Episode 224: How To Know When It’s Time To Rebrand with Amanda Shuman

I’ve just rebranded for the first time in 10 years and I couldn’t be more excited! My website in particular became kind of a junk drawer over the last 10 years. As I changed, grew, and improved, I added more to my website but it wasn’t doing as good of a job as it could. It was no longer aligned with me, the way I wanted to show up, and the people I want to work with.

I’ll be honest though, the idea of rebranding hadn’t really crossed my mind until I learned more about the process from Amanda. It isn’t just about making things look nicer, it’s about making it even clearer who you’re the go-to person for so you attract your ideal clients and can command higher prices.

My new brand is everything I wanted it to be in my head but didn’t know how to translate into a cohesive brand. I didn’t know if I was ready to rebrand, so how can you know if you’re ready? In this episode, Amanda and I dig into how to know when it’s time to rebrand and what branding that’s truly aligned with who you want to be and who you want to work with can do for your business.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• What a brand is exactly
• What a rebrand is
• The difference between branding and marketing (and which comes first)
• How to avoid blending in with your competitors
• How branding and marketing work together
• 5 types of businesses that are ready to uplevel their brand
• How your brand sets pricing expectations
• How your brand influences what people are willing to pay you and whether they ghost you or not
• How my brand became like a junk drawer before my rebrand
• What rebranding can do for your business

How To Know When It’s Time To Rebrand

What Is Branding?

Branding is the way you make your audience feel and the impression you give them. Many branding designers ask questions like “If your brand was a drink, what drink would it be?” to get down to the feelings and personality traits you really want to convey.

Amanda sees a lot of people make the mistake of confusing branding with marketing. You have to have a brand before you’re able to market it. Many people try to market and they struggle because they don’t have a brand to actually market.

If you don’t know who you’re trying to sell to and who you’re the go-to person for, you’re going to struggle. If you don’t have a brand, you wind up trying to replicate what everyone else is doing and you don’t stand out from the competition.

When you first start your business, it’s totally fine (and actually recommended) to take any and every job you can get to figure out what you like and what you’re good at but that’s only going to take you so far. Once you figure out what you want to do and who you want to do it for, you need to elevate your brand so you can continue to grow.

What Is Rebranding?

Rebranding isn’t about becoming someone or something else. Instead, it’s about taking the brand you currently have and elevating it. Amanda’s company, Carrylove Designs, is amazing at creating both business and personal brands for her clients. Evolve Your Wedding Business is the brand but no matter how much I grow I am still the face of the brand so the business and personal brands need to work together.

How Do You Know If You’re Ready For A Rebrand?

I’ll be honest, the idea of rebranding hadn’t really crossed my mind until I learned more about the process from Amanda. It isn’t just about making things look nicer, it’s about making it even clearer who you’re the go-to person for so you attract your ideal clients and can command higher prices.

Amanda has identified 5 types of business owners who are ready to take the next step and elevate their brand by doing a rebrand and each one of them is a bit different.

1. Generic – Your brand doesn’t stand out, it’s bland and it blends in with everyone else. It has no personality and you probably Frankensteined it together by borrowing from others in your space.

This is an issue because most wedding pros that have a brand that doesn’t stand out are creating a disconnect between the brand and the experience they provide. It’s harder to command higher prices for your amazing services when you have a super standard website that doesn’t wow anyone or set expectations. It’s the difference between walking into a Walmart and walking into a Louis Vuitton boutique. Both experiences set expectations of the price you’ll pay for something in that store. This prevents sticker shock that results in ghosting.

2. Busy – You’re booking everyone that inquires and now you’re too busy and you want to raise your prices.

It’s very possible your prices are too low and in order to raise your prices, you need to elevate your brand and possibly adjust your ideal client. This is another case where the expectations set by the brand do not line up with the price and as a result, people don’t buy.

3. Limited – You want to expand your audience but feel stuck. Many people at this stage feel stuck because they want to raise their prices but they can’t reach beyond your existing network of vendors to get referrals at the higher price point.

4. Held Back – Your current brand doesn’t match your level of service so it’s holding you back because people don’t see the value you provide. Amanda gives the example of a client who was doing work with huge companies like Google and Netflix but she felt held back by her existing brand.

It wasn’t conveying the amazing work she does and it wasn’t on par with the clients she was trying to book. As a result, she wasn’t putting herself forward for these big jobs with prestigious clients because her brand was giving her imposter syndrome.

The only thing that changed in this food photographer’s business was her brand. Her work was always amazing but she was only able to get smaller clients who were willing to pay $300-$500. After her rebrand, she was able to book these large corporate clients that are willing to pay here $3,000-$5,000. Her brand gave her the confidence to go after these bigger projects and it has paid off handsomely.

Another client of Amanda’s, an event planner, wanted to do more destination weddings. She was approached by two travel agencies that wanted to collaborate with her to do destination weddings together. When Amanda’s company did their rebrand they were able to land a collaboration they had previously been unable to land just 6 months prior. Your brand really does get your foot in the door for so many different types of experiences.

5. Evolving – Your brand doesn’t match where you want to be. Some people in this group haven’t touched their website in years and everything about the business has changed since then.

Their website hasn’t kept up and as a result, it’s difficult to grow. A lot of people in this group hate their websites and don’t want to have anything to do with them.

Most people who are ready to rebrand actually fall into more than one of these categories.

I definitely felt like maybe I didn’t need a rebrand because it was fine and it wasn’t actively hurting my business, but it also wasn’t actively helping it the way it should. A lot of people come to Amanda and say they have “a good website” and when asked why they think that, they basically say “because it’s there and it exists.” There’s a big difference between a functioning website and one that’s helping you book clients.

If Carrylove Design only focused on the logo or the visuals of the brand, I probably wouldn’t have done ahead with a rebrand. After all, what good do pretty visuals do if they’re not getting results? And what can they possibly do if the messaging in my marketing is missing the mark?

If you’re going to rebrand, don’t just focus on the visuals. Amanda’s business gives people a toolbox of everything they need to effectively market their business. That’s what a rebrand should entail as far as I’m concerned. The visuals are great but if the words in the copy don’t turn website visitors into clients, it’s a waste of time.

Working with a brand design company like Carrylove Designs allows you to get a 10,000-foot view of your brand that you just can’t get on your own because you’re too close to it.

What Category Did My Old Brand Fall Into?

I asked Amanda which of the 5 categories my old brand fell into. She felt that I am a wealth of knowledge but that knowledge wasn’t well organized on the website which made it difficult to use. It felt like a junk drawer that you keep adding things to until eventually, it’s overflowing. My old brand put me into the Held Back category as well as the Limited category.

Carrylove Designs took my website which felt like a junk drawer and Home Edit-ed it. After 7+ years of adding things to my website and changing things it just wasn’t cohesive enough and didn’t convey my personality.

In my mind, my brand felt messy because I do so much. It’s difficult at the very beginning of your business because you don’t know what your brand is but then as you grow, it becomes difficult again because everything just turns into an overflowing junk drawer. Now, I have a cohesive brand strategy that provides so much clarity and certainty.

As Amanda pointed out, aside from the brand and the website, nothing has changed. I’m still the same person, what I teach is still the same, the way I teach it is still the same, and the experience I provide my clients is the same. The only things that have changed are my confidence level in my brand, the brand itself, and the website. It’s not a makeover, it’s a repackaging of the great things that already existed in my business.

Results You Get From Rebranding

Amanda’s Results page is what ultimately made me decide to do my rebrand. There are people who were stuck at corporate jobs that could finally quit as a result of the rebrand and people who could afford to put a down payment on a house or pay for IVF due to the change in their income.

Carrylove Designs is all about results-driven design which is why I decided to work with them on my rebrand. Honestly, I wouldn’t have worked with anybody else. I want pretty AND results. Pretty alone is not enough for me.

One photographer raised her prices by 50% after her rebrand and within the first month, she had her first ever $20,000+ month. She went from booking 18 clients at $10,000 each to 24 clients at over $22,000 each. That is seriously life-changing.

This photographer didn’t suddenly get more talented or get fancy new gear. The only thing that changed was the way she presented herself to the world and that changed everything for her.

Amanda said it best herself: “The quickest way to stand out and be more profitable is to be different.”

I’ve been talking about positioning yourself as the go-to person for your ideal client on my podcast, in The Wedding Business Collective, and basically, anywhere people will listen to me for years. Members of The Wedding Business Collective set themselves apart from the competition by doing this, they raise their prices, and their competition is no longer their competition.

That’s how you attract people who don’t just want a wedding planner or photographer, they want to work with you and you alone. That’s how wedding pros inside The Wedding Business Collective are able to continue to raise their prices and not get pushback. You’re no longer just another venue or just another planner or just another officiant, you’re the one.

About Amanda

Amanda is an award-winning designer and Founder of Carrylove Designs.

Carrylove Designs is a Digital Marketing Agency specializing in helping service-based businesses reach six figures and beyond through our proven four-phase brand and website process. Amanda is passionate about design and believes pairing a beautiful brand aesthetic with an intentional website strategy is the cornerstone for success and booking clients effortlessly. We take our clients’ brands and businesses to the next level.

Website: www.carrylovedesigns.com
Instagram: @carrylovedesigns

Links & Resources:

Join us inside The Wedding Business Collective!
Carrylove Designs Results page
Take the quiz: What Stage of Business Are You In?
Episode 94: The Problem With Ideal Clients

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