The ROI of Being Seen: How to Brand Yourself Without Feeling Cringey, with Jasmine Haitalani

The ROI of Being Seen: How to Brand Yourself Without Feeling Cringey, with Jasmine Haitalani

In this episode, Charlotte Ellis welcomes Jasmine Haitalani, founder and CEO of Highflier Powerhouse, to discuss the emotional and strategic journey of personal and business branding. Jasmine shares her story of pivoting from medicine to creative direction, building a seven-figure agency without formal design training, and embracing visibility as an immigrant and entrepreneur.

Key topics include:

• The difference between branding for solo operators and teams
• Navigating imposter syndrome without formal design education
• Balancing personal identity and professional brand presence
• The emotional impact of rebranding, especially for women and mothers
• How to use client feedback to shape brand personality
• The importance of visibility and setting boundaries for personal sharing
• When to invest in branding and how it drives ROI
• Practical tips for preparing your audience for a rebrand

Jasmine also explains how branding can unlock confidence, authority, and business growth, and why the process often leads to deeper personal transformation. Find out how to make your brand magnetic—without feeling cringey.

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:00

welcome to the Kaffeen Authority Builder podcast Today I'm joined by Jasmine Haitalani. she is the founder and CEO and creative Director at Highflier Powerhouse, who I've just had the great pleasure of working with very recently, which I'll get into shortly. She is a Syrian Brazilian immigrant who moved to the US 12 years ago. And her whole life was a series of rebranding and adapting to blend into American culture as much as possible after deciding to no longer pursue medicine, which I'm really curious about. By the way, Jasmine was introduced to the work of branding when she was, in her role as brand marketing manager at Billion Dollar Brand Kendra Scott. And despite having no formal design education, Jasmine began pursuing her business more intentionally after being furloughed during the pandemic, which is probably familiar for a lot of people listening in where she built the confidence to no longer. assimilate, but instead take calculated decisions to stand out. And since then, she's built a seven figure agency brand that you may already be familiar with. Highflier Powerhouse that works with service-based entrepreneurs who want to set the standard in their industry and become respectable brands. So welcome Jasmine. It's a pleasure to speak to you here today on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like it doesn't get old hearing your own story back when someone else is narrowing it over. So thank you for having me. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's, yeah, I always feel it's really weird talking about myself when I'm speaking to other people so much. And then just think thinking about the journey that's got you this far and how you've learned, through application. one of the things I'm really curious about as I'm reading your, bio is, I mean, we didn't talk about this in advance, but what was that shift from medicine to design and then having no formal design education? Because I know that there's a lot of agency, small agency founders in this audience who feel a lot of imposter syndrome about having no. Formal design experience. I know that because I've worked with quite a few of them. So can you talk to me a bit about that journey? 'cause that's really curious. Yeah. I think growing up I always had that creative eye. I tapped into creativity in a lot of different ways. It looked like drawing, it looked like fashion. It looked like so many different things where I think, taste was required is usually what I like to say. Yeah. And I just didn't really see. A career possibility in any of those fields. And so, especially, you know, coming from an immigrant background, like it's definitely like the creative path. and being seen as something like stable and successful isn't necessarily always, showcased. so, you know, when I, I was also good at school. I went to college and I majored in biology with. The, you know, idea that I would continue on to med school. I worked as an EMT ambulance for over a year. And so I think after that I had realized like I did not want this to be my day-to-day exposure. And, that's when I kind of pivoted, started working for Kendra Scott and learned about the world of branding from a different perspective of just. direct design being on Illustrator, being an on Adobe and things like that, but more how design is, or I should say the power of branding is really utilized in the real world with people, with product, with people that don't know the brand at all. And I think that kind of pushed me into leaning towards the world of branding more and more and exploring. Different roles and what that could look like and how that actually benefits businesses. and then to that point with the, with the pandemic happening, decided to like double down on, starting my business and kind of, this is kind of how we ended up here today. Amazing. And do you ever feel, do you relate to that sense of imposter syndrome about not necessarily having been to design college, or do you feel like, how do you, and if you ever have, like, how have you navigated around that? My recommendation to clients is. Ask for commercial results from your clients. Mm-hmm. Because you cannot argue with return on investment. That is your proof that it's working, and it doesn't matter what kind of qualifications you have, but maybe this doesn't matter to you at all, but can you talk to me about that? Yeah. This is such a good question. I think yes and no. I taught myself as much as I could, but at the end of the day, I think I knew that my main. Skillset wasn't in design itself. It was more creative direction, it was more brand strategy. And I think when I built my brand even earlier on, it was really important that the confidence was instilled in those skills and I knew that the design portion would be figured out. Mm-hmm. And so even earlier on, I had worked with our design team to make sure that, okay, you can do what you are great at. I can do what I'm great at. Which is, again, I know how to go in and do the design work necessary. I did it for quite some time. but at the end of the day, it was more for me it was more the strategy and the things that people couldn't see. That I know designers themselves also maybe that's their weak point with their skillset. Yeah. So it was about creating that balance in order for us to serve the client best and get them the best results too. Amazing. And I do, you know, thinking about return investment, I do know that is. Has been, at least in the past, a big part of your message in terms of, what brand can, allow you to achieve in terms of growth for the businesses that you appeal to. So, yeah, clearly it works. So well done you for making that pivot. And I share, I, I acknowledged at the start, but I've been working with Jasmine and her team over the last six, six months now, I would say. Yeah, since, doing a rebrand. With kaffeen. kaffeen And that was prompted by a shift in our target audience and who we were working with. We were acknowledging that we were working with many more kinds of businesses than just agencies, but we were still only outwardly targeting agencies. And it felt a bit, It felt a bit of a mismatch, honestly, and it didn't feel entirely truthful anymore given where the majority of our revenue was coming from. And so at the brief to Jasmine and her team was, to rebrand kaffeen. And make it feel more fun, colorful, and energetic, and, Bring, bring the kind of ethos of energy and enthusiasm that working with me and the team does for the feedback we get from our clients is that's what it does for them. So if you haven't already checked out, I'm feeling very self-conscious saying it out loud, but go look at the new website. I think that is the primary showcase of the work that Jasmine and the rest of the team at Highflier Powerhouse have done. and I'm absolutely thrilled to fit for that. I'm. So self-conscious, which I don't get into about just how Charlotte centered it is, but, we'll, we'll get into that in a second. big part of this first question that I wanted to ask you. I mean, as the majority of this audience knows, I come from a creative agency background. So I've got a solid understanding of how brand works in that space. predominantly in. Packaged brand design, so things that you can buy in the supermarket and on things that you can literally pick up and take off a shelf, like tangible objects. but it seems like things really shift quite a bit in the world of coaching and consulting, especially as a sole operator. In terms of brand, and that has been a really big pivot for me, I would say, in terms of my understanding. So from your perspective, what are the key differences when it comes to brand strategy for a one person business versus a team of 10 plus? And where does, to my point about feeling self-conscious about the photos, where does personal identity stop and brand begin? Good question. I think in terms of how is it different between solo and you know, the amount of people, I think it goes back to what the company values. you can still be an agency or a business that's ran, with a, you know, semi large team, five 10. People, and you, it could still be about you and your ethos and your values, and I feel like that was a representation of

7:34

kaffeen

Audio Only - All Participants 7:35

I think that even though you had, this, these team members and this overall view of what the company is, it was still centered around. Ideally what you wanted the business to be. And I think the same way about my agency. And so between those, I think there's less different, in the strategy process, I think there's less of a difference in how that's, actually absorbed from a founder lens. And I think what's more important is thinking about. To your point, how visible, how centered do I want to be as the founder, even though I am, treating myself as, a community based brand or an agency type brand, or a brand that, people know that there's a team behind. I think that is then different. if you're thinking about companies with, hundreds and hundreds of employees, which then. I think the founder becomes a little bit more removed and it's less about the founder and more about the brand, the company, the business. but I think anything lower than that, kind of the examples you gave, I feel like it could arguably be the same. It's just about, it's just the question of you as the founder, how forward do you want to be in your marketing, in your, branding and all of that? your question about. Where does personal identity stop and begin? I think we're definitely seeing rise in interest in personal branding. Now more than ever, we're seeing big corporations and company based brands create content with the founder, with, the head of social media, with a brand face involved. Mm-hmm. and so I don't think that's something that. really ever goes, it's hard to say that it ever goes away at this point. It's just a matter of how calculated and how intentional do you want to be being the face of the brand. So, for example, for our business, we're an agency. We have multiple team members. I am definitely still the face of the brand, but everything that I talk about comes from a holistic perspective of my team and I, we, and it's. Still focused on that, but I am the face and being in this industry over the last few years, I have also seen the rise of agencies that are more faceless or brands that are faceless and they don't want to have that personal, kind of face upfront. And I'm noticing now they are really struggling. From the marketing perspective to be seen, to connect with their audience, to grow their audience because they're missing that and now they're kind of having to learn from scratch how to put that out there in a way that feels organic for their brand. Yeah, and I, this is something I feel like I've talked about a lot recently. I think the rise of, you know, machines in many different ways and just. The lack of connection that I think we feel in the political environment right now feels like human connection is more important than ever. So I can see why it's advantageous to have a person, even if you are a huge brand or ostensibly a sole trader, like having a face behind it that people can connect with. And it just feels that bit more human and personal. Mm-hmm. Do you feel like, flip side, do you feel like a solo brand always. Has to be personal or can it be positioned more professionally? Because I went into this business as a freelancer for, I was more of a consultant right at the very beginning. But I was hired two specific projects for kind of extended periods of time, like sometimes over a year. Mm-hmm. to work exclusively on them. And I always felt a bit. Uncomfortable kind of positioning myself as rather than as Charlotte. Mm-hmm. and at the time people were like, but people know you as Charlotte Ellis. I mean, I was pre-marriage and I worked in very niche, so people were like, why? Why would you not lean into the fact that people recognize your name? And I was like, because a couple of things. One, I know I wanna go have kids one day, and if I'm gonna be able to scale this, I need to have it not just be about me, but also I just need to feel like from my own sense of identity, slightly removed from the business as an entity, it being a limited company, as we call them here in the uk, like limited liability. It felt more truthful, thus it was separate from that. So can you speak bit about that? do you see any challenges around having yet like showing up as a person and the primary face of the brand, but having it not be under your name? Because I guess a lot of coaches and consultants do just use their name. Yeah. And I think the misconception with that is thinking that personal is personal to them and their life versus personal to your business identity. And I think this is where I'm like, I feel like our brand is personal, but I'm still very private. Yeah, and I think that distinction is when people forget when they are solo operating their brand, they think, oh, in order for me to connect, I have to act like my social media or my marketing channels are like my diary. And this is where they start sharing things that they think is in the. With the goal of connection and storytelling and connecting with their audience, but a lot of it is very personal and it's not, like irrelevant to their business. And I think that's the line between, you can still have a personal and professional can still go hand in hand. Like I think our, our business is professional and personal, but it could still be private. And I think with, when someone is operating their brand as an whether they decide to do it as an individual or as a company, they can still, share the same strategy. Again, it can go back to like how forward they wanna be in their marketing, but the essence of like. I have to share my entire life online because I run a business online. It's just simply not true. You can be very, curated in what you decide to share and what you think your audience cares about. because I also feel like at some point. If that is all you're sharing is, kind of things that are irrelevant, you're then to your point about authority, I do feel like it takes away from your authority. And sure, you might be connecting with your audience in the sense of like, they find me relatable, they find me funny, they find me this and that, but rarely does it ever really increase in dramatic conversion. So I, I think like relevancy, relatability. Being personal and being professional can kind of be blended together. It just depends on what your end goal is in terms of conversion, and this is why we see, for example, with founders of companies, they can have their own separate account where they can share their kids and their life and their day to day. That has nothing to do with business, and that could be the outlet for them, but then it's how they show up as the face of their brand could be a little bit more. strategic in my, in my opinion. Yes. And so as a person, it's just deciding like if, if you're a solo brand and you're deciding how you want to show up, even if it's under your name, you still have to kind of have this business persona that you essentially step into and decide what does this persona do or not do online? And this doesn't have to be like a. You know, you being fake or not being authentic or putting a mask on and you know, it's just thinking about just like when you show up to a job, there are specific things that you just don't do at work. And so I think it's, it's part of that too. Yeah, that's so true actually. I mean, my next question is gonna be around the discomfort of personal visibility, and how exposed I, I felt in, you know, yeah. I mean, from the very start to be honest, when I wasn't just hiding as an employee behind a business anymore, But yeah, having some kind of ground rules around what you're sharing and being really intentional about that just in the way you would if you're an employer. It's such good advice, like having your, and I feel like this is something that I want to investigate further because now I'm working with, Highflier Powerhouse on within their sales studio program, which is much more focused on, all the marketing materials. Well, you know what, Jasmine, can you explain what Sales Studio is? Yeah. You're gonna be much more eloquent than me explaining it. Yeah. So Sales Studio is our design retainer that supports you through any assets you need for your marketing and specifically campaign. So we were talking kind of in the green room, Charlotte and I, and she was just kind of saying like she gets to think of an idea and then. Fill out a form and then boom, it's delegated out and she can actually take action on her idea. She doesn't have to overthink the assets or the process or the perfectionism of it all. and we utilize it with the brand that you have currently. So, Charlotte has used it with, you know, her most recent rebrand. We have other clients that just come to us first and then decide to rebrand from there. but it really meets you where you're at and helps you just. Get moving on marketing ideas and assets that would otherwise just be sitting in, a notes app, a Google Drive and, you know, not be utilized efficiently to make money in your business. And I, one of the parts of Sales Studio that I've, clocked but haven't really got into yet. Is around, is the, lectures is the wrong word, but the, the kind of seminars, I guess, or like teaching that you offer around what content should be, what content creation should be, and I think the having it in that. Through that lens of brand and what should you be sharing is a great way to set down, I'm just thinking out loud to myself actually. Great way of setting down those ground rules around what you are sharing online, because I'm somebody who, does feel very conflicted about this. I, I really rarely use social media and myself. Mm-hmm. And we are mainly talking here about brands who are showing up online, which, let's face it as the majority of brands at this point, whether you are, A solo online entrepreneur or not, like you might be a huge in person brand physical presence. Mm-hmm. But it's still super important to be digitally aware and, be showing up there with your brand first and foremost. So, I guess coming back to that discomfort, I mentioned the hardest part of being, building my own brand was how exposed I felt everywhere. But I also knew from, being a buyer how powerful it is to see and relate to the person that you're investing in. And I do know that's still hugely important. I am still trying to balance the line. I think you do it really well, Jasmine, of showing up as the person behind the brand, but then not necessarily being the person who's executed and everything, and not necessarily being the first point of contact on a day-to-day basis. For clients. but I would love to know, I'd love your take on the kind of tension and the discomfort of personal visibility just in a bit more detail. Like why does visibility feel so exposing in your opinion? and what do you do to help people move through that discomfort aside from sitting down those kind of ground rules? Yeah, I think for majority of our life we are just perceived a little bit sometimes as the number and not the main star of the show. I think about school, you're just another student. You think about work, you're just another employee. It's very rare that, the people that. Especially, I'm thinking about the people that do have that level of discomfort. You just, again, weren't a star on a main stage throughout your life, and I resonate with that as well, especially if you're someone that's naturally introverted, anxious, more shy. It does take that level of you building up to now. Fe it feels like you're presenting yourself not just to a lot of people that you know, but a lot of strangers. And it can also feel intimidating thinking that, okay, these are strangers that don't know me and can have various opinions of who I am. and then that leads them to then create something that I'm not in control of. But that is why branding is so important, is because you get to control the narrative as much as possible. There is only so much. Someone can say about, let's say our business, because we have a track record, we have a reputation, we have a specific visual presence. And so even if that, if our closest audience almost has an expectation now of how we are showing up. And I'm sure even people that don't show up as frequently, if you have a website, if you have, marketing assets that are going out. People do have an expectation of what it would be like to watch you be visible. And so it's just a matter of are you meeting that expectation and are you taking control of that narrative or are you letting people decide for you because you are not leading that and you are deciding to hide and let them create the narrative on your behalf. And I think this is why. Even with visual branding, with having a website, everything is so important because if you don't, again, have those assets in place, your, leads, your audience members are then making decisions on what your brand is, who your brand is for, when you could be telling them a lot more straightforward. Yeah, absolutely. That's so interesting, and as you were talking, I was thinking this is where my. Coach is operating as a professional therapist because they're talking me through that. Mm-hmm. They're helping me to understand this. Isn't Charlotte home Charlotte with two kids? This is work Charlotte, and this is the way she shows up. This is the way she preserves herself. This is her sense of self worth. This is, of course there were parallels there, but I think this kind of idea of, I mean particularly in an identity as a. Primary caregiver for Two Children's. Mm-hmm. It's become very difficult to consider to put myself first almost. Maybe this is a bit too, but, really understand, what are the traits, what are the kind of, Parts that I wanna show up with and, having the confidence to be able to do that. And I think that kind of leads us into my next question really, which is around, like sharing personality for the people who were thinking, well what, who the hell am I? Like, who the hell is this brand? I mean, a big part of my brief when we were working together was to make it feel full of action and optimism because that is what my clients seem to. That is the overarching feedback that I get after we've worked together. Mm-hmm. It got me thinking, if you don't have that as a starting point, how do you decide which traits or personality threads to bring forward when you are a coaching or consulting brand? is it all always about the founder or is it about what the client needs or is it something in between? is it around founder feedback or audience research? How do you make it compelling? Like how do you decide which of those compelling threads that you're gonna bring to the fore? Yeah, I think it's starting off with what do you, how would you perceive your brand? Or what are the brands that you love and why? And think about not just, oh, they have great pictures and I love their color. think about the way in which they're showing up. Mm-hmm. Why, for example, if you think, oh, I love this brand because they're so authentic, they, I feel like I resonate and I connect with them. What are they doing that allows you to kind of take that away. I also think, I don't think you should ask your audience, because usually you're not as close with your audience as you think you need to be. Asking the people that you are getting on calls with every single week and consulting and coaching them, you need to be asking the people that you are doing projects with. If you're a service provider, the people that you are partnering with or advising and asking them, you know. Hey. Okay. And you can send out like a two, three question survey. Hey, when, you know, you first came across my brand, what were your thoughts? What have you loved about, you know, our interactions so far in this container? if you can describe my coaching style or my delivery style in three words, what would those be? And taking that and starting to see what other people are noticing about you, because I think that. Even when you're showing upfront facing in your marketing, there's something about, and this is kind of our rebrand strategy with clients that we work with and how we're able to pull out that individuality. I think there's something about you being in your element at work, like where do you feel like you're in your element? It could be on a client call. It could be when you're presenting. putting together a presentation and, and delivering it. It could be when you're leading a team meeting, like where do you feel like that is the essence? and pulling that, those descriptors out. And you can even put, nowadays you can probably put a call transcript in chat gt and be like, if you had to describe. this style and, three, four words, what would that be? What would that look like? Mm-hmm. And then from there, really deciding oh, does, is this something that resonates? Is this something I wanna shift? And for me, it was really important that I lean into, I always think about my alter ego as Miranda Priestly, Chris Jenner kind of vibe. you literally send them, sign off your emails with Miranda Priestly. Yeah. So, I think when I thought about that I was like, okay, this aligns with also how I want our business and brand to be. Represented. I want people to know that they can come to us for honest truth, really good work, and just a sense of directness. And I knew that I wanted to train my team like that and build my offers in a way that supports that. And so then it became okay, how do I do those things to make sure that even when I'm not in the day to day, even when my team is working on things like. I have documents with Jasmine standards and what it takes for us to put, finalize something before it gets sent to my desk and before, just all of these things. And I think for you as a personal brand, personal business, it's deciding okay. Even if I am gonna continue to be solo or continue to execute this to a team, I want a level of consistency that my clients can expect. So, thinking about your favorite restaurant, where every time you go, you expect great service, you expect the same quality of food, you expect the little details, you expect those things. So how can you recreate that in your business? Starting by thinking about what do your clients see the value in right now? Yep. So interesting. I think it, as you were talking through that, I was, I don't think my answer to the question of which brand do I most resonate with has changed in 20 years. It's always been Nike or Nike, depending on how you pronounce it, but just this concept of just doing it and being really action biased and. Not making excuses. And I'd say that really feels like a permanent reference point. And I really do feel like we've captured that energy and, and enthusiasm through the rebrand, which is, exciting for me. Yeah. To see now in, in practice. and I also. See as you're talking through that, how that makes a personality led brand feel compelling without being cringey because you're really thinking and considering about what are the, what are the most important values for you, which helps you to not live up to other people's expectations, but set your own and start working towards them. I think the shift for me from gun for hire, so to speak, to. Setting the services that we were, available for was a huge shift in terms of scaling, but it was also a huge shift in terms of drawing the line between what you want me to do as a client and what we know we do best and what we, how we know we can deliver best, which really feels like that was a big, part of much earlier than this rebrand, but big part of understanding what. Who we are, what we deliver, what we know we do best, which traits fall alongside that, which values, et cetera. so yeah. and then something else that was coming up as you're talking is just the importance of, yes, maybe not doing huge audience wide research, but, customer feedback, customer listening at the end of an experience working together, particularly if it was very much one-to-one or group. We always try to embed that in. I. Hate doing that. So I always hire somebody to do it externally. and then I am so scared to even look at the transcript, the ages, even though I rarely have anything to worry about at all. But it's so true. More recently, I've been going back through those transcripts and, Asking AI to summarize the key points for me. I think I did it during the rebrand process. Mm-hmm. from a different lens to what the customer listening res report did. But even if you are really a small business, just doing that customer listening and, and you know, we, this is one of the modules that we always teach with our clients. We give them a set list of questions they can go ask their own clients and which we know will deliver back the kind of sentiments that they can put into action. But that stuff is so freaking valuable. Like for everything from brand marketing materials, the way you shape what you offer, the way you talk to people, the way you show up in sales calls your confidence, like mm-hmm. I, I say I shouldn't have been scared, like looking through those. Transcripts and like, God, I had no idea I, I meant this to these people. Like, I had no idea there were results in there that I had no idea they'd achieved. Which, yeah. Kind of brings us nicely onto, the next section, which is a little bit about ROI, but yeah, just a little, eulogy there on, the importance of customer listening. even if it feels really cringey and, and uncomfortable to do. Speaking particularly to the Brits amongst us. So, I, I know a lot of, I'd say about 65%, 70% of our audience here are still self described creatives, and they, a lot of 'em do work in friend design, but they probably not considered it for their own business. And so. They will know as many people beyond that will know that branding is obviously an investment. And I know in your own business you've spoken about rebrands adding six figures to a business's revenue, particularly talking to coaches and much smaller kind of consulting businesses. Can we dig into that a bit? what tends to unlock that kind of growth and what stage should somebody seriously consider branding? Is it ever too soon or too late? Like, I didn't know if I was showing up on your doorstep at the right time. I just needed to know. I just knew that we needed a shift visually to match who we were most frequently working with at that point. so I think I'll start there because then I think that dictates how the ROI even comes to play. So I think branding in general, we normally see it as the only way to invest in branding is Doing the full scope, but there are so many levels of branding that you can get started with, even if it's. A brand strategy intensive with somebody when you're starting out your business, just to have that sense of direction and you're not spending months just figuring it out what you wanna do and how you wanna do it. So I think branding fundamentally can start off. As early on as you want it to be. It just looks different as you continue to grow. And I always say branding is a journey, meaning it's never just a one-off investment. It's never, you're going to invest in a logo once and then you're gonna keep it for the next 50, 60 years. and so I think we've even seen that with some of the biggest businesses where they'll shift their visual identity, especially more recently, every decade just to. Continue to adapt to the current market. So I never think it's too early. I just think that you just have to find what the right, package for you looks like, what your, what's your starting budget. but the sooner that you can start with that process, the more comfortable you'll feel diving deeper into that world versus never having touched it, and then your first opportunity. You have to pay for a multiple five figure package and you don't even understand, how to work with a creative, you've never worked with one before. You have to kind of self-reflect from scratch versus doing that along the way. I think especially now, it's. Becoming less. I remember when I first started in the industry, which wasn't too long ago, you didn't need to have a website really. You didn't, you can just get by with templates. You can just take pictures at home. like that all worked because also the algorithm was different. Instagram features looked different. TikTok was different. there's so many consumer behavior things that were different versus now it's like, that is. There's a new threshold, there's a new bare minimum. And so I think just continuing to adapt to that is very important. And that brings me to, okay. What are some clear signs that I am ready for a rebrand, especially if you are wanting to unlock this next level growth. So I always say you are wanting to reposition to a new niche, a new market. number two, if you feel like your sales have been stagnant or declining for. Six plus months regardless of what sales activities you've been doing, if you feel like your audience has been honestly disengaged and disconnected from your marketing and what you've been putting out. and I also say offers, right? Like if you are trying to reintroduce your offer suite, your services, your changing a lot about them. Those are usually, I would say, four telltale signs. but from a revenue perspective, there is so much that I hear about from clients day to day on what. Not rebranding and holding off on that and saying, next year and next month and when my business has X money, what it does to their confidence, their ability to show up, their ability to market and sell, their ability for their audience to see them as who they are, their ability for them to charge what they wanna charge. And I think that is, ultimately what holds them back and keeps their revenue stagnant and not growing. And so it becomes that when they do get these resources. Their audience views their brand in a different way. Their audience has less objections about their price point. most of the time you are showing up more confidently. Mm-hmm. You finally have a foundation of like, I want to implement this and I want this creative idea and I want this. And even something as simple as I have a client who's like, every time I wanna create assets for my launch. Because my branding is so terrible and I don't align with it, it feels like pulling teeth. Mm-hmm. It feels like it takes me forever just to get a post out there versus having something that I love. I'm thinking about new ideas every week. I'm telling my team, do this, do that. Let's delegate here. Let's create this new project. Let's do this for clients because. They have a much better understanding of what their brand is. And I think the confidence, the audience perception, but also your ability to take action on the sales and marketing ideas that you have. And that in retrospect is what gives you the revenue increase. Interesting. And as you're talking, I was thinking one. One point, and I'm sure you wouldn't probably turn down the business 'cause there'd be loads of other benefits to it. But one big point that I can see people stumbling on is thinking that, looking better is a, way to avoid looking at your office suite and understanding what your product is. Do you, what do you recommend people do if, or is there anybody in particular that you recommend they turn to if they're like. You look at it and you're like, actually, I think you need to sort this out first and figure out what it is you're offering and having distinctive offers. Yeah, because it's definitely something we've had a challenge with in the last kind of, well, I'd say around a couple of years ago now. Yeah, I think there are lots of phenomenal business coaches out there, or business strategists or people that I guess qualify for, whatever niche you're looking for. normally at that, at that time, if, if I'm on a call and someone can't even tell me, it's not that they are, there's a difference between maybe they were trying to position themselves similar to you, you were trying to position yourself to a new audience and it was just like, I don't know. How that looks like from a branding perspective. I think people normally think I need to have the full picture vision before going into rebrand with someone where that's not true. That's usually our job to pull that out of you and ask the right questions versus like, I. Have really not had any success offering 10 different things in my business. and I'm thinking that a rebrand is just gonna fix kind of like a deeper root issue there. So most of the time when we're working with someone, we're working with people who, know how to sign clients fundamentally, right? They know how to market their offer, but maybe in the last, couple of months, it has just not been working in their favor. And they also, most of the time, your brand isn't. What it's, your brand knows that it's not meeting your standards or your audience standards. I have never gotten on a call with someone that's like, well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with my brand. I'm just here to chat. most of the time we do have that internal gut instinct that something isn't clicking with our brand. we just want more information on how that next level vision can get us to where we need to be. And what, and just thinking back to ROI, what is the typical timeline you see from kind of launching a rebrand to your audience? Really kind of seeing it subliminally and resonating with it, and then their, their sense of confidence in your authority rising to the point at which they're more willing to invest in your services. do you, are you asking specifically like how fast they see the ROI from Post? Yeah. Like how, Put it a different way. Like I don't wanna tie you down to specific times for ROI, but more like, you know, this kind of concept of how many times you need to see something or a brand or a product before you even register it, let alone consider it for purchase. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you see something similar in terms of the amount of time it takes for a, a rebrand? Mm-hmm. New look and feel really kind of register and resonate with the target audience? Yeah, I think that all, this is such a good question. I have seen our clients get, their ROI back essentially from the moment that the first launch happens, after rebrand. I have seen. So it depends on if they launch right after, it depends if they wait three months. Mm-hmm. And so there's that. But I think the pattern that I see is that during the rebrand process. They are getting their audience prepared for what's to come, and they are not putting their business on pause. I have seen way too many people that during the rebrand process, they will completely ghost their marketing. They won't show up anywhere. Their audience has no idea what's going on. they won't, they are like, I'm gonna wait and not sell because I'm waiting for my new stuff. I'm waiting for my new assets. And sometimes that's like three months of you just. Putting your business on pause, and I really don't recommend that strategy. and so what happens is when they're finally revealing the website and the photos and the branding and launching their audience was like, oh, wait, hold on. You're back. I'm still registering that you're even showing up again when that entire time during the. the pre rebrand, we always tell clients, continue your business as normal and start sharing with your audience different ways that you want to present this rebrand. the messaging around the repositioning and the shift. Start doing that now so that when your rebrand is put out there, your audience is saying, oh, that makes sense and I wanna be part of this instead of. Oh wait, that doesn't make sense for what she's doing because mm-hmm. She disappeared three months ago and she was only, she was talking about X, Y, Z. Mm-hmm. So it's also about like how you're warming your audience up to the process and there are so many creative ways that we help our clients come up with ideas to do that. I have a client right now actually, and she's doing a whole. Like behind the scenes, you know, 90 day behind the scenes into the rebrand and documenting every single thing and providing free value for people. And at the end of it, she's gonna release a brand new offer. And I thought that was such a smart way to tie things together. Um, and so it's just about making sure that your audience is accompanying you during the journey as well, and you're not just waiting to release it to them, and then they're just as surprised they, they need to be warmed up alongside of you during that process. Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm slightly guilty of that, although it has been a very challenging few months in business and trying to balance lots of, plates, with team changes, et cetera. But yeah. That's so interesting. I'm gonna reflect back on the information that you share in the resources for clients around mm-hmm. How you introduce and how you kind of get people on board with that emotionally. We talked, a couple of weeks ago about how this process ended up being far more personal than I expected. And actually probably this is part of the reason that I haven't been super showing up for people over the last few months. But what started as a brand project actually turned into something much deeper for me. It brought up loads of questions of identity, confidence, like personal therapy level stuff. And I think this might be something to do with, back to one of the original questions around it being very. Charlotte centric and like mm-hmm. It being a lot more Charlotte than I was used to. Mm-hmm. so I'd love to talk about that, how brand work becomes, often becomes emotional work, especially for women, actually. I, I think, and how it becomes a vehicle for reclaiming parts of yourself that you've kept hidden. I've talked about, you know, the, the process of being a mother to young kids and how I feel like I, I've lost touch with some of that in, in many ways this has become, this. Process had become a touchstone for me, really reconsidering that in a very, direct and, Very clear way. It wasn't just like this intangible thing that I kind of thought about from time to time was forced to because of the documents I had to prepare and the the photo shoots I had to show it to and the decisions that I had to make through that process. So can you talk to me a bit about why do brand decisions often stir up deeper personal shift? Um, and are my emotional identity related breakthroughs that you've seen and that we've chatted through, is that common? Like what, what do you generally see when you're working with clients? You know, it's starting to be more common. I think clients just wouldn't tell me. Oh, okay. So, but like connect with them after, and they're like, yeah, by the way. Like this really rocked my world. This really took me for a ride. And I think it's, you know, a lot of moms postpartum, women hitting a new decade, women hitting new levels in their business, and I think it's just this subliminal growth that I think sometimes as women, we are just not celebrating enough and we're like, okay, yeah, but what's next? What's the next thing I have to work on? Our mind is always occupied and. Rebranding really gives us a moment to sit and reflect back on not just everything, because I, I think about like testimonials. You have to collect things, you have to think about your brand, but also the future of what that looks like. Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden things become real. the growth and progress and the success that we've achieved becomes real. And we're seeing it real time. And I think. In that moment, of course, a rebrand is not something like a light process or even a cheap process. And so you're like, okay, I'm basically having to decide the future of my business right now. And that often can send people into like. Well, I thought I want this. And I, I don't know. And now I'm thinking about it and I never thought myself I, that I could be doing something like this, but now maybe I can. And you're opening up the whole new, world of possibilities. And I think that's obviously sometimes that brings up feelings and emotions for, for several different reasons. And a lot of it is like. Also, you are finally stepping into the, I always say you're stepping into the version of yourself that your clients have been seeing, but nobody else has. and so I think that's, that's part of it as well. And this is why I say like, branding is a journey and you know, just. I think like nothing has to be permanent. Even if you want to refresh your brand in a couple of years or get an updated photo shoot, you can absolutely do that and continue to evolve your brand. it's more about creating, the foundations throughout the process as well. yeah, I think that's where just sometimes. It you, you reflect back on moments that maybe earlier on in your business were difficult or times in your business that have been challenging and you've had to overcome them, or maybe you're still overcoming them. and I think there's just a lot Of self-trust that needs to be built in that process. I think this is where, you're kind of working on coaching yourself or you're working on moving yourself through the process to get yourself to the end result that you know you desire. Again, I think people usually think it's just all surface level stuff. I'm just gonna end up picking colors and mm-hmm. Showing up to a pretty photo shoot. I think this is where the strategy part comes in of, oh wait, what do I want my business to be? How involved am I in this process? how do I wanna be visible and, and things like that. Yeah. Absolutely. And all I can say is, I mean, if you are anything like me, it's very, I think it's almost impossible to do that reflective work. In order to move forward without having an external partner to do it. That is not something we could have done internally. I could not have led that process myself. I mean, obviously I'm not a creative director. Mm-hmm. But it would not, this is why I don't think it is not just like a piecemeal new logo or a piecemeal new photos shoot and whacking some new photos up on the website. It's not that. It's, it's an overarching look at it and being forced to look back at it. I can honestly say like one of my, I remember reading one of my mom's, like women's health magazines when I was a teenager, and I saw this. Quote in there, I'm big into aphorisms. And there was a quote in there that said, everything you want is on the other side of fear. And I was like, oh my God, that's so dramatic. Like, but I would say that this has not been the most comfortable experience. I did not expect that that's not anything to do with Jasmine and the team and how they work. It just has, there has been upheaval in terms of how I'm considering myself and, and what that looks like. And, I do though see. How necessary that's been to becoming more visible and aligned. I, I definitely feel there's a lot more alignment now between, I know we talked about distinction between personal, personal life and professional life, but in terms of who I think I am and how I want to show up, that is a lot more aligned now and I feel more comfortable with that, which means I think it's more magnetic. I think when you are yourself and when you are, Living in truth, I guess, speaking truth, showing up in truth, whatever. everything is a lot more attractive to other people and, and more visible and, more magnetic. So I think, yeah, some pain, but definitely worth the experience. I feel like I could literally talk to you for a, a good half hour just on that topic, but I think we should leave it at that. And Jasmine just being really conscious of time, can you tell me who should get in contact with you and how they should find you? Yeah, you can find us on our website, Highflier powerhouse.com, on Instagram and, Charlotte's pre on, you know, our marketing classes and all of that. So much of it is on our podcast brand Your Way to a Million. Mm-hmm. I share literally all of the marketing strategies that I'm implementing real time. clients love it. Our audience loves it. So that's where you can find me across the board. And that's a private podcast, right? You need to go the brand Your Way to A Million is public. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm gonna go to radio available. Yeah. So I share a lot of my concepts and frameworks there. amazing just for you to take a look at. We will include that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Jasmine. I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much. Thanks for having.