How to Build a Million-Dollar Brand Strategy

Last Updated on: 30th April 2025, 11:06 am

In this episode of The Simply Be Found Huddle, hosts Rob and Dean welcomed brand strategist Heather Schaefer of Branding You Big. With 30 years of experience in branding, graphic design, advertising, and marketing, Heather shared valuable insights on building effective brand strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

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About This Huddle’s Special Guest

Heather Schaefer is the founder of Branding You Big, a brand strategy agency that helps entrepreneurs develop comprehensive brand strategies. With a 30-year background in branding, graphic design, advertising, and marketing, Heather specializes in giving solopreneurs and small business owners the “blue-chip, million-dollar brand experience” typically reserved for large corporations.

Her unique approach combines deep strategic thinking with creative design, helping clients develop clear brand identities that drive business growth. Heather’s MVP framework and client insight interview process allow her to create complete brand strategies in as little as two weeks, setting her clients up for marketing success.

The Simply Be Found team would love to thank Heather for spending time with Dean and Rob and having this insightful talk. You can reach out to her on the following platforms:

Key Takeaways From This Huddle

One of Heather’s key points throughout the conversation was that many entrepreneurs think they have a brand when they really just have a logo. She emphasized that without a comprehensive brand strategy, business owners are essentially guessing with their marketing efforts.

“Without a brand strategy, you really don’t have a brand,” Heather explained. “A lot of my clients come to me thinking they have a brand because they have a logo, a couple of colors, and maybe a tagline. But that’s not enough.”

The MVP Framework: Building a Strong Foundation

Heather shared her “MVP method” for developing a strong brand foundation that includes:

• Mission
• Values
• Vision
• Purpose

“When we start our businesses, we often get a couple things together and a logo, but we haven’t dug deep into these aspects,” Heather noted. “Once we do, the business has so much more clarity, and the brand strategy starts to take shape.”

The Power of Research in Brand Strategy

A significant part of Heather’s process involves extensive research, including:

1. Competitive analysis
2. Industry research
3. Interviewing clients’ clients

“The best way to really get the voice and the words is from clients,” she shared. “AI won’t give you what those clients are saying about who they’ve been working with.”

This research-driven approach allows Heather to create what she calls a “million-dollar brand experience” for solopreneurs who don’t typically have access to the resources that larger companies do.

The Impact of AI on Branding and Design

The conversation also addressed how AI is changing the branding and design landscape. While acknowledging AI’s usefulness as a tool, Heather cautioned:

• AI-generated content can still be spotted by experienced professionals
• Real people are still necessary to ensure strategic, on-brand content
• AI-generated logos cannot be trademarked, creating potential issues for growing businesses

“AI is a great tool. We’ve all used it. We’ve implemented it in many ways, but people are still the ones driving it and making sure it’s strategic and on-brand,” Heather explained.

Common Branding Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make

The hosts and Heather identified several common branding pitfalls:

1. Too many hands in the process

When too many people modify a brand, it can look “scattered and duct-taped together,” as Heather put it. One client told her: “Where my brand went wrong is too many hands got a hold of it.”

2. Constantly tweaking without purpose

The group discussed how entrepreneurs often fall victim to “shiny object syndrome,” making frequent changes to their branding without strategic reason.

3. Focusing on design before strategy

Many business owners prioritize aesthetics over strategy, creating something that looks good but doesn’t effectively communicate their value.

4. Creating overly complicated logos

The most effective logos are simple and memorable. As Rob noted, “All of them are simple, but they have little things inside of them that trigger a thought process in your brain.”

When to Invest in Branding

The conversation included practical advice about when entrepreneurs should invest in professional branding:

• For startups: Begin with a basic “print shop” logo to get started while you validate your concept
• Once you have proof of concept: Invest in a comprehensive brand strategy when you understand your target market
• For established businesses: Consider a brand refresh around the 10-year mark, but only if the strategy is strong

“If in two or three years you feel you need a new logo, you didn’t do it right in the first place,” Heather advised.

The Business Impact of Strong Branding

Heather shared a compelling example of the ROI of good branding, describing a client who had been stuck at the same revenue level for three years. After implementing a complete brand strategy:

• The client increased revenue by 77% in under 60 days
• They’re now on pace for seven figures in 2025

“It just took off because people were like, ‘Yes, that is it.’ They just resonated with it,” Heather explained.

The discussion also touched on the psychological impact of branding elements:

• Colors: Different colors trigger specific responses (for example, red and yellow used by fast food chains trigger salivation)
• Simplicity: Simple designs are easier for the brain to process and remember
• Layout and position: Strategic placement of elements can influence user behavior

Branding in the Digital Age

The hosts and Heather discussed how digital requirements have changed branding needs:

• Logos now need multiple variations to work across different platforms
• Digital marketing requires consistency across numerous networks
• A comprehensive brand strategy must account for both digital and physical applications

The Marketing Ecosystem

Rob explained his “tree of marketing” concept, emphasizing that everything in marketing is connected:

• Roots: Listings and citations across networks
• Trunk: Your website
• Branches: Blogs, social media, advertising

“Every single thing we do inside of marketing is connected in some way,” Rob explained. “Everything in marketing is this great big ecosystem.”

The conversation highlighted that effective branding requires strategy, research, and consistency. For entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses, investing in a comprehensive brand strategy isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about creating a foundation that makes all marketing efforts more effective.

As Heather summarized: “You can’t afford not to have a brand strategy in today’s digital landscape. You’re going to waste more money in your marketing, more time in your marketing without it.”

Ready To Start Building That Million-Dollar Brand?

Building a million-dollar brand is challenging but not impossible. If you want to take the first step into building a brand like this, check out Simply Be Found’s membership benefits and see how we can help you grow organically.

Transcript

• 0:00 | Welcome to the Huddle with Heather Schaefer
• 0:13 | Heather’s Background in Branding and Business Growth
• 1:20 | How Branding You Big Helps Entrepreneurs
• 2:21 | Impact of AI on Branding and Marketing Industries
• 3:20 | Strategy vs. Design: Why Both Matter
• 4:06 | The Role of Real People in AI-Driven Creativity
• 5:00 | How AI Is Changing Graphic Design Workflows
• 6:10 | Spotting AI-Generated Designs and Common Mistakes
• 7:02 | Copyright and Trademark Concerns with AI Logos
• 8:00 | Legal Challenges Around AI and Voice Cloning
• 9:00 | Why Building a Strong Brand Strategy Matters
• 10:00 | Heather’s Process: Research, Client Interviews, and Insights
• 11:06 | The MVP Framework: Mission, Values, Vision, Purpose
• 12:11 | Moving Into Design: Aligning with Strategy
• 13:20 | Common Branding Mistakes Among Solopreneurs
• 14:30 | Why Most “Brands” Are Really Just Logos
• 16:00 | The Psychological Impact of Colors in Branding
• 17:20 | Simple Logos: Why They Stand the Test of Time
• 18:00 | Challenges with Modern Digital Branding
• 20:00 | How to Create Versatile Logos for Different Platforms
• 22:00 | Branding Guides: Why They’re Essential
• 24:00 | Digital Requirements: Logos for Apple, Google, and More
• 26:00 | Simplicity Beats Complexity in Branding
• 28:00 | How Often Should You Refresh Your Brand?
• 30:00 | Real-Life Examples: Clients Who Needed a Rebrand
• 32:00 | Common Mistakes: Too Many Hands in the Branding Process
• 34:00 | When to Rebrand vs. When to Stick With Your Logo
• 36:00 | Managing Branding Costs as a Startup
• 38:00 | Proof of Concept Before Investing Heavily
• 40:00 | Why You Shouldn’t Overcomplicate Your Brand Early
• 42:00 | The Importance of Research Before Marketing
• 44:00 | Branding Strategy vs. Marketing Strategy
• 46:00 | Building a Brand Ecosystem: Everything is Connected
• 48:00 | Shiny Object Syndrome and the Importance of Focus
• 50:00 | Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Platforms
• 52:00 | Managing Website Changes the Right Way
• 54:00 | Why Your Website May Not Need a Redesign
• 56:00 | Graphic Designers vs. Brand Strategists: Key Differences
• 58:00 | How a Bad Logo Can Confuse Potential Clients
• 1:00:00 | Branding as the Roots, Marketing as the Branches
• 1:02:00 | Branding and Marketing Must Work Together
• 1:04:00 | Why Small Business Owners Need Strong Brand Foundations
• 1:06:00 | Where to Find Heather Schaefer and Get Free Resources
• 1:07:18 | Closing Thoughts and Thank You to Heather

0:00 | Welcome to the Huddle with Heather Schaefer

Rob: Welcome to the Simply Be Found Huddle. You have Dean and Rob where we talk about everything business. Today we have our guest Heather. Heather, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us. Can you tell everybody a little bit about you?

Heather: Sure, yeah. I am so glad to be here. This is going to be a fun conversation today.

0:13 | Heather’s Background in Branding and Business Growth

Heather: So a little bit about me—I am a brand strategist for Branding You Big is the name of my business. I have been in the branding, graphic design, advertising, marketing space for about 30 years, and I’ve seen it transform and take a lot of twists and turns. I have run several businesses and have multiple income streams that I draw one brand from, and show entrepreneurs how to do that now so that they can be found.

Rob: So this sounds like a perfect spot on the be found.

Dean: Perfect.

Rob: And I don’t think your—your agency is not using us currently, is it?

Heather: No.

Rob: Okay. I didn’t look before doing it. I didn’t think so, and I’m waiting to be wrong on that at some point because we have a lot of marketing agencies that use our listings engine, which kind of replaces out Yext, Moz, and all those different types of things and does it a little bit differently. But I want to make sure you’re not a member because I’m waiting to have to put my foot in my mouth for that at some point, because it’s going to happen. We’re getting to the point to where we—Dean and I pretty much know every member that’s in, but we’re getting to the point that sometimes it’s like, “Who’s that? Where are they at? What’s—what are they about?” Right?

1:20 | How Branding You Big Helps Entrepreneurs

Heather: Right, well, that’s good but which is a good—what’s a good—which is a good problem.

Rob: It’s a good problem to have. I mean, it is, but it’s not… You know, you kind of lose that small business feel when you, as you get bigger, you know, and we try to keep it, you know, more—you know, that’s why we have members because we try to make sure that we know everybody a little bit and what they do, so, right?

Heather: Yep. I mean, I was responding to a support ticket yesterday, and I’m in the line to pick up my kids from school, and I’m like, “I’m pretty sure this is the plan you’re on, but my system’s not showing me what plan you’re on right now. Am I assuming correctly?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s the plan I’m on.” I’m like, “Okay, great.” I said, “I thought so, but I want to make sure so I didn’t lead you down a way that didn’t—wasn’t the direction you needed to go.”

But I mean, it’s one of those things to where that’s where being real is everything. So from what I did for research audio, it kind of looks like you’re majorly in the design space. You’re all about the design that has taken some major loops and turns over the last year, two years with all the AI stuff coming out. So what kind—what kind of trends are you seeing right now?

2:21 | Impact of AI on Branding and Marketing Industries

Heather: Yeah, well, actually, you know, I have this interesting place where I—design is definitely where I—where my foundation is and strategy is that other side of my brain. I have this really crazy left brain, right brain. I put strategy to design, so it’s not—it doesn’t just, like, look cool, it actually is strategic and purposeful.

Um, but as it relates to AI, you know, it’s so interesting because, um, certainly there’s going to be so many people out there who are like, whatever industry you’re in, whether you’re a copywriter or a designer or in marketing or do social media, you know, there’s this fear that, um, AI is going to take your job or take over, and really what we’re seeing is, I think the—the trend is kind of circling back and—and it’s going to change again, right?

3:20 | Strategy vs. Design: Why Both Matter

Heather: Next week we were talking about this before the record is that it’s changing so quickly. However, I—I see that it is still so necessary that there are real people involved in all of these AI, uh, tools because, um, you know, right now you can still—you can still spot an AI post or image or photograph, and um, so I just, you know, would constantly be reminding, especially business owners, you know, really be on top of that and, um, and don’t discount the value of a person in that. AI is a great tool. We’ve all used it. We’ve implemented it in many ways, but people are still the ones really driving it and making sure that it’s strategic and on brand and, you know, meets all the criteria.

4:06 | The Role of Real People in AI-Driven Creativity

Rob: So, um, when it—when it comes to AI and design, I mean, if we were talking two weeks ago, actually probably like three weeks ago, we would have said Chat GPT couldn’t handle the design at all, and it would—it would screw it up, and you could tell right away. Where it is today, it’s gotten a lot better than where it was. I mean, light years different than where it was three weeks ago. I think it’s was about three weeks ago when they put that release out. But I mean—and now for what it’s—

So when I’ve talked to our design team that we have and I’m talking to different designers and stuff out there, it’s one of those things to where the writers were using it as an assistant that could help them get over writer’s block and not using it to where it’s the end-all-be-all and just publish it out content, but actually just using it to do your research, get your basis, get your, you know, your original design down.

5:00 | How AI Is Changing Graphic Design Workflows

Rob: Well, now AI has gotten to the point with Chat GPT to where you can do that as a designer as well to get ideas, like how would you approach this? And it’ll show an example, and it kind of gets it—kind of helps you go through because I was working with our design team on it, and they’re like, “So it kind of goes through, it shows you exactly what it’s thinking. It’s not perfect, but it makes my brain go, ‘Yep, I could go there.'” And some of that you could take and put inside of Photoshop and take and use it as your base to kind of build on that, kind of speeds up that process, which makes—makes it more of that assistant versus replacing you.

Heather: Yes, um, you know, I agree with you on that. Um, I think where I come from, so having so much experience in old school, I’m gonna guess call it, you know, I mean, I was in the—I was—my dad raised me in the dark room, you know? I was—I was old school, and so knowing some of those things, I still can spot an image that is off, that isn’t, you know.

6:10 | Spotting AI-Generated Designs and Common Mistakes

Heather: I can even spot when I see a—a model like the hand is in the pocket weird, like your hand doesn’t bend that way, you know, things like that that are just like, that’s just not quite right, um.

So to your point, you know, yes, it has gotten a lot better, and certainly, you know, the trend as we’re talking, depending on when this airs, um, you know, all over is kind of like, create your own little avatar as Barbie, you know, like you’re seeing that all over Chat GPT and, um, you know, there’s still a lot of work to be done in there too that you still need that—somebody who really knows what they’re doing.

The other thing that I really would caution business owners on this is that just remember that, um, in AI, what you put out there, other people can use too, so you’re giving it ideas, and other people can use that.

7:02 | Copyright and Trademark Concerns with AI Logos

Heather: Um, you know, I often face this sometimes when people—um, business owners might say, well, I could just, you know, crank out a logo through AI or through a free resource, and just remember, you won’t ever be able to trademark that through AI or through a free resource. So if you are a—growing a business, and you know, what—when we start our businesses, we don’t always know where they’re going to go. If you’re going to scale and get to that place and that level in your business where you need to copyright and trademark things, and you’ve got an AI-generated logo, um, even if there’s pieces of it, you know—tool AI can pick up on AI tools, and so it’s just really something we have to be aware of, um.

I’m sure the legal teams have their hands full, to be really honest, with all of this because, um, most of them don’t know what to do with it.

8:00 | Legal Challenges Around AI and Voice Cloning

Rob: I mean, from everybody I’ve talked to from, uh, everybody I know in the legal world, they have no idea what to do with it, especially when it comes to the voice side, um, and it being able to copy someone’s voice and, you know, that could make—I—I—I scared the hell out of a group of really big attorneys once. I was like, “So I could clone any of your voices, and it could make a threat to anybody, and how are you guys going to prove that it wasn’t you, and how’s that going to be done in the court of law?” And they’re like, “You could do that?” I’m like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Well, I don’t know what that’s going to look like.” I’m like, “There’s no case law on it.”

So I mean, it’s all open water. We’ve never really had to think about that or even go down that, and you can’t pull laws that were from the 1800s into that realm because that’s night and day difference of what ever existed, right?

Dean: The problem gets to be, Heather, I think, is what you’re saying is, if AI creates it, who really owns the copyright or the trademark on it? If—right—AI generated, who owns it? I mean, um, you know—

9:00 | Why Building a Strong Brand Strategy Matters

Dean: I—I—I have another business that’s screen print embroidery company, and people come in with these things, they go, “I created this great logo,” and you go, “It’s not going to work,” you know, kind of thing. I’m sure you probably had the same thing happening, and it’s really important to have a good brand, a good recognition, uh. Tell us how your process works when you—when you get that going.

Heather: Yeah, well, you know, I’ve—I’ve created brands for corporate agencies, big, large blue-chip companies. I’ve also created brands for medium-size, kind of locally based businesses, and you—really now where I get to focus is for that entrepreneur, that solopreneur who doesn’t have access to all of those big things. And so I give them that blue-chip, million-dollar brand experience for that solopreneur, and where I start first is a lot of research. Um, I research the compet—I do the competitive analysis, I research the industry, and do a lot of digging too.

10:00 | Heather’s Process: Research, Client Interviews, and Insights

Heather: Part of that research also includes interviewing my clients’ clients. Um, the best way to really get the voice and get the words—AI won’t give you what those clients are saying about their—their, you know, who they’ve, uh, been working with. And so that has been really a pivotal part of the brand strategy for me, and, um, not too many people at this level for the solopreneur are offering that.

You know, brands like Nike and Louis Vuitton and, you know, Lululemon, all these brands, they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on that kind of research. And so I offer that in focus groups for my clients, and that’s where I start first, um, getting to the design aspect is fun, it’s obviously what I love, but unless you have a strategy and really have done your research and your homework beforehand, it just isn’t going to—gonna catch, right? So that’s really the first phase.

Um, and then the second phase is we really move into, um, getting a feel for the voice and the messaging and digging into what I find—so many entrepreneurs have not really spent the time on, and that’s what I call my MVP method, um, foundation of their brand.

11:06 | The MVP Framework: Mission, Values, Vision, Purpose

Heather: And that’s really getting clear on their mission, their voice, their values, their vision, and their purpose, um. There’s a couple V’s in there, but I play on it and just make it simple with MVP, and, um, you know, when we start our businesses oftentimes, we kind of get a couple things together, and we get a logo, but we really haven’t dug deep into this aspect. And once we do, the business has so much more clarity, and the brand strategy is actually starting to shape and to take form. And so once we have those pieces all set and we really are clear on the—the research, the—I call my client insight interviews, as well as the MVP framework, that’s when—once we have those things, then we move into the design phase.

12:11 | Moving Into Design: Aligning with Strategy

Heather: Where we’re starting to create the mood and the feel and what do we—what do we want? How are we going to align with those values and the mission and the purpose and all the things that we’ve done the research on? So it sounds like a really lengthy process, but what’s so great about my particular technique that I use is I create all of that for my clients with so much speed that they move forward really quickly. And when I say speed, I mean in two weeks, we have all those things done. It’s pretty amazing. And I don’t use AI.

Rob: Just—but no, when you got—you’ve got some good experience on some things. I mean, really, when—when we’re doing, you know, people walk in say, “I want to create something,” you have to start the process with what is it you’re trying—what—what are you trying to convey? What are you trying to talk—you know, you’re absolutely right, and it takes an interview process, but it takes a little bit to pull that out of what they’re thinking to make it all happen for you, and then, you know, you know, then you get into the colors, the mood, like you said—

13:20 | Common Branding Mistakes Among Solopreneurs

Rob: The mood, colors that are—that are interactive, that kind of thing. So I—I really, you know, that what you’re talking about is necessary in most designs, but most small solopreneurs don’t go through that process. They just go, “Oh, uh, you know, you know, they—they start creating something, they go, ‘Oh, this is my brand,'” and then they’re out there, and then they go, “Well, this really isn’t working for me,” and then they’ve already started a brand process.

So, you know, I think Rob’s seen that too in his marketing agencies that he’s had when he does, uh, you know, design logo stuff as well, so it’s been a lot—it’s been a lot over the last 30 years, Dean.

Dean: Well, I know, I—you’ve sent some people to me, so—Rob and I have a history, uh. He—we—we were business associates before we became partners like this, and I, you know, he—he did my website for me, and—and we went through the whole process. And I’ve gone through some branding changes myself over the last, you know, my business is 52 years old now. I went through my—and so it’s—it’s been out there for a little bit. We’ve gone through a lot of changes over those years, and some of them you find are kind of trendy. And do you find that people get kind of caught up in the trends a little bit?

Heather: For sure, like, you know, it’s like, you know, like—like all the electricians always want this sparky person or whatever, you know, you know, they—they—they get, and everybody’s doing that. Everybody looks the same at that point, yeah.

14:30 | Why Most “Brands” Are Really Just Logos

Heather: Exactly, right, you know? I always—I can spot it too. It’s the fonts that really signal it for me. It’s like, you know, oh, that font is in Canva over and over and over, you know? And I just—I can spot it a mile away. And I always say, you know, what a lot of—a lot of my clients come to me, and they think they have a brand. They have a logo, they have a couple colors, they have a tagline, maybe, um, but without a brand strategy, you really don’t have a brand. It really falls to nothing. It’s just like you’re guessing at all of the marketing.

And so that’s where I think too, you spend, you know, people would spend so much un-warranted money on marketing, for example, without a brand strategy, when in fact, once you have that brand strategy, it really leverages and creates that ROI for your marketing. So your marketing becomes really effortless because that brand strategy is driving everything that’s happening.

So, um, yeah, absolutely, I would—could not agree more, Dean. A lot of people kind of just like, “Oh, this is my favorite color, let’s do this and this. Oh, this is a cool font.” I saw this, and you know, yeah, it has a lot more meaning than people give it credit for, you know? Colors have meaning and meaning in our brains. We make a decision on a visual component right away before we hear a—a voice or see a word, the visual attraction, the visual colors—all mean something to us.

16:00 | The Psychological Impact of Colors in Branding

Heather: And so if you are trying to convey a message of compassion, for example, and your color is green, well, it’s like, that’s a total miss.

Rob: So, yeah, it’s one of those things to where that fits inside of the crocodilian brain set that goes all the way back to what we’ve been for the caveman days to where we had to make the decision if it was going to kill us if we ate this or not. So colors, all that stuff is all programmed inside of that. I think it’s part of the middle side of the brain. I’m not good at that side, but, um, it kind of uses the left or the right to make decision. Is that left or right, Rob? Okay, got it. Is this going to hurt me or is this going to help me and give me a benefit from it? Because if it’s going to hurt me, I’m going to put it over here, and we do all of that without even realizing—without even realizing it.

Heather: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I do this a lot of times when I speak in different entrepreneur presentations and things, and I talk about color. I love color being a graphic designer, going through art school and all of that. Like, there’s just, it’s so interesting of how our brain works. But, you know, I often use the example of McDonald’s, for example, and yellow and red are their colors. It’s also the colors for many other fast food restaurants.

17:20 | Simple Logos: Why They Stand the Test of Time

Heather: Well, they’ve discovered that red and yellow as a combination color palette creates the salivatory glands in your mouth to start to trigger. So you don’t even realize it, but your brain is saying, “I’m hungry,” when you see red and yellow together. So it’s kind of interesting when you think of it that way.

Rob: It is. Now, if—when you’re talking about logos, I would say probably 98% or more are simple. You can’t over complicate the logo. You have to understand what it is, who it is.

18:00 | Challenges with Modern Digital Branding

Rob: And I had somebody on the, you know, argue that the other day that I was talking to, and I was like, “All right, name some big companies that you know of.” I mean, if we look at Apple, okay, it has a bite taken out of it. The most commonly talked about in any marketing class is going to be the FedEx logo. Once you see the arrow, you’re never going to unsee it, and of it moving forward. All of them are simple, but they have little things inside of them that trigger a thought process inside of your brain, which is a very—which is a very intriguing piece, right?

Heather: And I think, you know, and you bring up a good point too, because as I’ve seen design, you know, transform through the years, it—it did start out as logos, visual brands were kept pretty simple because we were limited by colors. It costs more to print, or, you know, we were limited in what we could do. And now with digital, I mean, you don’t need to do printers’ plates or, you know, set it up on the press anymore, right, and—and worry about colors overlapping and shadowing and having halo effect. You could do as many colors, as much detail as you want on digital space. And so, you know, then when you get over to Dean on the—on the screen printing side, he’s going to disagree with you on that side.

Dean: Well, you espec—you know, so when you design, you have to think about all the medias you’re going to use it on too.

20:00 | How to Create Versatile Logos for Different Platforms

Dean: I mean, if you’re going to do embroidery, you can’t do 50 shades of—of blue and yellows and greens, you know, because—and because you can’t get that effect, right, where in the—in the digital, you know, so there’s getting to be digital printing out there where you can digitally print t-shirts and things like that. Some of it is okay, some of it’s not. I mean, it really depends on what you’re using it for, cost effectiveness, and that kind of thing.

So—so you have to—you have to come up in your branding guide. You have to say, “Okay, this is our logo on this media. This is how the logo is going to look on this.” And is that what you go through with everybody? Said you have to think about it because—and I’m gonna bring this up real quick too, and I want your opinion on it. Is I’m noticing that with the digital world where it’s going to right now, because of the way AI creates everything in one-to-one ratios, are you starting to see that that’s going to be more important as well in the design process because it has to be that? Because like if you go to like Google Business Profile, if you have a long, narrow logo, or a little piece shows up on it, you know, that kind of thing.

Heather: Yeah, you know, yeah, no, that’s a really great point. And—and that also is interesting when I think about when I used to create and follow the branding guide, uh, when I was with Dean Witter and Discover Card back in the day, um, we had a very complex notebook, three-ring binder just stacked full of all the things.

22:00 | Branding Guides: Why They’re Essential

Heather: But the logo was pretty much maybe two ways, you know? There was a vertical and a horizontal, and that was pretty much it. This is what you did, right? Now when I’m creating, it has a mind of its own sometimes. I got to figure out how to control it. That’s where AI really kind of pisses me off, but—sorry about that.

Rob: That’s okay, that’s okay.

Heather: Um, but now when I’m creating brand strategies for my clients, I’m really putting in a variety of formats and tools, um, methods, ways that they can use their brand so—so that it does fit to your exact point, Dean. Horizontal, long and horizontal, or it’s got to fit in this circle, or it’s got to, you know, be a watermark. So really now I think it’s much more acceptable to have, you know, three to five different variations so that it can accommodate all of the different platforms that we have available to us right now.

So it’s very important that you have that really complete and thorough brand strategy and with those guidelines that walk you through and anybody else that’s going to use and, you know, use your—your—your brand, uh, your visual brand for other things. So, uh, really important to look at now.

Dean: Yeah, no, you were talking—I’m interject real quick. You were talking about the—the branding guides. I used to print for Pepsi back in the day, and the branding guide must have been six inches deep, and—and then when you did your first, you had to do a one-off approval. And when you—when you’re talking big brands, you know, the—the—the solopreneur is not going to be quite as worried about matching that Pantone color exactly. You want to be close, but it doesn’t have to go through their—the logo police that to make sure that—that it’s okay. So sorry, Rob, I interrupted you there.

24:00 | Digital Requirements: Logos for Apple, Google, and More

Rob: No, you’re fine. So—so when it—where I started was more digital. So when I go—when I look back and I go 30 years, when I started getting into branding my grandparents’ furniture store, the very first brand I would have ever worked with inside of there, I mean, we had a logo. It was made from the sign, probably the sign guys, probably the guy that came up with it. I have no idea.

But as it kind of went on, when I was creating logos, I never thought about all the different stuff that would come and how all the different stuff until I met Dean. And Dean’s like, “You can’t have a logo that does that.” Like, “That’s not going to work. We can’t put that over there.” But it looked good on the screen, right?

And now even on the screen, we’ve gotten to a point to where there’s so many variations that are inside of there. So our listings engine works with over a thousand different networks. When we were developing and programming out how you were going to take one said logo that someone’s going to load in—and we still have this problem, and sometimes we have to break it up to someone like, “You have to change what logo you have in there.”

For one, it shouldn’t have your contact, your phone number, all this different stuff that you’re throwing it because it goes against all the terms and conditions. But when you’re working with a thousand different places, you have to then have to take that logo and make it to where it’s going to work specifically to the each network it’s going to, because Apple’s going to pick it up totally different than what Google’s going to pick it up.

Um, I mean, Apple, when they first came out with their whole Apple Maps piece, they were to the point to where they weren’t even accepting photos for quality that were even taken at the very best quality on the iPhone that they created. I was like, “Guys, you got to fix this. Nobody—nobody’s going to have the kind of camera you want for it because I—I—I’m using some good technology, and it’s rejected because it’s not as good quality.”

Yeah, they’ve gotten better at that. But you have so many different things to think about, even on the digital side, and then how are you going to use that logo? How are you going to use that brand? And is that—is that logo going to be used on your thumbnails if you’re doing any kind of videos? There’s all these different things that come in mix.

I was—I—I just—and speaking of thumbnails inside of there, I was just doing a huge piece of going through all of our thumbnails that we use, and it’s been a one of those trial and errors. We have lots of these A/B tests that are now getting to the point to where we have data that we can look at, and I still think simp—simple works better than anything complicated because the brain can process it, understand it, and know what it’s going to be and—and remember it, right?

26:00 | Simplicity Beats Complexity in Branding

Rob: It’s got to be simple to remember. We have so much coming at us with so much complexity that if it’s not simple enough to be remembered, then you’re not going to be found, right? You’re not going to have that seen factor. So, um, less is more. I’ve learn—I’ve learned that from the beginning of art school, right? Less is more, less is more, and the power of three. You always want—you want always an odd number. Yep, doesn’t matter if you’re talking about interior design or if you’re talking about making anything, you want three, never have an even number. Three is still the best one you could possibly do and have out there. I mean, I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

Heather: No, and maybe that’s because back when we were cavemen, we were walking around, we were looking at stuff going, “Okay, there’s three choices. Which one’s gonna kill me?” I don’t know. It fits into that brain.

Dean: So—so—so, Heather, when you spend all this time with you developing a logo, what is the life expectancy of a logo? I mean, does it—I mean, you know, you—you evolve, your business changes a little bit.

28:00 | How Often Should You Refresh Your Brand?

Dean: I mean, I mean, like 3M has been, you know, they—they’ve evolved so much, but they’ve kept that same logo that’s been a long, long live logo. But do—when you get done, do you think the logo should stay with you without being modified, except for maybe colors or something, maybe, or white or black, you know, on different—different color sets? You know, just a curiosity of where do you think that is? Because it’s going to cost a little bit of money to create this brand, so, you know, you don’t want to last for three years to be obsolete. Is it going to last for 30 years? You know, what—where do you think that falls for you?

Heather: Right, you know, I think when it’s done well, it will have more lifespan to it, for sure. If you have a—if in two or three years, you feel you need a new logo, you didn’t do it right in the first place. So you probably really need that strategy piece behind it so that it really becomes what I would call kind of more of that evergreen, right? Your brand strategy is that evergreen. It should have a long lifespan.

I guess when I think of it, I would say, you know, generally around 10 years, it might be good for a little refresh, but I don’t think overhaul. If your brand strategy has clearly defined and done the homework and the research and clearly defined the mission, the values, the vision, the purpose, all those things that I mentioned in my MVP framework, as well as really staying true—

30:00 | Real-Life Examples: Clients Who Needed a Rebrand

Heather: Kind of like we were just talking about, it’s simple, it’s clean, it’s not over complicated, it’s going to be remembered, it should last you 10 years before there’s a little bit of a refresh. I mean, what—um, you know, uh, Walmart just supposedly did a refresh of their—that was the big controversy not—not long ago, um, it barely—and I’m not sure Sam Walton would have agreed with it, right?

Rob: Maybe not, but I mean, there’s a lot with Walmart he wouldn’t agree with, so we’ll just say that.

Heather: Yeah, yeah, so, you know, there wasn’t—there was—to the naked eye, to the person who really wasn’t paying attention, it looks pretty much the same, um, but in their mind, it looked more like the, you know, the—the computer wheel, the thinking wheel. So, okay, we’re digital now, we’re not just, you know, brick and mortar.

Um, okay, but my point being, it should last quite—quite a while. Um, you know, maybe there’s some refresh to it. Maybe the, um, the voice and the positioning is refreshed because, as we’ve already indicated several times already on this discussion, things are changing so quickly that, um, your business, when you—when you have your values and you’re really clear on those things, those things are not going to change. But how it’s implemented, I would say—I would argue that your marketing strategy is going to change much quicker than your brand strategy is because of all of the different channels and avenues that we can implement our brand.

So be prepared to really be up to speed with your brand—with your marketing strategy, but your brand strategy should really be that evergreen. It should stand the test of time when it’s done right. And I think where solopreneurs get into a lot of trouble for that is they go, and they—and they might be a web designer they’re going to work with, it might be a marketing agency. Dean, I’m going to pick on you, it might be a screen printer embroidery place, and they go, “Well, we really don’t like your logo. We’re going to tweak it.”

32:00 | Common Mistakes: Too Many Hands in the Branding Process

Heather: And that’s how you end up getting all these different types of logos that are out there. Now, back in the day, if you weren’t using something like our listing engine to be able to blast out to all the different networks, you’re going to have logos that don’t match because you’re going to forget those profiles even exist in a digital world. And you might have some shirts that have the wrong one. You’re going through a brand change—for most solopreneurs is a really hard thing because you have trucks with that logo. You have business cards with that logo. It touches all these different things.

So doing it right at the very beginning, once you have a proof of concept and you know the business is going to be going somewhere, that’s when you put that in place. Yes, and you kind of get that into the—be there. But I think that’s probably one of the biggest roadblocks that most business owners get stuck in is someone doesn’t know how to work with that logo, or it wasn’t done right in the first place, or some combination of that. And then they talk about it changing it, and that almost hurts them worse because now they’re not changing for a meaningful reason. There’s no thought. They’re changing to be able to make it work for this one piece.

Do you guys agree with that? I’ve never really thought about that until just now, when we were just talking and looking at my last 30 years of work with businesses.

Dean: Yeah, you know, I would agree with that. In fact, I was just, um, presenting my brand strategy and the visual brand to a client yesterday, and she said this to me on the phone. I said, you know, I was asking her how she thought this process was. She’d had her brand for three or four years, um, but she had never done all of this work, and she said, “You know what—where—where my brand went wrong is too many hands got a hold of it, too many people would use it or tweak it or an assistant here or a VA or a social media or somebody here, and they started tweaking it.”

34:00 | When to Rebrand vs. When to Stick With Your Logo

Heather: And, um, you know, too many—kicks—cooks in the kitchen, right? You can really mess up a recipe when you just start having too many people in there.

Rob: So, and all three of us are probably guilty of talking someone into changing their logo that probably didn’t need to change the logo. We—we’ve probably had it somewhere inside of there to where it pro—it might have been a better logo to keep it there, but we thought differently. And I mean, but that’s just the way it works, and a lot of that’s trial and error. But I think that’s where a lot of small businesses probably just really struggle at on there.

Heather: Yeah, you know, it is interesting because I think as a small business owner, you think about it—when you first start your business, okay, you—you get your business name, and then you’re like, “Okay, I’ll just whip up a logo, or I ask—ask my buddy who’s, you know, just getting out of college or something, ‘Hey, could you just whip something up for me?’ That’s what we use.”

And it’s just kind of something cool, something fun. I like this color, I like—we were talking about, “I like this font. I like this design,” but again, there—there’s not that strategy there yet because you really haven’t had enough experience working with your clients and really understanding it without the research and—and all of that. So, um, but, you know, what—that’s why I think, you know, we have these creative entrepreneur brains because we just kind of hit the ground and we go.

Dean: I have—with people that are starting a business is, “Grandma drew this picture of this fence with this flower on it, and I want to use that for the logo,” right, uh. Okay, I mean, it’s sentimental to you, but it—doesn’t do anything to help me, you know, and so—and you have that.

36:00 | Managing Branding Costs as a Startup

Dean: And it—it just, you know, you don’t want to hurt their feelings, but you have to work through that process of, you know, it—it—this is great, but what are you really trying to, you know, like you said, that interview process, what are you trying to convey, you know, kind of thing?

Heather: Yeah, I can relate to that too. I, um, one of my clients is a caterer, and when she’s—been with me, I’ve been working with her now for about three or four years. I think we’re going on four years. And when she came to me, she had—somebody had hand-drawn this, and I think she had just have it as her first design was an embroiderer for her—for her chef’s jacket, you know. And she had this little outline of this chef with a red hat, this woman carrying a cake on a platter, and it was, you know, very detailed. I was like, “Oh, my goodness sakes.”

And we really transformed her entire brand to bring it up to date, still incorporating some of the things that really stood out to her, you know, having this red apron was one of her signature pieces of her brand. Well, we can still do that, you know. And I think that’s the other thing too, Rob, to your point, you like—some entrepreneurs kind of get hung up on these things, you know? There can be some really good elements of your brand. It’s just, let’s make it really intentional and streamline it so that it’s really, um, has that be seen factor and be remembered factor. And so it’s not that all of it has to go in the trash can, um, but let’s—let’s pull out the—the strong parts of the brand and let’s see how we can streamline and simplify.

Rob: Well, and if you’re just starting off, you don’t have a proof of concept. I used to call it back in the very beginning of my career, I would call it the print shop, um, design to where just go get something so you have a logo, get your proof of concept. And once you have your proof of concept and you know what you want to be when you grow up, because you don’t know your target market yet, then invest in it. Don’t do all the stuff on your car, don’t do all that with that print shop logo. But you can start there to be able to establish, and then once you get established.

38:00 | Proof of Concept Before Investing Heavily

Rob: Because there’s a point in time, you kind of have to pull up your sleeves and become—put on your big boy pants, be like, “All right, let’s roll.” But I mean, it—but if you don’t have the budget, you don’t have all of those things, and you’re just starting, those logos are okay, and you have to know that those are probably going to be temporary. But they might be something that it morphs into to where it remembers, and it’s okay for that.

I would say, going back to the whole question, Dean, of the speed process of how often to change a logo, I’d probably say something like that should last you about six months to a year, and then you can revamp it from there when you know exactly your target market or your ICP or your ideal customer profile. And then it makes it a lot easier to actually create your whole brand. Do you guys agree with that?

Dean: I—I do agree with that, you know, kind of thing, because, you know, when you’re starting up a business, you only have so much money to get your everything off the ground. And, you know, you can’t buy a $10,000 logo. Isn’t going to help you be able to get off the ground. So you have to think about where you’re spending your money, what’s going to get you the most, uh, you know, most gains for—for you to because it does take a while, especially that first time you step out into the business. I always figure 18 months to three years for some businesses before you start getting into the black.

So you have to say, “Do I have enough staying power to be there?” But that logo recognition, as you build your customer base, is still going to be important, though. And that, I think, that’s where the whole thing comes into play. So it—it—it’s the heart—the horse of the cart game kind of thing, you know.

Heather: Yeah, I—I had one client who I’d worked with on different projects before, and her—her logo had gone through a couple different variations, and she’d been in business for about 10 years by the time we kind of revisited this whole conversation about rebranding. So she was just kind of coming up on 10 years. But, you know, where she actually started to see that it was time for a brand refresh for her business was she kept—she was stagnant at her revenue level. She just kept hitting this, you know, ceiling on multiple six figures and couldn’t get past that mark for—for about three years. She was running a good business. It was good, but all of a sudden, when we kind of peeled back the curtains a little bit, we realized, you know what? There’s really no strategy here.

40:00 | Why You Shouldn’t Overcomplicate Your Brand Early

Heather: And now we know so much more about who your—your ICP is, who you’re talking to, what your voice sounds like. Now we can really develop that brand strategy. What was crazy—I told you that I—I worked through the brand strategy in two weeks, um, and in 60 days, we have it implemented through partnering with me as the creative brand officer. And so basically, in less than a quarter, she had her brand strategy created, implemented, and she increased her revenue by 77% in under 60 days. And she’s on pace for seven figures now for 2025. So—

Rob: Wow, that’s awesome.

Heather: It’s amazing, you know, but—but to your point, like you—she knew a lot more at that place in her business for 10 years. So it was time for a refresh. It was time to really step into all the information that she knew about her brand and her business and what she was doing for her clients. And it just took off because people were like, “Yes, like that is it.” They just resonated, and it’s been awesome to be able to be a part of that and to really see her business soar.

Rob: Well, and you—there’s a lot of data points that come into that. So my data science brain kicks on, and when someone comes in and they do a coaching call with us for our side of what we kind of do for the coaching piece, they can come and they can ask us to do a review and provide those data points in a way that makes sense because the way it gets delivered to a market—to the marketing science world is completely different than how we deliver it to our—because we make it super simple for it to be dialed in.

But I can go, and AI’s really helped inside of this world and makes it a lot faster and a lot more manageable and affordable to be able to do. But we can go through, we can take your brand, we could set it against your top three, five competitors, and we could morph that together, the more we know kind of where you’re going to be, where you can stand out, and we can see where their weaknesses are to be able to go for an attack.

42:00 | The Importance of Research Before Marketing

Rob: Which, when we’re—we—I didn’t have that kind of capabilities up until, you know, really recently, where it’s really super on point to where now you could start with a data-first strategy to be able to take something to market, and it helps you in every single point of the view, everything from design to what words you say inside of your copywriting to how you’re—where you’re going to go and market to your—to be able to find customers at—it’s an amazing process to me.

Heather: Yeah, yeah, it sure is. I mean, it—it opens up all kinds of new—new worlds for that. So, uh, you—we were talking about colors early on in this conversation and how it creates mood. Have you found that, and I—I—I know I am this way, but I’m sure Rob is too, because we’re always paying attention to colors and things. You walk into a place, and you go, “What is the mood when you walk?” I mean, my—my wife goes nuts because, “What are you looking at the walls of the ceiling and all that stuff for?” Because I’m trying to figure out what kind of mood I’m in when I walk in here, you know?

Like if you go to a funeral, you know, the—the subtle greens and grays and all that stuff, you know, to—you know, to—you know, to give you that—that sensation or that feel. But I—I—I can’t walk into a place anymore and like, you talk about signage, I’m always looking. It ruins it. And—and Rob’s doing the same thing with his wife. And, “Why are you watching the commercials for?” He goes, “I want to see what—what—what I’m being motivated for.” I mean, do you—do you find yourself doing that too, Heather?

Heather: Yeah, you know, I do. Um, I—I don’t watch a ton of live television anymore, to be honest, but, um, no, when I’m going into a place or—or, you know, I’m—I’m virtual in a lot of spaces. And so when I’m going to a website even, or something like that, I—I automatically either shut down and keep going or, um, oh, this—this is really resonating, and these colors and everything was very—were very intentional.

44:00 | Branding Strategy vs. Marketing Strategy

Heather: So, um, yeah, I definitely do pick up on all of that too. And, uh, yeah, I can relate.

Dean: Purples and a big thing, you know, and all the websites became purples and turquoises, you know?

Rob: So—so I absolutely love Vegas to be able to go to and people watch. And I love to watch what makes somebody go through and keep putting money into a machine and watch all that. I mean, I like to gamble to a point, but I—I take what I can lose and call it good from there. But I’ll spend more time watching the interactions between people, the colors, the movements, how they place things.

Um, there was a time I went to Vegas, and they were redoing where machines were. And it was probably like 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, and obviously I was still up. But it was one of those—it was one of those things to where I was like, “So why are you—” My wife’s like, “Why are you asking them why they’re moving machines?” I’m like, “Because the casino doesn’t own the machine. They don’t get to pick where the machine is necessarily at. It’s the company that’s leasing them the machine that they’re doing a profit share on, and they’re positioning, changing games out to be able to interact with that person.”

So they have all this data, and he was talking about how the cameras are set up, how they have collecting this data, and how they put all this data in place. And then later on, I mean, we have a whole podcast about this for Dean and I that there’s a whole entire test facility inside of Vegas that’s not open to the public casino, and big brands, Nike, big, huge corporations put money into it to learn how to be able to tweak their marketing because it’s all—everything equals something, right, inside of that.

Heather: Yeah, uh, and you know, I think that is why it’s so important. And I do believe that solopreneurs that small business owners can have million-dollar brands with all of those key things that you were just talking about, you know? There is—there is—there is a reason for everything. And as I said, if you don’t have a brand strategy, you really don’t have a brand.

46:00 | Building a Brand Ecosystem: Everything is Connected

Heather: And so to be able to really build that million-doll—brand for that solopreneur, to have that brand strategy that is driving everything, there is a reason why you have this color. There is a reason why this is here. There’s a reason why everything is placed the way it is to create the mood and the vibe of the brand. And so, you know, yes, we can learn from these big companies and big organizations that are doing all of that. We can do that in our brands too.

And that’s what I really love about being able to do this for the small business owner, for the solopreneur that’s starting to build and scale and grow their team, because having that strategy is going to save them a lot of time and a lot of money.

Rob: It can. I mean, for our logo with it being all red, I’ve been kind of on the fence of, is all red all bad? Is it there? And I know our team always likes to take it and put red on everything. And I’m like, “No, red’s kind of a negative color.” It’s okay on our logo because it’s a power color, but it’s one of the—and it’s—it’s recognizable, it’s all those pieces inside of the brain. But having red all over a website isn’t going to work, right? It’s going to—I mean, that’s—you see red in your checkbook, and you don’t want to be in the red. You want to be in the black. I’m like, it’s kind of a real weird piece.

And I’m like, “Well, we could add some color to it,” but I’m like, “I don’t know, it—it kind of goes all the way across.” But bringing in other colors and utilizing them and knowing where to use the color and playing with it and seeing how people interact with it is completely cool in my opinion. That’s why I like heat mapping. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that on a website before, but I mean, the whole heat map of where they’re going to put their mouse and how they’re going to do it and how they interact with it, that whole piece is all comes together to be amazing to me.

48:00 | Shiny Object Syndrome and the Importance of Focus

Heather: Yeah, and that’s, you know, too I would say that when the—the driving force is really keeping in line with your values and your mission, your purpose, how you’re trying to connect with your audience, that’s when you can have so much power and leverage the marketing and where you move, you know, how you heat map, how you have your website. All those things will, um, be so much more effective.

I think sometimes, um, small business owners, solopreneurs can kind of have, like, shiny object syndrome, like, “Ooh, this is a cool tool. Let’s try this.” And like, “I’m getting a little bored with this logo. Let’s try this.” And I would just really caution and—and when you have that brand strategy that kind of like pulls you back, you know, you kind of like wander off down that rabbit hole, and then you’re like, “Whoop, hold on, let’s—let’s get back to what we’re—where we’re really supposed to be.” Don’t deviate, um, especially when it’s working and you’ve got that strategy in place.

Um, but we do kind of fall into that, like, “Let’s try this. Oh, this is a fun tool. Let’s do this.”

Rob: But that fits into the whole entire piece that I think a lot—I’m—most business owners, most solopreneurs, however you want to look at that, they love to tweak, over and over again. There’s not—usually not a reason why they want to do it, but they—it makes them feel like they’re doing something because they—they get to this point to where they know that they, you know—Dean and I were just having this conversation last night or yesterday—they get to the point that they know that they could get to the next level. So they start messing with what they’re comfortable with, and they’re messing with—they’re not paying attention to the stuff they should be, and they’re tweaking and messing with stuff that’s there.

What we see inside of Simply Be Found is we see this inside of profiles. You got to let the profile sit there for a little bit before you come back and make tweaks. You can’t make profile changes to a thousand and some networks. For one, it doesn’t update instantly to all thousand networks. It takes time.

50:00 | Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Platforms

Rob: So making changes to your profile every day isn’t going to be the best use of your time. So our whole conversation yesterday was, we have to give them something. This is something you can play with. Here’s your playground. This is where you can play. This is the stuff that’s going to help you, and that’s going to bring you value. Don’t mess with this over here. Let’s—let this sit.

And I—I think it’s be—I’m going to go back to Dean. He wrote a whole blog for us one time. We talk about this all the time. Dean, I really wish you would have—I wish you could find—I have that buried somewhere, but anyway, he—he wrote a whole blog about how most small business owners are narcissists. And I would say that we all have narcissist, um, opportunities and characteristics. And that most of us also have ADHD at the same time, and we just can’t leave alone.

Just kind of like marketers, we overuse. All day long, and we’ll mess anything up that’s good because we’ll overuse the hell out of it. I mean, it—it’s all part of this whole game. So you have to keep that in mind. You have to tweak things that are okay to be tweaked. There’s parts of your design you can tweak all day. There’s—if you want to make changes to your website, go blog to your website. Go add value to it. Go add FAQs. Go add something that’s going to be there, but let—you collect the data because if you never collect those—that data, you’re never going to know what’s going to work.

Dean: Yeah, and so what Rob’s talking about with the—with the adding to your—to, you know, to blogs and stuff, we have, uh, staff sometimes that doesn’t put our logo on it. And I go, “You can’t just be putting stuff out there, not using our branding for,” and it falls right into your wheel—your wheelhouse is, if you’re going to have a brand, you have to make sure it’s out there.

Rob: Dean, our team messed up yesterday, and I got on everybody about it. They stopped putting our Simply Be Found Huddle logo on all of the, um, thumbnails for podcasts inside of the actual podcast networks and made you and I the focus point. And I’m like, “No one gives two shits about us.”

Dean: I didn’t see that yesterday. I missed that one.

Rob: So—

Dean: You would have lost your mind at that one. I—I’ll just put it that way.

Rob: Yeah. So Heather, you should have three graphic artists working for you that always going, “Hey, look at our new logo we just came up with.” “No, just no, you can’t do that.”

52:00 | Managing Website Changes the Right Way

Heather: Well, you know, it is hard. It’s—it’s hard for, you know, for me as a designer because, you know, what, you’ve totally called me out on where I was early on in my business, where I was like, I’d just be putting with something all the time. And I literally had to go to my team at one point, and I don’t know, because I—they would—I would have them do something on the website or whatever, and then I’d go in there and start putting—I’m like, “Just like change the password so I can’t even get in.”

Rob: I’ve been—so—so just to be clear, I’ve been guilty of it too. I—I kept doing it—

Dean: Concussion time, right?

Rob: And I’m—and I’m gonna go back to the, who is it, uh, New Hart, uh, Bob New Hart—

Dean: Bob New Hart—

Rob: The Bob New Hart piece that you always talk about, Dean, for you, and—know just—stop it. It’s like you can’t—but you feel so good doing it. It’s kind of like we’re getting ready to do a huge website redesign. And the team first off goes, “Oh, so we get to design a new logo? We could, you know, make it to where it has this on it.” I’m like, “No, it’s—it’s that, it stays there.” Have color variations, and that’s about it.

Dean: Right. I think you brought up a good point too, Rob, like go do something that’s going to really be productive, you know? I call that—those are your income-producing opportunities, you know? When you’re just putting in there just for the sake of putting—go sell some stuff. Go talk to some new people, right, like do something that’s going to bring value. I know that you think that do—by doing this, it’s gonna do it, but just stop it. You got to let it just sit for a little bit.

It might not—and—and sometimes when I’m designing a website—and you might have a—to—if I was to guess, your approach is probably completely different than mine. I’ve designed websites that purposely are basically wireframes. They look like—and I just want to collect data to find out what people are going to do with it. Then I could tweak, and I could start making changes.

54:00 | Why Your Website May Not Need a Redesign

Dean: So like the new website we have coming out, it’s not going to be the prettiest website. My design team will do a lot better when they come behind me. But for what I come up with, it’s going to be all data-driven, and it’s going to see what that heat map’s going to show. Because then we know, “Okay, we could take the eye here by adjusting this little color,” and that—it’s one of those things to where that is where you can bring value to it because sometimes just having the simplest thing out there will get more results. I’ve had some of the shittiest websites that were not designed to look pretty at all be my highest producers out there.

Heather: Well, again, and that just goes back to the point of, you know, having the foundation of strategy and evidence and research is what’s going to leverage any brand. And so really having that, I think, is so important, especially today with—with so many like shiny—shiny object syndrome opportunities, you know?

Um, having that strategy that does become like—like I was saying, like your anchor, it’s always pulling you back to what is really important. And that’s really the best thing for a solopreneur so that you’ve got that—that compass, that anchor that kind of pulls you back. It’s keeping you on track, and you’re like, “No, this is where I need to be to grow and to scale.” And so really, you can’t afford not to have a brand strategy in today’s digital landscape. Um, you’re—you’re going to waste more money in your marketing, more time in your marketing without it. So, um, that’s really essential for—for a business owner now.

Rob: I—I agree with you, um, and one—one piece I would say to that that I think a lot of entrepreneurs or solopreneurs or small business owners get into is they’ve hired a designer multiple times, they’ve redesigned their website, they’ve now spent all this money in it. And I was talking to someone recently about this, and I’m like, “All right, let’s not build a new website. Let’s drive traffic to that website because you don’t have a website problem. Your website—do I agree with everything that’s on it? No, but it works. It’s going to get you where it is. You’ve spent a lot of money on this. Now let’s do the strategies part of your marketing to drive that traffic.”

56:00 | Graphic Designers vs. Brand Strategists: Key Differences

Rob: Because what you have is you have a traffic problem. Let’s change some of your copywriting to where your SEO is going to be where it needs to be, and now let’s drive, you know, let’s get you listed on all the networks. Let’s get your social media where it needs to go. Let’s focus on the things that are going to bring people to your website. And I think that’s where a lot of, you know, business owners kind of get caught up in is they think that if they just build this great website, that it’s going to bring all this business. Well, if you don’t send—send any eyeballs to it, it’s not like the—and I call that the Field of Dreams syndrome because just because you build it doesn’t mean they’re going to come.

So you have to remember, you have to drive traffic to it. So, and a—I think there’s a lot of people who don’t think about the whole strategy of how they’re going to do that when they’re building websites. Um, I usually—those are the one-man bands out there that, you know, saw a YouTube video and didn’t make it in the corporate or in the corporate world. And now they think they’re a website designer, and they might make a beautiful website, but they—they put no strategy to the whole game. What’s your opinion on that?

Heather: I think most people had that same syndrome, Rob.

Dean: Every—brings money.

Rob: I know they do.

Dean: So—so does the screen printing, like how many screen printers are inside of their garage?

Rob: I’m just talking graphic designers. I mean, graphic designers do something for me. They don’t have a clue what they’re doing. I’m sure you have the same issues, right?

Heather: And you know, that is—that is, I think, what sets me apart from so many, you know, just designers is I’m not just a logo or a brand designer. I’m—and I’m not just a brand strategist. I—I put them both together. And so when you—you know, it’s just like anything, and we were talking about, you got too many people trying to figure things out. Your brand is going to look like it—it’s going to look scattered and duct-taped together, you know, by multiple people, whereas when one person is steering the ship, and you’ve got all of those components together, um.

58:00 | How a Bad Logo Can Confuse Potential Clients

Heather: And not too many designers—I mean, I learned this. I really—I kind of thought every designer worked like I do, that all graphic designers think strategically and all of that. And, um, I guess not, because I end up doing brand refreshes for most graphic designers because there was no strategy.

Rob: I think a lot of them are like artists sometimes. They’re trying to create this opus or something, you know, that, “This is—this is what my look looks like.” And I think they don’t really put the customer first on the thought process. They’re—they’re so busy creating something that’s their brand, their brand, if you will, for their portfolio kind of thing.

Dean: I had—I—I had a website come to me once, and the guy goes, “Well, you know, I spent 10 grand on my website. It’s great. It’s the most amazing website you’ve ever seen.” And the guy was that designed it was an artist. He went to school for art, and he did abstract art. And I look at the website, the very first—I was expected to see this grand, great website for how he talks. I—he pulls the website up, and I went, “I don’t know what you do. I don’t know what you want me to do on this website, and I feel very lost and very confused right now because it doesn’t tell me anything. It’s all about you.”

And he can’t make it about you because you got to—you got to bring me in as the hero into the whole entire story. And your graphics have to be able to tell the story of what the words are to where even if I don’t read the words, I have an idea of what this is going to be about. And I’m like—and this—that was probably the worst one I’ve ever seen that ever came into my hands. I was like, “No, it’s not going to work.”

Heather: Right, and what do they say too? A confused buyer never buys, right?

Rob: No, and—and inside of the marketing world, I call that using calories. So you’re going to cause them to use more calories. The more calories they use, the more often they’re not going to buy because now they have to think and put the process together, right?

And you got to remember—so have you watched any of our podcasts before, Heather?

Heather: Yeah, I did before, when I kind of started getting connected with you guys.

Rob: Yeah, cool. Did you watch, at that point—because I think it was a little bit ago—did you watch the one about our tree and how we look at the analogy for our tree?

Heather: No, I didn’t, but I’ll have to—I’ll have to go back and find that one. I just kind of grabbed a sporadic.

1:00:00 | Branding as the Roots, Marketing as the Branches

Rob: So we—we—we talk about the tree of marketing. So you have that—you have that listings engine down at the very bottom, which is going to go out to all the thousand networks. It’s what—it’s what’s all your citations and profiles and all that different voice search and all that stuff is tied into there. And then we talk about how that then goes up and into the tree. And your tree trunk could—get—be, uh, bigger. That’s going to be your website. That’s going to be how much stuff is inside of there.

And then you have branches, and you have your tree at the very top. And the tree part is going to be things like your blog. Then you might have sub-branches that are off of that for your types of blog, social media. You have your different networks off of that. You might—you have all of your different advertising you can do, your paid ads, everything in there. But your whole entire concept for marketing your business is like growing a tree. And every—I think the hardest part that most marketers and business owners forget about is everything is connected. There’s not a single thing that we do inside of marketing that’s not connected in some way. It can go all the way from being printing that shirt and someone wearing it to connecting it into how your social media connects to your blog, to how your pages all interact. Everything in marketing is this great big ecosystem.

Dean: And I—I think that’s really a missed part for a lot of businesses. They’re not bringing that—everything together. So with—with talking