Curious about how to create your brand?
What colors to choose? What font to use? How to create a logo?
Sure...all these things are important (and fun!) but they aren't the elements that make up your "brand". They are supporting elements that are your visual brand but there are other things that come first.
The importance of a niche when it comes to your brand
Niching down can be to a specific person or an ideology and worldview. The overall concept is that you need to be specific so that you can reach and speak to your audience in a way that will resonate with them.
While it’s tempting to think about colors and logos first, it’s actually much more important to think about the impact you want to make and who you want to work with first, that will shape your branding.
“If you're talking to everybody, then the message gets muddled. But when you can specifically say, ‘Hey, I'm talking to you, these are the things that I know you're struggling with these other ways I can help you’, that catches someone's attention and that’s what branding is. What you're trying to essentially do is catch someone's attention and then through your messaging and brand touchpoints, you hold that attention and get them to become fans and advocates of what you're doing.” -- Danait Berhe
**This was also a podcast episode. If you prefer to listen, use the player below:
The Starting Point For Your Personal Brand
The first step is to engage in conversation with your dream student. Talk to them so you can learn how to serve people just like them. Go into the conversation with no expectation
The next step is to experiment. You won’t know until you try things so you just have to go and start. Your brand is built by you trying things and learning along the way.
Don’t quit! You will get better each step along the way, it’s a process. This will take time so lean into the learning and look at this like a scientific experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.
“Be determined to figure it out.” - Amanda McKinney
Your Business Website and Your Brand
I loved what Danait said about websites in this interview!!!! She referred to your website as your 24/7 sales person. Which I’ve heard this before and I agree but it’s how she further explained this that really made an impact on me and I hope it does for you too:
“Think about your website as a 24/7 sales PERSON. Would they get everything right on their first day? No. Would you continuously teach them? Would you continuously evolved and develop them as a sales person so that they can do a better job for you every time they show up? Yes.” - Danait Berhe
Can. I. Get. An. AMEN?!!!!!!!!
Let’s all agree to look at our website as a real person who’s trying their best and we can continue to teach and help them? I know this is my lens from now on. So good.
“People just want the information and they just want to be able to go and buy a class from you or see what you're about and learn more about you.” - Danait Berhe
Creating Your Personal Brand
Remember: your brand is not you. While you are part of your brand and your personality will certainly drive your branding, you are not your brand and your brand is not you.
Identify with parts of your personality that you want to be part of your brand and allow that to guide your brand so it will be personal. Boundaries are important to know and set when you’re running a business.
“Your brand is curated, which is a good thing. But you are a human being with many facets that will never really be packaged into a brand.” - Danait Berhe
Questions to help you dig deeper into your branding
Danait works with clients in many industries and is fantastic at digging deep with her clients to really know and understand their clients. She shared these questions during the interview that she often uses with her clients to get this better understanding:
How do people feel? Specifically in each step of working with you. As you work through your process of working with students and clients, think about “how do I want people to feel when they are in this step”?
What is it that really motivates your dream student to take action?
What stresses them out?
What is their pain point?
How are they interacting with you?
How do they socially interact with people?
“We need to understand the way our customers think. Two people can on the surface look very different but their pain point could be the same.” - Danait Berhe
Your next step
Experiment with your branding. Start today by exploring answers to the questions that Danait mentioned. Journal and then start having fun with your brand!
If you’re looking for a little more guidance in this process, check out my mini-course Create Your Brand. You will get immediate access to the course so you can go through this process right away!
Until next time give yourself permission to create (and embrace) your brand and grace along the way.
About Danait
Danait Berhe is the founder and lead strategist at The Asmara Agency, an award-winning full service agency that helps female-founded companies craft compelling business, brand, and messaging strategies that position them for multiple 6 + 7-figures. She is passionate about helping entrepreneurs who want to leave an imprint on the universe do just that by helping them build brands that matter from the inside out. The Asmara Agency is committed to making sure that more women, especially Black women, enter the world of entrepreneurship and not only survive, but build brands they can leverage as an asset in order to build + create generational wealth. In this spirit, a portion of every project TAA takes on is put into their Leave the Ladder UpTM Fund which is then donated to budding women-led businesses + organizations that support them. When she’s not designing, nerding out over data, and strategizing, Danait is cuddling with her pup Lula, exploring Buffalo with her husband, and wondering what the appropriate number of times to have pizza and wine on any given week is (the answer is 7).
The Asmara Agency - https://theasmaraagency.com/
The Hill Creatives
An initiative to amplify black creatives that includes a directory of black creative entrepreneurs as well as live workshops. This was founded by Aleia Walker and Danait Berhe was involved in the first round of the live workshops.
“Shift your perspective from logo to legacy” - Danait Berhe
“It’s really about leaning into where you eventually want to end up. We can get carried away with the day to day so our focus becomes the colors and the logo but when we can step back remind yourself where it is you want to go and what impact you want to have on the world, everything becomes so much clearer.” - Danait Berhe