[0:00] Happy New Year, everybody. Welcome back to Aesthetically Speaking. I wanted to start today's episode by addressing something that I realized I should have addressed earlier this year, which is where is Abby? I've had a bunch of people ask me that because she's not on the podcast. And the last episode we did together was after she started chemotherapy for her cancer treatment. And I just wanted to let you know that Abby is doing great. She finished chemotherapy. She just had a scan after having a couple additional complications that I won't go into, and she's doing great.
[0:35] So at the moment, there is what they say, no presence of cancer. So cancer-free seems a little bit too optimistic, honestly, for everything that she's gone through and everything that she will continue to go through. But she is in a really good place and her health is thriving. And the reason she's not here is not because of her health. It's just because as you know, she is a full-time lawyer. She also has a family of her own. And so she's just taking a little break from the podcast. I'm plugging along on my own. I know that I'm not as exciting or as interesting by myself as I am with her, but there's not a bigger reason why she's not here. It's just a busy season of life. And so she'll be in and out as works for her. But I just wanted to let you guys know, after a few people reached out to me and said like, is Abby okay? Is she doing okay? So I just wanted to let you know that that was what was going on and we're all good and we're still friends, obviously.
[1:30] But today I wanted to talk about some of the best business lessons I have learned in 2024 and what I'm hoping to accomplish in 2025. And I really want this to be actionable and applicable to your lives and your business. So it's not going to be a ton of self-reflection and like wondering what I could do better. I have a pretty tightened up list of what worked, what didn't, what I'm carrying into 2024, what I think everybody should be doing and what I learned and what I'm hoping to leave behind. So let's get into it.
[2:10] You're listening to aesthetically speaking on this podcast we're talking about all things branding logos colors fonts and the strategy behind it all seems like these days it's easier than ever to build an audience but harder than ever to stand out online, My name is Rebecca, and I'm a brand strategist and designer. Together, we're going to talk about how to bring your brand to life. Number one thing that I learned in 2024 is strategy is the key. Strategy is the key to success. It is the key to client satisfaction. It is the key to a successful brand. And every time I work with a client and I don't do the full brand strategy, which if you've done it with me, you know, it's a process, right? There's a Pinterest exercise. There's a questionnaire. There is a long two-hour collaborative workshop I do called a brand strategy session where we're diving deep into differentiation and ideal client profiles and your personality and all of that. And then, of course, I create this very thorough, in-depth document that includes the research and the analyzing and the statements, like the wordsmithing of everything. It's intense.
[3:27] And when I do that, when I deliver it to a client and when we get it right, because there is some back and forth, there's a lot of collaboration. There's a lot of like, tell me what you mean about this and how can we word this exactly the right way. When I do that, I'm telling you, my clients soar. And sometimes I feel like this is going to sound really braggy and I don't mean it to be, but sometimes I feel like I have the golden touch where it's like if clients come to me and they will allow me to do my magic for their business, it explodes. It literally takes them from.
[4:05] Making money, maybe having some interest to being wildly in demand, to having clients come to them and say, I want to work with you. What do I need to do? I'm planning to work with you. What do I need to do? Right?
[4:18] Creating that kind of demand where people are literally coming to you. And I cannot tell you the number of times that people have said, where do you find clients? Where do you find clients.
[4:28] And I tell them, I don't find clients, they find me. Because I know how to create clients through my brand. So strategy is key. And this is, the reason that this came up is because I took on a couple of clients this year for a new offer. And it didn't include this kind of strategy, we jumped right into the design stuff. And it was a big enough project. And I felt like I knew them well enough that it would work and it did work, but it was a struggle. I'm going to be totally honest.
[4:58] And it would have been a lot easier if we had started with that strategy. I'm also reading a book right now that has validated this idea of strategy first, strategy always. And it's called How Big Things Get Done, The Surprising Factors That Determine the fate of every project, from home renovations to space exploration and everything in between. And in this book, they discuss the value of slowing down your thinking so you can act fast. And that means that you have to take time to strategize, to plan, to ideate, to iterate, and then you can speed up in actually creating things. And this is why my clients, who work with me, they know that it's going to take us a little while to get this strategy right. But it is worth it because when the strategy is right, everything else falls into place and the strategy determines everything else.
[6:00] Here's my last little spiel about strategy. Cobb, my husband, and I went to a restaurant over the weekend. We love trying new local places. We live kind of in suburbia and so we're always trying to find like hidden gems, you know. So we went to this restaurant and it was a Mediterranean place. The food was fantastic. It was so fresh, so good. They had this house made like tzatziki kind of sauce that was delicious. But the restaurant itself was just kind of this lackluster experience. And I was telling Cobb, he's like, what do you think they need? You know, we're foodies. Well, we like to think of ourselves as foodies. I'm a little bit afraid to give myself that title, but. We love food. He loves the cooking part of it. I love the experience, the ambience part of it. And he was saying, you know, what do you think this restaurant needs? Like, what is it that's not working? And I said, well, obviously the food is amazing. I said, I think they need a brand. And they don't just need better decor in the restaurant, right? They don't just need a prettier menu, although that is part of it. They need a brand. They need differentiation.
[7:08] There are a lot of Mediterranean restaurants, right? there's Greek Suvlaki, there's Kava, they're on this same street. There's at least three other Mediterranean places. So why am I going to choose this one? What about the experience is going to be different? And I said, you know, if I could sit down with them and say, what are we going for? What's the vibe, right? And we could articulate that so that it is known both in the hearts and minds of the owners, the employees, and also the customers, the visuals would naturally follow. So let's say that everything is about this like, let's go creek, let's go wild and free, like more laid back, dropping these American ideas of like rushing and busy and stuff, right? Okay. So from there, we can create some kind of aesthetic that's more about the Amalfi Coast, where you have some of these mountains and villas and you've got like winding streets and you've got the trees and the pink walls, okay? You're starting to see this. Then we're gonna get into, okay, so then we're gonna bring some plants in. Then we're gonna bring kind of this handwritten, maybe like an old kind of retro typeface that looks a little bit like it's been sanded down, right? Everything feels just a little bit homey. You bring that aesthetic to the restaurant. You give each of your dishes names like the Santorini salad.
[8:36] All of a sudden, we're painting this picture for people where your restaurant is not just the food, it's really a whole experience. And that comes from the strategy. You could make it really cute. You could just say, okay, this is Mediterranean, so we're going to do like blue and white everything because that's like Greek colors and that's going to be really great.
[8:53] You could do that, but I don't think it's going to work as successfully as really honing in on the strategy and saying, what is our reason for being?
[9:03] What do we want people to experience and how do we want them to feel and then using that to inform your design choices okay i've beat that point to death but strategy first it's my new policy actually so i have um you know business practices and strategy first is one of them so when a client approaches me and they say i'm looking for somebody to help me with my brand i say that is wonderful. I don't do just the design, but let me tell you what I offer instead. And I explain to them how getting this entire strategy is going to help them really elevate their business because it will make them different and it will give this really solid position.
[9:48] And you know what happens? They're like, oh yeah, that's actually what I want. I'm ready for that. So that's really cool. So strategy is key.
[9:55] My next lesson from 2024 is an internal shift that I made about my business that I really wanted to share because it had a profound impact on my sales and revenue. And I don't talk publicly about my sales and my revenue because that's not really what I'm selling. I'm selling branding. But I had this very interesting shift in my mastermind group where I was talking about my business. And I said something along the lines of, I feel like people don't realize how powerful branding is for growing their business.
[10:34] I can help you make more sales with a strong brand. And somebody else in the group who is, she's actually an executive coach and she's kind of an integrator for some of these really visionary business owner types. You know, the people who are like, they're the CEOs. They have amazing ideas. They're like going a million miles a minute, but sometimes they need help slowing down and really saying, okay, what's the plan? How are we going to make all of this happen? How do we actually get it done? She's the person that helps them figure that out. And this is what she said that was super interesting to me. She said, I've been thinking about your business all wrong. She said, I've been thinking that you offer operational support, right? That branding is foundational to a business, that they need it to succeed, right? Like you have your bookkeepers, you have your branding. And she said, that's not what you're offering.
[11:24] Branding is not operational support. Branding is marketing support. And I was kind of like yeah duh I knew that I've been saying that all along and she said no this is a huge tension point because business owners when they're looking at where they're spending money things that are operational support they want to spend as little money on those things as possible because those are things that they just have to have to make the business run and they don't have a clear ROI. But you can dedicate a lot more resources to marketing support because there is an ROI there. There is a clear picture of if you invest in marketing your business, you will attract more leads, you will have more clients, you will make more sales, you will increase the average sale order, right? All of these things. And so it becomes a much easier purchase to justify for the business. And I knew this, but I think I have spent so much time and energy clarifying what branding is that I haven't spent a lot of time saying, branding is marketing. Branding is the umbrella under which marketing falls. And this is a side note, but this is what I think a lot of people get wrong is that they think of marketing as the umbrella and branding is what you do to make your marketing look good. And I actually think it's the opposite.
[12:50] Branding is the umbrella, right? Branding is the reason for being. It's what you are trying to sell beyond the face value of your products. So if you're selling books, you're not just selling books. Your brand is selling ideas, selling connections, selling self-improvement, right? Or maybe it's teaching or education or helping your family grow. That's the brand. The brand is this big picture. It's the identity that you are selling to your ideal clients. And so marketing is how you apply your brand to make sales. Part of that is looking good. But again, it's the restaurant. It's not just, oh, let's make it look good. It's why are we making it look this specific way? And what does that say about our business? How is that going to help our business grow? And so when you can step back and say, okay, what is my brand all about? What is it that I really want to give people? And it's not going to be a tangible thing. The best brands, they're not about the tangible things. They're about the intangible ideas. They are aspirational as much as they are relatable. And when you can do that, when you say this is what my brand is about, then you're going to be able to do that. And then you're going to be able to, all of your marketing decisions, all of your operational decisions become much easier because you have made that decision. And this is what I have found in my own business as well as supporting others' businesses.
[14:19] Casting this kind of vision, this kind of high-level idea of what you're trying to create is actually really hard to do on your own. And I think this is apt for this time of year when we're all sitting down saying, okay, what are my goals? What am I trying to do? What am I working towards? And what I have discovered is it's really hard to think big enough for yourself. But as a brand strategist, as a creative director, I can sit down with you and say, okay, I can see a future for you that is so much bigger than what you are seeing right now. Right? You see your skills as this one tiny bucket. This is what I'm good at. And you've got and say, no, this is what you're good at. Come out of this tunnel and see all of the ways that you can serve. And let's turn that into a brand. Let's turn that into something that is mutually beneficial, where you are making money from your genius, and you are serving people who desperately want whatever you're selling. So branding is marketing support. And when I started articulating that, I'm telling you, things changed for my own business. It made a very big visible difference on the clients that I was signing and the understanding they had of the work that I was doing and how it was going to help them.
[15:46] My third lesson that I learned in 2024 is something actually that came through the process of experimentation.
[15:53] And I struggle a little bit with experimentation in my business. I don't know if you knew this, but I had a really hard time just like launching things without really thinking it through, right? Because I am so strategic and visionary and I really can think things through like at the highest level. sometimes I struggle to just implement an idea when I don't know exactly where it's going to take me. And I think this is a good thing, but it definitely has its downsides. So something that I have done in the last few years is in quarter one of each year, I try to create an offering that I could sell for $1,000 and I offer it for somewhere between free and $150. So you may have heard of my Your Brand of Magic calls. I did those in 2022 or 2023. I can't remember. But it was an opportunity for people to come to me and I would tell them what their differentiating factor was, right? What is your brand of magic?
[16:54] Then last year, I did something called Brand Glow Ups. And this is a, well, actually, I started by calling them a one-day brand refresh. And I wanted an opportunity to really get in the weeds with people that I hadn't talked to before and help them figure out what their signature message is. And so I started with one day brand refreshes and I ended up changing the name to brand glow ups just because I wanted it to be more clear about what it was. But it was really just this experiment. And I started off charging $25 and the price ended up going up to $100, which is where it is right now. I only have spots for five glow ups every month. but the experimentation has been great and it has allowed me to do something else. That was a really long drawn out way to tell you this lesson, which is I don't want to take on clients too fast. And I know this is contrary to a lot of what you see online about like, you know, create a process where people can buy from you in the middle of the night. That is all true when you are selling a digital product, a retail product that doesn't require your brain, your ideas, your services. And I have products like that where I can sell them in my sleep. But for my one-on-one services, which is the Rebrand Experience, which I've talked about before, as well as my Creative Partnerships.
[18:21] I don't want to take those clients on too fast. I want to slowly build the relationship with them so that we can work well together. And I learned this the hard way with a couple of clients who wanted to work with me. They were ready. We didn't do the strategy. And ultimately I said, we've got to go back. We've got to go back and kind of start from the beginning to make sure that we have built the kind of relationship that will allow us to work really well together. Okay contrast that with two of my rebrand experience clients this year who did a brand blow up okay so we had a day in voxer to talk about their brand talk about all the things they wanted and then from there they said okay what's the next step and i said great the next step is to decide if you're ready for the rebrand experience and that process of going through a brand glow up, talking in Voxer, even though it took me longer, right? It was not this instant client signing process that you maybe hear about or aspire to have. It was more successful. And they were two of my very favorite clients. And so I was really glad that that was the approach that I took and that I wasn't trying so hard to get people through the door as quickly as possible.
[19:45] And many of you know that I am kind of a one-person business. I do have contractors who help me, and I'm expanding more to kind of an agency model in 2025, which I'm really excited about. But I'm able to do that successfully because I have tightened up my process so much in 2024, and I have really good systems. I have a very mature process, both for my clients, for my creative work, even for my contractors. And so I'm really proud of that. And the reason that that matters so much to me is because my business model is to work with less clients and deliver really powerful results.
[20:34] And I do not take this lightly, but a lot of my clients tell me that the work we do is life-changing. And if something is going to be life-changing, I think it deserves a little bit of specialized time and attention. And when I get a message from a client, I pause and I listen with my whole heart. And sometimes I even listen two or three times to make sure that I can really respond and make sure that my clients feel heard. And so for me, slowing down the way that I assign clients is absolutely beneficial to the way that I run my business. And I'm working on being able to take on more clients and all of those things, but not at the expense of serving my clients really, really well. So I'm really proud of that.
[21:22] A couple of things, those are the lessons that I learned in 2024. And I just wanted to mention a couple of the things that I'm hoping to do in 2025.
[21:32] And one of them, probably the biggest thing I'm hoping to do is keep doing what's working, because my business is working. And again I don't say this to be braggadocious to make you feel like oh she thinks she's all that in a bag of chips I only say this because when I was earlier in my business I really wondered like is this gonna work is what I'm doing working like do I just need to stick with it for longer do I need to make changes and there's always kind of that question mark in a business owner's brain But I can confidently say this is five years in my business, basically this January when this podcast is coming out. It's five years in my business and I have kept the same offers, the same products and services, and I've been very consistent in my brand, in my position, in what makes me different, in how I serve people. I've been very, very consistent and clear in that and it is paying off. I have a booked out business with a wait list going into 2025. I have people who reach out to me literally every day and say, I want to work with you. You're on my vision board. You're on my bucket list or whatever it is. What do I need to do? I can't wait. And like I said, I know how to create that demand in my business. And I'm really grateful for that. I don't take that for granted and it didn't happen immediately.
[23:02] And I'm not where I want to be yet, but I just want to express gratitude that it is working and I don't need to make huge changes in my business. I really just need to keep doing what I'm doing.
[23:17] And kind of a sub lesson of that is that the work that I have done to refine my offer suite has definitely paid off. I have very clear, consistent offers, right? They've been through different iterations, but I'm basically still offering the same things today that I offered in 2019.
[23:40] And like I said, I have really clear processes. is I've done a good job of creating a positive experience for my clients. And I'm really proud of that. So in 2025, I want to hold on to that. And I don't want to get caught in this trap of, oh, I didn't sign a client this week, or I haven't heard back from so-and-so. And so I'm going to panic and change things. I'm really centering and saying, no, I don't need to change things. I need to keep going. And if you're feeling some of that panic or that stress in the new year, or even just kind of this bubbly excitement, like I think that it would be possible for me to create an offer suite that feels really good, that I could create this demand in my own business that people actually want what I'm selling. Please reach out to me because I am an expert at seeing your business and helping identify the gaps in your messaging, in your design, in your strategy, in such a way that will help you market your business so much more effectively. And if there's one thing that I have learned, it's that my work works. It works for me. It works for my clients. And I'm really, really proud of that fact. So if you're listening to all this and you're like, well, good for you, Rebecca. I don't have that let this be your motivation to slow down.
[25:07] To do the strategy first, to build a brand and to be willing to keep going for years and years and let that momentum build over time because it will. I promise it will. And like I said, reach out to me. Let's do a brand glow up. I think you would be surprised the clarity I can help you get to after just one day of really conscious, intentional listening and tapping into what you are trying to create and what your ideal clients really want from you and, what's going on on the outside. So I'm really excited about 2025. I'm excited about the clients that I'm working with and I am busy and booked and I'm so grateful. And if you're listening to this and you're like, Rebecca, I want to be one of your clients, reach out to me. Let's make a plan. no pressure no stress just clear solid strategy that takes your personality your desires and your gifts into the equation so super excited i'll talk to you guys soon and have a very happy new year we hope you enjoyed listening to aesthetically speaking if you want to support the podcast please leave us a nice review or connect with us on instagram at rebecca peterson studio.
[26:28] Music.
