Afton Brazzoni:
00:00:00
You can do the social you can do the AdWords, you can do the events, but if you don't have a brand to stand on, it's not going to be nearly as impactful. So I just consider it to be the essence and the identity of the company.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:00:12
And I like to say your brand is who you are, and marketing is how you tell people about it.
Greg Carmichael:
00:00:17
That's beautiful. Yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:00:25
This is the Entrepreneur School podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:01:14
So this is a really fun episode that we actually recorded live as part of an event that happened in Cochrane for Small Business Week, so I was invited to be on a panel to talk about kind of branding behind the logo. What does it mean? What's the difference between branding and marketing? Alongside two other local experts, Greg Carmichael, who is a graphic designer, and Afton brezzoni, who is a content creator, content writer, and also brand strategist. So we had a really interesting conversation, and it was a cool format in that we were just in the room with a crowd of live audience, and we had the one microphone, so forgive the audio quality if it's not quite the same as previous episodes of the show, but I did want to just kind of take that opportunity in being in that event and capture the conversation for the podcast, because I knew the people in the room were going to benefit greatly from hearing that conversation, and I wanted to be able to bring it to all of you as well. So I hope you enjoy. Please connect with our guests. Their links and contact information is in the show notes below, and enjoy this conversation. We are recording this episode live for you to be produced for entrepreneur School, which is the podcast that I host. So we thought it would be a fun way to handle the conversation about what is a brand? How does that tie into your marketing, your visibility, how you talk about yourself, how you get yourself out there, and all of those things from the different perspectives, from our different backgrounds and experiences. So got a brand designer, a content writer, brand strategist, Visibility Coach. I have to call myself a visibility coach now, because nobody knows what a brand strategist is, and that's kind of a good place to start this conversation, actually, because brand strategy really is what needs to happen behind everything that you do, everything that you're putting out there, maybe talk about what that looks like. Looks like from a from a design perspective,
Greg Carmichael:
00:03:25
for many years, and it continues now. A lot of you know graphic designers or small agencies will sort of just jump into creating the logo and a brand, and it really is a bit aimless without having sort of a roadmap behind it. So what we really want to do, and especially with smaller businesses and even medium sized businesses, really kind of get to the heart of who they are and who their clients are, and really try to find their brand personality before we start designing anything. And I think that's one of the areas that we really need to improve. And from the design business is really to have people like Afton and Gally here to help us with that strategy before we even begin. So as Shane said, beyond the logo, it's actually before the logo is the strategy, which these two wonderful women are really, really good at.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:04:08
You know, I think we see the same thing on the content side as well. We have a lot of clients that will come to us who are, you know, really eager, understandably, to start creating content, start getting their message out there. And it's really similar to what you said. You know, there's so much that needs to be done before that stage. Do you have a brand personality? Do you have a brand story? Do you have key messaging? Do you then have a content strategy? And so it's natural, I think, to kind of want to run before we walk, but having all of these pieces in place that we're talking about is absolutely critical for really just making it less time consuming and more impactful.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:04:47
A lot of the times, what I will hear is like, where should I market my business, right? And that's like the question we all want to answer. And I wish that I could just give you, like a magical answer to that right now, but the. Things that you have to answer for yourself as a business owner before that are, well, who are you talking to, right? And how can you reach them? And what do you need to say in any of those platforms? So whether that looks like going to an event and after this, you have to now go and introduce yourself to everybody, well, what are you saying there? That's part of your brand messaging and your brand story, and the clarity that you get from going through a process to understand what that looks like and how you can articulate that and communicate that. It helps you make decisions. It helps you decide what kind of content should I create, where should it go, what kind of collaborations would be great for my business? What then does my logo look like? Because how do we interpret that in a visual way?
Greg Carmichael:
00:05:45
I think when you create a brand personality, you know, it's really finding out who your audience is, what are their pain points, what problems are you solving for those customers? I think once we we learn that, then we can start crafting a logo and a brand that sort of speaks to that. You know, is your brand going to be fun and friendly? Is it going to be more sophisticated? Is it going to be romantic? Is it going to be serious? We've got to determine all of these things, and we do that through research at the beginning. And I think once we do that research, we really find out who those customers are, we can really craft a better logo and a better brand. So, yeah, absolutely, it's a it's about finding who that customer is first, and what makes them tech too.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:06:24
I love that you bring up research as well, because I find that that's sort of another area where there's, again, there's often that urge to run before we walk kind of thing, but really taking the time to look, you know, not only at the competitive landscape, because that's not everything, right? It's like, Yes, we all have competitors, but we don't want to get too hung up on that. But I think actually doing the research with existing customers, or if you're a brand new business with ideal customers, you know, and taking the time to not make those assumptions about, well, this is what I think will resonate with people, or this is what I think people want to hear. And so that can, you know, it can definitely add to the timeline of what you're doing, but it gives you, there's no better insights, right? Because then we're not guessing, we're simply getting the language from the customers that they want to hear and that that matters to them. And I think that is just such a key phase.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:14
Do
Greg Carmichael:
00:07:14
you think people maybe fear the word research that thinking it's this great, big, drawn out process? You know, we had a we had a client once where we brought in a brand stratus, and God love her. She was amazing. She had a six month brand strategy research project. I'm like, oh, maybe we could try to get that down in a few weeks, which I think is probably where you could be, where you two are at. But this went on and on and on. Like, it doesn't really have to be that deep. We ended up with 43 different client personas. I'm like, there's quite a bit so, so I think for a lot of small businesses, like SMEs, micro businesses, I don't know that we need to go that extensive with our research, but you still
Greg Carmichael:
00:07:49
need to help, right? Yeah, we
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:51
do. We do three interviews. They're about 20 minutes. So yeah, I
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:54
think less is more in that case, certainly. Yeah, going
Kelly Sinclair:
00:07:59
at that point, we're just overthinking everything, and we're just creating delays for ourselves. So no, and sometimes you have to just make decisions, right? Because maybe, and like, I don't know about people in this room, but sometimes it's like, well, I don't have clients yet, or I don't know who necessarily, like, what are they saying? I don't have an actual person to go and talk to you right now. To right now, and that's okay, but if you make some decisions about what the about targeting, niching, that scary word sometimes, and what that looks like, then you can start taking actions, and you can get feedback, right? And then you can iterate. I think this is an important place to go next. Maybe brands evolve. Brands will always continue to expand and evolve and change. Business cards you're seeing sitting on your chair from me are my like, third or fourth version of that, and that's because of different things that have happened in the way that I show up and do services, the way that I want to be portrayed. And that's something to know too, that you don't have to make every decision about your brand on day one, you can let that grow and expand with you. Well, it really comes
Greg Carmichael:
00:09:06
down to even a website. I mean, a website is never truly finished, and I think it's constantly evolving. And I guess people have this in their head that create the website, launch the website, forget about the website, but it's constantly changing and constantly updating as you learn more about your market, as you learn more about your clients and the services you're providing. I mean, in our own brand, we started, well, we still have flamingos in our brand, but we really don't talk about flamingos anymore. We talk about rockets and elevating your brand, and now our whole brand is really about rockets. It's just very strange how that's come about. So it's constantly evolving, as you said. So So I think one of the really cool things with the brand is it doesn't have to be so rigid, like it can be completely fluid, and it can change, change your colors. Or we have about 14 different colors in our brand. Change them on a whim, and as we see fit. You know, people think it has to be one color. I mean, maybe one or two colors might be a primary, but you can change it. It's perfectly fine. It doesn't have to be so rigid.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:09:57
Yeah, I like that. You bring that up because. It reminds me of my own brand, and we started off with very different imagery. A lot of it was, like campfire oriented, sort of around the concept of storytelling. That's changed over the years. I think it was two summers ago I had a different brand color, and, you know, that was very exciting for me. But, yeah, I think it's any strategy, any tactic, any of it can work, right? But it's about testing, trying. I was just at a business retreat about a month ago where that exact point came up, about like, just going out and trying something. Because sometimes, and probably most of the time, that is the best feedback you're going to get is the feedback from the market, as opposed to kind of holding something back until it's perfect, which what is perfect anyway, right? And so I think, you know, with websites, with anything that we do, it's, it's really important to just like, get it out there, test it and then iterate based on what's
Greg Carmichael:
00:10:49
the phrase better done than per pick. Yeah, right. One of the cool things that I found, too, and I looked at both of your sites recently, because, you know, I had to refresh my memory on who these wonderful people are. And one of the things that I really struck me, particularly here in town, is that, you know, our logos are important, don't get me wrong. But what I think is really cool with with both Kelly and Afton, you go to their websites, the brand, I think the logo is really their face. It's really that. And the reason why I find that apart when I first got to town, you know, I immigra myself in business community, I got to know a few people. And as it turns out, a year later, I only know still, I only know one real estate agent and I only know one mortgage broker. I don't know what their logos are, but I know their faces, right? I know who they are as a person. So I think that as much as we talk about logo logos, I think that you two, especially, have done a great job of your personal brand. You are the logo, your face, your personality, that is the logo. So that's something I kind of wanted to bring into the conversation, because, particularly with small businesses, that is critical to make sure that that you are the rep, and
Kelly Sinclair:
00:11:49
it kind of depends on the industry and the type of business that you have as well, what, how much you lean into the personal brand side of things. Certainly, if you're in any space where you are an expert, you're like a thought leader, or you sell your skill set, particularly, versus like a physical product, which can maybe lend more to a more like non personal logo, then that's where you want to be. Thinking about how you put yourself there, out there, as a person, and what comes through that, and how you show up and do things like this, right? Like showing up, doing podcast interviews, as far as like, what are the strategies that might get you the kind of recognition and relationship building and trust that you want from your audience that you're trying to grow? Then that's where you can lean into that personal brand.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:12:39
Yeah, and I think it brings up an interesting conversation around the work that you're really focused on, too, with visibility. Because I know this topic is something that I get asked all the time, too, if there is a business where it makes more sense for the founder to be more public facing, then it becomes, you know, all these questions around well, well, to what extent, or, you know, how much do I sort of put out there? And, yeah, I just think that maybe that's somewhere interesting to go with this, because I think that it's, it's a, it's a really fun element of branding when you can infuse it with that personality, but it always has to be to your comfort level, because otherwise, marketing is just going to feel like a complete slog. And I don't think any of us would want that for anybody. So, yeah, I don't know how that kind of comes up with either of your clients, but I think it's an interesting
Kelly Sinclair:
00:13:27
point. Yeah, in the end, you have to build relationships with people to make sales. So like end goal business money, that's it, right? But how? If it was only that simple. It's about establishing relationships and creating those connections. Because at the end of the day, even the product based businesses, and we know this, especially here in Cochrane, we care about who runs that business. We care about knowing who the person is, and if their kids are on our kids sports teams and all of that kind of stuff. And that's where you can even infuse the personality side, even when you are a product based business as well, or you are part of maybe a bigger consortium or something, but it's still like, like, you know, apton and I maybe do some similar things, and in the end, somebody is going to resonate with one person over another, and that's ultimately the choice. But how do we help you to make that choice when we can step into our own brand and personality a little bit more and just kind of lean into that and that's what's going to differentiate us, and it's not who's better than the other, it's just how you can make a choice and create that connection and feel confident in who you want to work with as a client. I
Greg Carmichael:
00:14:40
loved how you talked about, you know, building relationships, particularly in the community. You know, if you're a micro business or a small business, a local business, I think that's incredibly important. One of the things in the old adage, one of the sayings, is people do business with people who they like and trust, or who they know like and trust. And I think if your face is, if you're that type of business where you. Know you're the you're the principal in the business, and the business is really you. I think that's incredibly important. When you go to any one of these two webs, these two ladies websites, bang, you've got them right there, it's like, yeah, they I mean, her site's bright and pink. Her site tells a really good story, but it's really cool. Like, I immediately feel like I'm friends with these two when I go to their site. And if we can get, just imagine if we can get our clients to fall in love with us on the landing on our landing page, on our homepage. How cool is that, right? So I think that's what we try to do with faces, with human faces for us, it's, you know, it's giraffes and flamingos and other fun stuff, but, but I think, yeah, having the face on there, I think it's, it's so important that we build those relationships and building that trust well.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:15:38
And the approach with your site works too. Like I went there, it's so memorable. And I think that's the thing, right? Is you want to be memorable. You want to be authentic to you. And like Kelly said, it's basically giving a potential customer all the information they need to make an informed decision, both from the standpoint of, like, the logistics of what's actually involved with your services. But also, does this feel like a fit? You know, if any of you have employees, you know how important it is that team culture feels like a fit. And I think it's the same thing. You know, if you're putting your brand out there to a customer, they want to know what it's going to be like to work with you, right when they come into your world, how are they going to be taken care of? Not only are they getting a high quality product or service, but what's the actual human interaction going to be like?
Kelly Sinclair:
00:16:24
Yeah, that's such a huge part of knowing what your brand is, that brand experience and then that it is consistent in every element of how you interact with people. So you show up the same in all of your different marketing platforms. In real life, when someone runs into you at the grocery store and your employees as well. So when I do brand strategy sessions, like I do a VIP day, it doesn't take six months. It becomes a really great tool for communicating and articulating the mission and the vision of the founder, perhaps, or the leadership team with the employees, with the staff. Like, how are we gonna talk about our business? What does that look like in the way that we actually do the work that we do as well? So brand is so much more than a logo. I think that we're really underscoring that point, right? Not that there's anything wrong with love. Well, let's, let's,
Greg Carmichael:
00:17:13
let's bring that in. I mean, it's it to me, it's the the images that you're using in your brand are probably more important in your logo. I mean, you look at any of the material, your website, your business well, maybe not Kim's business cards, because her logo is pretty big on the card. But, you know, on a website, the logo is usually pretty tiny. But what really resonates with people is those images that you're going to be using, whether it's on your website or in your social pulse, or any of the other marketing that you do. I think it's those images that really resonate with people. And one of the things that, and I don't want to be critical to some some of the business I've seen in town, kind of, you know, every time I see a social post, it's a different kind of image, like, I think if you have some continuity with the type of images, like the the coloring, the style, the mood of the images, I think that helps with brand recall. The business is, I'm not going to name the business, but every time I see this, it's a different type of image, and I really don't know who that business is. By comparison, there's a competitor to that business that I see it say every day too. Basically, on Facebook, I'll see this business. And by the Yup, I know who that is. I know who that is. And I think it's really important to you know you're gonna have your consistency to make sure your logo is the right size, the color you use this you know similar colors or the same colors. We all know that. We all know that we should use the same pods, but it's really making sure that you're being consistent in the kinds of images that you use. So again, in our business, flamingos, rockets, giraffes, dinosaurs, is kind of a fun thing. I think it's just really concentrating on making sure that you know you're not going to stock photos and just grabbing anything willy nilly. It's really trying to create something that we do is we create an image bank of photos and graphics that the client can use throughout their social it's really important to make sure that the look and style of those images are the same. Again, all about brand recall,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:18:52
yeah, and that extends to the content as well, right? And the messaging. And it's for the exact same reason, I think, you know, we never want our customers, or potential customers, to have to be doing sort of the heavy lifting and figuring out, trying to remember, you know, maybe they're confused. Oh, well, I thought they stood for this, but, but now it's kind of looks like this. And yeah, exact same thing with the content, right? So it's figuring out what are the themes that you're going to talk about and that you want to become known for. And again, the less is more, right? You don't need 43 different ones, but just five, five things maybe that you kind of always talk about, you always want to be known for, and when you're writing the content as well, that's where brand messaging can really be useful, because you don't have to start from scratch every single time, just in the same way that if you have an image bank, you know you don't have to start from scratch. And I think especially when we're small businesses, we want to minimize the heavy lifting for this, and we want to really be able to have something that we can reference that's going to be power often. I think
Greg Carmichael:
00:19:50
you're the perfect person to talk about continuity of brand voice. You know, in my world, it's visual like we want to make sure the images and logos are consistent. But you know, when I meet somebody like you, and we. Talk about the tone of voice and the consistency of the messaging. Can you talk a bit, a little bit about that? Because I think you're the perfect person to address that, something that we rarely ever talk about, but, but brand voice? Yeah,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:20:11
sure. I think you know, essentially, you've got the brand personality, which incorporates the visuals and the verbal side, and then the voice really is something where, again, you want it to be distinct, you want it to be compelling, but you also want it to be authentic to you. And so coming up with just a few attributes, and then, of course, you've got tone, which is the layer under that, where it's like, how does the voice change depending on the context? You know, maybe we're a little bit more formal on the website, maybe we're not, maybe we're really friendly in social media, just tends to be the way that it goes. But again, when you know that you can kind of audit everything that you have out there in your marketing to begin with, and you can say, Well, does this even sound like us? Maybe we need to change this? Yeah. I don't know if there's anything you want to add on that Kelly as well, because I know your expertise is in that area as well. Yeah. Well, what
Kelly Sinclair:
00:20:53
I was going to say is, we've all heard the saying that somebody needs to interact and experience your brand like seven or more times. And with the amount of content we see these days, I think it has to be like, sure, as you relate, it's gonna say it's totally more than that now, times per day. And so if you're sending a confusing message by not being consistent in the tone, in the voice, in even the message itself, like what you're talking about, like, even with expert based businesses, like we have, I just talk about visibility, like, that's all I talk about now, because that's what I need you to know that you can come to me for behind that. Of course, there's lots of other things. There's your marketing strategy, there's your brand messaging and all of those pieces. But if I'm like, sometimes talking about one of those things and sometimes talking about another one, it probably isn't going to hit you enough times to actually break through and then make that connection, because building a brand is about building a reputation and being known for something so leaning into like, the main thing that you want to be known for. But
Greg Carmichael:
00:21:56
it's not just in your outgoing messages, like what's on your website, what's in your social but I think it's also how you communicate by email or if you're using text or or other, you know, not chat, for example, I think every interaction you have to be consistent and how you how you speak and how you type and how you phrase things and and really it comes down to how you behave too. You got to be consistent in everything when that customer is, you know, having these touch points. I want to come back to that for a second, because I think I'm not sure if the group here maybe was following the touch points things that's more of a sales activity. But can you touch more or touch more of the touch points? What does that what does that mean a customer has to touch your business 15 times before they actually say, yes, yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:22:37
I mean, I feel like it's interactions, right? Like baseline is, if nobody knows about you, they can't buy from you. You can't help them. You can't make a sale, right? So putting yourself out there in a variety of different ways, exposure for your brand, for your in whatever this is like the whole wide world of visibility and marketing, right? Showing up at events like this, meeting the people that you meet tonight, seeing them again later at your kids soccer practice, or whatever that looks like, getting on podcasts, or wherever they're gonna find you in your online presence, whatever that looks like for you, which is not always everyone's favorite thing. So maybe you're doing some advertising on the radio, or you're part of like a local gift guide, or you're doing collaborations inside of your stores with other people's products and stuff, which I love to see, love to see, that that just gives you more touch points. I also want to just remind us to talk about AI in a minute, because I feel like the conversation could go there too. Yes, oh
Greg Carmichael:
00:23:40
boy. Well, so we're in the process of rebrand, rebranding our brand. It's been 12 months. It's still not launched. It's still not out there. We had some good progress today, and a lot of things we talked about is, there is so much AI out there. I'm not an AI expert. I know that there's been a couple of AI experts through the town here. Andrew is one of them. He speaks a lot to AI. I'm the complete opposite. I'm the human guy. We're humans. We all the work we do. We have such great team. I think that people really, you know, when they're creating a brand, it's so personal. I really think that they want to work with a human I don't really speak much to AI. I do confess that we use some of it. We use some generative AI stuff when we're creating backgrounds and certain things in our design. But, yeah, maybe you two could lead the conversation on, not anti AI just, I feel like, you know, we're focused on creating this human brand that, yeah, I mean, it is doing some amazing things. I will say that one of our clients posted today. She's got some AI generated headshots. And you know, anything I've seen so far have been we call dead eyes, you know, human generated images. If you look at the eyes of the human in quotes for podcast, they have these dead eyes. This just doesn't seem to be any warmth or life to them. But when Joanne showed me her headshots today that she got, she. Paid 50 bucks for AI generated headshots. I'm like, what? Come on. She got 100 headshots. And, you know, 95% of them weren't any good, but she picked out three or four that were incredible. I saw them today. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. So, you know, you talk AI from, you know, last year to even last week, it's changed so much that, yeah, I'm not anti I'm a fan when it's used correctly. And her case, there someplace, there's
Kelly Sinclair:
00:25:25
nothing better than custom brand photos. Yes,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:25:28
it's true. It's true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is something I literally get asked about almost every day, so I can definitely talk about it for ages. And I think, to your point, I mean, I'm certainly on the I think that human connection, there's nothing that can beat it. But I absolutely think that depending on the type of business that you have, and obviously, you know you'll, you'll have to think about this, but it's really, really wise to think about how you can incorporate it, what you can be doing. I think that in my own industry, particularly among content writers, when I mean, AI generative. AI has been around for a long time, but when it really kind of exploded back in November of 2022 it was really, oh my goodness, this is just going to tank all of us, right? And it's just going to put us all over the job. And I think we've really realized how much that human direction is still needed, and it's actually kind of opened up more interesting opportunities as well. And so I think with anything, you have to kind of just ride the wave, because it's going right, and we don't, we don't have a choice but to kind of learn and be uncomfortable. And you know, it's been a journey for me, certainly. But yeah, I'd love to hear what you think. Well,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:26:38
I was gonna ask, because when it comes to content, this seems like an obvious place where we can maybe save time if we can get a robot to write some stuff for us so that we can create more of these touch points, right that we're talking about. But that's where it comes back to really knowing what your brand is and being able to articulate for yourself and your robot friend. Because it does work once you when you're able to like add that clarity and speak to what your what your voice looks like, the risk is you need to make sure that it's still coming out and it sounds like you. Because I think that there's so much AI generated content now that's going out there, we're starting to get these little red flags as readers and consumers like we know that was made by AI I heard somebody like reference a few phrases. I'm gonna say it anyways, Greg, one of them is rocket ship emojis. Rocket ship emojis, or the words unlock the power of as a title, like teaser. Ai, like Staples.
Greg Carmichael:
00:27:36
That's right, yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:27:37
But when you can train, and I've been doing this more lately. I think probably just because I'm working with myself most of the time and I'm lonely, I need a robot friend to like, be like, let's talk about this thing. And oh my gosh, the response is it's starting to talk back to me, like me. It's like, I love that you said that. I'm like, oh, that's exactly how I would have said that. Well, it's
Greg Carmichael:
00:27:57
great. It's great as a base to get started with that if you're writing, you're writing short form content or long form content, it's really great to help you get started. If you feel you need that help, it's perfectly fine. I don't have that issue. I love writing, so it's perfectly fine for me to just go at it. But I think if we use chat as sort of a baseline to really get some thoughts down and to generate some ideas, I think it's wonderful. I kind of want to come back to the person in the room who was heckling me about the AI. I want to talk a little bit about being authentic. Yeah, when we create images and when we write copy, we want to be true to ourself as app and set. I think if you're using, you know, AI headshots, maybe for your LinkedIn profile, fine. But I think if you're creating that brand imagery that that I talked about earlier, having consistent imagery, or creating a bank of images. There's absolutely nothing better than having a professional photographer come in and shoot your business. We did it ours. We've got an incredible library of actual people in our studio, and they are just absolutely stunning. These images just they make us look better than we are. It's really kind of cool. That's fun. It's fun too. So, yeah, so to to you in the back there, thank you for pointing that out, because there was a time and a place for AI and I would tread very carefully on
Kelly Sinclair:
00:29:09
I have to ask the obvious question, because, like, we are all trained experts in our crafts, like, sometimes that's unusual that you, you know, went to school, did a thing, now you still do the thing or a version of that thing, right? And so we maybe resist like things that try to make it easier, or maybe make us feel like we're, you know, not as valuable, even though, like, because that's what you said, right? Like, yeah, 100% content writers are now afraid that we won't have a job because AI is going to take it away, essentially. So how much of it is like maybe a little bit of stubbornness on our part?
Greg Carmichael:
00:29:43
It could very well be. We were talking about canva.com today in our studio. It, you know, we talked about that very thing. You know, every once why people say canva.com is going to eliminate graphic designers. But here we are in our studio. We're busier than ever. We're eight graphic designers at our business, and never been busy. So I'm not too worried about that. I think there's these tools are great for certain people that that want to use them, that love to use them, that that need to use them. It's, we use it too, but it's, it's really using the right tool at the right time for the right thing, exactly.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:30:14
And, I mean, that's been around for years too, right? So it's like, if that was gonna take someone out, I think it would have done it already. And I think that there's, it just depends on what you need, right? Because for us, like our clients, come to us because they do want high quality subject matter, expert driven, original content, and sure, if we write a long blog post for them, yeah, they can. They can pop that into AI. They can get 20 social media posts out of it. That's fine, but I think it's, it's kind of about just knowing. And again, that comes back to brand identity, because that's what they feel, is their brand identity is to have those sort of marketing assets, and that's in alignment with them. And I think it's different for everybody. And you know, there's no strategy, and there's no playbook that's going to be one size fits all. And so, you know, to go to Kelly's point at the very beginning, that's like, your sort of purview is just to make those decisions and to say, you know, okay, well, here's where, because it all works. Is the thing? It all works. Every tactic, it all works. But is it gonna work for you, and is it gonna be enjoyable for you to actually do that type of marketing is what you have to consider, I'm
Kelly Sinclair:
00:31:22
like, saluting everything that you just said there for sure. It's so true like and that's really why the thing that differentiates your strategy, the way that you come across, the success you ultimately have, is your brand, because it that's the core, and that's why we're having this conversation about what's the core of everything that you do, everything that you put out there is the clarity around that, and the standing strong in it too, because that allows you to lean into different perspectives, you know, pick your hills to die on from a position perspective, like, what are you going to touch? Not touch when you want to talk about those kinds of things.
Greg Carmichael:
00:32:01
Yeah, I like you talk about what, you know, pick what hill you want to die on when we first launched our site a few years ago. I mean, it was riddled with flaws that only I can see, and I still see them today, because they we never fixed them. And it's like, Greg, do you really need to fix those? I'm like, Well, yeah, it's really bugging me, especially in mobile, because the stuff this doesn't work properly, and it's like, doesn't seem to matter all these years later. So yeah, so I decided to not die on that hill, so it doesn't matter. And that's
Afton Brazzoni:
00:32:27
such a good point, because, you know, we've been talking about business being about relationships, and I feel like that's so much more important. Like you clearly have, you know, the great relationships, those are what's going to drive your business forward, not whether or something on your website that only you can see, you know, but we all do it, of course, like there's, I think attention to detail is kind of a hallmark of our industry. So we probably all notice things in our own business, but that's very true. But you know, not something that anybody else would
Greg Carmichael:
00:32:50
Yeah, we talked to a client a few months ago. One of the things that they, you know, they really wanted to talk more about marketing. We're, we're more about branding than we are marketing. But you know, they do intertwine. And one of the things that we said is, you know, can't believe it said, coming from our branding guidance, like your logo is really not as important as you think it is. It's really about you and the activities as a small business. It's really what you're doing as a small business that are that's more important, what you're posting on social, that's really where your your true focus should be. So for a small business to come and spend 1000s of dollars on creating a logo and a brand. I'm like, Ah, let's not do that. Let's focus some dollars on more marketing activities. You know, sure, let's get you a decent low and a decent brand. But it doesn't need to be a $20,000 brand for crying out loud, right? Just, you know, understand that, yeah,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:33:33
I think we could have a whole conversation about the mindset piece that's there and that how that's potentially individuals preventing themselves from taking the next step that they need to take. We won't derail this whole conversation, but I do think we should go back to just defining the difference between brand and marketing, if that's helpful as well, like where we can see how those two things are different and very much also complementary to each other. So how would either of you define those? I'm gonna jump in because
Greg Carmichael:
00:34:01
we've been talking about this very thing and some of the networking circles that I've been in, and, you know, people that have gotten to know me the last few months, they're like, they think that I own this marketing agency. I'm like, I'm like, not quite I'm in branding. They're like, well, that's marketing. I'm like, Well, no, it's not. I'm the logo guy. So now I tell people I'm the logo guy, and that seems to resonate, and also that logos are important. So really, if you think about a branding, the word branding, it's a verb, is to create a brand. So if you hear the word branding, I don't think branding is marketing. Branding comes first. So we create a brand, we create a logo, we create the brand assets, the website, all the other marketing cloud. Then we move into marketing all those tactics, like, like social like, you know, if you're doing AdWords, if you're doing events, like, it's marketing comes second. So branding, just think of terms. Branding is the creation of a brand, right? And once you have that brand, then you market. Yeah, how I view it?
Afton Brazzoni:
00:34:53
Yeah, branding is the identity and the essence, right? So it's the inherent qualities of the company that actually enables you to go to market. In a way that's gonna be effective, because you can do the social you can do the AdWords, you can do the events, but if you don't have a brand to stand on, it's not gonna be nearly as impactful. So I just consider it to be the Yeah, the essence and the identity of the company.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:35:13
And I like to say your brand is who you are, and marketing is how you tell people about
Greg Carmichael:
00:35:18
it. That's beautiful. Yeah? That's great. Do we have time to talk about quality of brand and marketing? Yes, we have to. There's a little bit of time. So one of the things that I like, you know, a lot of small businesses, you know, we don't have the resources to do some of the things that some of the bigger companies do and and I wish they did. I mean, I'm a small business too. I don't have the resources. We had an AdWords campaign that we ran last year, and it, you know, it the investment was quite high, and it's like, oh, this is, this is tough to swallow. It's necessary, but it's tough to swallow. So we don't necessarily have the resources to do everything, but I think that it's wise to still have a little bit of investment in creating, as I said earlier, a decent logo. And what I mean by that is, you know, we don't really want to do a $5 logo. We don't really want your aunt's sister's cousin's boyfriend to do one if he's or she is not really a designer or not design capable. I really think that you know your logo, particularly your brand and, oh my gosh, your website, for sure. I think it's critically important to make sure that the quality of that and the quality of all the brand assets and the social that you're putting out there is, is really the best that you can can afford. You know, if you put out, you know, social posts with lousy images and kind of cheesy images, we all know about cheesy stock images, if you're doing that, it really kind of erodes the brand, and really, I think it undermines your credibility as an expert in your business. So, so we're really big on, you know, we talk a lot about elevating your brand, but, you know, that's when there's money and resources to do that. But I think as as an individual that you're, you know, you're doing it yourself. You're creating a Wix or a Squarespace site, great tools that you're able to have that decent quality of branded assets. So I think it's really important to make sure that you keep that focus of quality images in particular up there, yeah,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:37:02
but we've been having the conversation about how your brand is your reputation, and so everything that you put out there is a first impression, right? And we all know that you don't get those back. So reputations take forever to build and moments to destroy. Love, yeah, someone who's worked in crisis communication,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:37:20
or far too much. Yeah, it's so true, you know. And I think it really extends to the content as well. And, you know, not to dive too far back into the AI conversation, but it's, you don't want to just sort of generate something, slap it up there, walk away. It's no, we need to really look at this. Is it on brand? And I think a lot of times, you know, we say quality, but it doesn't have to be expensive, right? It doesn't have to be complicated. I think just giving it the thought and the care that it deserves, because it is your public face, right? That's, it's the face of your business, and it can be done sometimes a lot more cost effective and a lot more simply than people might anticipate. It's
Greg Carmichael:
00:37:58
never been easier. I mean, tools like canva.com, and every they're incredible. I mean, as as professional graphic designers, we hesitated at first when this came along, and, you know, we watched it, and we watched it play out, and we saw how incredible it was for non designers to use it. And it's at a point now where our professional designs, we use it every day, for some of our clients, just because it's what they're they want us to use. It's never been better for the small business owner to create decent quality branded items. I mean, it's just amazing. There's templates, there's all kinds of things you do custom work. It's just absolutely incredible. The thing I would caution is just to make sure that you're choosing the consistent images. If you're using a template, use it all the way through. Use it for everything that you do. Right? So it's never been easier to build and maintain a quality visual brand.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:38:41
So maybe a good way for us to wrap up this conversation would be if we could each just share either one final like thoughts or question for listeners and our audience to to walk away with, with respect to how they can implement what we're just talking about.
Greg Carmichael:
00:38:58
One of the things that I like to tell some of our clients, particularly clients, smaller clients, that are doing their own marketing or their own well, they don't really do their own branding. We do that for them, but it's it's really think about, particularly in social think about what you're posting. Are you proud of what you're posting? If you're a little bit if you're not confident, then maybe it needs to be a little bit better. So maybe go back and spend a little bit more time and effort in Caber or wherever, however you're building it, just make sure that you're proud and confident of what you're of what you're putting out there for the face of your brand.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:39:31
Yeah, I think I would leave people with, you know, on On a similar note, doing the work up front, really getting these brand strategy, content strategy elements in place, both visually and verbally. It honestly makes everything so much easier going forward. And so just investing that bit of time and perhaps money, you know, you can however, it's always either time or money, it's gonna save you so much in the end. And so I would say, yeah, just just really put care into that phase of the brand. And then. Yeah, you'll have something to reference. So you don't have to look at a blank screen and think, Well, what am I going to post today on social right? You'll have something andall about PrEP.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:40:07
Yeah, yeah. And I think the question that I would leave you to ask yourselves is, what do I want to be known for? And then have that as your litmus test? Does this thing I'm about to do or say or create. Help me to achieve that.
Greg Carmichael:
00:40:23
It's awesome, very good.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:40:27
You did it. You just listened to another episode of the entrepreneur school podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prepped dinner or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here, I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram. Head to entrepreneurschool.ca. For tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community and until next time, go out there and do the thing you
00:00:00
You can do the social you can do the AdWords, you can do the events, but if you don't have a brand to stand on, it's not going to be nearly as impactful. So I just consider it to be the essence and the identity of the company.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:00:12
And I like to say your brand is who you are, and marketing is how you tell people about it.
Greg Carmichael:
00:00:17
That's beautiful. Yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:00:25
This is the Entrepreneur School podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:01:14
So this is a really fun episode that we actually recorded live as part of an event that happened in Cochrane for Small Business Week, so I was invited to be on a panel to talk about kind of branding behind the logo. What does it mean? What's the difference between branding and marketing? Alongside two other local experts, Greg Carmichael, who is a graphic designer, and Afton brezzoni, who is a content creator, content writer, and also brand strategist. So we had a really interesting conversation, and it was a cool format in that we were just in the room with a crowd of live audience, and we had the one microphone, so forgive the audio quality if it's not quite the same as previous episodes of the show, but I did want to just kind of take that opportunity in being in that event and capture the conversation for the podcast, because I knew the people in the room were going to benefit greatly from hearing that conversation, and I wanted to be able to bring it to all of you as well. So I hope you enjoy. Please connect with our guests. Their links and contact information is in the show notes below, and enjoy this conversation. We are recording this episode live for you to be produced for entrepreneur School, which is the podcast that I host. So we thought it would be a fun way to handle the conversation about what is a brand? How does that tie into your marketing, your visibility, how you talk about yourself, how you get yourself out there, and all of those things from the different perspectives, from our different backgrounds and experiences. So got a brand designer, a content writer, brand strategist, Visibility Coach. I have to call myself a visibility coach now, because nobody knows what a brand strategist is, and that's kind of a good place to start this conversation, actually, because brand strategy really is what needs to happen behind everything that you do, everything that you're putting out there, maybe talk about what that looks like. Looks like from a from a design perspective,
Greg Carmichael:
00:03:25
for many years, and it continues now. A lot of you know graphic designers or small agencies will sort of just jump into creating the logo and a brand, and it really is a bit aimless without having sort of a roadmap behind it. So what we really want to do, and especially with smaller businesses and even medium sized businesses, really kind of get to the heart of who they are and who their clients are, and really try to find their brand personality before we start designing anything. And I think that's one of the areas that we really need to improve. And from the design business is really to have people like Afton and Gally here to help us with that strategy before we even begin. So as Shane said, beyond the logo, it's actually before the logo is the strategy, which these two wonderful women are really, really good at.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:04:08
You know, I think we see the same thing on the content side as well. We have a lot of clients that will come to us who are, you know, really eager, understandably, to start creating content, start getting their message out there. And it's really similar to what you said. You know, there's so much that needs to be done before that stage. Do you have a brand personality? Do you have a brand story? Do you have key messaging? Do you then have a content strategy? And so it's natural, I think, to kind of want to run before we walk, but having all of these pieces in place that we're talking about is absolutely critical for really just making it less time consuming and more impactful.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:04:47
A lot of the times, what I will hear is like, where should I market my business, right? And that's like the question we all want to answer. And I wish that I could just give you, like a magical answer to that right now, but the. Things that you have to answer for yourself as a business owner before that are, well, who are you talking to, right? And how can you reach them? And what do you need to say in any of those platforms? So whether that looks like going to an event and after this, you have to now go and introduce yourself to everybody, well, what are you saying there? That's part of your brand messaging and your brand story, and the clarity that you get from going through a process to understand what that looks like and how you can articulate that and communicate that. It helps you make decisions. It helps you decide what kind of content should I create, where should it go, what kind of collaborations would be great for my business? What then does my logo look like? Because how do we interpret that in a visual way?
Greg Carmichael:
00:05:45
I think when you create a brand personality, you know, it's really finding out who your audience is, what are their pain points, what problems are you solving for those customers? I think once we we learn that, then we can start crafting a logo and a brand that sort of speaks to that. You know, is your brand going to be fun and friendly? Is it going to be more sophisticated? Is it going to be romantic? Is it going to be serious? We've got to determine all of these things, and we do that through research at the beginning. And I think once we do that research, we really find out who those customers are, we can really craft a better logo and a better brand. So, yeah, absolutely, it's a it's about finding who that customer is first, and what makes them tech too.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:06:24
I love that you bring up research as well, because I find that that's sort of another area where there's, again, there's often that urge to run before we walk kind of thing, but really taking the time to look, you know, not only at the competitive landscape, because that's not everything, right? It's like, Yes, we all have competitors, but we don't want to get too hung up on that. But I think actually doing the research with existing customers, or if you're a brand new business with ideal customers, you know, and taking the time to not make those assumptions about, well, this is what I think will resonate with people, or this is what I think people want to hear. And so that can, you know, it can definitely add to the timeline of what you're doing, but it gives you, there's no better insights, right? Because then we're not guessing, we're simply getting the language from the customers that they want to hear and that that matters to them. And I think that is just such a key phase.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:14
Do
Greg Carmichael:
00:07:14
you think people maybe fear the word research that thinking it's this great, big, drawn out process? You know, we had a we had a client once where we brought in a brand stratus, and God love her. She was amazing. She had a six month brand strategy research project. I'm like, oh, maybe we could try to get that down in a few weeks, which I think is probably where you could be, where you two are at. But this went on and on and on. Like, it doesn't really have to be that deep. We ended up with 43 different client personas. I'm like, there's quite a bit so, so I think for a lot of small businesses, like SMEs, micro businesses, I don't know that we need to go that extensive with our research, but you still
Greg Carmichael:
00:07:49
need to help, right? Yeah, we
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:51
do. We do three interviews. They're about 20 minutes. So yeah, I
Afton Brazzoni:
00:07:54
think less is more in that case, certainly. Yeah, going
Kelly Sinclair:
00:07:59
at that point, we're just overthinking everything, and we're just creating delays for ourselves. So no, and sometimes you have to just make decisions, right? Because maybe, and like, I don't know about people in this room, but sometimes it's like, well, I don't have clients yet, or I don't know who necessarily, like, what are they saying? I don't have an actual person to go and talk to you right now. To right now, and that's okay, but if you make some decisions about what the about targeting, niching, that scary word sometimes, and what that looks like, then you can start taking actions, and you can get feedback, right? And then you can iterate. I think this is an important place to go next. Maybe brands evolve. Brands will always continue to expand and evolve and change. Business cards you're seeing sitting on your chair from me are my like, third or fourth version of that, and that's because of different things that have happened in the way that I show up and do services, the way that I want to be portrayed. And that's something to know too, that you don't have to make every decision about your brand on day one, you can let that grow and expand with you. Well, it really comes
Greg Carmichael:
00:09:06
down to even a website. I mean, a website is never truly finished, and I think it's constantly evolving. And I guess people have this in their head that create the website, launch the website, forget about the website, but it's constantly changing and constantly updating as you learn more about your market, as you learn more about your clients and the services you're providing. I mean, in our own brand, we started, well, we still have flamingos in our brand, but we really don't talk about flamingos anymore. We talk about rockets and elevating your brand, and now our whole brand is really about rockets. It's just very strange how that's come about. So it's constantly evolving, as you said. So So I think one of the really cool things with the brand is it doesn't have to be so rigid, like it can be completely fluid, and it can change, change your colors. Or we have about 14 different colors in our brand. Change them on a whim, and as we see fit. You know, people think it has to be one color. I mean, maybe one or two colors might be a primary, but you can change it. It's perfectly fine. It doesn't have to be so rigid.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:09:57
Yeah, I like that. You bring that up because. It reminds me of my own brand, and we started off with very different imagery. A lot of it was, like campfire oriented, sort of around the concept of storytelling. That's changed over the years. I think it was two summers ago I had a different brand color, and, you know, that was very exciting for me. But, yeah, I think it's any strategy, any tactic, any of it can work, right? But it's about testing, trying. I was just at a business retreat about a month ago where that exact point came up, about like, just going out and trying something. Because sometimes, and probably most of the time, that is the best feedback you're going to get is the feedback from the market, as opposed to kind of holding something back until it's perfect, which what is perfect anyway, right? And so I think, you know, with websites, with anything that we do, it's, it's really important to just like, get it out there, test it and then iterate based on what's
Greg Carmichael:
00:10:49
the phrase better done than per pick. Yeah, right. One of the cool things that I found, too, and I looked at both of your sites recently, because, you know, I had to refresh my memory on who these wonderful people are. And one of the things that I really struck me, particularly here in town, is that, you know, our logos are important, don't get me wrong. But what I think is really cool with with both Kelly and Afton, you go to their websites, the brand, I think the logo is really their face. It's really that. And the reason why I find that apart when I first got to town, you know, I immigra myself in business community, I got to know a few people. And as it turns out, a year later, I only know still, I only know one real estate agent and I only know one mortgage broker. I don't know what their logos are, but I know their faces, right? I know who they are as a person. So I think that as much as we talk about logo logos, I think that you two, especially, have done a great job of your personal brand. You are the logo, your face, your personality, that is the logo. So that's something I kind of wanted to bring into the conversation, because, particularly with small businesses, that is critical to make sure that that you are the rep, and
Kelly Sinclair:
00:11:49
it kind of depends on the industry and the type of business that you have as well, what, how much you lean into the personal brand side of things. Certainly, if you're in any space where you are an expert, you're like a thought leader, or you sell your skill set, particularly, versus like a physical product, which can maybe lend more to a more like non personal logo, then that's where you want to be. Thinking about how you put yourself there, out there, as a person, and what comes through that, and how you show up and do things like this, right? Like showing up, doing podcast interviews, as far as like, what are the strategies that might get you the kind of recognition and relationship building and trust that you want from your audience that you're trying to grow? Then that's where you can lean into that personal brand.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:12:39
Yeah, and I think it brings up an interesting conversation around the work that you're really focused on, too, with visibility. Because I know this topic is something that I get asked all the time, too, if there is a business where it makes more sense for the founder to be more public facing, then it becomes, you know, all these questions around well, well, to what extent, or, you know, how much do I sort of put out there? And, yeah, I just think that maybe that's somewhere interesting to go with this, because I think that it's, it's a, it's a really fun element of branding when you can infuse it with that personality, but it always has to be to your comfort level, because otherwise, marketing is just going to feel like a complete slog. And I don't think any of us would want that for anybody. So, yeah, I don't know how that kind of comes up with either of your clients, but I think it's an interesting
Kelly Sinclair:
00:13:27
point. Yeah, in the end, you have to build relationships with people to make sales. So like end goal business money, that's it, right? But how? If it was only that simple. It's about establishing relationships and creating those connections. Because at the end of the day, even the product based businesses, and we know this, especially here in Cochrane, we care about who runs that business. We care about knowing who the person is, and if their kids are on our kids sports teams and all of that kind of stuff. And that's where you can even infuse the personality side, even when you are a product based business as well, or you are part of maybe a bigger consortium or something, but it's still like, like, you know, apton and I maybe do some similar things, and in the end, somebody is going to resonate with one person over another, and that's ultimately the choice. But how do we help you to make that choice when we can step into our own brand and personality a little bit more and just kind of lean into that and that's what's going to differentiate us, and it's not who's better than the other, it's just how you can make a choice and create that connection and feel confident in who you want to work with as a client. I
Greg Carmichael:
00:14:40
loved how you talked about, you know, building relationships, particularly in the community. You know, if you're a micro business or a small business, a local business, I think that's incredibly important. One of the things in the old adage, one of the sayings, is people do business with people who they like and trust, or who they know like and trust. And I think if your face is, if you're that type of business where you. Know you're the you're the principal in the business, and the business is really you. I think that's incredibly important. When you go to any one of these two webs, these two ladies websites, bang, you've got them right there, it's like, yeah, they I mean, her site's bright and pink. Her site tells a really good story, but it's really cool. Like, I immediately feel like I'm friends with these two when I go to their site. And if we can get, just imagine if we can get our clients to fall in love with us on the landing on our landing page, on our homepage. How cool is that, right? So I think that's what we try to do with faces, with human faces for us, it's, you know, it's giraffes and flamingos and other fun stuff, but, but I think, yeah, having the face on there, I think it's, it's so important that we build those relationships and building that trust well.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:15:38
And the approach with your site works too. Like I went there, it's so memorable. And I think that's the thing, right? Is you want to be memorable. You want to be authentic to you. And like Kelly said, it's basically giving a potential customer all the information they need to make an informed decision, both from the standpoint of, like, the logistics of what's actually involved with your services. But also, does this feel like a fit? You know, if any of you have employees, you know how important it is that team culture feels like a fit. And I think it's the same thing. You know, if you're putting your brand out there to a customer, they want to know what it's going to be like to work with you, right when they come into your world, how are they going to be taken care of? Not only are they getting a high quality product or service, but what's the actual human interaction going to be like?
Kelly Sinclair:
00:16:24
Yeah, that's such a huge part of knowing what your brand is, that brand experience and then that it is consistent in every element of how you interact with people. So you show up the same in all of your different marketing platforms. In real life, when someone runs into you at the grocery store and your employees as well. So when I do brand strategy sessions, like I do a VIP day, it doesn't take six months. It becomes a really great tool for communicating and articulating the mission and the vision of the founder, perhaps, or the leadership team with the employees, with the staff. Like, how are we gonna talk about our business? What does that look like in the way that we actually do the work that we do as well? So brand is so much more than a logo. I think that we're really underscoring that point, right? Not that there's anything wrong with love. Well, let's, let's,
Greg Carmichael:
00:17:13
let's bring that in. I mean, it's it to me, it's the the images that you're using in your brand are probably more important in your logo. I mean, you look at any of the material, your website, your business well, maybe not Kim's business cards, because her logo is pretty big on the card. But, you know, on a website, the logo is usually pretty tiny. But what really resonates with people is those images that you're going to be using, whether it's on your website or in your social pulse, or any of the other marketing that you do. I think it's those images that really resonate with people. And one of the things that, and I don't want to be critical to some some of the business I've seen in town, kind of, you know, every time I see a social post, it's a different kind of image, like, I think if you have some continuity with the type of images, like the the coloring, the style, the mood of the images, I think that helps with brand recall. The business is, I'm not going to name the business, but every time I see this, it's a different type of image, and I really don't know who that business is. By comparison, there's a competitor to that business that I see it say every day too. Basically, on Facebook, I'll see this business. And by the Yup, I know who that is. I know who that is. And I think it's really important to you know you're gonna have your consistency to make sure your logo is the right size, the color you use this you know similar colors or the same colors. We all know that. We all know that we should use the same pods, but it's really making sure that you're being consistent in the kinds of images that you use. So again, in our business, flamingos, rockets, giraffes, dinosaurs, is kind of a fun thing. I think it's just really concentrating on making sure that you know you're not going to stock photos and just grabbing anything willy nilly. It's really trying to create something that we do is we create an image bank of photos and graphics that the client can use throughout their social it's really important to make sure that the look and style of those images are the same. Again, all about brand recall,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:18:52
yeah, and that extends to the content as well, right? And the messaging. And it's for the exact same reason, I think, you know, we never want our customers, or potential customers, to have to be doing sort of the heavy lifting and figuring out, trying to remember, you know, maybe they're confused. Oh, well, I thought they stood for this, but, but now it's kind of looks like this. And yeah, exact same thing with the content, right? So it's figuring out what are the themes that you're going to talk about and that you want to become known for. And again, the less is more, right? You don't need 43 different ones, but just five, five things maybe that you kind of always talk about, you always want to be known for, and when you're writing the content as well, that's where brand messaging can really be useful, because you don't have to start from scratch every single time, just in the same way that if you have an image bank, you know you don't have to start from scratch. And I think especially when we're small businesses, we want to minimize the heavy lifting for this, and we want to really be able to have something that we can reference that's going to be power often. I think
Greg Carmichael:
00:19:50
you're the perfect person to talk about continuity of brand voice. You know, in my world, it's visual like we want to make sure the images and logos are consistent. But you know, when I meet somebody like you, and we. Talk about the tone of voice and the consistency of the messaging. Can you talk a bit, a little bit about that? Because I think you're the perfect person to address that, something that we rarely ever talk about, but, but brand voice? Yeah,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:20:11
sure. I think you know, essentially, you've got the brand personality, which incorporates the visuals and the verbal side, and then the voice really is something where, again, you want it to be distinct, you want it to be compelling, but you also want it to be authentic to you. And so coming up with just a few attributes, and then, of course, you've got tone, which is the layer under that, where it's like, how does the voice change depending on the context? You know, maybe we're a little bit more formal on the website, maybe we're not, maybe we're really friendly in social media, just tends to be the way that it goes. But again, when you know that you can kind of audit everything that you have out there in your marketing to begin with, and you can say, Well, does this even sound like us? Maybe we need to change this? Yeah. I don't know if there's anything you want to add on that Kelly as well, because I know your expertise is in that area as well. Yeah. Well, what
Kelly Sinclair:
00:20:53
I was going to say is, we've all heard the saying that somebody needs to interact and experience your brand like seven or more times. And with the amount of content we see these days, I think it has to be like, sure, as you relate, it's gonna say it's totally more than that now, times per day. And so if you're sending a confusing message by not being consistent in the tone, in the voice, in even the message itself, like what you're talking about, like, even with expert based businesses, like we have, I just talk about visibility, like, that's all I talk about now, because that's what I need you to know that you can come to me for behind that. Of course, there's lots of other things. There's your marketing strategy, there's your brand messaging and all of those pieces. But if I'm like, sometimes talking about one of those things and sometimes talking about another one, it probably isn't going to hit you enough times to actually break through and then make that connection, because building a brand is about building a reputation and being known for something so leaning into like, the main thing that you want to be known for. But
Greg Carmichael:
00:21:56
it's not just in your outgoing messages, like what's on your website, what's in your social but I think it's also how you communicate by email or if you're using text or or other, you know, not chat, for example, I think every interaction you have to be consistent and how you how you speak and how you type and how you phrase things and and really it comes down to how you behave too. You got to be consistent in everything when that customer is, you know, having these touch points. I want to come back to that for a second, because I think I'm not sure if the group here maybe was following the touch points things that's more of a sales activity. But can you touch more or touch more of the touch points? What does that what does that mean a customer has to touch your business 15 times before they actually say, yes, yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:22:37
I mean, I feel like it's interactions, right? Like baseline is, if nobody knows about you, they can't buy from you. You can't help them. You can't make a sale, right? So putting yourself out there in a variety of different ways, exposure for your brand, for your in whatever this is like the whole wide world of visibility and marketing, right? Showing up at events like this, meeting the people that you meet tonight, seeing them again later at your kids soccer practice, or whatever that looks like, getting on podcasts, or wherever they're gonna find you in your online presence, whatever that looks like for you, which is not always everyone's favorite thing. So maybe you're doing some advertising on the radio, or you're part of like a local gift guide, or you're doing collaborations inside of your stores with other people's products and stuff, which I love to see, love to see, that that just gives you more touch points. I also want to just remind us to talk about AI in a minute, because I feel like the conversation could go there too. Yes, oh
Greg Carmichael:
00:23:40
boy. Well, so we're in the process of rebrand, rebranding our brand. It's been 12 months. It's still not launched. It's still not out there. We had some good progress today, and a lot of things we talked about is, there is so much AI out there. I'm not an AI expert. I know that there's been a couple of AI experts through the town here. Andrew is one of them. He speaks a lot to AI. I'm the complete opposite. I'm the human guy. We're humans. We all the work we do. We have such great team. I think that people really, you know, when they're creating a brand, it's so personal. I really think that they want to work with a human I don't really speak much to AI. I do confess that we use some of it. We use some generative AI stuff when we're creating backgrounds and certain things in our design. But, yeah, maybe you two could lead the conversation on, not anti AI just, I feel like, you know, we're focused on creating this human brand that, yeah, I mean, it is doing some amazing things. I will say that one of our clients posted today. She's got some AI generated headshots. And you know, anything I've seen so far have been we call dead eyes, you know, human generated images. If you look at the eyes of the human in quotes for podcast, they have these dead eyes. This just doesn't seem to be any warmth or life to them. But when Joanne showed me her headshots today that she got, she. Paid 50 bucks for AI generated headshots. I'm like, what? Come on. She got 100 headshots. And, you know, 95% of them weren't any good, but she picked out three or four that were incredible. I saw them today. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. So, you know, you talk AI from, you know, last year to even last week, it's changed so much that, yeah, I'm not anti I'm a fan when it's used correctly. And her case, there someplace, there's
Kelly Sinclair:
00:25:25
nothing better than custom brand photos. Yes,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:25:28
it's true. It's true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is something I literally get asked about almost every day, so I can definitely talk about it for ages. And I think, to your point, I mean, I'm certainly on the I think that human connection, there's nothing that can beat it. But I absolutely think that depending on the type of business that you have, and obviously, you know you'll, you'll have to think about this, but it's really, really wise to think about how you can incorporate it, what you can be doing. I think that in my own industry, particularly among content writers, when I mean, AI generative. AI has been around for a long time, but when it really kind of exploded back in November of 2022 it was really, oh my goodness, this is just going to tank all of us, right? And it's just going to put us all over the job. And I think we've really realized how much that human direction is still needed, and it's actually kind of opened up more interesting opportunities as well. And so I think with anything, you have to kind of just ride the wave, because it's going right, and we don't, we don't have a choice but to kind of learn and be uncomfortable. And you know, it's been a journey for me, certainly. But yeah, I'd love to hear what you think. Well,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:26:38
I was gonna ask, because when it comes to content, this seems like an obvious place where we can maybe save time if we can get a robot to write some stuff for us so that we can create more of these touch points, right that we're talking about. But that's where it comes back to really knowing what your brand is and being able to articulate for yourself and your robot friend. Because it does work once you when you're able to like add that clarity and speak to what your what your voice looks like, the risk is you need to make sure that it's still coming out and it sounds like you. Because I think that there's so much AI generated content now that's going out there, we're starting to get these little red flags as readers and consumers like we know that was made by AI I heard somebody like reference a few phrases. I'm gonna say it anyways, Greg, one of them is rocket ship emojis. Rocket ship emojis, or the words unlock the power of as a title, like teaser. Ai, like Staples.
Greg Carmichael:
00:27:36
That's right, yeah.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:27:37
But when you can train, and I've been doing this more lately. I think probably just because I'm working with myself most of the time and I'm lonely, I need a robot friend to like, be like, let's talk about this thing. And oh my gosh, the response is it's starting to talk back to me, like me. It's like, I love that you said that. I'm like, oh, that's exactly how I would have said that. Well, it's
Greg Carmichael:
00:27:57
great. It's great as a base to get started with that if you're writing, you're writing short form content or long form content, it's really great to help you get started. If you feel you need that help, it's perfectly fine. I don't have that issue. I love writing, so it's perfectly fine for me to just go at it. But I think if we use chat as sort of a baseline to really get some thoughts down and to generate some ideas, I think it's wonderful. I kind of want to come back to the person in the room who was heckling me about the AI. I want to talk a little bit about being authentic. Yeah, when we create images and when we write copy, we want to be true to ourself as app and set. I think if you're using, you know, AI headshots, maybe for your LinkedIn profile, fine. But I think if you're creating that brand imagery that that I talked about earlier, having consistent imagery, or creating a bank of images. There's absolutely nothing better than having a professional photographer come in and shoot your business. We did it ours. We've got an incredible library of actual people in our studio, and they are just absolutely stunning. These images just they make us look better than we are. It's really kind of cool. That's fun. It's fun too. So, yeah, so to to you in the back there, thank you for pointing that out, because there was a time and a place for AI and I would tread very carefully on
Kelly Sinclair:
00:29:09
I have to ask the obvious question, because, like, we are all trained experts in our crafts, like, sometimes that's unusual that you, you know, went to school, did a thing, now you still do the thing or a version of that thing, right? And so we maybe resist like things that try to make it easier, or maybe make us feel like we're, you know, not as valuable, even though, like, because that's what you said, right? Like, yeah, 100% content writers are now afraid that we won't have a job because AI is going to take it away, essentially. So how much of it is like maybe a little bit of stubbornness on our part?
Greg Carmichael:
00:29:43
It could very well be. We were talking about canva.com today in our studio. It, you know, we talked about that very thing. You know, every once why people say canva.com is going to eliminate graphic designers. But here we are in our studio. We're busier than ever. We're eight graphic designers at our business, and never been busy. So I'm not too worried about that. I think there's these tools are great for certain people that that want to use them, that love to use them, that that need to use them. It's, we use it too, but it's, it's really using the right tool at the right time for the right thing, exactly.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:30:14
And, I mean, that's been around for years too, right? So it's like, if that was gonna take someone out, I think it would have done it already. And I think that there's, it just depends on what you need, right? Because for us, like our clients, come to us because they do want high quality subject matter, expert driven, original content, and sure, if we write a long blog post for them, yeah, they can. They can pop that into AI. They can get 20 social media posts out of it. That's fine, but I think it's, it's kind of about just knowing. And again, that comes back to brand identity, because that's what they feel, is their brand identity is to have those sort of marketing assets, and that's in alignment with them. And I think it's different for everybody. And you know, there's no strategy, and there's no playbook that's going to be one size fits all. And so, you know, to go to Kelly's point at the very beginning, that's like, your sort of purview is just to make those decisions and to say, you know, okay, well, here's where, because it all works. Is the thing? It all works. Every tactic, it all works. But is it gonna work for you, and is it gonna be enjoyable for you to actually do that type of marketing is what you have to consider, I'm
Kelly Sinclair:
00:31:22
like, saluting everything that you just said there for sure. It's so true like and that's really why the thing that differentiates your strategy, the way that you come across, the success you ultimately have, is your brand, because it that's the core, and that's why we're having this conversation about what's the core of everything that you do, everything that you put out there is the clarity around that, and the standing strong in it too, because that allows you to lean into different perspectives, you know, pick your hills to die on from a position perspective, like, what are you going to touch? Not touch when you want to talk about those kinds of things.
Greg Carmichael:
00:32:01
Yeah, I like you talk about what, you know, pick what hill you want to die on when we first launched our site a few years ago. I mean, it was riddled with flaws that only I can see, and I still see them today, because they we never fixed them. And it's like, Greg, do you really need to fix those? I'm like, Well, yeah, it's really bugging me, especially in mobile, because the stuff this doesn't work properly, and it's like, doesn't seem to matter all these years later. So yeah, so I decided to not die on that hill, so it doesn't matter. And that's
Afton Brazzoni:
00:32:27
such a good point, because, you know, we've been talking about business being about relationships, and I feel like that's so much more important. Like you clearly have, you know, the great relationships, those are what's going to drive your business forward, not whether or something on your website that only you can see, you know, but we all do it, of course, like there's, I think attention to detail is kind of a hallmark of our industry. So we probably all notice things in our own business, but that's very true. But you know, not something that anybody else would
Greg Carmichael:
00:32:50
Yeah, we talked to a client a few months ago. One of the things that they, you know, they really wanted to talk more about marketing. We're, we're more about branding than we are marketing. But you know, they do intertwine. And one of the things that we said is, you know, can't believe it said, coming from our branding guidance, like your logo is really not as important as you think it is. It's really about you and the activities as a small business. It's really what you're doing as a small business that are that's more important, what you're posting on social, that's really where your your true focus should be. So for a small business to come and spend 1000s of dollars on creating a logo and a brand. I'm like, Ah, let's not do that. Let's focus some dollars on more marketing activities. You know, sure, let's get you a decent low and a decent brand. But it doesn't need to be a $20,000 brand for crying out loud, right? Just, you know, understand that, yeah,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:33:33
I think we could have a whole conversation about the mindset piece that's there and that how that's potentially individuals preventing themselves from taking the next step that they need to take. We won't derail this whole conversation, but I do think we should go back to just defining the difference between brand and marketing, if that's helpful as well, like where we can see how those two things are different and very much also complementary to each other. So how would either of you define those? I'm gonna jump in because
Greg Carmichael:
00:34:01
we've been talking about this very thing and some of the networking circles that I've been in, and, you know, people that have gotten to know me the last few months, they're like, they think that I own this marketing agency. I'm like, I'm like, not quite I'm in branding. They're like, well, that's marketing. I'm like, Well, no, it's not. I'm the logo guy. So now I tell people I'm the logo guy, and that seems to resonate, and also that logos are important. So really, if you think about a branding, the word branding, it's a verb, is to create a brand. So if you hear the word branding, I don't think branding is marketing. Branding comes first. So we create a brand, we create a logo, we create the brand assets, the website, all the other marketing cloud. Then we move into marketing all those tactics, like, like social like, you know, if you're doing AdWords, if you're doing events, like, it's marketing comes second. So branding, just think of terms. Branding is the creation of a brand, right? And once you have that brand, then you market. Yeah, how I view it?
Afton Brazzoni:
00:34:53
Yeah, branding is the identity and the essence, right? So it's the inherent qualities of the company that actually enables you to go to market. In a way that's gonna be effective, because you can do the social you can do the AdWords, you can do the events, but if you don't have a brand to stand on, it's not gonna be nearly as impactful. So I just consider it to be the Yeah, the essence and the identity of the company.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:35:13
And I like to say your brand is who you are, and marketing is how you tell people about
Greg Carmichael:
00:35:18
it. That's beautiful. Yeah? That's great. Do we have time to talk about quality of brand and marketing? Yes, we have to. There's a little bit of time. So one of the things that I like, you know, a lot of small businesses, you know, we don't have the resources to do some of the things that some of the bigger companies do and and I wish they did. I mean, I'm a small business too. I don't have the resources. We had an AdWords campaign that we ran last year, and it, you know, it the investment was quite high, and it's like, oh, this is, this is tough to swallow. It's necessary, but it's tough to swallow. So we don't necessarily have the resources to do everything, but I think that it's wise to still have a little bit of investment in creating, as I said earlier, a decent logo. And what I mean by that is, you know, we don't really want to do a $5 logo. We don't really want your aunt's sister's cousin's boyfriend to do one if he's or she is not really a designer or not design capable. I really think that you know your logo, particularly your brand and, oh my gosh, your website, for sure. I think it's critically important to make sure that the quality of that and the quality of all the brand assets and the social that you're putting out there is, is really the best that you can can afford. You know, if you put out, you know, social posts with lousy images and kind of cheesy images, we all know about cheesy stock images, if you're doing that, it really kind of erodes the brand, and really, I think it undermines your credibility as an expert in your business. So, so we're really big on, you know, we talk a lot about elevating your brand, but, you know, that's when there's money and resources to do that. But I think as as an individual that you're, you know, you're doing it yourself. You're creating a Wix or a Squarespace site, great tools that you're able to have that decent quality of branded assets. So I think it's really important to make sure that you keep that focus of quality images in particular up there, yeah,
Kelly Sinclair:
00:37:02
but we've been having the conversation about how your brand is your reputation, and so everything that you put out there is a first impression, right? And we all know that you don't get those back. So reputations take forever to build and moments to destroy. Love, yeah, someone who's worked in crisis communication,
Afton Brazzoni:
00:37:20
or far too much. Yeah, it's so true, you know. And I think it really extends to the content as well. And, you know, not to dive too far back into the AI conversation, but it's, you don't want to just sort of generate something, slap it up there, walk away. It's no, we need to really look at this. Is it on brand? And I think a lot of times, you know, we say quality, but it doesn't have to be expensive, right? It doesn't have to be complicated. I think just giving it the thought and the care that it deserves, because it is your public face, right? That's, it's the face of your business, and it can be done sometimes a lot more cost effective and a lot more simply than people might anticipate. It's
Greg Carmichael:
00:37:58
never been easier. I mean, tools like canva.com, and every they're incredible. I mean, as as professional graphic designers, we hesitated at first when this came along, and, you know, we watched it, and we watched it play out, and we saw how incredible it was for non designers to use it. And it's at a point now where our professional designs, we use it every day, for some of our clients, just because it's what they're they want us to use. It's never been better for the small business owner to create decent quality branded items. I mean, it's just amazing. There's templates, there's all kinds of things you do custom work. It's just absolutely incredible. The thing I would caution is just to make sure that you're choosing the consistent images. If you're using a template, use it all the way through. Use it for everything that you do. Right? So it's never been easier to build and maintain a quality visual brand.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:38:41
So maybe a good way for us to wrap up this conversation would be if we could each just share either one final like thoughts or question for listeners and our audience to to walk away with, with respect to how they can implement what we're just talking about.
Greg Carmichael:
00:38:58
One of the things that I like to tell some of our clients, particularly clients, smaller clients, that are doing their own marketing or their own well, they don't really do their own branding. We do that for them, but it's it's really think about, particularly in social think about what you're posting. Are you proud of what you're posting? If you're a little bit if you're not confident, then maybe it needs to be a little bit better. So maybe go back and spend a little bit more time and effort in Caber or wherever, however you're building it, just make sure that you're proud and confident of what you're of what you're putting out there for the face of your brand.
Afton Brazzoni:
00:39:31
Yeah, I think I would leave people with, you know, on On a similar note, doing the work up front, really getting these brand strategy, content strategy elements in place, both visually and verbally. It honestly makes everything so much easier going forward. And so just investing that bit of time and perhaps money, you know, you can however, it's always either time or money, it's gonna save you so much in the end. And so I would say, yeah, just just really put care into that phase of the brand. And then. Yeah, you'll have something to reference. So you don't have to look at a blank screen and think, Well, what am I going to post today on social right? You'll have something andall about PrEP.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:40:07
Yeah, yeah. And I think the question that I would leave you to ask yourselves is, what do I want to be known for? And then have that as your litmus test? Does this thing I'm about to do or say or create. Help me to achieve that.
Greg Carmichael:
00:40:23
It's awesome, very good.
Kelly Sinclair:
00:40:27
You did it. You just listened to another episode of the entrepreneur school podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prepped dinner or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here, I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram. Head to entrepreneurschool.ca. For tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community and until next time, go out there and do the thing you
