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Emily London Miller is an expert when it comes to branding and in this episode, she talks about practical application. If you want to up your branding game, this is definitely something you don’t want to miss out on!
Welcome back. We’re talking about how to build a brand for small businesses. We’ve got Emily London Miller. You’ve done some amazing things with your clients in helping them with their visual brand. And as I’ve learned about your business and your own branding and the steps you’ve gone through, you got some amazing things. So I am excited to share it today. Okay, so this might be considered the part 2 to a previous episode that we did about branding. And in that video, we talked a lot about the words that represent your brand and what the emotions you want people to experience. And so if you haven’t seen that episode, I definitely recommend checking that one out. I’ll link it up here if you’re on YouTube. And if you are watching this on LinkedIn, you’ll find it in the previous post. So once you have the words, let’s talk about the practical application. So if we’re designing a local then, how the words relate to our logo. I mean, what do we need to provide to our logo designer word wise. Sure, so what I would give a graphic designer a logo design or a web design is basically your pinterest board. So your curated board that you’ve already developed, you know, the visual brand that look that you like. And I then I’d also be sure to give them the list of your words because those words are going to be… Something you want to be the forefront of their mind is visually a logo. A logo is cool thing to have. A logo is something that once you have an established brand… Like give us people a chance to associate a little image that connects to that brand. But until you have an established brand. And if your brand is you, then your image, like your head shot is what they’ll associate with your brand. Or what you looked the last time they saw you. So a logo, I think at the beginning of a brand journey isn’t the very first thing that you need to worry about necessarily. But that said, if you’re in that process of branding, you’ve got you graphic designer creating something and you’re not on pause in your business to create a logo. I think that is incredibly powerful to have a core concept of what your brand should feel like. And so the words are what the logo should based on as much as anything else. And you already said this but ust to add emphasis. So you are saying a person could have an amazing professional brand and not have a logo? Yeah. Yeap. You can succeed? You can make sales without a logo? Yeah. And honestly, I feel like a lot of people will self design a logo. And I think it’s worse that having no logo. You can have a really terrible logo that you think it’s great because you’ve made it and it’s a lot of stuff that you love. But it’s not, you know, actually professional looking to everybody else. And so, I’ve seen people who hold on to a logo for years that’s not serving their business at all and how many hours did they spent creating it. When it would’ve been better to just have a nice-looking simple text based. You know, image of your name. Awesome. Okay, so create the brand first and then the logo that you do create will enhance the brand or be a good visual symbol of the brand, is that right? Well, I know people who get really enthusiastic about starting their own business. And they channel a lot of their enthusiasm into the logo design or the visual branding. And then they’re… their left over energy goes to then creating the business. And the problem with that is just that you’re not gaining momentum in your business like creating your branding first. So the branding should be something that either somebody else is creating for you while you’re building your business or that you do… After you’ve had the chance that to get more clarity on what your business is. So, you have to be a little bit in your business for a minute before you can really know what your visual brand should look like. Okay, so if we’re then building a website, having a designer design that. Or let’s say we’ve got a physical store in front of a website and online storefront, how do we ensure that our website or store carries our brand. That it’s branded. Okay, so if you’re hiring a graphic designer, that should be something that they take care for you. That if you’ve got these words, you’ve got your pinterest board, they should be able to cultivate a, you know, basically a brand board is what they’ll give you. They’ll give you your logo and and they’ll give you what colors your brand is going to be using. In my case because I am, you know, visual in my content I create that also kind of adds to that. But when I talk to the photographers, you know and say, “Train other photographers.” One of the things that I’ll see with websites is that they’re kind of thrown together and they just have their images. And maybe the photographer wants to be perceived as really high-end, elegant, timeless. But their logo design or color scheme really looks really playful and childish and whimsical. And it almost has the effect of if you imagine walking… You said storefront. You know, walking by tiffany’s jewelry store. And looking in, you can tell probably what you’re going to spend by just looking it but… You know, in front of outside, looking in. And say, “Oh, that’s going to be really nice story.” Like, maybe afraid to ask how much it cost that’s going to be that nice. So it’s setting expectation for how people… And you know, people aren’t going to show up in their pajamas. Like you do sometimes when you go to WalMart, you dress down. It’s going to be more like Nordstrom or near market so you get dress, you put on your high heels and then you go into this store. So you’re training your customers what to expect about what you’ll be like and how to show up for you as customer. Okay, so how do you find the right web designer then? I mean it maybe it just through the…. Or figuring out how much they pay attention to brand? Honestly, I would say, one of the best things that you can do is if you come up with your words for yourself first and then as you’re looking for your graphic designers, you just look for graphic designers that have created brands that match those words. That’s a good idea. You can also just look at the portfolio of the graphic designer and if you can give a sense of what each of the different brands that they created, what their words would be and if it seems intentional, like for example, if they created a very whimsical website for somebody that’s clearly designed to have a whimsical brand, they might be totally on-point even if that’s not necessarily the graphic designers personal taste. So as long as they know how to cultivate a brand for somebody else that honoring their request then it doesn’t necessarily have to only look like… That’s a good point though. I mean, if you look at the website you can get a sense if this on purpose? Is this intentional? Is the texture match the colors? Does the photo…? You know. So that is a good advice. I like that. Okay, let’s switch gears for a minute. Let’s talk about wardrobe. How important do you think wardrobe is for a brand. Okay, so that’s a really interesting question. In my studio, I have my clients come in fora full personal branding session, photo-shoot. And that involves 5 different outfit changes, so wardrobe is very, you know, a big part of photo-shoot and so for me, rather than talking about specific styles that are trendy or what… You know, how to dress for your body type, I really focus on who’s the person that you want your clients to meet when they’re looking at your photos. And if we’re talking about in person wardrobe then obviously, who’s the person that you want people to think they’re meeting when they first look at you. You know, before they even had a chance to start talking to you, right? So for me, with images, with the photos that I’m creating for my clients. I feel like clothes have convey a lot of information, okay. Give us some examples. So an example is if I want to be… I’m going to say this really quickly. You are multi-valsitive and there are all of these different sides of yourself in you. So it’s not that I am saying show up as this to… Which I think would dishonor the other aspects of yourself. You know just to say like, “I am only this in my business.” So, when I talk to my clients and we have 5 outfits so that you can show up as powerful and confident and having all of your stuff together in your business. That you are assertive and strong, right? Maybe that would be a dark outfit with really strong edges or lines with really defined silhouette. Maybe it’ll include blazer and really killer high heels. If I am talking about you know, some of my clients, it matters more to be perceived as really soft. They work with kids and in counseling and maybe it makes more sense for them to have almost like a cuddly sweater and jeans and we photographed them in a light way that’s really airy and soft and the way that they pose is really soft and connected and vulnerable almost, right? So wardrobe can match the vibe that you need to give off. So if that’s just friendly and approachable, then maybe it’s bright colors and you know, fun ruffles and designs in the pieces that you’re wearing, right?
If we’re talking about just super classic, simple… And you know in my case, sometimes I love the dress up aspects so much that put on all these glamorous, fabulous pieces and then I go to a networking event. But I found that one of the best things that I can do is almost dress down so that people aren’t talking about my clothes anymore so that I can be having really important conversations where the clothes disappear. So in that case, it’s not that I’m not putting any thought into my clothes, it’s that my clothes are so simple and clean that that’s not the first thing people are going to think about necessarily. They’re not going o be thinking I look sloppy, they’re not going to be thinking that I don’t have it together or that I have no style. They just won’t necessarily be thinking about my style only. So, the way that you dress can be a little bit, you know, pulling from different elements of each of those things. So, there’s obviously, a lot more that we could talk about. We could talk about social media or copyrighting the content that we create or books or messaging that we putting out there in our podcast or in our videos. We’ll make other episodes. So obviously, after watching this episode, people are going want to find you. Where do they find you. Where do they find you online? So, emilylondonportraits.com and also Instagram at Emily London Portraits. Okay, if you’re watching this on YouTube, be sure to subscribe, comment below. Same thing in LinkedIn. Comment below and then follow me because I’m sharing a lot of videos like this on LinkedIn as well.