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Episode 005: Jen Olmstead - How to Create an Authentic and Unique Brand
196 Plays7 years ago
Jennifer is a Virginia-based graphic designer, visual storyteller, and type nerd. A lifelong fan of a good story - and shaping the words and letters that tell it - she specializes in creating uniquely-tailored brand experiences for creative entrepreneurs, and in building online spaces that people love to explore.
In 2013, Jen and fellow designer Jeffrey Shipley founded TONIC SITE SHOP and launched their first collection of cocktail-inspired, "completely customizable websites for the modern, stylish creative." (Yep, there's a Martini, a Mojito, and Moscow Mule... her mother is still pretty sure she owns a bar.)
Jen runs her business from her home outside Washington, D.C., where she lives with her handsome husband, their two little girls, a golden retriever, and a much-beloved espresso machine. She eats gluten so you don't have to, enjoys hosting and hospitality (with a cocktail in hand!), and her love language is witty banter.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-jen-olmstead-episode-5/
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Transcript
Occupying Your Brand
00:00:08
Speaker
you know, don't do this right now. You need to live in your brand. You need to occupy your brand first. Um, because I like to say a designer can't give you a brand. They can only give your brand something to wear. You know, I am not in the process of just like handing out brands that are going to make you successful.
Introduction to Jen Olmsted
00:00:25
Speaker
And I think people see this, these pieces of the puzzle a lot of times because I'm welcome to the brands that book show where we help creative businesses build their brands and find more clients.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm your host, Davy Jones, and today's interview is with Jen Olmsted, a Virginia-based graphic designer and visual storyteller who has worked with some of the biggest names in the creative
Balancing Work and Motherhood
00:00:47
Speaker
industry. And today she's sharing how you can create a unique and authentic brand even without hiring a designer.
00:00:59
Speaker
So first getting started, life looks a lot different for you now, right? Having a second child. Yeah, right. And working from home. Right. And you work from home primarily? I do. Yeah. So how does how has that been? How's that transition been going from having one to two?
00:01:18
Speaker
I feel like I got knocked off a little pedestal because I feel like I was just like, hey, you know what? I don't know why people talk about this is so hard to be like a mom and a creative entrepreneur. We're doing great. And I think I am fairly remembered when my daughter Serena was born three years ago.
00:01:37
Speaker
I was like, you know, this is this is great. I launched a website like the week after she was born. You know, I had I had guests in to work on their brands and she would like sleep for a few hours and I would work for a few hours and then we would like sip espresso together. And I feel like I got so much done.
00:01:52
Speaker
And so I thought that that's kind of what would happen this time around with my daughter, Sophia, who's now six months old. And so I didn't really take time off with Sophia and I still had like a full slate of work because I was remembering like this, this imaginary productive Jennifer that had lived three years ago. And this time I was like, how did I not account for the fact that like, when I have a baby sleeping, I have a three year old who needs lunch or a snack or like,
00:02:18
Speaker
the next episode of something or like wants to color and so it was definitely a much bigger adjustment than i thought it would be and so i've really had to get into a new rhythm of like okay i can't really plan to have like four hours of work time at any time unless i'm going to stay up until like two in the morning or unless i have help that day so
00:02:38
Speaker
It was a really humbling adjustment of like, okay, this is a totally new season and I have to account for that and I've been grateful to have clients in a business like with my business tonic that's more of a residual income that can operate without my direct involvement at every moment because I certainly haven't been able to be involved at every moment. So, I feel like the light of the tunnel is here but it was definitely a bigger adjustment than I expected.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, I know Chris and I are gonna be looking to you for advice as we get closer to June and figuring that out for ourselves. But that's awesome. And I wanna go back and really talk about how you first got started.
Journey from Journalism to Design
00:03:20
Speaker
So you went to Patrick Henry College and you majored in journalism. And so how did a degree in journalism lead to design?
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, it's it's I'm very much the quintessential accidental entrepreneur story. I mean, very much so. I went to college for journalism. I was super excited about writing long for journalism and working for The New Yorker or like McSweeney's or The Onion or something of that nature. And I knew at that point and I still it's still true now.
00:03:51
Speaker
that mostly I just loved stories and I found people really fascinating and I loved talking with them and figuring out what made them tick. And so that was really representative in my writing at that point. I was like, okay, how can we take this person and really articulate who they are and what they think and write something that appeals to them. I do think that you would be great at The Onion. I mean, you would have been great at all of those places, but I think you would have been, that would have been a great fit.
00:04:17
Speaker
I was really excited about that. I was like, oh, maybe I can paint in broadcast and I'll be Diane Sawyer. And they're making people cry or making them laugh. I was very excited about this. And then I realized that I wasn't hot enough to be on daytime. And I probably would just end up as a weather girl for 10 years until I got wrinkles and was like, OK, this is not a good trajectory for me.
00:04:38
Speaker
So anyway, so that's what I was pursuing in college and then I think it was kind of telling whenever I was the editor of the school paper and my first editorial decision was like, should we change the body font to Minion Pro?
00:04:53
Speaker
It wasn't anything story related, nothing about actual journalism. And so I think that was the first hint whenever I fell in love with editorial design and layout and was up late researching other newspapers and magazines and kind of sifting through those ideas.
Discovering Editorial Design
00:05:08
Speaker
And so I think it really, I began to realize if the story doesn't look good, if it's not visually appealing, then people don't want to read it. Because all of a sudden when we redesigned even our school newspaper, everyone was like, oh, did you know we had a school newspaper? This is not that. So it was really telling. And so the college actually started hiring me to do some design projects for them, some marketing and branding projects, which was dumb since I was a college sophomore. I'm like, that was a terrible idea, college. I don't know what you're doing.
00:05:38
Speaker
Um, but then some friends were like, Hey, I'm getting married. Can you design a wedding invitation? And then sooner or later, since I was in college, a bunch of my friends had started photography businesses around that time is like that kind of was booming. And we're like, Hey, Jen, I would love to have your help designing up my website. And I was like, no, that's not what I do. I don't, I don't do coding. Like I don't have any experience in what this whatsoever. And again, they were like, I
00:06:02
Speaker
don't care if you have experience like let's just try it and so they introduced me to the platform that you now love too that I remember selling crystal on a few years ago of show it and so I fell in love with show it because a the team was super awesome and then obviously it's a platform where you don't have to do any like coding or back into work it's all developed visually so that was like a new like exciting place for me to land
00:06:26
Speaker
and so i started i did my first website for a friend and then one of her friends is like hey i saw your website you know who did that can can they help me and then things just began to snowball from there because as you know the creative world is just so very large and small at the same time
00:06:43
Speaker
and i never i don't think i the great thing about what we do is you never have to tell someone man you really need a new website they're like constantly in this like vacuum of like oh my gosh i totally need a new website my website sucks so much please help so
The Creative Entrepreneurial World
00:06:58
Speaker
I feel like everybody goes through that each year almost, you know, where they feel like, hey, you know, my website needs an update. And it's so true. The creative industry I feel like is so big and you're always discovering different corners of it, but at the same time, you know, somehow so small as well. But that's such a fascinating story because that's kind of how Krista got involved in design as well. But it was in high school. Yeah, she was working for the her high school school paper and realized that she didn't care so much about the the writing part as she did about the layout of the paper.
00:07:27
Speaker
and so she was going to go originally to school for journalism and right before she got there decided to change her major to design and so that's how she got started in design worked in a wedding invitation studio and then oh my gosh yeah it's very parallel life i did not know about it right now yeah and it's it's so interesting now talking to
00:07:48
Speaker
a number of entrepreneurs, how they kind of stumble into that world. Because I don't really think that there is a ton of preparation, even if you were to major in business in school, there's not really a ton of preparation for running your own business, being an entrepreneur, being part of a small team.
Education vs. Business Skills
00:08:06
Speaker
I think that's going to change. I think increasingly there's going to be, like as kind of our society is focused more on entrepreneurship and that's been highlighted, I think that there are going to be a lot more streams of like even higher education that are oriented towards entrepreneurship. And I think I'm excited about that because I think that'll be a super beneficial thing because when I started out, I knew nothing about running a business. I still know very little about running a business. You and your husband run your own businesses.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yes, and without my husband, I would still, I would not have a business license. He's like, you should be an escort. But I'm like, that sounds cool. That's a lot of letters. Great. So I've been, I've definitely benefited because he started his business in college to pay for college. And so he and his brother like paid for their school by working full time and starting a business in college.
00:08:54
Speaker
And he still runs that business now. So I've really benefited from his entrepreneurial streak too. Yeah, that's awesome. And it's so nice to have somebody, you know, because Krista for a long time, she ran her own business and I was a high school teacher. And I know that for her, having somebody else to be in it with her was huge, just from a support standpoint.
00:09:16
Speaker
But I hope that you're right and that education does start, you know, going that route where there's more, I mean, just real world in general. Yeah. So your first clients, they were photographers. Yes. Yep. Yeah. I know it's interesting because everyone says like in the creative world, like you've got to find your niche. And I feel like my niche kind of found me because thankfully every photographer knows approximately one thousand other photographers.
00:09:45
Speaker
It seems and so when I did the first website for that photographer you know she ended up being kind of a sandwich board for my business because all of a sudden she had a new website and all of her friends and their friends saw it and So I think that was a really beneficial thing for me to realize like as soon as you're in a pool that pool is your client base
00:10:08
Speaker
And so that was a really helpful thing starting out as I never was like, I'm a web designer for creatives and branding specialists for creatives and small businesses and photographers. That kind of became my title by the fact that I was working with this specific group of people. And because of that, I got to know that specific industry well and kind of what their clients were looking for and what that field looked like. And so I think that was really beneficial early on.
00:10:32
Speaker
So early on while you're taking those clients did you know like so you built that first photography business did you did you like working with the photographer and so you kind of knew after maybe building a couple of photography websites in particular that you're like hey this is you know I'm good at this. Well it was really interesting because I look back it's really interesting because
00:10:55
Speaker
I feel like very quickly into the process, I was like, this is what I'm good at. Like, this is where kind of all the things I care about merge. Because I remember one of the first conversations with one of my clients, Sarah Bradshaw, who was my second client ever, we just launched the new version of her site, you know, so many years later, so she's still a client of mine. And I remember sitting down with her in Panera and I was like, okay, so like, what do you want your site to look like? You know, who's your client? Like, what are the things, like, and I began to ask her questions kind of as a journalist.
00:11:25
Speaker
And she really responded to that and I feel like in the course of that conversation she's like man I'm so excited because I feel like you really get what I'm trying to do and I was like yeah no I do I feel like I get it I feel like I know what kind of the story I'm trying to tell.
00:11:39
Speaker
is and then that made me really be equipped to visually translate that to okay like this is the story now like what do the visuals look like and so i think at the time now that's a super popular concept but i don't think that that was typical in the design community that i was in at least at that point i don't think that was how most people approached it and so i think that made the results be somewhat different and i loved then like after i had
00:12:06
Speaker
that story in place, the visuals were already there. And that's the benefit of working for our photographers, as you know, is that they already have great visuals. Whereas most small businesses are like, crap, I need to have photos for this. Like old iPhone photos or, you know, something like that. I just got photos for a project the other day that I was doing actually for my college and I was like, how is this photo 12 kilobytes? Like where did you get this photo? Like there aren't photos on your 12 kilobytes. Is this from like a smartphone from 25 years ago? Very first digital camera.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah, they have like their razor foam that they're taking photos was somewhere in like a dark room somewhere I don't know and so that's awesome. You're still doing some work for your college Yeah, it's actually funny because they currently don't have a graphic designer on staff And so they've joked that I am their staff graphic designer, but I keep telling them I'm like no I have two other full-time jobs like I am not You should you should say yeah, that's fine as long as my kids get full full rides to school I
00:13:03
Speaker
jokes about like negotiating something like that. So that's at some point soon here. I think that's I think that's genius. So as you as you got started and you you know you got your first client and that you know client led to others. Did you ever get to a place where you're like okay now like this is what I want to
Managing Client Expectations
00:13:20
Speaker
do. Now I need to go and find clients. Were there any challenges there in building your client base or did clients kind of find you?
00:13:30
Speaker
This is a terrible question because I'm going to say no that I didn't ever go out and find clients. In fact, I had the opposite problem. I call it like the oh crap moment of entrepreneurship where all of a sudden demand was far exceeding what I could execute. And so that was a huge struggle. Still is a struggle for me, honestly.
00:13:52
Speaker
because those first few websites people responded to really well all of a sudden I had this huge influx of inquiries and people that were like hey man I love this website please build mine can you do it next week and I was like no I can't do that so I'm so sorry no I can't and because of how kind of in depth my process was with each client I
00:14:13
Speaker
it was pretty time consuming for each project and so all the sudden i was facing being like over committed working on too many things at one time having this process that was like extending too far out because you know i had a client and another client i was working on too many projects at the same time and so that was honestly something that i really had to just overall my process.
00:14:36
Speaker
take fewer clients and realize that every single time I launched a website, there was going to be an influx of new inquiries of people saying, hey, please, can you do this? And I think that's the benefit of figuring out what your process looks like and achieving an outcome that you're proud of and working with clients that you love is because each project is basically your biggest marketing set piece at that point.
00:15:01
Speaker
And so I think that it was it was kind of the opposite problem or I wasn't having to find clients I was having to figure out how to like treat my existing clients well and then how to say no or figure out something else and so that's actually why I Started the tonic site shop that I have with my partner Jeff Shipley. That's why I started that with him because I
00:15:23
Speaker
we saw this huge demand and this huge need and all these creatives were like, oh my gosh, my website sucks. I love this website that you built. Can you do it? And I was just saying no over and over and over. And they're like, well crap, like, thanks. And so.
00:15:39
Speaker
Anyway, we decided, OK, like there's obviously this huge need. We should design a set of templates for people who hate templates, who don't want a template website. Basically, that was kind of our audience. We said it was templates for people who give a damn. Apologies to my mother who's listening to this. But we set out to kind of create things that were just as good and like just as intentional and just as well researched and just as well designed as any of our custom projects that anyone would be proud to have.
00:16:06
Speaker
who would say like oh man it's like you designed this just for me so that's kind of how tonic was born out of that like feeling terrible for just saying no i can't help you over and over yeah well that's that's probably been a huge blessing then to be able to send people to to templates and the interesting thing about templates is a especially on show it you know i mean uh we're big fans of show it too and it's just such an easy platform to use and and sort of pick up and be able to do it yourself and especially if you start with a good template
00:16:34
Speaker
you can really make that template your own, I think. Totally. So at the end of the day, you don't have to worry necessarily about having a matching website to somebody else, because I think that most of the time when we look at how people have used our templates, they end up with very different websites at the end of the day.
00:16:51
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, I think that's a huge benefit. And I think like the narrative, at least that I was hearing years ago, and that I still hear all the time now is like, I have this website that someone built for me, and I don't know how to change it. And so it's been the same thing for the last six years. I don't know how to add new photos. My portfolio is super out of date. And I paid all this money for a site that I can't use myself. And I feel like we've been so pleased to be able to say like, hey, guess what? You don't have to be held in website jail.
00:17:20
Speaker
you should be in control of your own website. And so even now with my clients that I build stuff for, I love that like Jenna Kutcher is like, Hey, Jen, I just added this page, you know, the sales page the other day, will you take a look at it? And I'm like, that is so cool that she didn't need to say like, Jen, can you do this for me? She took all the bones that we created together. And she was able to create a totally, you know, matching new section without feeling like she was, you know, held hostage by my design.
00:17:46
Speaker
So going back a little bit, um, you, you had mentioned that you had to learn how
Learning to Say No
00:17:50
Speaker
to say no. And I feel like that's such a struggle for people is, you know, they have this influx of work and you want to say yes to everything, you know, one, because you're making money from it, you know, uh, but then also because you don't, you might not like to say no. So how did you learn like, how did you get in that rhythm of saying, okay, these are the projects that I'm going to focus on and that I'm going to say yes to. And these are the projects that I'm going to say no to, um, at least in the time being.
00:18:14
Speaker
You know, I will let you know that in 2019 when we do another interview in 2019. So I think that one of the things first you have to realize is that you're not the best fit for every client, you know? And I think that's something that we have to realize as creatives where we can see ourselves in so many shoes to our detriment. And I go like, I couldn't be the one to do this for you. And these days I have a lot of people that are like, I know
00:18:41
Speaker
that you were put on this earth to design this website for me. And I'm like, you know, no, no, I don't think so. Because there are tons of other really talented designers out there that are that need a client. And so if I take on too many clients, why am I taking someone who might be a great fit for this person over here?
00:18:59
Speaker
or why am I taking away an experience that this client might have so much better with another designer who's a better fit for them. So I think that shift in mindset is really important. Just realizing you're not the best fit for everyone and everyone is not the best fit for you.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's I think that's great insight. I mean, I think we see that and we saw that in our photography business as well We might have a really high high wedding or I'm sorry a really high budget wedding inquiry that comes in and You know, we kind of want to say yeah, you know this wedding is gonna be gorgeous But at the end of the day there might be a few things where it's just not a good fit for for us in particular Yeah
00:19:39
Speaker
So I think learning to say no, I mean it's difficult, but I do think it's very liberating at the end of the day and it really allows you to focus on those clients that are a good fit that are going to have the best experience possible.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah, and so I think that it's realizing who do you love to create for? Who do you love to create for? How much can you create? And that's something for me that's been huge is realizing I honestly can't take on too many projects before my work really suffers and before my client experience really suffers. And so my threshold for that is probably lower than a lot of people because I put so much into each project
00:20:19
Speaker
anything and so i think that that's realized like okay who do i love to create for how much can i create those are two kind of guiding thoughts and then when people inquire it's also really telling like the things that they ask me inquire on the things that they're attracted to.
00:20:34
Speaker
And I mean, I don't have like a specific design style. I don't have like, oh, this is the kind of site I like to design over and over. And so you need to like this style because I really try to just disappear as much as I can into each project. What I do love is having each one of those projects be super unique. And so if someone emails me and say,
00:20:52
Speaker
hey, I want something just like this project that you designed over here. To me, that's usually a good tell that I'm not going to be a great fit for the project because I don't want to just redo that website. I want to do something. I want someone to say, man, I keep looking out there. I haven't found anything that falls in line with what I'm looking for. Can you help me create something that's super new and original? I think that that to me is like a super tantalizing opportunity of like, yes, let's create something super new and awesome.
00:21:19
Speaker
And we're going to, you know, I'm looking forward to, I want to get to how you do that. Do you feel like, you know, since we're talking about saying no and picking the right clients and things like that, do you think it's maybe even more important for a designer to have, you know, to pick the right client? Because I almost feel like it's building a house.
00:21:40
Speaker
And it's a little bit more intricate than I think people realize coming into the experience. Like you had mentioned, joking around about people coming and saying, hey, I need to launch my website next week. And you're like, yeah, that's just not going to happen. And it's not going to happen at least. And it looked good. So there's more intricacies to it. There's some delays. There's decision making on the part of the client.
00:22:07
Speaker
So how do you communicate that kind of stuff to your client? Communicate them like what the reasons are for them not being able to, you know, how do I communicate when they're not a good fit? Is that what you're saying? No. So how do you communicate upfront like what this process looks like? Because it is such, I think, a, you know, depth process.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I feel like setting expectations and any project is so vital. And just a quick aside here, I think that one of the things that I like to talk about as a designer is kind of figuring out the best case scenario process for you.
00:22:43
Speaker
And so one of the things that I've realized in my workflow is that when a project stretches out, and stretches out, and stretches out, it causes, as the timeline goes on, there's an automatic decrease in inspiration and motivation for me both, and then also for the client. I feel like you get excited about something, and then as the time goes on, you get less and less excited. Sure.
00:23:08
Speaker
all the time and you kind of can't capture it's like it's like dating like that initial like that initial first date when sparks are flying it's like this is the really exciting time and then obviously you know in the best case scenario that spark doesn't go away um but in in design work i realized that i needed to kind of be able to act on that initial spark and so i reoriented my workflow
00:23:31
Speaker
to be a design intensive focus and so I actually did one yesterday with a client and so we were sitting in a very collaborative atmosphere like you and I are right now and I was showing her concepts and she was saying like oh yeah I like this but something about this doesn't feel right and so in that moment there was a huge amount of energy where I was super inspired. Now if I wait another four months that energy would dissipate you know significantly
00:23:58
Speaker
But if I work on her stuff today, whenever I'm coming off that creative high, I'm still in it.
00:24:05
Speaker
And so I think it's really important to realize as a creative, like how do you work well? You know, if you're able, if you're like, I feel like Krista is this way, I don't know this about her, but she seems like a super disciplined creative where she's like, I'm going to work on this project today. I'm going to sit here for 12 hours and knock out all these things. That's not my skill set at all. I need that like, that like, um, it's the journalist in me, honestly, it's the writer of like, I need that inspiration high.
00:24:29
Speaker
And so I've reoriented my process to basically figure out that out. So I communicate that to my clients now, like, hey, we're going to do all your homework first and then we're going to have a design intensive where we work together and kind of get into the zone together and come out going, OK, like this is our game plan. And then after that, then we can set our timeline moving forward. So, yeah, it's it's been super helpful. It's been a great change both for me and for my clients.
00:24:54
Speaker
So if you go back in time, and this is the last question I'll ask about you starting your business, because I really want to talk about how you stay inspired and how others can come up with an authentic and unique
Finding Your Creative Rhythm
00:25:06
Speaker
brand. But if you go back in time, what's one thing that you wish you had done sooner in your business?
00:25:12
Speaker
that what I just told you. The first few products I did that kind of went long and you're both frustrated and the client's like, hey, what's happening? And I'm like, hey, it's just not there yet. All of that I think could have been saved by taking a hard look at my client experience, my workflow and going, okay,
00:25:31
Speaker
How can I make this workflow work for me and work for my clients much better and I thrive in a collaborative environment. I love like chatting with you. I'll be like super up for the next few hours because I love like interacting with people and so realizing that I'm not meant to be like.
00:25:47
Speaker
in a basement by myself coming up with a design concept. That's just not how I work well. So I think think through how do you work best? What leaves you in a really creative space? And then figure out a way to make that your process. And I think most creatives don't even think about that. They go like, this is how you do this thing and I've got to do it this way that this other person told me how to do it. That's not true. This is the great thing about being an entrepreneur. You are able to create and cultivate your own work environment
00:26:17
Speaker
So do that, be present in that work environment and figure out how you work well and then do that. So I wish I had done that earlier. Yeah, I think that's a super helpful exercise just to look maybe even at the end of every year to look at different pain points for not only your clients, but also yourself. Because we find with our clients that when we're focusing on those pain points, those things that we keep saying about our clients, man, I wish they wouldn't do this.
00:26:41
Speaker
And I can think of a ton of examples in, you know, especially, you know, in photography or photography business, just things that I wish, I really wish they want to ask for this photo. You know, it's not going to look good. But, you know, as we think through those things, all those things can be solved with a little bit of education. But I love your insight because I think the same could be true for yourself and your own business, you know, thinking through.
00:27:02
Speaker
This doesn't work for me. How can I change it? My clients hate this every time. My clients always struggled early on with creating content because I need all your content for your website because I heard this is what you do as a designer. I need all your content for your website before we can get started.
00:27:21
Speaker
And so literally every project would style out at that point. I think this is true of all the designers and they just don't think they say it. But I think every project would style out because guess what? I'm working for very visual people. And so they sat down with a blinking cursor and like, no, I have no idea what to create because I haven't seen anything. And so now we develop like the first set of concepts. So they kind of know what kind of content they need to create and where it's going to be and where it's going to live.
00:27:47
Speaker
Then they go through creating their contact. And as soon as I switched that, that roadblock disappeared. And so instead of just being like, no, here's this box, please fit into this little box that I made for you that says graphic designer. I think it was really helpful just to take a continually evaluative look at the process and what was working and what wasn't working.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I keep on sidetracking myself with also other stuff. We had an interesting interview with Ashlyn Carter, which will also be published at some point about creating content and fitting stuff in that little book. But anyways, we're going to move on because I do want to talk about...
00:28:27
Speaker
Hey friends, we're going to take a quick 60 second break so I can introduce you to one of my favorite companies and the sponsor of this episode, ShowIt. ShowIt is a drag and drop website building platform created especially for photographers and creative entrepreneurs. It's used by some of the biggest names in the creative industry from Amy and Jordan Demos to Kaitlyn James and it's what we built our website on too. What's awesome about ShowIt is that it's both powerful and easy to use.
00:28:51
Speaker
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00:29:09
Speaker
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00:29:32
Speaker
You can even save 10% on an annual subscription by using the code BTBSHOW. For more information, check out the show notes. And now back to our episode. But anyways, we're going to move on because I do want to talk about really this question. You've designed brands for, you know, like you said, you publish a brand and you get all sorts of influx of inquiries and you publish or I'm sorry, you've built websites and brands for
00:30:00
Speaker
Jenna Kutcher and Caitlin James and most recently Shana Skidmore and I imagine That after you publish those websites and at least I mean this is even observation that that we can make That all of a sudden other websites pop up that may that may resemble Those those websites right to put it to put it mildly so You know
00:30:30
Speaker
People, I mean, people love, people love your work. And so obviously, you know, imitation is the is, I guess, a form of flattery. But at the same time, going out and copying somebody else's website because they like somebody else's website is not going to be authentic or unique for them.
00:30:46
Speaker
Right. So you can't work with everybody as much as you might, you know, want to work with everybody or everybody, you know, a bunch of people might want to work with you. So what would you say to clients who are trying to build an authentic and unique brand? But maybe they're not ready to hire a designer. You know, I think that's an important thing to put out there. Yeah, totally.
00:31:08
Speaker
I'm a believer that you should build your first one or two websites, you know, yourself, give it a shot. Yeah, totally. And there's so many resources out there like show it in Squarespace or whatever it is, you know. So I'm a big believer in that. Or, you know, maybe, yeah, this for whatever reason, they're not in a place to hire a designer. So what steps can they take to build an authentic and unique brand?
00:31:31
Speaker
Okay so I love this topic so much and I do think this is increasingly this is an issue that we see you know and it's not just it's not just these these bigger names like Jenna and Natalie and Shana and you know whoever else I think it's with everyone and it's because
00:31:47
Speaker
I think because of the state we live in right now, we have a huge advantage and then we also have a huge disadvantage. And the advantage is that we're creatives, right? Like we have good ideas. We know what we like. Lots of small business owners should be like, I don't know what my website should look like. I have no idea and just have a lack of inspiration. We don't have that problem, but we do have is an inundation with what everyone else is doing.
00:32:12
Speaker
And I think that's because of the community online of creatives. I think it's because of just the internet at large, which is just like a comparison game playground. But like 10 years ago, we would have been familiar with like maybe two other websites of our competitors in our local area, right? We would have been like, okay, I can't use this font because this guy across town is using this font. And I can't put like a tree as my main image because this other person has that. And that would have been it. It would have been like, okay, everything else is fair game. But now,
00:32:42
Speaker
We literally know what the website looks like of like every other creative in the stratosphere. We know what like who they rebranded with. We know the strategy behind it. We know when they launched it. And so we're just being constantly inundated with other things in our industry, other competitors who maybe even across the globe, we know exactly what everyone else is doing. And so because of this,
00:33:05
Speaker
I think we're tempted to skip a step and we're tempted to start with emulation instead of inspiration. We're tempted to say, okay, this is what everyone else is doing. I'm going to pick five websites that I like and kind of look at them and decide like, I think this is close, but it's not quite me. This is kind of cool, but it's not quite me. And then we end up with this hodgepodge of items.
00:33:29
Speaker
And I think it's such a shame because as I've told people before, wouldn't it be a shame if you spent all this work in tears and sweat equity and then your website ends up representing someone else better than it represents you? That's the opposite of our goal, right? So I think the problem is this emulation and it's because we're not doing kind of the first step.
Building an Authentic Brand
00:33:51
Speaker
And Seth Godin has this great quote. It says, be the best version of yourself, not the best version of someone else.
00:33:58
Speaker
and i think that's kind of our temptation right now is like we're just trying to like refine what someone else has to make it fit us um and i've actually had this happen you know fairly recently it was it was really interesting actually because it just gave me a bird's eye view into a common
00:34:13
Speaker
kind of misconception because i sent this very like gentle email to this lady that had a website that was very similar to one of my clients and it was enough so that it was like a direct replicate and i was like okay like this is probably a little bit too close like fyi this is something that my client has purchased and spent money on and so therefore like it would make us both feel more comfortable if you would change it to be a little bit less of a direct you know replicate of her website
00:34:40
Speaker
And this lady, very sweetly, was like, actually, no, I didn't copy her website. I brought up like four of the websites you've designed, and I just took pieces of each of them. And so it's really not like her website, it's just like all of them. And I was like... Yeah, that probably does make you feel much better. I was like, you know, if you like... I've been copied one website. I've actually copied four websites.
00:35:03
Speaker
But she was like, this isn't copying. And so she was like, well, you know, and I was like, honestly, the best way I can explain this to you is like, if you take 500 words from a few different novels and then are like, here's my new novel, it's still plagiarism.
00:35:18
Speaker
But the problem was not that this lady was a bad person. The problem was that that's how she thought you began the design process. You look at five other websites and you go, okay, I like this, I like this, I like this, put it together, boom, new website. So if you had an opportunity to talk to her before she had got started and maybe you met her in a coffee shop and just in passing conversation you knew she was working on a website, you would say, hey, listen, really, you should start here.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I think there's this great quote by this guy named Austin Cliont, and he says, you don't want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes, right? So you don't want to go look like Caitlin James, you don't want to go look like Natalie Frank, you don't want to look like Krista and Davey, Davey and Krista. Krista and Davey.
00:36:08
Speaker
So you want to do, there's a book called The Brand Gap and it says like the things they're supposed to do, a good brand does is like identify, inform, entertain, and persuade, but then there's a fifth thing and that is differentiate, okay? So you should be starting by looking at what these people do, but then differentiating yourself and saying, what about this do I like? Why is this successful? See like your heroes, why is it successful? But then how can I do it differently?
00:36:38
Speaker
And so all of this leads back to the homework process. And so I'm very much a homework background designer. And so that's kind of what we've really enjoyed equipping, like even our tonic sites. We do the same exercises. So one of the first things that we do is we do a brand questionnaire. I do this with all my custom clients. We do it loosely with tonic as well. And it asks some questions like,
00:37:03
Speaker
Okay, what would your brand look like if it was a room? Where would your brand shop? You know, what are things that people associate with your brand right now? And so as you do these questions and as you kind of look at the answers, you end up with things that are original to you because you're not asking questions about the industry. You know, your eyes are not on other people. They're back into your brand.
00:37:28
Speaker
That's super helpful. That's one thing that we do. Another thing we do is called the brand interview process. This is something that I came up with because I'm a former journalist. That basically entails you answer a set of questions that are like, what's one thing about my website that I don't think is working well for me?
00:37:50
Speaker
How would I describe my ideal client? You answer a few of those questions and then you send the same list of questions, I think they're like four. You send a few of those questions to other people that you trust or like your partner, like Krista would answer it. And so as you begin to compile those answers, you see the common themes and the common threads throughout. So armed with this homework, all of a sudden you have this rubric of like, okay, my brand should feel like that.
00:38:18
Speaker
And my idea is this, and so I know then how to speak to them. And just a cool example of this at your show at United, where you guys were, we were talking through this whole brand interview process, and I mentioned the one about, you know, where would your brand shop? And that's one of my favorite questions, because it sounds like the most, like, air-headed, you know, Elle Woods approach to graphic design. But it's actually super telling.
00:38:41
Speaker
And one of the girls came up to me afterwards and she's like, oh my gosh, I've realized that all this time I've been trying to be J. Crew. And really my client would shop at Sephora. And she was like, and so I was like, yeah, okay, let's unpack that a little bit. So Sephora, like you walk in, it's super well organized. The people are really helpful. Like everyone's like, hey, what can I help you with? Can I help you find something?
00:39:02
Speaker
It's really editorial and their website is very editorial and clean. She's like, yeah, so I guess my website needs to be super well organized. And I was like, hey, you know what you could do? You should go back and look at the Sephora magazines and mailers and stuff and figure out why are they doing what they're doing. And guess what? Sephora is not another photographer in her area.
00:39:25
Speaker
is like a multi-bajillion dollar company that hires genius graphic designers that make them bajillion dollars. So you can bet that they've really thought this process through. So that's one of the favorite things that we do even with our tonic sites is like, okay, if this site needs to appeal to someone who likes J.Crew, let's not look at a bunch of photographers who have websites like J.Crew. Let's look at J.Crew and say, okay, how are they using space and fonts? And what do their stores feel like? Because we want someone who loves J.Crew to feel really at home on this website.
00:39:53
Speaker
So it's crazy to me because as soon as you have this inspiration, you're going to end up with something unique because you can't help but do that. You're not starting with what this industry is super common and that's why we have this state of homogeny in our industry where you can barely differentiate all these websites because they're all using the same fonts, the same colors because they're all looking at each other.
00:40:17
Speaker
and I like it just doesn't make sense to look at another person yeah i think that the best thing you can do to stay inspired is look outside your industry or at least one of the best things that you can do i know that krista does that for design and that our brand questionnaire has some similar questions and never would we ask like hey list your five other favorite photographers you know and what you love about their website that would just be you know there's no way you stay inspired that way and the
00:40:42
Speaker
The next part is that I think that, I'm sorry to interrupt, I'll let you ask the question if anyone does, but I think that people go, okay, I'm not going to look at other designer. I'm not going to look at other websites. I won't look at like this person's new branding because I don't want to copy. Most people have had that in mind to begin with, but then they don't know where to look. And so they're like, well, this is super frustrating because either they go down the Pinterest rabbit hole and they end up with a bunch of stuff that they think they like that doesn't go together and they don't know why they like
Brand Alignment Examples
00:41:09
Speaker
it.
00:41:09
Speaker
because they were hungry and so they just pinned like a ton of recipes, you know, whatever. Um, Pinterest is both great and terrible. Same problem, just too much information to consume. Exactly. Exactly. We're just like spammed with inspiration.
00:41:23
Speaker
Or they sit there with like a blank screen and they're like, okay, got to hammer out this website design and they have nothing to start with. Um, and so yeah, some of our favorite sources of inspiration, like whenever Jeff and I get together to design tonic sites, we've designed tonic sites based on like a cool store that we were in. And we're like, man, we love the way this feels. We want a website that feels like this.
00:41:43
Speaker
I was on a plane back from Greece, and I saw this really amazing in-flight magazine, and there was a story in it. I love the layout of the story. I took all these snapshots on my phone of the story layout, and then when I got home, I designed a website that had a similar feel, and it wasn't copied. That must have been the most beautiful in-flight magazine ever. You probably weren't flying like Southwest or something like that.
00:42:09
Speaker
Actually, I think we were fighting like super budget. Have you ever flown? What is it? Wow. Have you flown Wow Air? No, we ever heard of it. Never flown it. So it's called Wow, because you're constantly saying wow during the flight. Like, wow, water is $12. All the seasons are calling. Wow, my tree table is stuck. Like, yeah, isn't that like an Iceland Air? Part of Iceland Air or something like that? So I'm not really sure. It felt like a scam. Yeah.
00:42:36
Speaker
that the airline attendants were like really good looking and that I decided was like that's their selling point is like the airline attendants are really good looking everything else is terrible but it was cheap so but anyway but they're in Cloud magazine super on point so good to know.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, even for things like content marketing, you know, marketing business, things that when I'm looking for inspiration, I try not to look at what everybody else is doing in their marketing efforts within the industry, because there's all sorts of things going on in other industries that are really cool and that are interesting and innovative. And so I find it's a lot easier than to kind of appropriate those ideas, you know, for our own industry where
00:43:18
Speaker
Maybe they haven't been used as much or maybe they haven't been as much you know that sort of thing So I love that you take an idea and then you go back to like that the brand gap and say okay How do I differentiate this idea now for me like how can I take this and not just plug and play it? How do I take this idea and do a version of it that fits with my brand? But yeah looking outside our industry. I think is is a huge is a huge place and
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, Krista loves reading, especially fiction books for inspiration, but again, staying out of industry. I love that insight. I love how you focus on not what everybody else is doing in the industry. I think that's a great piece of advice for anybody else. What else? Is there anything else that people can do as they create their brand and their website?
00:44:07
Speaker
to make sure that it's unique. Yeah, just to make sure that they're not looking towards what everybody else is doing. Yeah, so I think the next important thing, after you kind of figure out the tenets of your brand, like, okay, you've done your brand questionnaire, you've done your brand interview, you have kind of a hold on like those things, I think the next thing is who's your ideal client?
Targeting Ideal Clients
00:44:27
Speaker
You know, who do you want this brand to appeal to? Because ultimately, if you do a great job articulating your brand online,
00:44:34
Speaker
but you don't target it to your ideal client, you're still not going to get the success that you're looking for in terms of inquiries, in terms of conversion, because you've kind of left out the person. And I think this is a really important thing, and this is a concept that Donald Miller teaches a lot, is that you're not the hero of your brand. You just conveying your personality is not the point. And I think this is where a lot of creatives have been really
00:45:02
Speaker
Not well-served because they've just been told like if you're yourself online people are gonna fall in love with you And you're gonna get booked and I honestly don't think that's true I think that you should represent yourself authentically online But I think if you're if you are the focus of your brand People are not going to appeal to it because people want to see themselves represented in your work and your brand and
00:45:26
Speaker
They want to know how they're going to fit into your narrative that you're creating. So you're saying, this is who I am, this is who I am.
00:45:32
Speaker
you're leaving out the most important person, and that's the people that you want to serve, right? I think that's the biggest pitfall for an about page, you know, because the about page, I mean, it's yeah, sure, it's about you, you know, somebody trying to learn more about you, but it's really about your your client, you know, and they want to see how they fit into this experience. So great insight and Donald Miller, huge fan. Oh, yeah. You know, I guess his building a story brand is a book that I just read in January, highly recommend.
00:46:01
Speaker
But his podcast is also super good. Haven't listened to his podcast off the check. Yeah, super, super good. He's got one on like the pitfalls of your website. And I think it's really smart. I'm an advocate for like less text on a website. I'm an advocate for making sure that it's not just you. And then you're thinking back, like I was just to expand a little bit, you know, you're thinking of it from a process of like, what is where would my idol client feel comfortable?
00:46:23
Speaker
And so, for example, one of my clients, Audrey, is a client in Paris. And she was like, my clients love high fashion. They love these luxury brands. And so her website needed to not feel super casual. It needed to feel very editorial and in line with everywhere else. These people are spending time online. So that was really indicative of the project and the aesthetic that we wanted to create was what would appeal to her ideal client both visually and then in terms of the text.
00:46:52
Speaker
That informs the tone. You shouldn't necessarily just write in your own voice. You should think through, what is my ideal client looking to read? What are they looking to be told? You don't want to just sit down and start talking.
00:47:08
Speaker
So it's a matter of like you're not being inauthentic, you know, you're not saying like, I'm going to be this different person online because you never want people to meet you and then be like, oh my gosh, I'm totally surprised you're so different. But you are choosing the bits and pieces like even with our tonic brand, Jeff and I always joke that like we're both kind of huge dorks and then the tonic brand is really cool.
00:47:30
Speaker
And so I'm okay with that because when you meet me, I'd rather be much more personable. I don't mind. That's still part of who I am. You guys are pretty cool too, though. Well, thank you. I was just setting you up, just teeing you up. You're so cool, Jen.
00:47:45
Speaker
No, but I'm definitely much more personable, and I think you see that in my email correspondence with Tonic, etc. But the Tonic brand, we still make it our goal, even in Tonic. We're here because we want to help you look cool. Tonic is not about us being cool. It's worth saying you are too cool to be stuck with a website that isn't as cool as you are. And that's our goal, is how can we elevate you? You don't want to work with Tonic just because we seem pretty great.
00:48:14
Speaker
And we know that. That's not the goal. So choosing which parts of your personality are the most important to show online. But keeping in mind, it's not just about you.
00:48:27
Speaker
If I tried to be completely myself on my website, every picture of me would be in sweatpants. I put on this for this interview, but in general, I'm just in sweatpants. I love that you transitioned to that and how people receive your website because usability is a huge aspect of building a website as well.
00:48:53
Speaker
It's great to have awesome aesthetics and to have something visually that reflects you in a brand, but then there's also that next step of figuring out how people are going to work through your website and use your website. That's, to a certain extent, a whole other beast. Do you have any advice for people thinking through that kind of thing?
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, so if you are launching a new website and you've never had someone who hasn't been through it, go through it and try to click things and see what works and where they get lost.
00:49:25
Speaker
that's a huge part of the process is going, okay, wait a second. Like someone needs to use this because the average person has never interacted with your website before. And if they, if people get lost, you failed. And I like to say that you have about, you know, I think it's you have 0.08 seconds to make a first impression on your website. So if they immediately, if they get there and they have, I call it the cheesecake factory menu syndrome,
00:49:50
Speaker
where they don't know what to do and don't know what to do next. You've already lost them. You've lost that lead. And so I am a big fan of looking at your website and figuring out where are you directing people, especially from your homepage. I see this a lot.
Importance of User-Friendly Websites
00:50:05
Speaker
There's just this mortgage board of options, but there's nothing that's elevated in terms of scale or size or design where you're funneling people through because you want people to get to your website and click.
00:50:17
Speaker
you know, pretty early on, you want them to interact in some way. I think intuitively, we think, oh, people want access to all the things. They want all of the information. And people don't. I mean, I think about my favorite restaurants generally have the smallest menus.
00:50:31
Speaker
I'm so with you on that one and I assume when there are 400 things that there are two of them that are probably good and they're hidden in this menu and I have no idea where they are but whenever people are confident enough to only give me a couple of options I'm like they must feel really good about these options.
00:50:47
Speaker
And I love that like I love knowing I love recommendations. That's like one of my favorite things So I love when it's like someone says like this is my favorite thing because I have the confidence of like this is going to be good so I think the same thing approaches is True of the approach to website design like you want people to immediately feel confident about where they should go and I love like layering content in and
00:51:10
Speaker
But you want that process to be very intuitive where people are going, oh, yes, I do want more. Oh, yes, I will read more of this. And they're making choices that have basically been predetermined. Just meeting people where they're at in their thought process and as they're exploring your site and thinking about what they want from you. So is there anything else? In terms of UX? Or just in terms of building an authentic and unique brand?
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would just, just one of my favorite things to say about this issue is like, when you start with intention, you create with purpose. You know, you know, all of this goes back to intention intentionality. When you do your homework, you know, when you refuse to just like survey the creative landscape, when you think about your UX experience as you're designing your site, thinking about like, what do I want people to do? Where do I want them to go? All of that is just intentionality.
00:52:06
Speaker
And what that takes is time. It takes thought and it takes time. And I think creatives, we're very into immediate gratification. And we have this need to make sure that we're being very represented online, which is very good that we think that way. But I think it's really important not to skip a step and lose the intentionality. And so part of that, you guys have this with your palm shop. We have that with Tonic.
00:52:31
Speaker
where we've tried to take a lot of the guesswork out of that process. So we've kind of done a lot of the intentionality for our clients and said like, okay, this is how a good flow works. And so, you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, hey, I need some inspiration, like how should my website work? Feel free to just go and look at the sites that we've designed and click through them and see kind of how we've chosen to build an experience. I think that can be really helpful as you're seeing like how designers do what they do.
00:52:56
Speaker
and then take that and use that as, okay, this is in my arsenal now to know how a website should flow. I think it's so vital to just have an intentionality approach to the design process just holistically.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah and I think we live in a world now where there's no excuse not to have a pretty good looking website because you have template shops like tonic and you have website building platforms like show it that really do take the guesswork out of you know you don't need to know code to get on show it and work through that and it's gonna take a little bit of learning if you've never been in it before but it's it's worth it because it's a flexible enough platform to do the things that you want to do on it.
00:53:38
Speaker
And we love it because we'll get people that are like, man, I thought I needed a custom website. And I feel like this website you guys designed is exactly built for me. And that's been most of the rewarding things. It's like people have said they felt like the products we've designed were custom built for their brand. And I think that's because we do have such a person in mind for each of our products. And we have such a brand that we've created for each one that we know
00:54:02
Speaker
all of our sites are based on cocktails that you may know but we know like this is what this kind of this the vodka soda would look like this and would be this kind of brand it would have ideal clients like this and so we really tried to take that approach and I think it's been cool just to see like who matches up with what and who really goes like this is totally me awesome
00:54:20
Speaker
Yeah and I think that there's a lot of value in even starting with a template or building your own website and going through that process and thinking about these things because I think when you do that you're the first you know two maybe even three websites when you when you're ready for custom design.
00:54:35
Speaker
you're going to be that much more coherent to your designer. You're going to be able to say, hey, listen, this is what's worked for me in the past. This is what hasn't. I thought this was kind of my brand, but I feel like it's more this. And so I think it just makes it easier for your designer too when you get to having a custom branded website. All right. So when do you think people are ready for custom branding and web design?
Invest in Your Brand First
00:55:01
Speaker
Well, I definitely think it's later than most people think, because I get a lot of very well-meaning inquiries that are like, OK, I just started a business, and I want to start out right. I want to make sure I have my brand and my website on point. And so I'm ready to invest and really get that done. And it's fascinating, because we're in this creative space, we all know that's what we need, which is awesome. That makes my job easy, because like I said, I'm never having to convince people, wow, you really need a great brand and a great website. So job security is on point. It's just fine.
00:55:31
Speaker
But generally I'm like, no, don't do this right now. You need to live in your brand. You need to occupy your brand first. Because I like to say a designer can't give you a brand. They can only give your brand something to wear. I am not in the process of just handing out brands that are going to make you successful. And I think people see these pieces of the puzzle a lot of times because I've worked with some of these influential people.
00:55:57
Speaker
Caitlin and Dustin and Mary and Amy and Jordan and they say, okay, they have a great brand and that's what's made them successful. However, if you look at all these people to one, they've all had websites for years and years and years before they had ever worked with me.
00:56:12
Speaker
And in that process, they were gaining such a great understanding of what worked for them. Amy and Jordan had built their own website. Caitlin had built her own website. Justin and Mary had had their own website. All of these people had websites for a long time. And do you know what they were doing? They were turning out great work in that period of time. They were doing great work. They were working with their clients. They were honing the client experience. And so in the end, when they came to me,
00:56:38
Speaker
They had this arsenal of everything that I needed to just knock it out of the park and say, okay, this is who we are. This is what our clients love. You know, when we did the brand interview for Indian Jordan.
00:56:49
Speaker
Everyone said the word joyful over and over and over in the brand interview process. And we're like, okay, dang, I guess their brand needs to be really joyful. And so that impacted the photos that we took of them. They shouldn't be staring sensitively into the camera. They were laughing at each other because they needed to be joyful. The copy that they wrote was very welcoming, was very enthusiastic, and they would not have known that, their first year of business. And so we wouldn't have been able to make those decisions
00:57:18
Speaker
had they come to me when they first started out. So I definitely think it's really important, and like you said earlier, I think people should build, especially since we have the tools now, since we have awesome site shops and Squarespace, et cetera. Go ahead and put something up. Just keep it simple. Don't stress about it. Don't worry about it not being overly branded. Just make sure it looks nice and clean and highlights your work well. That's basically, those are the earmarks for success for your first website. It should not detract from your work.
00:57:47
Speaker
and you don't want to commit to anything that you're going to regret in a year. So don't put purple butterflies all over it, because then you're gonna be the purple butterfly girl, and then when you change your website- You don't wanna be the purple butterfly girl. No, just in life in general, you never wanna be the purple butterfly girl. But I think that's where we see people in the cycle of rebranding over and over and over, and we all have that friend, right, where you're like, you just launched this website, what's going on?
00:58:14
Speaker
And it's because they jumped into something and were like, this is what I need. And then I get these inquiries all the time where people are like, hey, I just worked with a designer six months ago, but the end product just doesn't really feel right. Can you rebrand for me? Um, cause I think it's important. And I'm like, no, you know, don't do it. Like don't do this. You're not, you're skipping the homework steps basically. And you haven't lived in brand long enough.
00:58:39
Speaker
I think Caitlin had, Caitlin James had had her own brand and her own website for like seven years before we worked together. And that's a long and that's a long time, you know, and branding and web and web design, it costs money, you know. And so it's just, I mean, you could take that money and, you know, it can help you figure out what your brand, you know, website should look like before everybody to hire a designer.
00:59:06
Speaker
and spending a ton of money on something that's gonna change six months or a year later. Our tonic designs are like one, you know, eighth to tenth of the price that most of my custom clients invest. And it's crazy because I will tell someone who's just started the photography business that it's in card with me. I'm like, well, you know, my average client usually invests this and it's a high amount. And they're like, sure, that's fine. And my husband gets mad at me because I'm like, no.
00:59:33
Speaker
Do not put this on a credit card. Go out there and buy a beautiful template design for under $1,000 or around $1,000 and enjoy that. It's going to make your work look great. You don't need me yet. You don't need me. In fact, I would probably be a disservice because I would be branding your business now before it's ever had a chance to grow into what it could be in another couple of years.
00:59:58
Speaker
So I have to ask this question as we wrap up here because it's such a it's I see this debate every other week in in a Facebook group somewhere with a bunch of photographers wondering should they put their Their prices on their website So I want to know what everyone else answers this question because I feel like you're gonna get different answers from all the different designers
01:00:20
Speaker
So, I definitely tend to think that especially if you are at a higher price point, it's wise to say what your average client invests because all that it basically does is it keeps you from answering a lot of other emails that are just like tired-taking emails that are like, hey, how much do you charge? How much do you charge?
01:00:40
Speaker
I think that I don't think it's going to hurt you basically to list that amount and have people inquire for more info because if people really fall in love with your work, they're probably still going to email you even if your website says, I start at six grand. They're going to say like, man, I love your work. Is there any way we can work together? And you'll still have the opportunity to evaluate.
01:00:59
Speaker
If you are just building your business and you are in a place where you're turning away clients, then I think maybe you don't list your price on your website and you do accept those inquiries and then you send them pricing guides and give them the ability to fall in love with your work first and then be kind of coping them with the pricing information. So I think it kind of depends on where you are in your business, but in general, I'm in favor of it.
01:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, and we have an article on our blog about this question and we answer it, I think, in pretty much the exact same way. We list our average, you know, our average client spends and it is, you know, so that people have an understanding of what they can expect to spend. But on our website and we focus more on the experience, you know, because if people need to know collections, we don't ever really advocate listing collections and things like that and deliverables, you know.
01:01:50
Speaker
on your website. Well, that's great that we're on the same page with that. I'm so glad. I thought you were going to just be like, nope, just three. Cutting this out of the interview. Yeah, off the podcast.
01:02:03
Speaker
Where can people follow along? And I know Jen is kind enough to give away some, I guess, the brand questionnaire and the brand interview process, right? You can download those and we'll include links to that in the show notes. So check that out, especially if you're going to go through a website redesign or brand redesign in the near future.
01:02:25
Speaker
But even if you're not, honestly, I mean, not to interrupt you, but even if you're not, I think it's really helpful no matter where you are in your process to kind of be knowing those answers about your brand, your clients, like what other people, how they perceive it. So don't feel like you have to be going through a redesign for it to be useful. Yeah, and we'll include that in the show notes. So if you're wanting to download those, go to the show notes. There'll be a link there where you can download that. But where can people follow along with you?
01:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, so you can find my personal, you know, the tonic site shop where Jeff and I run that, that's over at tonicsiteshop.com. So we'll have some, a mixture of website design and cocktail recipes, basically, tonic site shop. You can find us on Instagram at tonicsiteshop, and then you can find me personally, which currently is mostly photos of my very handsome husband and children, occasionally with things that inspire me.
01:03:21
Speaker
at Jen Olmsted on Instagram. And it is a great-looking family, and you always have great recommendations. I mean, even, I mean, iconic, you know, you will find the cocktail recipes and all that, but even on your personal Instagram. And I want people to know that when I need a good show to watch or look to read or something like that, Jen is one of the people that I go to, and I feel like we share a, yeah, some similar tastes when it comes to TV and movies and things like that.
01:03:50
Speaker
I feel like I can now count on the fact. However, do you like The Walking Dead?
01:03:55
Speaker
No, I wasn't, I wasn't huge. Just the first couple, just the first couple seasons of Walking Dead and then I lost interest. Okay, then yeah, then we can still be friends because maybe it's Tyler Harrington that still likes Walking Dead because I feel like that's a rubric now. It's Tyler and Michael. Yes. Okay. That makes sense because that's kind of my rubric now because I'm like, if you still like the Walking Dead, we probably are on the same page because my husband still watches it. I think mostly out of like duty because he's committed to this for so long. It's like a relationship. Um, but all I hear is just like,
01:04:29
Speaker
I feel like that needs to be in a subside for your podcast. What are you watching right now or what book are you reading? That's a good little tip for you. What's your latest recommendation? We'll end there.
01:04:47
Speaker
I mean, I like I recommended you. I love the Marvelous Ms. Maisel and my husband loved it too. I feel like it's like it's Gilmore Girls for people who thought Gilmore Girls is a little too cloying and it's not embarrassing. Like my husband watched it with me and really enjoyed it. So I would I would start there. Although I will say that it definitely has some vulgar moments. So if you're looking for like the super family friendly show, I wouldn't necessarily say that.
01:05:09
Speaker
So, um, other than that, it's great. And, uh, and Red Oaks. Let's not leave out, uh, Red Oaks. That was surprisingly good. Sad that it was only four seasons. I know. Definitely makes me think I should have lived in the 80s. You should have. I should have been born in a different, different generation. But anyways, we can go on about this stuff forever. Um, thank you so much for, uh, for joining us.
01:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me. It was super fun. I enjoyed it. I'll see you next time when we can hotly debate other shows and or pricing, website options, et cetera. Thanks for listening to the Brainset Book Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources, visit DavianChrista.com.