What is branding anyway?

Basically, your brand is the picture that you present to the world. It helps you stand out as a real, unique person and sets the tone for what your potential clients might expect when working with you. It gives you credibility within your niche and helps people to connect with the message you're sending into the world. Your brand is what pops into people's heads when they hear your name. It's what the expect when they buy your product or click your blog post. It's the tone behind everything you do (at least, it should be!). 

Is a brand really that important? 

"I'm good at what I do...shouldn't that speak for itself?" "I just want to sell products, not myself." I've heard that so many times from so many different entrepreneurs. They don't want to put time or energy into the background work of developing a branding kit or ideal client mockup. They get mad when I tell them that I can't successfully create valuable content for them without a set brand. For some reason, it's hard to convince some people that it is impossible to write for and market to someone you know nothing about! My tone is going to be very different selling pants to my 95 year old grandmother and to a 13 year old soccer kid. 

Those same business owners who put no value in branding are the same ones who vent to me about how much they're struggling to make sales or land influencer contracts. They expect me to commiserate about how hard it is to connect with potential clients and sponsors. But, I don't. It's actually easy for me to develop relationships with my ideal clients! Why? Because my content shares my personality in ways that make the right people hear my message and connect with me. AKA I have a very intentional, clear brand.

Furthermore, having a solid brand can also save you time and have you living your dream life even faster. You don't have to put energy into people who are not a good fit with you or what you offer. As you've seen, I'm pretty clearly not the choice as an influencer for a sleek, modern furniture company - I live in a 17 foot camper! A company selling unbreakable wine glasses without plastic?! Together we would create the best campaign. Sure, I could write something for just about anyone and make it work. But it wouldn't make me happy. I would be taking away from the part of my dream life where every single project that I do with my clients to make me say, "Fuck yes! This is awesome!" I want to believe in their missions, goals and products of my clients and for them to fully understand and support mine. 

Ok. I need a brand. I just pick a few colors, right?

Developing a brand is so much more than having the right color scheme and a cute font! It's about the vibe you're sending out into the universe. To have a complete brand, it's essential to do the self-work to understand who you are and what gifts you're trying to pass along. Additionally, you need to be clear on who you're hoping to share those gifts with.

As is probably obvious by now, a big part of who I am is my love for good coffee and having options to work away from technology. Therefore part of my branding, that should - hopefully - carry through the rest of my site. Notice as I share work I've done for previous clients. I could have everything presented on huge, crisp Macbook screens with fancy watches and perfectly organized office supplies in front of a white wall. But that's not me or how I create. If we work together, your products will undoubtedly be doodled on post-its or scrap paper on a table at a small cafe.

How can I help you grow your brand and live your dreams? 

Working with me involves a unique, holistic process. I'm not going to work with clients just as a virtual assistant. Yes, I'm great at creating graphics and social media strategy, but doing that just because isn't fulfilling to me. I learned very early on in my attempt to work for others that I would put much more into it than one would pay an assistant and end up extremely frustrated. I couldn't bring myself to not speak up when the Instagram post wasn't going to resonate with the right audience. Hitting publish on an e-book whose vibe didn't match it's content made my stomach churn. Going through the motions of setting up a new business that wasn't going to bring joy to it's creator wore me down big time. That's why I don't work as a virtual assistant anymore! 

Working with me is like having an empowering teammate and coach rolled into one. Think of me as Flounder and Sebastian mushed together. I'll absolutely take over the tedious design and automation work (it's way faster and easier when you've done it a million times), but I'll also make you do some of the bigger work too. I can't define your ideal client for you without picking your brain and asking you hard questions for half an hour, but I can then turn those ideas into a clear picture and plan our future work accordingly. All of this makes me much more expensive than the fresh out of college digital nomad you can pay $10/hour to click post on your Facebook, but I'm worth it. Keep reading if you aren't convinced yet. 

Don't just take my word for it. 

When I started working with Jodi, she had a strong base of in person yoga and massage clients, but was working hard to grow her online presence and programs to help her spend more time with her young children. Together we designed her ideal schedule and spruced up her graphics game, created three different sales funnels, including creating a free yoga challenge that didn't take over her life, and changed the tone of her copy to truly reflect the empowering, knowledgable woman she is. 

"Jenn has been instrumental in helping us to clarify our target audience and find our voice as we take our business online. Understanding how to best optimize our website copy, develop a plan for social media and connect with our potential clients. She never failed to keep us laughing and focused on what’s truly important in our business and lives. "

-Calder and Cedar, Vantage vans   

When I met Jon, he was a personal trainer bringing in zero income and meeting no potential clients with his mission to train everyone to do everything they want. Together we got to the heart of the type of people that truly made him happy to work with and targeted his marketing efforts to them. By focusing on only speaking to his dream clients, we were able to begin to bring in business both online and in person. 

"Working with Jenn has helped me to progress through my branding process with confidence. Her unique focus on finding a balance to separate work and life has relieved much of the pressure I felt to live my personal brand perfectly at all times. That, combined with her knowledge of social media and content creation strategies, has left me feeling excited to move forward with my business in a sustainable, successful way. Thank you, Jenn! I appreciate your help and look forward to working with you in the future."

-Tanager, Tanager Translations

*A note: This website is still deep in the creation process, but these pages were published in their current form to share myself and skills with you. As you know, things often take longer than planned - especially art. I challenged myself to connect with my, somewhat hidden, artistic side and create all of the site graphics by myself. It's been a wonderful learning process with new, invaluable skills. However, sometimes a girl needs to work at what she's already good at too and right now that means putting up temporary graphics, a header that won't sit right and a non-search engine optimized page for the sake of making your life easier, creating some bomb content and developing your rad brand! Thanks for understanding the process!*