’t want a beautiful logo that ultimately did nothing for me, because the designer only did what I wanted. I needed someone to become fluent in my business and help me move it forward.
To find your Erin, you need to answer the following questions:
- Does someone have the design chops and experience to give you the diverse range of branding (and related assets) that you need?
- Do you have the right alignment of core values?
- Are you in alignment with the timeline and budget for the project?
- Do they have the industry experience you’re looking for, or can they speak to success stories they’ve with brands at least somewhat similar to yours?
When you get clear on your needs and know what to look for in a rebranding partner, you’ll make your decision so much easier.
Part of me wishes I had rebranded sooner, but …
For so long, I was scared. Scared I wouldn’t be able to live up to the brand I wanted to create. Scared that some of you would not long to come along with me as I embarked upon a new chapter.
Now that I’m on the other side of this journey, I am so grateful for it. I’m excited to show up on social media again. I’m excited that my branding is more in alignment with who I am today. I’m excited for branding that challenges me to show up in the way I know can and and should. I spent so much time delaying a process that, ultimately, was incredibly validating. In some ways, I want to kick myself for waiting so long.
But another part of me feels as if I’m right on time. I needed time to reckon with what I was truly feeling, to learn how to articulate what was no longer working, to verbalize what needed to change (as well as where I wanted to go.)
More than that, I needed time to reflect and honor the steps I had taken prior to now. Instead of looking backward in judgment at the friction I felt toward the end of this last branding chapter, I give myself grace. It was all part of the process of growing and developing as an entrepreneur and a brand owner.
As some of you look ahead to your brand’s next chapter, I can’t tell you when it should happen or what it should look like. Those are questions you need to answer on your own. But what I will tell you is to give yourself grace.
When you picked up the branding you have now, it was exactly what you needed. Even if it wasn’t perfect or ideal, you did what you needed to do, and it served you well. If and when the time comes for you to move on, don’t forget to express gratitude for how far it brought you in your journey as a small business owner.
We only are able to travel ahead into the future because of where we’ve come from.
Special thank you’s—there are so many people that I need to thank who made this rebrand possible. Thank you Erin Lindsey of The Happy Brand for bringing your design genius to the table, Abby Grace for the spectacular photography, and Liz Murphy of Buona Volpe for your copywriting + strategy support.