Today’s post comes from our Branding for Designers email series. Almost everyone on the Braid team started out as a graphic designer so we have a special place in our hearts for you all. We know your struggles first hand and wanted to create a series just for you. Oh, and if you’d like to get a free eBook on how to brand yourself as a creative expert sign up here. Now on to the post!
Creative entrepreneurs rarely stop at the skill they began their business with. So what’s your business vision? Is it…
– to design for a certain kind of dream client? Who?
– to work within one very specialized kind of niche? What?
– to pair your skill with planning, consulting or some other kind of service? How?
– to infuse your creative work with more purpose? Why? To what end?
Not every one of these vision questions above is going to get you fired up. Some of them you may feel so-so about at best and overwhelmed about at worst. But we would bet—after all the creative entrepreneurs we’ve worked with, coached with, and talked about our fears and dreams with—at least one of these questions above, and its answer (even if it’s still fuzzy), feels like “what’s next” for you.
A fuzzy vision can make you feel shy about sharing content, shaky about your offerings, and slow to shape the brand you know you really want.
So let’s talk about that fuzzy feeling. You know you want what’s next, but you might think you need to get your vision (and your content) completely focused in and clearly shaped up before you can start sharing it with other people. But often what we share as-we-go is what shapes what we become.
Imagine your vision coming through in:
– your emails with prospective (and current) clients
– your wardrobe and personal style
– your blog posts (or mini-posts like Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest)
– your daily schedule and routines
– your “about me” page on your website
– your “about me” conversations with your friends and family
What’s it going to take for you to feel like you can start sharing your vision on your brand places: your site, your social media, and in your face-to-face conversations?
Now I bet you’re imagining all the rewriting, redesigning, or even just rethinking you’d have to do to start infusing that vision in those “brand” places. “But I don’t have time for shaping up those sharing places!” “My site needs too much work before I start sharing there!” “I still want to redesign x and y before I start doing z!.” “How can I tell people the kind of work I want to be hired for if I haven’t done it yet?!” You do it a little at a time. You try it on. You practice. You change a little copy here today, and a whole lotta copy over there in a month.
So which of your “sharing places” do you need to update to feel like you could really start shaping your “what’s next” vision by writing and talking about it now? List out the places first: website (get specific by page), blog, social media platforms, email, typical new business conversations, typical casual conversations. Then mark which you could start slightly altering today…Within 30 days…Within 3 months. It’s not an all-or-nothing challenge. Start peppering your vision in now – with a goal for a longer term shift for the “what’s next.”
Next up we’ll be talking about doing vs. shaping your brand because there’s a huge difference between doing the work and doing the work while you shape it toward your bigger future goals.
