Episode 244 : My Favorite Branding Secret To Call In Your Ideal Clients

October 26, 2022

Is your brand connect with your ideal clients? When you’re able to generate and build a connection with the right people who need your work, it’s empowering to know that you have the ability to reach those people time and time again. It also allows you to do the work you love, command the high-end rates that your work is worth, and work with the people that you’re excited to serve—yet this is tricky. Join me as I share how strategy and authenticity can work together to build a brand around your clients, not you.

If today’s episode resonates with you and you want to show support for the show, here’s an easy way to do so: Buy Me A Coffee!

Having a Brand that Speaks to Your Ideal Clients

When your brand speaks to your ideal clients, you’re building a brand around them. While this feels deceptively simple, it’s easy to overlook this component of your brand. Oftentimes, when we’re building brands, we build it around ourselves when our ideal clients should be the focus.

The thing that will attract your ideal clients to your brand (and ultimately you) is going to be something that speaks to them. If you’ve created a brand that is all about you, yet doesn’t resonate with your ideal client, you’re missing out on connecting with them. People aren’t going to feel connected to a brand that doesn’t attract them, therefore when you build a brand all around you, it’s pushing away potential ideal clients.

If you have a beautiful brand that you’re proud of, yet it’s not doing the heavy lifting for you by captivating the attention of the people you want to serve, you’re not appropriately running your business.

Building an Authentic & Strategic Brand

For years, the creative industry has pushed this theme that you should show up authentically and build and authentic brand. I believe that you can do that while still building a strategic brand for your business to help you attract and connect with the right audience.

Having a strategic brand will reflect your intentions and values to that idea customer, simplifying the sales process. It becomes less about selling and more about serving—how your brand is there to show up, support, and serve your clients.

How to Make the Switch

The first step I want you to take in creating a strategic, yet authentic brand is to take a look at your brand overall. This includes your visuals, messaging, social media content, brand voice, client experience touch points, etc. Are you doing these things because you enjoy it?

Take some time to review these things, then speak to your ideal clients. Ask them about their values, client experiences, desires, needs, etc. You’ll find overlap in what you like and your customers like.

You may realize that you’ve build your brand around you—not your ideal customer. This is where a branding professional or an industry friend can help you look for common ground to meet your ideal client in the middle.

Empowerment in Your Brand

Your existing brand and online presence may also be holding you back from charging the prices that you want to charge. The power of branding allows you to have the confidence to connect with the right people and charge what you want to be charging.

Shifting Your Mindset

As you begin to shift your mindset on your branding to being about your client, I want you to think about your website’s “About” page. Rather than making it about you and what you love to do in your personal life, think from the mindset of a potential client and what they need to know in the few seconds or minutes they’re there.

Make it about your experience to serve your clients in a way that excited them to learn from you. Instead of it being a page talking about all of your favorite things, but rather make it about how if they like similar things, you would connect really well. Or even how your experience will serve them well.

The Brand Strategy Process

When I’m working with my custom brand design clients, we’re always starting with my Signature Brand Strategy Process. This walks us through everything from their vision and mission, the why behind their work, who their ideal clients are, what their messaging themes are, what their brand voice sounds like, etc. All of this initial strategy work happens before we ever look at design elements. In this process, we’re thinking truly about the customer in order to develop these visual elements.

If you shift from having a brand that is you-centric to having a brand that is client-centric, you’ve opening up the opportunity too connect with and call in on ideal clients, which will allow you to serve who you want to serve and charge what you want to charge.

If you’re resonating with this concept and are looking for more support in your brand strategy and branding, I would love to connect with you and chat about working together.

SUPPORT THE SHOW

Buy Me A Coffee

FOLLOW ALONG

Brand Strategy Podcast

Instagram

Pinterest

Leave a Review!

LIKE THE SHOW?

IN ORDER TO PROVIDE CONTENT YOU LOVE I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! SUBSCRIBE TO THE BRAND STRATEGY PODCAST AND LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW HERE. THE MORE REVIEWS, THE MORE I’M ABLE TO PROVIDE THIS FREE-ACTIONABLE CONTENT!

Review the Transcript:

Hi friend, and welcome to the brand strategy podcast. A show created to equip you with the inspiration, encouragement, and clarity. You need to build a brand of your dreams. I’m your host, Bonnie Bakhtiari, brand designer, strategist, and founder of the illume Retreat from sustainable strategy to heartfelt encouragement. Each episode is designed to equip you with the tools you need to chase after your dreams, because you deserve a brand that empowers you to do what you love, connects with your dream clients and offers a deep sense of fulfillment along the way. So grab a cup of coffee and join me on this journey. Won’t you,

Hey friends, welcome back to the brand strategy podcast, where today we are talking about one of my absolute favorite branding, secrets tips, whatever you wanna call it to call in your ideal clients. So today we’re talking about one app you can implement in your business that easily enables you to consistently connect with the kinds of clients that you love to serve. So whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been in business for quite a while, but you’re still longing to experience that kind of connection with the people that you are most equipped to serve and, and that you want to serve the most. This episode is gonna help you understand one of the actions that will enable you to experience that kind of connection over and over again. Over the 10 years that I have been a brand designer and strategist, it has been one of my absolute honors to be able to work with my clients and through the work that we do enable them to connect with the kinds of clients they absolutely love working with.

We see this over and over and over again, every time I take on a new branding client, when we walk through the branding or in some cases, the rebranding process, after we launch, I hear all these incredible success stories about the increase in sales that my clients experienced about the, uh, the deepening quality of connection they experienced with their clients. So they went from calling in, maybe not so ideal clients, whatever that looks like for their business, to being able to consistently attract the kinds of people that they wanna work with in this season. And the result is honestly, nothing short of magical when you’re able to have that kind of connection with the people that are out there that need your work. The most, that you know, that you’re gonna be able to show up and serve them and help them, whatever it is that you do, it is so empowering to know that you are able to reach those people time and time again, so that you’re able to do the work that you love command the high end rates that your work is worth and work with.

The people that you’re excited to to serve that I think is a beautiful thing, but it’s a little bit tricky. And in some cases it can actually be a downright struggle to be able to connect with your ideal clients and to have a brand that captivates them and calls them in. If you are following this all too common, I don’t really wanna call it a mistake, but, um, it’s a strategy that isn’t serving you well. So with that being said, here it is my favorite way to call in your ideal clients by leveraging your brand begins first and foremost, with having a brand that speaks to your ideal clients, building a brand that’s about them. Now you might be thinking, okay, cool, Bonnie, that’s like deceptively simple, and I hear you. I hear you . But what I’m saying is that over the years I’ve seen so many creative, so many coaches, service providers, photographers, event planners, floral designers, even graphic brand, and web designers make this a part of the brand.

They’re building in a way that’s not working for them. So what I mean by that is they’re building a brand and they’re making their brand about them, about their story, about what they like about their favorite color, their favorite design elements, about what they wanna see about, you know, what they wanna share and where that is not actually gonna work for you in the creative industry. Is that your ideal clients while yes, absolutely. The data shows us that clients want to work with brands that share common values, and they want to know you as a service provider, and they want to be able to connect with you on a human level because relationships are so powerful for humans. But what I think is important to keep in mind is that what is going to attract your ideal client to your brand, and then by association, you is going to be something that speaks to them.

So if you’ve created a brand, that’s all about you, that’s all about your favorite, you know, like five things that you talk about on Instagram, and it’s all about your favorite color palette and your favorite design aesthetic, and you know, all of these things, but let’s say that that doesn’t actually resonate with your ideal client. Let’s say that your ideal client likes some different things or they value some slightly different values or they have a slightly different design aesthetic, or maybe your favorite color. Isn’t their favorite color. And they actually are not attracted to visual brands that use that color palette. What happens here is we’re gonna have a case of missed connections, where the people that actually need you and need your work are not gonna be able to find you because they’re not gonna feel attracted to a brand that doesn’t reflect them.

And I know that when you’re building a brand, especially when you’re creating a visual brand, this is something that I hear my clients express all of the time. They want to have a brand that feels authentic. That feels genuine, that reflects who they are and what they value, and they wanna love it, right? Like if this is your visual brand, your logo, your website, your, your stationary pieces, you want to look at them and love them and be proud of them and be excited to share them with the world. But this is why it’s so important to, if you do not know how to do this for yourself, it’s so important to seek out the support of a professional who can guide you through a process of navigating that fine line between something that feels authentic to you and something that authentically enables you to call in your ideal clients with a visual identity and a cohesive strategy that speaks to them, right?

Because if we have these beautiful brands that we’re proud of, but that are not doing the heavy lifting for us, and they’re not captivating the attention of the people that we want to serve, how are we making money? How is this a business? How is this not just a really pretty expensive, incredibly well branded hobby, right? This is why I’m so passionate about kind of flipping the conversation for years now. There’s been, uh, kind of, you know, this theme in the online business space where we want to have these authentic brands, but I believe you can have an authentic brand and still strategically speak to your ideal clients in a way that is about them, about how your work serves them, adds value to their life, helps them solve a problem in a way that captivates their attention and pulls them in so that they are not only excited to follow along with you, or book a call with you or buy your product straight from your website, whatever it is that you sell, whatever it is that you offer, if you have this brand that makes it clear to your ideal client, how you are the right person to guide your ideal client on their journey to experiencing their desired outcome, their vision of success, or, um, whatever kind of value they’re wanting to receive from that relationship that makes the selling so much easier because it, it becomes not about selling.

It becomes about serving about how your brand is there to help and support and show up for the people that you wanna work with. And as a result, you’re able to do what you love, experience that fulfillment and see your bank account balance, reflect that, which is exactly how it should be friend. So if you’re wondering how to kind of start to make this switch, I would encourage you to look at your brand, look at not just your visuals, but also your messaging, your social media content. What themes are you speaking about? How are you speaking? So what kind of brand voice are you using? I would look at your touchpoints, your client experience, touchpoints, and ask yourself, did I do this? Do I talk about this? Do I highlight this? Because I like it and I want to, or am I highlighting this or sharing this or inviting my clients into this because it resonates with them too, if you’re not sure about how to figure that out, I highly recommend, and this is actually something I’ve mentioned many times here on the podcast, highly recommend, actually speaking to your ideal clients, like getting them on a zoom call and interviewing them and asking them questions about what values they have, what matters to them, what problems they’re experiencing in their lives or their businesses, um, how they’re defining success.

And, and through that information, you’re gonna be able to very clearly begin to see where there is alignment, where there is that beautiful overlap between what matters to you, what your values are, where you feel uniquely equipped to serve and help your clients and what they need, what matters to them and their values too. So when you’re looking at your identity, your brand strategy, and you’re finding that actually over the years, I’ve made it more about me. And so I’m finding that my ideal clients, aren’t really seeing themselves reflected in this process and in this journey that tells me that this is just an opportunity for growth. This is a beautiful opportunity for you to, uh, enlist the help and the support of a branding professional. You are able to, if that’s not available to you in this season, you’re able to get the support of an industry friend.

Maybe you’re a business bestie and sit down and look at, Hey, what is not working for me? What needs to change? Where can I create more common ground so that my ideal client can meet me in that space. And we are able to then spark that relationship that will turn into a professional relationship. And with that being said, this is also kind of a mindset shift. And this is something that, um, over the summer I was working with this incredibly talented wedding photographer, who we were working together to rebrand her business and really help her elevate her process and her pricing and the client experience. So in the years that she’d been in business, her level of expertise, the quality of work that she was producing was at this like high point, but her pricing and her experience wasn’t quite. And when I say experience, I mean, some of the touch points of her client experience, weren’t quite at that high, higher end sort of point.

And part of the reason why she’d been taking on clients at a lower price point for a while, even though she wasn’t super happy about it was because she felt like her visual brand and her strategy was holding her back. She didn’t feel like she had the, the professional kind of online presence to raise her rates dramatically, you know, to bumping them up a couple thousand dollars at the starting price point. And so working together, we focused on creating a visual brand that captivates her ideal clients that calls them in that exactly positions her as the photographer they need for the experience they want. And at the price point that she wants to be charging. That’s the power of branding is it helps you connect with the right people in a way that, you know, you’re uniquely equipped to serve them. And you’re able to command to the high end rates.

In some cases, that’s not for everybody, but for some people that is exactly what they want. So with that being said, the reason why I’m telling you this story is because when you make that shift, magic happens. But also why I’m telling you about this incredible client of mine is because she and I, during some of our strategy calls that we had during the, the, you know, process of working together, she even said herself, she’s like, I’m in this season where I’m making it less about me and I’m making it more about them. And so with this rebrand, I want for everything that I’m sharing to be about my ideal clients. Right? So what that looks like is let’s say on your, about page, on your website almost, everyone’s got it. Uh, people love to look at them. We might not love to write them, but they’re important, right?

Well, instead of making that about page, all about like your favorite ice cream flavors and what you do on the weekends, and just, you know, like your story about how you got started and having a timeline from like birth to present day about your journey, you know, where, when the entrepreneurial spirit first sparked and first like showed up in your life, like those that’s beautiful. That’s wonderful. I wanna hear about that. I love that for you, but your ideal client, if we think about the way they’re consuming content, if we think about when they’re visiting your website, it might be on a lunch break. It might be while they’re commuting, it might be, um, you know, while they’re sitting on their couch next to their partner or their pet, and they’re, they’ve gotten Netflix on, in the background, right. We don’t necessarily know what’s going on in the lives of our ideal clients when they land on our websites.

And so we wanna honor the few seconds, the few minutes that we have when they’re there. So you’re about Paige. Yes. We want it to be about you. We wanna share information about you, but instead of it being all about you and that’s, it let’s make it about you and your experience that uniquely equips you to serve your ideal client. I E the person who’s reading this on your about page and excites them about learning more about your services. What that does is it creates the space for a path forward. So instead of it just being a page where it’s talking about all of your favorite things, it could be a page where it talks about these are some of my favorite things, and we might be friends. If you like them too. It can be a page where instead of it’s, you know, this massive timeline about how you got started and whatever service it is that you offer, you could talk about over the years that I’ve been doing this service.

It has uniquely equipped me with the skills that I know will serve you well on your journey to experience your definition of success. And then we can invite over that kind of shared commonality. As we’re building that trust. As we’re building that awareness, we’re able to then invite that website, visitor, to head over to your services page, or your work with me page or your experience page to learn more. So that example shows you how, yes, you still, your presence, your story, your values can still be a part of this, but we need to create the space for your ideal client to be a part of it too. And one of my favorite ways to do this through the branding process, I actually do this. This is like me getting super nerdy here, but when I’m working with my custom brand design clients, when we’re starting a new project, we’re always starting with my signature brand strategy process where I’m walking them through everything from their vision and mission, the why behind their work, to who their ideal clients are to what their messaging themes are, what their brand voice sounds like.

And we’re doing all of this initial strategy work before we get to the design portion of things. So before we, even before I even start looking at, um, color swatches, or I start, uh, you know, thinking about potential type pairings, I’m looking at what we are trying to occur. I’m looking at my client’s goals, who they’re trying to reach and what those shared values look like. And then I’m leveraging that information as a designer and strategist to make strategy, backed design decisions for my clients. And that’s part of, part of why we’re able to create these brands that are so powerful, and that enable my clients to see these kinds of results after launching, like, for example, color palettes. It’s so easy to think that your color palette is something that, uh, you know, pulls in your favorite colors as a creative. But actually if you work with a professional, we’re gonna talk about color psychology, and we’re gonna talk about how those colors are perceived and how those colors might make your ideal client feel.

And in some cases, we might find that by tweaking a color or by changing the saturation or the hue, we can actually elicit a more dramatic, more powerful, a more emotional response from your ideal client. Then if we just went with the colors that you see reflected in your home decor, or the kinds of colors that you find yourself reaching for in your wardrobe day after day, we can find commonality. But it’s important for us to be thinking strategically about what matters to your ideal client, even down to the tiniest detail like color friend. I know that I’ve been able to talk through about this, uh, concept a little bit more here on the podcast. And I hope that if you’re only taking one thing away from it, I hope that it is this thought that if you shift from having a brand, that is you centric to having a brand that is client or customer centric, that is an opportunity for you to inspire connection on a level that you might not have been able to until now.

So I encourage you to think about this as an opportunity, an opportunity for you to call in your ideal clients, an opportunity for you to make more money doing what you love and an opportunity to use your gifts and your talents and your skills to serve the people you wanna serve so that you can experience that fulfillment and that excitement doing the work that you love with the people that you love working with. With that being said, if you are tuning in today, and you’re thinking I’m really resonating with what you’re saying today, Bonnie, I’m finding myself in this season where I could use that support. I could benefit from having a professional walk alongside me as I brand my business for the first time, or as I rebrand, then I would left to invite you to connect with me. I am currently accepting new branding and design clients.

And if you love the idea of working with a professional to craft an elevated visual identity, that positions you as the go-to expert, that you are empowers you to consistently connect with your ideal clients and command the high end rates that you’ve been dreaming of charging. Then I’m your girl. If you go to BS for Bonnie design.com, you can learn more about my branding services. You can also just head over to the contact form and get in touch directly. And once I receive your inquiry, if it looks like we’re a great fit, then I will reach out and invite you to book a totally complimentary call with me so that we can learn more about your business, your goals, and how I could potentially serve you well on your journey as always, if you have been tuning in and you have questions about what I’ve been talking about today.

Um, I know that for some, this is, this is a shift from what we’ve been taught in the online business space. So if you wanna talk about it more, if you have questions for me, my DMS are always open over on Instagram and you can find me at Bonnie joy, Marie, and I’d love to chat with you and connect with you and hear more about what ideas, thoughts, comments, or questions you are currently experiencing. Friend. I appreciate you tuning into today’s episode. And if there are any topics that you would like to see in the near future, again, those DMS they’re open. So you can send any thoughts or suggestions my way, but until next time I’m gonna be here cheering you on from Waco.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Friends, before you go, I would be so grateful to receive your feedback on the brand strategy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or the podcast in general has helped you grow your brand. I’d really appreciate it. If you left us a review in iTunes, your positive reviews enable the brand strategy podcast to continue to grow and reach like-minded creatives. Just like you. Thank you for all your support and encouragement as together. We pursue building brands with purpose and intention until next time I’m cheer you on from Waco.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

My name is Bonnie – I’m a brand designer, strategist, and writer which all adds up to one eclectic conglomeration of qualities that enables me to serve you well! Past clients have dubbed me "the Joanna Gaines of brand design," and I've had more than a few call me a dream maker, a game changer, and a design wizard (my Harry Potter-loving heart didn't hate that one, let me tell you!). At the end of the day, I'm a big-hearted creative who will get teary-eyed as you share the heart behind your business; who will lose sleep over the perfect font pairings and color selections to bring your brand to life visually; and who will work tirelessly to empower, encourage, and equip you to share your work with the world intentionally. 

hi friend!

meet bonnie

create your dream brand

THROUGH MY FREE, 5-DAY EMAIL CHALLENGE

yes! send me the guide >

GET THE FREE 5-DAY CHALLENGE DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX AND START LEARNING TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR YOUR DREAM BRAND, ONE THAT INSPIRES AUTHENTIC CONNECTION WITH YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS AND TELLS YOUR STORY WELL!