222 | The Rebrand Rule I'm Breaking on Purpose

You can be an expert at helping your clients with something... and then when it comes time to take your own advice, you have no clue what you're doing.

I know you know that feeling lol. Taking our own advice is often the hardest thing to do as a business owner. 

As I'm going through my own rebrand right now, I'm realizing I'm doing literally everything the "wrong" way (according to "brand experts")... and honestly my business has never felt more aligned.

I'm breaking every rebrand rule I've ever taught and it's the best thing I've ever done.

In today's episode, I'm sharing the messy behind-the-scenes of my rebrand process and why I threw the "launch everything perfectly at once" playbook out the window.

Inside this episode, we're covering:

• The luxury brand trap that had me feeling like a total fraud in my own business
• Why I'm rebuilding my website one page at a time (and why this is actually the genius thing for you to do)
• How I'm going from "everything has to be perfect to launch" to "people actually buy more when I show the real-time BTS" — and why my conversions are better than ever because of it
• The visibility challenge that's teaching me to show up as the real me (and how it's winning me so many more clients)

If you've been waiting to have your brand and strategy all figured out before you talk about it online, this episode is your permission slip to start today.

Ways we can work together: 

• <<Website Design>> Create a website so strong that clients are sold on working with you as soon as they find you!
• <<Brand Photography>> Is it time to elevate your business with new brand photos?

I'D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

• Say hello on Instagram 👋
• Join the email community ✍🏻
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙

Transcript

Welcome And Rebrand Context

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Amplify Your Brand and Business, the podcast that helps you create a brand that sells out your offers 24-7 so you don't have to. And today we are talking about exactly that. We are talking about my rebranding experience right now. Everything I'm learning, everything I'm realizing as I am taking parts of my process that I do with clients and implementing it for myself. I will tell you, it is always a wild ride when you have to do the work that you help other people do. This is something that I have had so many conversations with so many different women business owners around is taking our own advice, right? Or like actually implementing the things that come so naturally and easily and seamlessly, the things that you do with your clients. And then when you have to do it through a lens of doing it for yourself, isn't it funny how much harder it feels and how different it feels when you're actually having to go through the process yourself. And before we dive into this episode, if we haven't met yet, I'm Krista Marie. I'm a website designer, a brand strategist, and a brand photographer for women business owners. And over the last six years, I've coached hundreds of women inside this podcast, inside programs and communities. And my goal with every episode is to help you create a brand that does the heavy lifting for you. And quite honestly, part of the thing that's going to help you create a brand that does the heavy lifting for you is going through the process of figuring out your brand, which I know for so many of you probably feels confusing, feels a little sticky, feels overwhelm overwhelming. Like, what is my brand? How do I develop it? And so that's what we're gonna dive into today is as I have been in business for over 15 years, I am realizing that the importance behind really accepting that your brand is gonna evolve so much over time. Like I think back to when I first started my business way back in 2010. And obviously, I led with so much excitement back then. I mean, I was I had just launched my business. Like I was doing photography for literally any kind of photo shoot. I didn't care. I didn't care if it was your newborn baby, I didn't care if it was for a family session. At the time, I was in college, so I was doing some events for sororities, like I was doing uh one of my first page shoots was I did photos for a girl who um was like kind of launching and thinking of getting into the music industry, and so there were lots of photos taken, lots of sepia editing back in 2010, and so I just think back to where I was back then, and my brand was obviously so unclear because I was just starting off and I had no idea how I wanted to niche down. I didn't know what I want to focus on, I didn't know what I wanted my business to look like, and it stayed like that for a while. I would say for the first couple years, like I remember when I launched my first website, I just kind of chose a template that I liked. I didn't really overthink it too much. I just needed a space online to be able to like have clients find me. Like that was my only goal at the time. I didn't quite really care about the branding, which is fair and totally understandable. And then as time grew on, I remember when did I develop my first, like actually kind of branded website? I think it was back in 2012 or 2013. So it was about three years in, I would say, I hired someone to help me create a more branded website presence, but I didn't really quite understand what it meant to have a brand. So when I think back to that website, I actually have screenshots. It's so funny because uh I have like screenshots of what it looked like back then, and and really it was just like lots of watercolor and soft colors, and I think there were lots of like little arrows, like cute little decorative arrows. If you remember, that 2013 was like every story you went into, there were little cute arrows that you could buy to hang in your house, right? Like literally, arrows were the thing if you didn't have an arrow in your brand. Like, what are you even doing in 2013? And so it was branded, but it wasn't really like really branded, if you know what I mean. And but it it worked, and it kind of helped me develop what I wanted my brand to be. And over the years, I would see different iterations of my brand, and I would see different styles and different designs and different things that I was drawn to. And as my clientele changed, as I started to get more higher paying clients, as I started to work more higher-end weddings and things, like everything kind of started to evolve. And I will tell you, I kind of got lost a little bit as I started to work with more like I'm gonna put air quotes, but like high-end clients, like doing more high-end weddings, doing more, um, like doing more film photography. As I started to kind of reach that fine art photography style, I kind of lost myself in my brand, if I'm being honest with you. And there were a few years where I thought I had to have the white minimal website, like zero color. I needed to have black text, white background, a script accent font. Um, I needed to go to more styled shoots so I could get even more luxury-looking photos to have all over my website. Like I kind of fell into this trap that I think a lot of people fall into. When you start working with more higher-paying clients and more elevated clients, you start to lose yourself in your brand. And I did bounce back from that. I will say, when I started doing brand photography, it really helped me tap into more of who I am. And in 2022, I think I did a redesign of my website, which I mean, for the first time in a while, truly felt like it was me. There were pops of color, it was like it felt more me than any of my websites. But again, when it came to the branding, because I had only launched into doing brand photography like in the last few years at that time, I still was kind of developing the brand, right? It's like every time we pivot, every time we start working on something else, it takes our brand a little bit to catch up. And I think one trap that a lot of people fall into is trying to develop your brand too early. Like if you just launched, or if you're launching into a new market or you're launching a whole entire new suite of products, we put this pressure on ourselves that our brand needs to be perfect from the get-go. We think that, you know, all the colors need to be spot on, we need to have a new logo, we need to have icons, we need to have like a brand design that feels really cohesive and clean, but we're still figuring out our business. Like at that point in time, before you're a couple years in, like you're still refining your offers, you're still refining the strategy, like you don't even have the business dialed in yet. And yet we're putting this pressure on ourselves to have this perfect branding. And so, all of this to say that here we are today, it's 2026. I have now been a brand photographer for six years at this point, which is crazy to say. And in the last like year and a half, maybe two years, I have been adding in website design. And so I am still in the process of refining the website design offers. I'm still in the process of kind of defining um a little bit more of that. But I, for the first time, I finally feel clear on what I want my branding to be. And I say that, and I don't want you to think like you have to be 15 years into your business to figure out your brand, because that's absolutely not true. But what I want you to remember from this is that my brand changed, my business changed so much in the last 15 years. Um, I pivoted from launching in 2012 or 2010 in my business, and then in 20 uh 2018, I started to do more branding work, and then in 2020, I officially went over to brand photo shoots and then added in web design. So, like we've pivoted a bit in the brand, and the wedding photography side of my business had a pretty solid brand for a while, even though I got a little lost in it, like we still had a pretty solid brand. And so part of what I want to talk to you about today is like having the courage to step into the brand that actually feels like you. Because, like I said, I think for so many people, because we're not really clear in the beginning or in the first few years what a brand should look like, what we end up doing is we look at everyone around us and we say, well, what does their brand look like? Like, what am I drawn to? What feels elevated, what feels expensive, what feels high-end. And then we build our brand based on that, regardless of how it actually feels for us or our dream clients. And so one thing I want to encourage you to do is if you your brand strategy has been like, let me see what everyone else is doing. And because I want to be considered like in the same market or in the same kind of like level as them, I want to encourage you to challenge that a little bit. Like, start to challenge that belief that you need to look like everybody else. Because I will tell you, when my website started to feel more like me and it had bops of color and like actually had more of me and my personality in it, not only did I feel so much more proud and confident about my website, like literally, I was so proud of it. Because I knew when someone went to it, they would see me, they would hear me, they would feel me. Like I was so present on my website. So not only will building a brand that's more around you help you feel more confident and proud, but it's also just gonna convert better. Because I will tell you, it was really, it felt really unlike misaligned and really uncomfortable, to be quite honest, to have this website and brand that looked super high-end and luxury and like all of these keywords that like sound really nice and sound really expensive. And yet, my preferred business like vision, like who I am as a person, how I operate on a day-to-day basis, like I am in my PJs 24-7. I'm so chill, I'm so relaxed. I don't go out and buy super high-end luxury things. I don't spend a ton of money on like purses and vacation and bags and like the things typically associated with that like luxury brand and lifestyle was just not me. And so every time I'd hop on a discovery call, or when I would show up to sessions, or when I would like represent the brand, I felt like I had to be someone different. And that was exhausting for so long. I did that, and we're not doing that anymore. Like, I feel like I've got in 2022, I feel like I started to pull back the curtain on that and 2026, like, get ready. I have a brand shoot coming up, and it is gonna be completely unlike any other brands shoot I've ever done. And I'm so excited. But as I'm going through this process of rebranding, I'm learning so much because it's really forcing me to look at me. It's really forcing me to not hide behind the scenes, to not um have a brand that I think look needs to look a certain type of way or look like someone else's brand. Like I'm really having to stand in my power of like, who am I? What do I believe? What are my values? Like, what is my personality type? And that needs to show through as I'm thinking about my brand. And I'm gonna share with you a couple of not mistakes, but like things and traps that I found myself falling into over the last couple of weeks that I want to flag and just tell you like I'm someone who does this for a living. I work with clients to figure out their brands, to take their brand photos, to create new websites. Like I am very familiar with the branding world, and yet I found myself falling into these traps. And so I want to share them with you because when you think about rebranding, I want you to be aware these things are likely going to happen, these things are likely gonna come up for you. And here's how I'm pivoting and thinking about them and like moving through them regardless of how sticky they might feel. So the first thing that I found is that I found that I was telling myself, if I'm gonna go through a website rebrand, I need to have everything done at the same time before I can launch. So I had this idea that well, if I'm gonna redo my website and if I'm gonna have new brand colors, and if I'm gonna restructure my offers, and if I'm gonna have this whole new brand, I can't show any of it until it's all done. And as soon as I had that thought, the overwhelm kicked in because I thought, oh my God, like I'm never gonna be able to launch this. Literally, it's gonna be the end of 2026. My brand may finally be done completely, and then I can finally launch. And I started to feel I can literally feel it now, as I even say that out loud, like the pressure that I felt because I had it in my mind, and the way that you see people like um launching things online, a lot of the time is this like, look at this launch, it's fully done, it's fully ready. And so, because it's something that I had seen so often, I told myself the story that that's how it has to look like. Like, I can't launch until it's fully ready to go. I can't launch until um everything is put together because if I launch before then, it's gonna look messy, right? And especially as someone who's a brand strategist, a website designer, in my head, I was putting even more pressure on myself because I thought no one's gonna want to hire me for website design and branding if I'm showing them the messy behind the scenes and the process as I'm doing it. Like it needs to be perfect and ready to go. And then I realized that's absolutely ridiculous because number one, it's just that's a really great way of hiding and a really great way of putting off making money and like building more clients. Like, that's a really great way of self-sabotaging. And I was like, that's not what the vibe is, that's not what we're doing this year. And so I completely dropped the pressure. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna rebrand one piece at a time. Literally, I'm going to tackle everything bit by bit. I'm gonna share about it online, I'm gonna bring people along for the journey. I'm not gonna try and make it perfect because the reality is my brand is gonna keep evolving. And what would happen, I can guarantee you, is if I waited until it was perfect and ready to go. And at the end of the year, I finally had this big release of my brand design. You know what would likely happen? In six months, the brand would probably evolve. Like I like maybe I'm gonna add in different icons or different fonts, or maybe I want to tweak something, and all of a sudden, well, where do I go from there? I just did this big reveal. So I would either tell myself I can't change because I just did this big launch and I can't change everything. Like I would start telling myself all these stories about how I'm not allowed to evolve and grow. And that's not the vibe. So just this past weekend, I spent three days. I completely revamped my entire website homepage for heychristenarie.com. There's a few strategy reasons why I did that behind the scenes, which I'm not really gonna get into today, but I knew it was time for a revamp. My website prior to that had been designed for the San Francisco brand photography market. Like it worked really well. I literally booked out my client list, like I hit my first six-figure year, like the website was vibing and thriving and like all of that. And then now I am I am now targeting clients on the East Coast. Completely different market in New York City. Like literally, New York could not be more different than the Bay Area. Like the Bay Area, everything is like tech or laid back, chill, like messy startup, like um scrappy, like there's this whole vibe in the Bay Area that is literally the opposite of New York City's buttoned up, like creative, artsy, like just completely different market. And so I knew it was time for a refresh. But instead of waiting until I could do the whole website, I was like, you know what, we're just gonna do the homepage. And even though I'm still figuring out some of the brand details, like I haven't necessarily created, um, I changed my brand colors, so those have been updated, but I don't have the new brand icons yet. I don't necessarily know what the different patterns and designs are and like things that I want to have as like additions to the website, but instead of letting that keep me stuck and not ever putting something out there, I made the website good enough for now. And actually, to be quite honest with you, I'm actually really obsessed with it. There are a few elements on it. Like, I'm not gonna, I don't want to reveal too much because I'm actually so excited about the brand direction of where we're going and some of the brand, um, the brand vibes. But you'll notice there's a section on there that looks like this like little cute postcard, like a little postcard for me with like a little note on it. Like there are some really branded items on there, and it's perfect because what it's allowing me to do is it's allowing me to have this new website that I can look at, I can sit with, I can look at the data, I can see how this brand is landing with my dream clients? Am I getting more inquiries? How are the inquiries going to slow down? Like, how are how is it landing with people? And what so many people do is if you waited until everything was perfect and you launch it and you launch this brand new brand without like actually iterating as you go, what happens when it doesn't work? What happens if clients stop reaching out? Well, you changed everything at the same time. You changed your messaging, your branding, your brand colors, your marketing, you changed everything, and you're not gonna know what worked. You're not gonna know what didn't work. And so I'm actually realizing this is the smartest way to do it because I get to iterate as I go. And I get to figure it out and sit with it and see: do I want more of this type of brand? Do I want less of this type of brand? Do I want to change it? And so not only has it been so much less pressure, but it feels just so much smarter. It's such a more logical way of doing it because I get to look at the data and see how things are landing and feeling and how they land and feel for me. And that has just been amazing. And so I'm letting myself figuring out, figuring out the brand over time. I'm giving myself permission to not have to have everything figured out, to not have to land on the perfect icons and designs and structure and things. Like I'm letting that come over time. And so now that the home page is done, the next page I want to iterate on is my website design page. But I'm not rushing to that. Like that's the home page launched this week. I'm not like rushing next to do the website page. I'm gonna let this sit. I'm gonna let it marinate for a bit. And then when I feel inspired and called to, I will continue to work on the rest of the site. And it just feels so much better. And how much more fun is it? Here's here's another tip for launching. Here's what I see so many people happen when they come to me is that they've invested, let's say, like 10K on a rebrand process, like copywriter, website design, like everything, the whole shebang. What ends up happening is that they invest all of this money behind the scenes to get this completely new rebrand. They feel so overwhelmed leading up to it that they do zero marketing over it. So they're literally barely even telling people that they have this new website coming. Like, literally, I've seen this happen time and time again with my clients where they have invested money previously into a rebrand. And then I asked them, like, oh, you know, like how did that look? How did it feel? And they tell me, like, honestly, like, I just kind of put up the new website and didn't really like, I didn't have any sort of a plan on how to like actually market and lead up to it. And then what ends up happening is that they just spent 10K on this whole new website. They felt so overwhelmed that they didn't know how to promote it. And so while yes, they now have this entirely new branded website, like they're not talking about it, they're not telling people about it. And so, how much more fun is it to rebrand one page at a time and to get to actually share the process as you go? Like, it's not just like this one day where you have this one opportunity to market the launch of your new website. Like every couple of months now, I get to celebrate the rebrand or celebrate today. You know, I can like picture myself saying in a couple months, like, here are the different brand elements and brand icons I'm considering. Here are some brand elements I drew up. What are your thoughts? What are your favorites? What are your opinions? And then a week later, I can say, here's the new brand icons. Like I get to share about it as I go, and it removes so much of the pressure off the marketing, off the visibility, off the connection. Like I'm gaining connection with clients and I'm getting to celebrate and like have fun along the way. And isn't that the whole point of this business? Like, isn't the whole point of the business to have a brand and a business strategy that you actually enjoy? And so I I've just realized part, so much of the brand process for people is like is pressure. It's trying to perform and look like somebody you're not. It's pressure to do everything at once because no one's gonna want to hire you if you share the messy behind the scenes. And I'm realizing none of that is actually true. Like none of that matters. Like that's that's not actually the important things. The important things, the things that I am spending time on that like actually matter, are doing things like making sure that my SEO is still optimized. Like as I'm doing the reram process, I'm making sure as I go through and develop each new page. Like, is it SEO optimized? Am I researching keywords? Am I adding the keywords in? Am I going to be creating like blog posts and things that I can share to help create even more visibility? Like there's things I'm doing behind the scenes, like those things do matter, but it doesn't matter that you do it all at one time. It doesn't matter that you keep it all bundled up and locked up until it's perfect. Like all of that is just stories you're telling yourself that are holding you back. And so I'm making it a really normal thing of just like the brand design process, the process of this happens over time. It's not one thing that you just go in and do. It's something that some weeks I might have more dedicated time to go in and work on the website and think about the design process and iterate on different design elements, and that's amazing. But then And then there might be some weeks where I'm focused on client work and doing other parts of the business, and that's okay too. And I don't need to sit here and stress about getting everything done at the same time. And honestly, here's the most beautiful thing about this entire process: like, if I could leave you with one note of encouragement from today, it would be this. Because I have created a strategy for myself when it comes to my brand that feels really aligned with who I am. It's allowing me to work on a work schedule that feels really good for me. Some weeks I sprint, some days I sprint, some days I literally don't leave my computer because I'm so hyped and amped to like create and work on certain parts of my brand. And then some days I do other things. And I'm creating a strategy that feels aligned with how I want to build a business. It feels aligned with how I want to be on a day-to-day basis. And because I'm giving myself permission to have a strategy that is aligned with what feels good to me, I am equally allowing myself to show up in ways where you guys are seeing like the real version of me. Like I can't stress to you how important it is. Like these podcast episodes are a great example. This is real talk, me and you. Like I imagine here I am talking to my mic, like in my office by myself while my dog's here. But I literally picture us having a conversation, having coffee next to each other. And I can see you. I know you're here. I know you're listening in. You're listening into your headphones. Uh, I can see you. I know you're here. I can't see you, but I know you're here. And we are having a real talk conversation. And I would say the same things to you if you were actually physically sitting here next to me. And so many of us get lost in who we need to be, in how we need to show up, in how we need to speak, in the types of posts we need to create, in how we need to look on our blog, and how we need to look on our brand photos. Like so many of us are getting lost and we're losing the plot. We're literally losing the entire purpose of why we wanted to grow a business in the first place. We wanted to grow a business because we wanted to have a schedule that gave us the time freedom, the money freedom, the ability to like work for ourselves, do work that feels good for us, and like do things that we enjoy. But so many of us are getting wrapped up in building businesses we don't even like. Having to show up feels like a chore. Having to create content feels like a chore. And what this has allowed me to do is when you see me on Instagram, I'm sharing real honest, raw behind-the-scene videos. Like I'm sharing content all the time now. I put myself, if you listen to the last week's episode, we're doing a visibility challenge. And part of what I've done is I have made it a non-negotiable to show up. And the reason is is not pressure filled. It's not so that I reach a certain metric or I get to a certain growth strategy achievement. It's simply so that I take off all of the barriers on why I used to tell myself I can't show up. Don't have makeup on, doesn't matter. People don't care. I don't have my message fully formulated on how I wanna what I want to say for the podcast or on this Instagram reel that I'm gonna put, doesn't matter. Hit record and start talking. Like literally, I am removing all of the pressure and the barriers of things that used to keep me stuck. And so the visit the visibility challenge is so much more than just like trying to hit a certain number or get a certain amount of followers. It's like I'm giving myself permission to be visible as who I am. Like this is me. This is the real me. I'm not gonna sit here and try and filter, filter is the wrong word. I'm not gonna muzzle myself from like showing up as who I am, and I'm not gonna try and pretend to be someone that I'm not. And that's that's one thing that I'm really learning. This entire brand process is teaching me. The more I show up as me, the more I try to be, the more I stop, the more I am myself, and the less I try to be someone else, the more fun it is to build a business, the more authentic and genuine my brand is, and the more people instantly connect with me. Because I can't tell you the amount of times I pretended to be someone I wasn't when I felt like I had to show up a certain type of way. The interesting thing was that strategy didn't even work. Like I wasn't getting more clients because I looked luxury or I sounded high-end or my brand looked like a certain type of way. Because the honest truth is that whenever I would have to like get on calls or write emails or show up or create content, I would resist. I would resist because I had to be someone that I was that I wasn't, and I had to pretend and I had to put on this mask. And the more that you allow yourself to show up as you, let your brand be you, the more you can actually back and just like have confidence in yourself, your brand explodes and you have so much more fun while doing it. I hope that this was helpful. It's gonna be a process. Like, I it's not like I can tell you like the brand design is gonna be done in six weeks because I don't, I don't know. I we're just we're kind of just like picking at it as we go, and we are um learning as we go and we are growing, and the brand is becoming more and more clear as I let as time goes on. And so I'm so excited to continue sharing the behind the scenes. And if you um if you're interested, follow me along on Instagram if you're not following me already at Hey Krista Marie. We're sharing a ton of behind the scenes over there. Like if the podcasts are fun for you, if you feel like you learn a lot, like I am just as authentic and real on my Instagram as I am here on the podcast, and so I would love to connect with you over there in real time and actually get to like see faces instead of uh just talking into my microphone. So give me a follow. Um, I am just I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be able to share this vulnerably and honestly with you and just knowing um that this even helped one of you today. Like, I always know every time I record, like, I don't know who needs to hear this, but someone does. And so if that's you today, I really hope that this landed. I hope that you can really take this to heart because the more that you can show up as you, the more your business is just gonna absolutely, it's just gonna be so much more fulfilling and it's gonna absolutely take off. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you remember that you deserve to have a brand that does all of the selling for you. I love you. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for listening in, and I'll see you in the next episode.