Rosie Parsons 0:00
My guest today is Kayleigh Lloyd, from Lloyd Creative who's a brand specialist. We'll be talking about how to create a powerful personal brand that aligns with who you are and makes you stand out from the crowd. So it's very nice to have you with us today. Kayleigh, how are you?
Kayleigh Lloyd 0:16
I'm good, great to be here, as always.
Rosie Parsons 0:19
So today, we're going to be talking about personal branding. But first of all, maybe you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.
Kayleigh Lloyd 0:25
I'm Kayleigh, I specialise in full brand packages for female founders. I started this new business about two years ago with the pandemic. And there seem to be a sudden influx of women that really wanted to stand out from the crowd doing their own thing, and owning who they were. And I found that I seem to attract, maybe the more colourful, the more quirky, with my bold and vibrant designs, and it just seems to have really hit a niche, and I am loving every second.
Rosie Parsons 1:00
Yeah, you do a great job, I love all the designs you come up with. And we've worked together a few times as well, where people have had their brand photos with me and then use those in the designs you've created for them. And it really worked so well doesn't it - having both of those elements of a brand come together?
Kayleigh Lloyd 1:17
Absolutely. And we seem to attract very similar personalities, that all want to have that fun in their business, and they have a strong passion driving them. And they are usually the faces of their business as well, which is why the photography is such an important part, it's the human part of their brand. So when they come to me with your photography, or they go to you after the branding process, or they have their colours, really, you know, together, there's there's, there's nothing stronger than those two elements. My brand identity and your brand photography together is just powerhouse.
Rosie Parsons 1:55
Yeah, it does work really well. So for somebody that hasn't doesn't feel like they have a really strong brand at the moment where on earth do we start to create a brand that summarises who we are?
Kayleigh Lloyd 2:07
Well, the first thing is we need to figure out who we are. And I don't think we spend much time really investigating that. It's not like you have five minutes to yourself and like oh, what can I do? Oh, I know, I can really dive down into who I am as a person. But that's exactly what you need to do when you're building a brand, especially a brand that revolves around you. And if you're at the core of your business, then you need to really identify the things that make you special make you stand out and make you who you are. So the first things we need to do is understand our values, which are the things that really drivers, they are the passion behind what we do. And they really push us forward and direct where we take our company the services we offer and the people that we work with. So values such as well, my values, our creative curiosity, because I love to really explore the many options that a brand can offer to somebody and where we can take it and how we can infuse their personality into it. And also transformation. Obviously, transformation is a huge part of what I do. And also how I help the women, they don't just transform their visual identity, what they transform in themselves, they really get that clarity and confidence from going through the process.
Rosie Parsons 3:27
I've seen that with with your clients, they're already really good at what they do. And then when you've got a brand that backs it up, it does transform you because then you want to get out there and show off your brand you feel confident with it. And you feel proud of it. So you want to get out there and show people and it really does elevate you as a person. You can charge more when you look really well put together and you have a strong identity.
Kayleigh Lloyd 3:50
Definitely. And it's all about that confidence building. It's hard to raise your prices when you feel like you're not looking your best and giving your best. So what are your values?
Rosie Parsons 4:01
My values? Well, I've written them down because I knew you might be asking me this. I should remember them really. First one is, is love and that encompasses a lot, really. So that's I want people to feel loved when they come and see me that includes finding out about their favourite foods so that they can have a nice experience their favourite music and feeling accepted doesn't matter if you feel overweight. If you don't like how your nose look, you are loved when you're here and you deserve to be seen. And it comes down to self love as well accepting who we are. Yeah, so that's the first one.
Kayleigh Lloyd 4:34
That's a big one there, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, love is, is sometimes hard to do, but with the supportive space around you. It's easier to step into and start to feel it yourself.
Rosie Parsons 4:44
Yeah, definitely. I want people to feel looked after and like nourished and loved really. Yeah. When they come and see me. And the second one is playfulness. And I hope that comes across through my brand. It's I think life is too short to be taken too seriously. And so my home and and everything is just all a little bit silly and playful. And I only buy things for the house that make me smile.
Kayleigh Lloyd 5:06
So what are the two new additions to your home that I noticed?
Rosie Parsons 5:10
Yes. So you might be able to see behind us, the cheetahs. I don't actually haven't named them yet. Maybe I should run a poll for their names. Yeah, the lady even when I was buying them, that there was a lady in the saw that said, like, you've really got no legitimate reason to buy those. And I was like, yeah. And then the last one is quality. So I want everything I do to be high quality. And I just want it to look really professional, straight out of a magazine to be of the highest quality really.
Kayleigh Lloyd 5:42
And with these values, obviously, it's going to really help you, if you get to a pivot point in your business, or giving a new service or working with certain individuals, you can look at these values and make sure that the choice you make really aligns with those. And if it doesn't align, you might not feel so confident doing it, or you might feel a little bit achy. So it's really a good place to start to direct the path that you take with your business and choices.
Rosie Parsons 6:06
So my next question then leading on from that will be how do we come up with our values?
Kayleigh Lloyd 6:11
Okay, so values are probably one of the most important parts of starting your brand process. So it's, it's gonna be a big one, there's not going to be something you can do really quickly. Usually, if you've done it too quickly, then they're likely to be too generic. So, for example, you might say, I'm authentic, I'm honest, and I'm human or something. But that's not very unique, you're gonna find a lot of companies that are authentic. And there's more to you than that. So it's all about really gathering a great variety of words from self, what you think of yourself as what you think your process is, like, what drives you your passions, but also asking the people that you work with your clients, and also your family and friends, to see what kind of words they would describe us and then start to really look at your top five, or your top 10 And start to write below them. So I realised that mine were more important to me by the amount that I could write about them, or the amount that I could speak about them. If you say I'm authentic, because I only speak the truth, and I am who I am. I mean, that's all well and good. But what makes that such an important part of your business? And how do you use that in your service and your approach? And in the way you work with people?
Rosie Parsons 7:32
Yeah, and it's a bit vague, isn't it? I mean, I am who I am, I'm authentic, but authentically, what do you stand for, then?
Kayleigh Lloyd 7:39
It's about really driving down into the details, you can also put words together, like I said, my value is creatively curious, I did have my values as creative and curious. But the two together, I think, just really add that extra something. And they work together as well, because my curiosity is always through that outlet of creativity. So fun to play with mixing words together.
Rosie Parsons 8:03
And what's the difference between having a personal brand compared to having a brand for your business, are they the same thing?
Kayleigh Lloyd 8:09
100% dependent on how much you are a part of your business and how much you want to be a part of your business. For me, obviously, I am my business, same as for you, and our personalities are what attract the people to us, because they can instantly see who they're going to be working with. And they can see what kind of relationship you can have and what the process is going to be like, and how is it going to be fun? Is it going to be creative. But if you need to be step back from your business a bit, you need to look more at what the values of that company are going to be. And there's going to be some similarities and some common grounds. But there's also going to be boundaries between you and your business. So a personal brand is what do you want people to remember of you what you want people to think of you. And that can be as professional or as authentic and unleashed as you would like it to be. It's dependent on the person.
Rosie Parsons 9:06
If you're in a corporate job, let's say and then you've got a side hustle. How should you navigate that like having a personal brand that's also going to reflect on where you work?
Kayleigh Lloyd 9:16
I think the easiest way is to separate the two there's such space in this world and online, especially that we can be both things, the amount of people I've spoken to, who have all these boundaries, limiting who they can be because of the job they're connected to. It really stops them from being what they want to be on the side hustle on their personal company, or project. So it's, it's really important to be able to just cut those boundaries, and just try stepping out as who you want to be and really owning it. I think until you've tried it. You can't say whether it's going to work or not. But there's no rules on how many If you have I have a friend who has a few businesses and she has a different Instagram space for each business and for her own personal brand. And each one is slightly different. And it's all of her. It's like each individual passion goes in a different space for her.
Rosie Parsons 10:16
Yeah that's a good idea. How do you deal with a fear of making mistakes? If you're putting yourself out there, it can be a bit nerve racking, you don't want to like yeah, get it wrong.
Kayleigh Lloyd 10:25
I think if I saw somebody who was always perfect, I wouldn't trust them. I think there is no such thing as being perfect. And there's always mistakes and people relate to us mistakes. And, you know, if you can not shy away from it or not worry about it. I know, it's easier said than done, because I worry about making mistakes. But the more you relax, you'll find it surprising how many people can relate to anything that you do whether we were talking earlier about maybe our Instagram looking a little bit chaotic or messy. But then at the same time, she was a mum. And we all know with lots of kids running around us life is messy and chaotic. So if that is coming across, that's probably attracting more mums, then, you know, you know, it makes you relatable, doesn't it clear is that human connection that builds the strongest kind of relationships for business, and you'll get more clients by being this messy, chaotic self than if you were this perfect mum, who were everything was always clean and tidy. And your little cherubs were being perfectly like,
Rosie Parsons 11:34
Yeah, that would annoy me, I would want to work with someone like that.
Kayleigh Lloyd 11:37
Hate that person!
Rosie Parsons 11:39
Yeah. And I've noticed like, you know, Lea Turner, for example, she's got loads of followers, she's absolutely smashing it on LinkedIn. And I noticed that sometimes she puts out posts, which then she realises Oh, that wasn't such a great idea to your take it down, maybe apologise. And you know that that's really good, isn't it? Like people who are doing really well on the platform are making mistakes, but that just shows that you're human, and you can learn from it? So it shouldn't stop you? I guess.
Kayleigh Lloyd 12:07
Absolutely. She owns up to it as well. She's like, Oh, I did this, it was a mistake. Let's move on, you know, not even thinking twice about it.
Rosie Parsons 12:14
If we're anxious about showing up online, and putting ourselves out there, how can we get over that fear?
Kayleigh Lloyd 12:20
So I think anxiety generally stems from something when we're not clear on it when we haven't got that clarity, or that confidence behind it. So if you're feeling a little anxious about showing up there, maybe you just need to dig a bit deeper into understanding who you are, how you want to show up and how you want to be perceived by people. Once you really understand who you are, and how you want to do things, then things become a lot easier, I found that when I first started out, I was trying to be like all these other designers and all these other brand specialists who obviously had their stuff together. And then once I let that go, and just started to relax and be myself and realise that that was what connected me to my ideal clients. And you know, once I've got to do that life just got easier. And it is a process and I wasn't confident straightaway. But you just build it step by step. It's a journey. And I don't think you need to worry about it, you just need to take that next step.
Rosie Parsons 13:21
And you talk about ideal clients, how do we figure out who our ideal client is?
Kayleigh Lloyd 13:26
There's a very strategic way to look at who your ideal clients are. And you can start by looking at what your perfect client would be like, what they enjoy what passions they have, they should have similar values as you they should have a similar kind of personality to you. But then there's also that space where you need to look at how much they earn, where they spend their money, what kind of pain points do they have, that you are there to help them with, and how they are feeling when they're ready to take that step to invest. So it's all about looking at and writing down all of their personality traits and making sure what you're putting out there aligns with that so they feel that human connection, but also that you're there to help fix their problems with your services.
Rosie Parsons 14:18
I think it's quite interesting to look at others brands that they like as well, isn't it? I look at other brands and take inspiration from places like Innocent Smoothies. I love how playful they are. And they've really made their brand into something brilliant. They're really playful, aren't they?
Kayleigh Lloyd 14:31
Good humour.
Rosie Parsons 14:33
Yeah, really good humour, finding things in unexpected places on the bottle, that kind of copy. They use the little woolly hats and getting people involved in knitting them. I love that.
Kayleigh Lloyd 14:43
I can just imagine you knitting some little woolly hats.
Rosie Parsons 14:47
I do not have the time or patience to do that at all! But I like that idea. Once we know who we are and our values, what's the next step to actually bringing that to life visually?
Kayleigh Lloyd 14:59
Oh, So the next step is working out, where you can start to infuse those emotions and feelings into something visible for people to see recognise, and remember, because it's all about creating visual elements that stick in people's mind. And so that when somebody asks you about their brand, they're like, all these people look fun, or these people look like really exciting or trendy or positive and just nice to be around. So we want to insert those things into something visible. And then the best way to get that instant reflection is true colour, I would definitely say, colour is one of the most important things, it's something our brains remember before anything else more than shape, more than form more than words, colour is the thing that's going to be most memorable to your clients. So getting a great colour palette is key. And I think that if you can just start with the top primary colours, then that's a great place to start. And it's also going to be the the best thing to reflect an emotion, certainly sunny yellow, we get happy vibes instantly, we've got a luxury deep blue that suggests quality. And there's things that reflect things straightaway that we've been brought up to recognise we know that traffic lights, green means go red means stop, or danger and things like that. But then there's tones within red, that mean romance. Or if you link red with a yellow or pink, then it's going to be more fun and playful and energy. So it's really fun to play with colour. And I don't think there's anything wrong with exploring it, especially when you start off. But getting it right is a key point to any brand.
Rosie Parsons 16:47
So coming back to how to work with a graphic designer, what other elements do we need as part of our visual identity.
Kayleigh Lloyd 16:54
So this is something that's been evolving quite a lot, especially over the last few years with social media. So before when I first started out 15 years ago, people would want a logo for their business card or their letterhead. And that was pretty much it. Nowadays, we have to make so much collateral and daily posts and ebooks and podcast covers and websites that have gigantic sales pages. So we need as many assets and elements that are all intertwined to create this great vision of who we are and what we do and what we're all about. And the more assets you can have, makes our lives easier as long as they're all aligned and they work together. So obviously a good strong logo and one that can be used in a number of ways. So horizontally, stacked a sub logo, which doesn't include a tagline or any of the extra elements, a brand icon or something that just is a nice recognisable symbol that you can use as a finisher or footer or something like that.
Rosie Parsons 18:04
One of the things I really like that you do is you create shapes and patterns for people's brands, don't you?
Kayleigh Lloyd 18:09
Yes, I think that's a really great way of adding those extra emotions that you don't necessarily want at the top of your brand. So like your logo needs to really reflect the things that are most important to you and what you do, and your colours obviously reflect your emotions, the font, your personality. And then as you go deeper, you can insert more pattern and illustration and texture.
Rosie Parsons 18:35
Because you worked on a brand for Kelly Swingler the coach and I've done her photos as well - works amazingly well together naturally. But you said something this morning at this workshop we were on about the straight talking and straight lines. Is that something that you brought into her business because she has a straight lines in her brand.
Kayleigh Lloyd 18:52
That's exactly why they're there - because she is straight talking. She is no BS. She says things as they are. And we needed that bold harshness to come across in the brand and we did it through straight lines but at an angle. And there's a little bit of a rebellion side to her. And I think it just fits well with that. So definitely think about are you more of a straight talking sharp person or are you softer edges curved are your natural and organic look at maybe some botanical elements - there's so much that shape reminds people of that it's a really important asset to use.
Rosie Parsons 19:31
And I suppose as other fun things like I've got a lot of gifs in my brand
Kayleigh Lloyd 19:37
I love your gifs!
Rosie Parsons 19:37
I've had fun making them and a bit of illustration actually you are very good at illustration, aren't you?
Kayleigh Lloyd 19:44
Yes, I love illustration. One of those things that is on my list of to do's to learn is to bring those illustrations to life through animation. Because I think there's something about movement - especially in this day and age where we're obviously trying to stop people scrolling, movement really does that. So if you can add movement to your brand - video, a live or reel of you moving and talking to the camera? That is the best way. But there's other ways to insert movement - like you use through gifs, which I think is so powerful and really showstopping, I love them, they really insert that energy.
Rosie Parsons 20:18
Ahh thank you! What would you say the benefits of having a really strong brand are with all the assets ready to go?
Kayleigh Lloyd 20:23
So the stronger you can make your brand, the more professional you're going to look, you're going to look like you've got your stuff together. The more memorable you're going to be. People will instantly recognise Oh, that crazy stuff, I can tell that because of the colour because of the energy it gives off. People know your photos straight away. That's because you've got a strong brand. People will recognise you instantly when people try to think of, oh, who can I work with, with this photography you'll be in their minds. So it's important to be remembered, and for people to know where to find you. And then also that trust. If you are consistent with a brand, people start to remember you and trust you realise you are who you are, you're not switching up, you know what you're about. A great thing about having a strong brand is that people feel like they're part of a community. It's got that familiarity that they're expecting, and that everything just aligned so that they build that great trust and recognition with you.
Rosie Parsons 21:23
So if we really liked the idea of having a strong personal brand, or brand for our business, but we don't want to do it ourselves, maybe we're not creative. I mean, certainly even though I am in a creative industry, designing it myself was just not something I was able to do. How much are we talking about that we need to budget to work with a graphic designer?
Kayleigh Lloyd 21:42
So it's completely bespoke on the person that you choose. I think it's always worth looking at a variety of designers, we've all got our own individual style. And we also offer different packages. So some people just offer a logo, if that's just where you want to start. Some people offer you slightly larger packages, such as logo, colour and font, my packages start with the basic strategy. And then a full branding pack, which includes obviously all those things, plus the sub marks and illustration pattern, things like that. And then obviously, depending on your business, you might need packaging, you might need templates, you might need printed items. So really explore the options out there. But if you want a logo, if you have a very low budget, then things can start really quite budget friendly for £100 plus, but if you want something really professional, you're going to be starting to look at £1000, £2000, from the agencies I worked with the smaller companies were paying £15,000 as a starting point. So there's a really big variety of prices.
Rosie Parsons 22:51
So it's nice, really to.... if somebody is to work with you, they're getting the benefit of somebody walking you through the whole process. So you really get your values clear, and who understands colour theory and can pick out the right fonts for you. And give your brand a really professional look without needing to go to an agency. And I don't think most of us have £15,000 to spend on a brand. But I think if we're really serious about our business, I think £2000 or £3000 to spend on your brand to bring it up to a level where we can start charging more for our services, we should be able to see a return on that very quickly.
Kayleigh Lloyd 23:24
Absolutely. And you know what is it's something that's not just going to be a quick win. It's something that is going to grow with you. It's not something you're going to need to change again, for a good few years, it's going to attract more of the people that you want to work with. It's going to give you that confidence to start putting yourself out there more all of my clients come to me because they've got these boundaries in places things, stopping them from launching certain services, even handing over their business card because they don't like their logo. It's stopping them from reaching out and connecting with the people they want to connect with. So just the fact that it can give you that confidence to take your business to the next step, let alone raising your prices and just growing your business further. There's so much a brand can bring and the more powerful it is. So it's definitely worth its weight in gold.
Rosie Parsons 24:12
Right. Well thank you very much for joining us today, Kayleigh. So Kayleigh has very kindly offered us an amazing competition price for this week. Very excited. So one of us is going to win a brand audit with Kayleigh. And do you want to fill us in on what that's going to include?
Kayleigh Lloyd 24:27
Yes. So a brand audit is basically where you get my expert eyes on what you're currently putting out there all the brand elements that you have. And also look at your brand strategy, and how the two things are aligning and what steps you can take to really make it more powerful and make your personality and what's great about your brand stand out above everyone else.
Rosie Parsons 24:49
Amazing. So that's worth £350. So that's a really big prize. So if you want to get involved and win that's what you need to do to enter is to subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating for the show if you haven't already. And do share this episode on your social media, Instagram, LinkedIn wherever you like. And then send a screenshot of your social share to rosie@rosieparsonsphotography.com with the subject line "Lloyd Creative Competition" Great. Well, so that's the third episode done and dusted. I hope you enjoyed it. So if you haven't already, then do go back and listen to the previous two episodes as well, where we talk about impostor syndrome in episode one, and Episode Two, we give you some great LinkedIn tips with Jennifer Corcoran. See you again same time next week!
