How to scale and grow with your brand with Bethany McCamish
We are beyond excited to welcome Bethany McCamish to Revive Her and chat about how to scale and grow with your brand as the foundation. Building unmistakable brands for high-end clients is kinda her thing.
Bethany is a 2x founder, TEDx Speaker, and the dynamic force behind Bethany Works®, a design agency known for its psychology-backed branding and web design for luxe brands. Launching full-time in 2019, her mission zeroes in on guiding businesses to craft timeless brands over trendy tactics, ensuring lasting impact. She is also the host of the Unbreakable Brands™ podcast, where she interviews some of her global clientele and highlights rock-solid brands. With a dedicated commitment to elevating women’s voices and visibility, she has carved a unique space as a strategic designer, making her agency the go-to for unmistakable branding and websites.
Every entrepreneur starts out DIY-ing their brand. With Bethany as their guide, Haley and Noel navigate the intricacies of branding and compel listeners to rethink a do-it-yourself approach. They motivate listeners to consult experts, like Bethany, for a brand build they can pass down to the next generation.
What we dive into in this episode:
- Redefining your brand
- Changing with and avoiding trends
- Serving your specific clientele well
- Scaling and pivoting your brand
- Common pitfalls when evolving your business
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What is a brand?
It’s what your audience thinks and feels about your business– what lives in the minds of your clients and customers. You can shape that by the way you present yourself in creating that solid brand foundation. You have a lot of control over that
What is a brand foundation?
Most people think that your brand is just a cool, expensive logo, but your brand is so much more than that! Your brand foundation is composed of three parts, which we like to call The 3 Ps:
What is a brand promise?
Your brand promise should be centered around your people. You need to define what you’re giving them and how your message sounds to them. Your brand promise is what your clients see regularly. Your service to them is your promise to them. In order to build that promise, you really need to know your people or your target audience. Sometimes, we can get too focused on ourselves, our team, and our work, rather than what your clients want and need. Once you’re able to define those needs and consistently deliver those needs to your clients, then you have yourself a huge part of a solid brand foundation.
What is brand positioning?
After narrowing in on your promise, it’s time to figure out your brand’s positioning. Brand positioning is all about where your company is at in the market and how you’re marketing yourself to your people. It’s essentially the message that your brand sends to the world. If you don’t know your people or your promise, then you’re not going to be able to position yourself in the market. Gathering your promise is vital to positioning your brand within your market and target audience.
What is a brand presence?
Brand presence is what most people go to first when they’re thinking about marketing their brand. Your presence is made up of all the visuals that make your brand stand out from all the rest – from your logos to your website. Your brand’s presence is your Pinterest board come to life, but it should really be informed by your promise and your positioning. All of the visuals that make up your brand need to speak to your clientele.
Once you have your promise, position, and presence nailed down and cohesive, you’ll have a really solid brand foundation; however, It’s important to keep in mind that these three things will shift and change as you scale and grow your brand.
Why do I need a brand foundation?
Having a solid foundation for your brand will help to build a brand identity, which is important in the ever-changing marketplace. You don’t want to be a brand swayed by the trends of the market – you need to have your own personality. Although your brand will fluctuate and evolve as you grow and pivot, it’s important to know your why so that you aren’t swayed by the latest fad.
The way you market will change with the market. Some great brand identity examples came with the introduction of AI, brands had to take a stance on whether they were going to use the new technology or not. When making a big decision like this, you and your team will need to look back on your three P’s and see how AI (or some other trend) fits into your brand or not. Remember, it’s ok to not use a new trend. If it doesn’t fit into your overall brand goals, don’t feel pressured to use it.
On the other hand, don’t ignore new technology or trends that could make your brand obsolete. For example, when streaming services were introduced, cable television ignored this new technology thinking that it would blow over. This oversight cost them tremendously, making cable virtually obsolete. If they had reviewed the trend alongside their promise to their customers, they would have seen how useful streaming services were to the consumer and pivoted along with the market.
Basing your brand around your promise to the consumer allows you to make tough decisions easier when it comes to the ever-changing marketplace.
How to Build Brand Equity
When you truly know who you serve and how to speak their language, it directly contributes to your bottom line. If you’re connecting with the right clientele, then you’ll be able to convert clients to customers on a regular basis and build more brand equity in your business.
What we most often see with a new start-up is piecemealing your brand together, and this only leads to temporary success.
Let’s say you throw up some content. You got brand photos and a website, and now you’re posting on Instagram. That’s great, but if there is no intention behind your visuals or no structure behind your content, then it’s not going to connect with the target audience. If you’re not connecting with the people you need to convert, then you aren’t going to see long-term success. It’s important to follow an order of operations so that you can get the best return on investment and build the legacy you want. Make sure you check out Bethany’s podcast about how to get the best ROI.
DIY-ing your branding may seem successful for a while, especially if you have a huge following, but for longevity, it’s important to have that solid brand foundation and keep revisiting it. We see people skip steps all the time, and maybe they will connect with people, have great SEO, and create traffic to their websites. Your followers may be seeing and hearing you, but if you’re not converting them, then you have a whole other issue on your hands. It all comes back to creating a brand foundation.
Every beginner starts their business on their own, and there’s no shame there! DIY-ing is an important step for your business because you have to throw some things at the wall and see what sticks. Find what you’re passionate about and get a proof of concept. A couple of years in, hire the people you need to get your business to the next level.
If you’re still stuck on the fence about hiring out, Bethany likes to give this analogy. Your business is a fine wine on the shelf, and you know how great you are inside the bottle. But when you’re in this large section of wine it can be really hard to picture what your label should look like. You’ll need to stand out, and if you do it yourself you’re reading it backwards from inside the bottle. It helps to have someone step back and create that big-picture view to create your label so your brand can truly stand out on the shelf.
When should I scale my brand?
When you’ve set up a solid brand foundation, you’ve worked with a professional copywriter and a designer, and it’s consistently working for you, then you’re ready to scale your brand. Scaling your brand usually means hiring a team and building structures that support you as the CEO, rather than you as the person delivering and packaging products. When you’re scaling, maintaining brand equity is the most important piece. You want to maintain the value you’re offering as you expand.
You want to make sure you’re considering all the pieces as you bring on a team. Ask yourself questions like: Do you want to be the face of your company forever? What does your future company look like? Consider your exit plan. Is this the legacy I’m passing down to my kids? Or is this something I’m going to sell in 10-15 years? These are big ideas, but that’s all part of scaling the brand.
Scaling vs Pivoting
People tend to confuse scaling with pivoting. When your business is pivoting, you want to raise prices and jump into a new clientele. Another pivot is when your brand starts selling passive products on the side, as opposed to a service-based business. Make sure you know if you’re just scaling the growth of your business or changing your brand and pivoting.
If you’re in this process, consult with someone who knows what they’re talking about. You need to consult with someone who knows the differences and nuances in your business.
Should my brand be evolving?
Your brand should always be adapting and evolving with the market. A static brand is a dead brand. As you grow and evolve, so will your brand – this means changes – scaling and pivoting should and will happen. Building a brand and website is only the start, that’s why we call it a foundation. Then you build your marketing efforts, and sometimes even rebuild or revitalize the foundation.
The most important thing to think about is where you are in the market and adjust as needed within that market.
The Do NOTs of Brand Evolution
- Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Hire a team of people, instead of hiring one person to be your social media manager, designer, and assistant. This is not only unfair to them, but you won’t be getting the expert in each field that your brand deserves.
- If you don’t have brand ownership. Your business should be trademarked and you should own your IP address. You don’t want to be on the back end of investing all this money in your evolution and then someone sends you a cease and desist letter for using their brand name. That’s a costly mistake, so make sure you touch base with a lawyer to make sure your name is ok to use in your brand.
- Following trends that don’t match your brand. There are a lot of trends in the industry in general. Just take a minute to go back to those 3 P’s and see if the trends actually apply to your business. Your next brand evolution isn’t necessarily the next trend that’s going around on the internet.
At the end of the day, your biggest concern should be if you are serving your customer well.
During Your Next Brand Evolution
- Ask yourself these questions: What do my people want? What do they need? How are they feeling? Am I meeting their needs and wants? Is my brand validating their feelings and getting them to their desired goal?
- Pause on the trends, and take a moment to see if it works for you. It can work for you in a beautiful way, but not every trend is going to work for everyone.
- Be ok with revisiting the brand you built, even if it was expensive. Don’t think of it like you’re burning the whole place down. Look at what is working right now, what needs to change, and how to make that happen. Once you have a good foundation, you’re never starting over from scratch.
At the end of the day, your brand is really an extension of you. It’s going to take time to figure out the right direction, evolve, and grow. Just like yourself, the more you invest into your brand the better and brighter your brand will become. Complete these steps with intention and not urgency. Taking your time and thoughtfully crafting your brand will save you time in the long run.
FAQs For My Girlies Who Skim
How do I build a solid brand foundation?
You need to find your brand’s three P’s: promise, position, and presence. Your brand promise is what your clients see regularly. Brand positioning is all about where your company is at in the market and how you’re marketing yourself to your people. It’s essentially the message that your brand sends to the world. Brand presence is what most people go to first when they’re thinking about marketing their brand. Your presence is made up of all the visuals that make your brand stand out from all the rest – from your logos to your website.
Am I scaling or pivoting?
People tend to confuse scaling with pivoting. When your business is pivoting, you want to raise prices and jump into a new clientele. Another pivot is when your brand starts selling passive products on the side, as opposed to a service-based business. Make sure you know if you’re just scaling the growth of your business or changing your brand and pivoting.
How do I evolve my brand?
Ask yourself these questions: What do my people want? What do they need? How are they feeling? Am I meeting their needs and wants? Is my brand validating their feelings and getting them to their desired goal? At the end of the day, your brand should be serving your clientele effectively. If you can’t do that, then you won’t grow.
