BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 44.

Hey, y'all! I am so, so, so hyped and excited to share some of the behind-the-scenes of the Bird Williams rebrand. If you're looking to rebrand, or even launch your business for the first time, you will learn a lot from this episode so get ready to take some notes. 

Now before we get started, I want to share a listener shout-out. Mignon DeJohn, she's actually my mother-in-law. And she is a brilliant business mind and she helps me so much think through some of the big projects in my business. I could not have dreamt up a more incredible mother-in-law honestly. I love her so much. It's like a dream. Anyway, she told me the other day that she was catching up on episodes and she was listening to the show, and she said it felt like when she and I were having coffee, like, you know, friends just chatting. And y'all, it just made my heart burst because that is exactly what I hope this is like. I hope that I'm relatable to where you are on your journey. I hope that I'm demystifying business principles and making things practical so that you can actually finish the episode and take an actual step forward based on something you learn. I want it to be a conversation and obviously, I can't see you. But I want it to feel that way. So when she said that it meant so much to me. Thank you, Mignon and I hope y'all feel the same way. 

Okay, y'all. The new Bird Williams site is live. I have rebranded and I'm going to of course share all about it in this episode. So make sure after this episode you go to birdwilliams.com to check it out. Y'all I'm like more than a little obsessed with it. I love the website. And you might even want to look at it while you're listening to the episode if you can just to kind of add context to what I'm sharing. But I want to say this too. My rebrand means so much more to me than just a new website. The website is obviously great and I'm excited about it. But I'm going to share about the deeper meaning and purpose behind all of it in just a little bit. I also want you to stay tuned through to the end because I'm going to share a really important point that really won't make sense until I kind of give the full story that I think will be helpful for you wherever you are in your journey. So stay tuned until the end. 

All right, I'm gonna let you know what we're going to talk about. First I'm going to share what my branding looked like initially when I first launched my business back in November of 2019. And then I'm going to go into the importance of having consistent branding and what that means. I'm gonna talk about why I chose to rebrand, and then what that exact process looked like. I'm gonna go really deep into all the different things that I changed in my business. And then I'll end with just the different mistakes I made so that you can avoid them. Because y'all know I'm all about that. I love to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. I've shared, you know, how we had four different accountants before we found Alby who had to then rescue us from all of the craziness in terms of our taxes. I've shared about how we made poor hiring decisions. I've shared about how we were attracting the wrong client in the beginning. So, I am in the same way, always trying to share practical tips and even the mistakes I made so that you can avoid them, okay? 

So let's just dive right in. I'm going to start with talking about what my branding looked like when I first launched my business. Again this was back in November of 2019, and we're currently in September of 2020, so almost a year ago. I actually went back to my journal, and my calendar, which I keep like a crazy record of everything I do every day so I can always go back and see, cause I'm you know OCD a little bit like that. So I actually went back to those to kind of really verify these dates and try to bring you a real behind-the-scenes because I know so many of you are kind of in that place where you're about to launch or just launched. I want to kind of show you my thought process through that. So I found a journal entry on May 13 of 2019. And it was prompted from this moment that I had, a profound moment. I remember I was in the Starbucks line. I was in the drive-thru and I was like I have to pull over to write this down. I was listening to a book on Audible. It was, "Girl Wash Your Face." And what happened is I was really struggling with this idea that while I had made goals in my life, I've talked about how my husband and I, we do a goals meeting at the end of every year. You know, I was in that routine of setting goals. But I was never making the exciting goals for me. Like all the exciting goals in my life were centered around other people, my kids, my husband. You know, not something that I could be fully expressive and creative in. I wanted something to really light me on fire and be passionate about. So it was this really long entry. But at some point in that I write, "So, what are goals for me?" And 'me' was in all caps. And then there's these five bullet points, one of which is, "Start Bird Williams Consulting. I think it could be huge. I just need to figure out the formula, the process, the team, but I have to start." And it's in my calendar for Wednesday to start. So this was a Monday when I wrote that, and I looked at my calendar to see what I did on Wednesday. Well, it looks like I moved it to Friday. But I did work in the business on that Friday. And then a week after Friday, that's when I had a lunch that changed the game. So this is May 24, a week and a half after writing that journal entry. I was having lunch at PF Chang's. It's important to note it, not so much PF Chang's, although shout out PF Chang's. But really, I was on a date with myself. So it's important to date yourself. It's important to get away. You know, for me, I just have so much clarity in these moments. Like, I love my husband. I love my kids. But I just simply wouldn't have had the mental space for this moment had they'd been there too. So, I'm having this you know solo date with myself at the PF Chang's. The food was so good. I was in my zone. And I was hype. I was getting excited about this business idea and so I texted my friend, Megan. Megan Harding. She's amazing. She's like, hype man and I try to be the same for her. And that's the kind of friend you want, right? So she was excited too. And she was like, "Hey, I'll do your logo. What do you need to start? I'll help you start. You don't know how to do a logo. I got you." And she's actually a lawyer and she's actually one of the honestly the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life. She knows everything. She's so wise. But she's also very creative. So she offered to do my logo, and we just got to work. She did the logo. I went back and forth between whether I'd do Wix or Squarespace for my website. I eventually chose Squarespace. 

And in the meantime, of course, I was developing my business plan. I wanted to make sure I understood how all of the elements of my business would work together as best I could. And that business plan, as you know my framework. I teach my students to review their business plan every single quarter because it's a dynamic living document that changes. So it has changed so much since then, which is kind of the point why I had to rebrand. But I was working on my business plan and nailing down my packages and pricing. I point that out because, for my website, I needed to have a way to manage client communication in my business. I did that with Dubsado. And I actually talk about it in detail in Episode 16, so definitely go there to check it out if you're looking for a way to kind of automate your client communication. It is everything. And so many of the clients that I work with actually ask about it and say, "I liked this process that I went through as I've been working with you. What is that?" And so I've shared that with them. So definitely go there if you're interested in something like that. 

I actually enjoyed creating my website. You know I'm putting all of this together. I do wish however that I would have like laid out all the content first and mapped it all out in terms of photos, and copy. Copy meaning the text that's on your website. And then put it into my website, as opposed to just kind of like putting it together as I'm actually in Squarespace. So that's a tip right there for sure. But I did it. I did my website. Megan did my logo. I had my business plan. And that was the extent of my branding y'all. I mean I know it's bad. Branding is not my sweet spot. It's not my core competency. So please do not judge me. I feel you judging me right now. But it's fine. So that was it, y'all. That's all I did. And I'll talk a little bit about that later but anyway. 

Before we move on, I want to talk about the importance of consistent branding. Why do you need branding in your business? Simply, brand recognition. You want people to see anything, your website your social media, you know, a resource you might give, and recognize it's you. Almost like even subconsciously. You want them to see consistency in terms of the colors that you're using, even the font you're using which I discovered in this process. Of course your logo. All these things and it all ties together. And that's why you want to have consistent branding. And that's not what I was doing. So we got this right. As many of you know I launched a gym with my husband back in 2013. So I've been an entrepreneur for a long time in a business with my husband for our gym called The League here in Houston. 

Terry, my husband's so good at branding. So it was really on him to really man that. I mean I loved what he would show me. And it was like great, let's go with it. It wasn't my wheelhouse. It wasn't my core competency like I said, so it was like his lane. And that is not the case with Bird Williams because it's just me. I'm a solopreneur in this business. So y'all, it was the struggle, clearly. 

I basically go to Canva. And you know about Canva. I'll link it in the episode description but I did a behind-the-scenes of creating one of my Instagram posts on my Instagram Stories recently, so that's Canva what I'm talking about. I would just go in there y'all and I would choose a random template. And I would almost always just use the fonts and colors from that, like pre-canned template. Because I would think, you know, guess what I have so much to do, and I just can't try to do all the things. And honestly, I wasn't even thinking about trying to have consistent font or colors. I was trying to survive. Right now I'm just trying to get everything out because if you don't know my life is a little bit crazy. I own multiple businesses. I have two little kids. And so it's just go go go. 

That's not what you want to do long term. It's one thing to start that way. But you can't keep going like that, right? When you know better, you gotta do better. So that doesn't help my brand be recognizable when one post looks like this and another post looks a completely different way, you know, a different feel to it. So needless to say, this was a huge stretch for me, but it was important. It was something that I knew I needed to do and knew I needed to get right. And I want you to eventually get there in your business. If you have the space, and finances to do it in the beginning. Great. And again, I'm going to talk some more of that in just a bit. 

So let's talk about why I chose to rebrand. In addition to knowing that I needed more brand consistency, also, there was so much that had changed in my business y'all. And I share about this in past podcast episodes. I think one is like an open letter for Bird. I really had this heart moment where I was realizing that what I thought I was going to do my business was not the way it was going and I needed to switch things around. And I wanted to have different business offerings. And because I wanted to kind of make this shift, I wanted to be able to go all-in with marketing efforts around it, like these new products and services I was going to offer. But I also knew that I wanted to change the name, and I'm going to talk more about that in a second. So I was like at this crossroads of like, man, I want to promo hard. But I know that I need to change the name. So that was one reason. And another reason was because I would hear people kind of you know rave about my website, especially clients. But also friends, like, "Your website is so great." And I was like, I mean, you know, I did it myself in Squarespace. And you know I appreciated the love but I knew it could be so much better. Another issue was that the Squarespace template that I chose was an older version of their templates and so there were things I wanted to do like even just simple things in the footer that I couldn't do. So make sure that you're aware that when you choose templates on these sites that they might get outdated. You want to make sure that it's the template you want long term. Basically, I couldn't just switch over the template easily. I'd have to redo the site in Squarespace. And so I was like I know that I want to have more brand consistency. I know I want to change the name. And I know I need a new website. And so I was like, yeah, I need to just go through a whole rebrand process. 

So let's talk about what that looked like. First and foremost, the name. It all kind of started here. So what's crazy is, I actually initially wanted birdwilliams.com, but the domain was taken. So back in whatever that was, probably summer of 2019, I looked that up but it was taken. So I figured I just add on consulting. You know, that's what I do. I consult people, right? Well, no, not exactly. I learned that that term was misleading. But y'all I only learned that after I started. I mean it is kind of embarrassing to admit. I probably should have thought, like looked into more of what that word meant and how it might differ in the industry. But this is what I found out. There's a difference between a consultant and a business coach and a business strategist. So I'll kind of walk you through the process. 

First, it was a business consultant. That's how I branded myself Bird Williams Consulting. But a consultant really is someone who can go in and implement the pieces of your business that you need done, and like actually execute those things for you. So like for example going into your website and making those updates. Now, I thought, well that's not what I'm doing. I'm really guiding people along a process and a  path. And I would hear business coach, business coach, business coach. So I thought, well maybe I'm a coach. But when I looked into that, a business coach was really more geared toward personal and professional development and accountability. Which I do a lot of in terms of, I mean you even probably hear me weave it into these podcasts episodes. I'm always kind of talking about the holistic business owner because you have to remember that you are a person and a human too and you have needs. So I am kind of speaking to that personal and professional development and I am huge on accountability. 

But I'm much more of a business strategist. And a business strategist works with you as a guide to help you figure things out and develop your unique business strategy. So a business strategist is great for figuring things out at the beginning and during changes and when problems arise and even having regular touch points. So I'm not going to go in and implement something for you. I'm going to show you how to do it. And I've talked to that a lot, you know, teaching you to fish, instead of giving you a fish, because I don't want you to just eat for a day. I want you to eat for a lifetime. So I began to realize, wow, I'm definitely a business strategist and not a business consultant. And this is really embarrassing because my name was Bird Williams Consulting. 

It actually happened while I was working with clients, to be honest. I was working with clients one on one. And we had the scope of work defined. And then one of them asked me to do something outside of the scope of work, which was basically helping with specific website stuff. Like going into their website and making changes. And I was like this is not what I do. And I'm just gonna take a moment to just talk to this because there's a real moment, right? 

When you're starting off, a lot of times, you want to do everything. Maybe because you just love what you're doing, which is really my case. If I could have it my way, I would be super involved in everyone's business. But obviously, I'm one person. I can't do that. So when this client asked me to do something that we hadn't really agreed on, it wasn't in the scope of work. I was excited and wanted to help him. I knew he needed help. But I also wanted to make sure he wasn't upset with our engagement. So I felt pressure to do it. But ultimately, that night after we met, I emailed him. I was like, “Hey, that's out of my scope of work. Let's go back to the drawing board and make sure we're on the same page.” And he was totally cool with it. But that's when I began to realize, you know, a consultant would go in and make a change. And a consultant is typically working in your business for a certain period of time, and they do their deed, and then they move on. Well, that's not really what I'm trying to do, so. 

I was having this revelation in my business and in my life which was kind of rocking me. It was hard, right? And I said, okay, I need to get consulting out of the name. But for months, y'all, I could not decide on a name. I was going back and forth. Again, this is the kind of thing that I'm just like, I can't. I don't want to be doing this. Like, whatever. What name does it need to be? And I know that's really terrible. And I know someone's listening to me like, “Really?” But I was just like, what is the best name? I don't know. And I finally came up with one that I thought was like the one. But as I said it out loud to people, testing it out with friends and mentors. It just didn't roll off the tongue the way that I wanted it to. And I won't share it only because I might use it in a different capacity in the future. But y'all I was struggling. I was like, I gotta find a name, right? 

Guess who helped me. Guess who helped me again. Megan. That's my girl! Can we just take a moment of gratitude for those friends in your life who are just so great? And they let you annoy them with 87,000 questions a day when you're going through big moments like this. I love you, Megan. Thank you! 

So I went to her and I was like, I don't know what to do with the name. And she suggested Bird Williams. And I said, oh yeah, I tried getting that whenever I first launched but it was taken. But when she asked me the question, I said well let me go back to GoDaddy because I had been getting these emails from random people saying, hey, do you want birdwilliams.com domain? And I was like, yeah. But they would never email me back. They'd never follow up. So I imagined it was being sold. But I had kind of forgotten. Her question really triggered it. So I go back to GoDaddy, and I type in birdwilliams.com. And guess what. Y’all, the name was available. It was just there and available. I mean, I remember like my eyes, like, I'm like, “What?” I'm like reading it and making sure I didn't put a typo and I probably put it in like five times. And I was like, what, this domain was available. So that’s just another little tip, if there's ever a time where you start getting emails about people asking you if a similar name is now available and if you want it, they might be trying to sell it and no one actually bought it. So if you wait long enough. But that wasn't even my strategy. It just happened that way. So I snagged it up, and I felt so good about Bird Williams. But this is the thing. This change literally happened after I hired and started working with different people in my business around my rebrand. So this was another delay. 

So next let's go to the website. Now, I initially planned to update the website myself because I had done that the first time. But as I became more strapped for time between all the things that I told you I have going on in my life. I was like, I know I need to outsource that project. 

And that's another little side note. Understand that as your business grows, your time becomes more and more valuable. And the things that you used to do in your business and time that you used to spend, you should spend on things that you're uniquely gifted at in your business as opposed to things that you can outsource. Of course, you're going to balance that with money. But a lot of times we just hold on to things out of control or comfort. And we need to let them go. 

So I let it go. And I first went and hired a marketing agency to help me with the logo and the website and all the branding materials. Well, it ended up not working out. And I had to make a change. And again, this is another reminder to give yourself time for surprises, right? This was another time delay. But then, in the perfect timing and actually through a client of mine, I found Caitlin Maguire Marketing. I love this girl. We quickly vibed. I mean, our first meeting we had, our first Zoom call, it was just like, yes. This is my girl. And she has been so integral to this entire process, and even also just taking my marketing to a whole another level. So I'm gonna make sure that I link her website in the episode description as well so that if you're looking for help with marketing strategy, or you need someone to design your website, hit up my girl. She is so thorough and professional and amazing. 

So, I began working with Caitlin, which was amazing, and we decided to stay on Squarespace. But we chose a Go LIVE template. I want to shout out my client Lauren Collins for actually suggesting Go LIVE. There are these templates you can buy, and they're specifically for Squarespace. But they're a little bit more fun than the typical Squarespace template. So we went with Go LIVE and we downloaded the template right into my Squarespace. 

And then the next thing with my website is that I wanted to get some fresh photos. There's nothing like a fresh set of pictures for a website launch, at least in my opinion. And I went with my guy I always go with, Matt Daniel. Oh, I'm going to tag him in the episode description as well. He's here in Houston, but he is a phenomenal photographer. He's actually our family photographer, so we use him for our holiday photos, and for anything that Terry and I have going on in terms of branding. Basically anytime we're getting pictures taken, we go to Matt because he's incredible. So I'm going to, again, add him to the description and I really should probably do a podcast episode on what it's like to have a successful photo shoot. And all the different things around a shot list and how to prepare and thinking about your clothing and having multiple changes of clothes and all of these things. So that's going to be probably coming in the works at some point, okay? 

So, with my website, I had Caitlin. I had Matt. It was good. And now let's talk about the logo. So, there was another delay here. When the marketing agency didn't work, I went to a different graphic designer. I hired her but it didn't work out, either. So, y’all I was making yet another change so late in the process. Now, this ultimately led me to working with Annie McDonald's of AMCreative. And y'all, it was worth it because this girl is amazing. She was so patient with me, not knowing all of the branding things. She was so quick too knowing that I was on a tighter deadline. And I am just so grateful for her. Annie if you're listening, you came through clutch. But you already know that because I've told you that. And it was a great process working with her, so I’ll also tag her in the episode description. So she submitted the first draft of logos, kind of based on what I had told her, which honestly, I probably could have done a lot better with that. But, you know, the first draft I was like, hmm, this isn't exactly what I'm looking for, but we're getting there. Again, I don't think I articulated very well what it was that I was looking for. So I was learning and she was patient like I said. But I gave her some guidance and in the second draft, y'all. It was just spot on. And it was so good that it was like hard for me to choose. I mean it was amazing. So we tightened things up. She eventually gave me a logo and two sub-marks and other marketing collateral as well. She also submitted a color palette. And the color palette, I loved. That was a little bit easier for me to distinguish between. It was like, okay you have x, y, z color palettes. I think she submitted like five or so. And I was able to choose between them. That was easier for me for whatever reason. And actually really fun, putting colors to my brand. 

Then she also made fonts. Now fonts, I was like, Annie, I’m gonna have to just trust you on the fonts, right? No. She submitted a few and we worked through them. But I knew I couldn’t look at all of the fonts because it would have been way too overwhelming for me. She was great there. So she created or gave me this branding package that included all of that.

The marketing collateral pieces were for like my free downloads. I’ve mentioned, for example, I have “Ready, Set, Launch”. It’s the first 10 steps to launching your business. Y’all if you haven’t got it, you want to grab this free guide. You can go to the episode description. I’ll actually link it there. Because it will set you up. If you don’t know where to start in your business, it’s a great first place to start. It’s just a checklist that I wish I had when I launched my first business 7 years ago. 

So with those pieces of content, she created templates for me so that again I’d have consistent font, colors, my logo. All of that would be on these PDFs and guides as well. 

So another big change I made in my rebrand process was changing the name of one of my services.   Now, this is another good thing to know. If you have a lot of things that you need to kind of change in your business. That might be a good time to think about doing a rebrand cause there were all these things. I needed a new website. I needed a new name. And I knew that I wanted to change the name of my signature program. It used to be called Bird's Eye View Business Plan and now is called Prove It Plan. And it's the same content. It’s how to help you develop a profitable business plan. And y'all I love it so much. Not only because it helped me in my first business. But also because I’m in these sessions with clients as I walk them through the five-week process, and they're just like, whoa, having so many aha moments. And I'm like, this is amazing. And I say that humbly but I'm like this is actually helping people. And so I'm really excited to rename it to Prove It Plan. And it's Prove It Plan because you have to prove it. You have to prove it to yourself. You have this idea or you have this side hustle. But it's all in your head. You need to get it down on paper and use my framework to make sure that your foundation is strong, that your financials are intact, that you understand your operational systems, and how to automate things in your business. And then finally, that you can make your marketing, you know, make magic, right? The marketing is more than what we're talking about today. It's not just the advertising components like your website and social media. But it's also your product and your price and the place and all of that. I actually have an episode. I can't remember the episode number, but it was on the seven P's of marketing. So scroll down and check that out. It's really good. It's actually one people tell me that’s their favorite a lot. So we talk through all of that and it's really good. That's my Prove It Plan. I changed the name of my service during my rebrand. 

And then finally, y'all can call me Bird. I know that you know it's Bird Williams. It's Bird Means Business. But I would still go by Ashley, right? Well, now I'm going by Bird. So I'm going all in y'all. I have like a whole identity change. But you can call me Bird. So that's something else that kind of changed. 

I just want to really give you the full behind-the-scenes of all the things I know a lot of people don't share all these details when they rebrand. They just wanted it to look like, hey look. Check me out. This is new. That's great. That's awesome that people do it that way. But I like to give you the behind-the-scenes so that you can think about how this could look in your business. 

Okay, finally, I want to talk about the mistakes that I made. Number one, you have to understand that this process was a huge stretch for me like I mentioned in the beginning. Not only is it something that I'm just not good at. I mean like the look of things, I just don't want to say I don't care again because I know that branding is important. And I'm just keeping it real y'all, because not everyone is just like you know googly-eyed over branding processes. And I know anyone that works with people around branding are like nodding their heads and they get what I'm saying, right? Keepin’ it real. So I wasn't super excited about it or into it in that way. I was really having to struggle with this mental shift of understanding it was important because I would be comparing it to like client calls right, and things in my business that were actually making money now. Like my time being spent there as opposed to you know looking through, thinking about this or that. But the logo or, you know, going through this whole process. It felt more so like I was spending money and that was wasting time. But you know it was taking time away from what I valued. But that's the problem. I needed to adjust what I valued. I needed to really value this branding process. So it was initially hard for me to really spend precious time in this process. And I wish I would have had that mindset shift around branding earlier. 

And that kind of leads me to my next point is that I wish I would have gone slower, giving myself more time and made more space for this branding or rebranding process. And space, not only in my schedule, which is really important, and I kind of live by schedule so that's probably first and foremost. But also space in my mind and in my heart, like being open to this. So if you're not there, you need to get there. And from the beginning, because it will help the process go a lot smoother. 

Okay, number three is that I wish I would have listened to my gut more. Instead of trying to rush through the process and meet my deadline, I wish I would have like leaned into my intuition. And see the thing is with a rebrand, you really have to be in a place for digging deep. And when you don't make the time or the space, like I was saying, it's a lot harder to lean into your intuition, because you just want what works quick. And so when those alarms go off in your head like, I don't know if that's a perfect person or I don't know if you should go that route. You know you're just like, shh, be quiet. We have a deadline. I'm trying to get to this deadline. And you don't lean into your intuition. So again it kind of all ties back to making that time and space. 

My sister-in-law, Marlene, actually just got engaged. She might be listening to the show. I know she tunes in. So we were chatting the other day and she was like, “I don't have my full wedding planned out. I don't know when we're going to get married. I don't have anything really prepared. But I have started a Pinterest board.”  And I love that because basically, she's like, I know that it's gonna obviously happen. I don't have a date yet, but I'm already kind of starting to put some ideas together. And that's what I wish I would have done. I think I really wish that I would have started it, like have those nudges of, I need to change my name, I need to change my website. I wish I would have just started right then before I was hiring people. Getting a Pinterest board together. Really thinking about what I really wanted. Even following accounts that were you know working in the different fields that I was looking to hire and that sort of thing. So that would have it kind of like in my subconscious as I was going throughout my day. So that when it came time to actually make those decisions, I was more prepared. So that's definitely something that I wish I would have done in advance. 

So y’all, that’s it. That is what my rebrand looked like. I'm hoping that as you hear my story you're able to pull out, ooh, that's a good idea. Or, yeah I don't know that would work for me. So that you can think about what it would look like a launch your brand. To rebrand your business. And I hope this was helpful for you. 

I want to show some love to people. And I know I have mentioned them a lot in the episode. Megan, my friend who helps spark everything, and then showed up for me to help me with my first logo and all the things. I love you. Caitlyn McGuire, my marketing manager who has helped me think through strategy, and helped me deal with my website, building it. I love you, girl. Thank you so much for everything. Matt Daniel, my photographer. He's like family. I'm so glad that he still loves to take pictures of me. That sounds funny but you know what I'm saying. I love that Matt is a great photographer and that we work so well together. And then, Annie. She's one of the newest adds to the team in that regard as my graphic designer and she's just amazing and I'm so grateful that I'm always able to work with her. So they will all be linked in the episode description in case you want to know more about them. 

All right, this is the last little piece of advice that I wanted to make sure I stressed. Y'all, I'm glad that I started the way I did. I am so glad I did. I'm so glad I started with the logo that Megan made for me. And then I just launched my business, kind of blindly, like I'm just put it out there, right? I had my business plan. So to me, that was the most important part. I knew the heart behind my business. I knew where I was headed in terms of how I wanted to serve people. But maybe I didn't know exactly how it would look. And it's so important to share this message with entrepreneurs because sometimes you get so caught up in the details of making it perfect, and you’ll never start if you do that. If you just stay there. At some point you have to say, you know what? I might not have the perfect website. I built it myself. I might not know you know exactly how things are gonna look in my business, in terms of the perfect branding, for example. But I'm going to start. And I'm glad I did it that way. 

There was also so much that I had to learn about my business that I did not know until I started. So, for example, when we went through this process of branding, there were so many questions asked of me around my brand voice and how best to serve my client, and you know what my client needed and all these great questions asked. Questions that I even ask clients now. But I didn't know that when I started. This was new territory for me. Before this business I had a brick-and-mortar gym business, you know. So an online business was very different. And my point is that I think had I gone through a full branding process, then I would have had a lot of questions, and I don't know that it would have been as rewarding as it is for me. So I just want to say that, if that's you, and you don't have the capacity like I didn't. I didn't have the capacity to go through a full rebrand from the beginning. Or if you didn't have the finances to afford an expensive process in the beginning, which was me too. I couldn't fork over thousands of dollars for a full rebrand. Y’all, that’s okay. 

I want you to start with focusing on serving your clients well. And growing your business, so that, what do you make from your business you can then afford the process of having a full rebrand in the future. And you can even actually put that as one of your financial goals in your business plan, right? Because the thing is, y'all, things change, especially in that first year or so at least. And of course, it's going to depend on the business. 

So what actually made me think of this was a post from one of my friends Lanny Smith on Instagram. He and his wife Kirby own Active Faith Sports. It’s a Christian-based apparel brand. She's actually on the show next week, and she dropped so many gems. So you definitely want to make sure that you tune in to Episode 45. It’s gonna be good. But Lanny, her husband had this Instagram post where he showed their first logo for Active Faith. It was their first logo, and he compared it to their logo today. And he was like, a lot has changed. He's like, yeah, it wasn't the best logo in the beginning. But then he shows these huge brands and their first logo compared to where they are today. Brands like Nike, and on and on. It was just so powerful, the understanding that like, yo, things are gonna change, right? 

So if you can't afford a full branding process right now, that's okay. Because your logo idea is probably gonna change anyway. You'll have an opportunity to do it in the future. So I just wanted to make sure I pointed that out. I think it's super-duper important. Don't get caught up on anything like branding. Ultimately, serve people well. Solve a problem that people have and do it in a unique way. And then as your business grows and you can afford something like a rebrand, and then go for it. Okay? 

All right, so don't forget to go check out birdwilliams.com and let me know what you think. Shoot me a DM on Instagram and say, “Hey, Love the website”. Or whatever you think. You could also subscribe to my email list. It's not spam at all because I hate email spam. I just send an email once a week and it's super educational. There's business tips. There’s also motivation. And you can go to birdwilliams.com/join to sign up for the email list. 

Y’all this journey is going to just keep getting better and better as I find more ways to serve you. So buckle in, and let's do the dang thing. If you know an entrepreneur who needs to hear this episode, who might want to rebrand their business or even launch their business for the first time and take some of these nice tips, share the wealth. All right, let them know about the Bird Means Business podcast, and I will see y’all next week.