After years of running my branding and web design studio, I’ve gotten on calls with countless small business owners—across so many industries and at multiple stages of their journeys. 

I’ve talked to people who are at the beginning stage of their journey and only have an inkling of what they want their offer/product to be.

I’ve talked to people who have launched in some way shape or form, but are still working out all the kinks of running a business and are feeling like they desperately need professional help in areas that are outside of their zone of genius, but need to be really intentional about how and where they invest. 

I’ve talked to seasoned business owners who have been at it for some time, seen the growth they want, and are ready to take it to the next level. 

And consistently when I speak to these business owners (whether on a sales call, a Free Website Audit, Slack, or in my IG DMs), I see three obstacles emerge—regardless of where they are in their journey. 

Read on to learn more about the obstacles and grab my free resource for helping you get a head start on avoiding (or overcoming) these issues ASAP… so that you can be confident you’re building a brand that resonates with your audience, builds credibility, and ultimately helps you grow with ease. 

OBSTACLE #1

You know you “need a logo” for your business, but you don’t have a clear picture on the value of your investment beyond that.

I’m not going to beat around the bush: branding your business is an investment. And there is a wide variety of quality to choose from out there: from high-end agencies employing multiple people that will charge in the tens of thousands (or more)… to low quality, usually pre-made options on sites like Etsy or Fiver that you can get for close to nothing. Hint: Crafted by Carly falls in between these 2 extremes.

My guess is that, as a self-funded small business owner, you’re not considering a large agency, who typically work with big companies with big budgets. But you may be weighing the options between investing in a branding service like the one I provide, versus throwing a hundred bucks at a pre-made option on Etsy and calling it a day.

So what is the harm of going the Etsy route? And what’s the true ROI (return on investment) of having beatiful, strategic branding? 

When it comes to your branding, it’s about so much more than “just the logo” or just the visuals, for that matter. Building a brand means building a business that people talk about—something that resonates with them on a deeper level than just the thing you’re selling. 

For example:

• Nike sells sneakers in a literal sense. But their brand is actually selling the idea that you can do anything you put your mind to.
  
  

• Apple sells iPhones in a literal sense. But their brand is actually selling your ability to stay connected to your loved ones, stay up to date on world happenings, capture memories, etc. 
  
  

• Headspace sells the ability to learn how to meditate through their app in a literal sense. But their brand is actually selling the idea that their product will help you to “live a healthier, happier, more well-rested life in just a few minutes a day.” 
  
  

• A photographer sells a photoshoot and physical pictures in a literal sense. But their brand is selling memories to last you a lifetime. 
  
  

• A restaurant sells food and drink in a literal sense. But their brand is selling a sense of community and togetherness. 
  
  

• A small shop specializing in handmade clothing sells clothes in a literal sense. But their brand may be selling the idea of expressing yourself through your clothes, supporting a small business owner, and buying clothes that you know are sustainable. 
  
  

Simply put, buying just a logo (especially one that’s pre-made) and/or ignoring the strategy part of the process can’t set you up for building a successful, intentional brand that taps into your audience’s deeper emotions, obstacles, and dreams. 

But when you choose to do your branding in a way that is both strategic and looks at the whole picture, every part of the process will help you to grow your brand in a way that aligns with your goals and audience, and that clarity is necessary and invaluable for helping you market and sell the true value of what you offer.

The part of the brand strategy & branding process that I’m referring to includes:

• Drilling into who your audience is, so that you can find clarity around why they want/need your service, where they are in their life, and what they value
  
  
• Doing a competitive analysis so that you can find confidence in how you stand apart, and carry this unique-ness into everything from your web design to your marketing startegy to your customer/client experience. 
  
  
• Looking at your short, medium, and long-term goals so that you can always be making decisions in alignment with those goals as you grow the business and brand.
  
  
• Getting clarity on the benefits of what you offer—on a literal and emotional level—so that you can always be selling and marketing in a way that’s going to resonate with your audience. 
  
  
• Creating various versions of your logo that’s in alignment with all of the above (and more!), that strikes the difficult balance of standing out from your competition while feeling like it fits in with what you’re selling and the industry.
  
  
• Creating a color palette rooted in psychology, because color really does make people feel a certain kinda way! 
  
  
• Having a full brand identity (logos, colors, fonts, graphic elements) that gives you a way to stay visually on-brand everywhere you show up… WITHOUT having to hire a designer every single time you need to create something (hi Canva!). 
  
  

As you can see, there are a wide variety of benefits of building a brand that goes beyond just the logo. And when you build this brand strategically and intentionally, your ROI will be huge. 

OBSTACLE #2

You started creating your website before having branding… and now you’re trying to figure out how to backpeddle so that your website feels on-brand.

I’ve been in the industry long enough, and have talked to enough business owners, to know exactly why this happens. Hey, I even get why you’d want to do this! The branding process is an investment in not just money but time—at Crafted by Carly, we slot 6 weeks for the entire process. Your website feels more tangible, so it’s tempting to jump ahead. 

The problem with this approach is that you don’t actually have any guidelines—visually or strategically—to guide the web design process. And at the end, you end up 2 major issues:

• Problem #1: Your website doesn’t flow. This can manifest in several ways, but most commonly I see pages that either have no call to action or a call to action that doesn’t make sense for the audience journey; extremely long bios bragging about credentials instead of focusing on what your audience needs; making it really hard to contact you; presenting your services in a way that doesn’t make sense for your audience; etc. 
  
  

• Problem #2: Visually, there’s no cohesion and it looks unprofessional. You may have been making up your colors as you went along, or decided to just run with generic fonts that your website platform offered up. 
  
  

I’m telling you: if you’re considering what to start with now, the answer is ALWAYS branding. Starting with your website and then realizing you need branding means you’ll end up spending more time and money to go back and fix your website after the fact. 

[ Did you already create your website sans branding and are feeling frustrated by where to start to get yourself back on-brand? Reach out so that we can brainstorm the best fix for you! ]

OBSTACLE #3

You love seeing beautiful, intentionally branded companies and understand the power of them… but you don’t know where to start with your own brand. 

Myself and a lot of the small business owners I work and talk to have this in common: we value a beautiful brand. Not because we’re shallow and like pretty things—but because it makes us feel something.

And because that’s something we value, we can’t deny that we’re more likely to trust and spend money at companies whose branding resonates with us. (Remember… when I say “branding,” I don’t just mean the logo or visuals. I mean the WHOLE picture and experience they create… from the way they market their services, the tone of voice on their website, the interior design if they have a brick & mortar presence, etc.)

The obstacle? You don’t even know where to START when it comes to creating a brand like this for your own business. 

I think as small business owners who are used to wearing so many hats (suddenly I’m expected to be an expert in copywriting, bookkeeping, sales and marketing, operations, oh my…!), many people I talk to expect that they have to be experts in branding too! While we’re always going to decide which hats we’re willing to wear, I’m here to tell you that you DON’T have to be an expert in everything, and branding is a great example of that.

In other words: you don’t have to DIY it all. For me, what I choose to DIY or invest in professional help in changes throughout the year, but some examples are:

DIY:

• Branding + web design (obvi!)
• Smaller copywriting tasks
• Bookkeeping 
  
  

Invest in professional help: 

• My business coach has a marketing + sales background, so I would consider much of my marketing + sales strategies to be outsourced
• My virtual assistant helps with social media strategy and execution
• I invested in website copywriting a couple of years ago, which set me up for long-term success where I’m now able to DIY some of my own copy based on the framework they gave me
• Taxes
  
  

All of that to say, the best way to “know where to start” when it comes to your branding is by 1) learning more about branding and/or 2) potentially outsourcing the task. 

Which brings me to my next point… 

I am SO excited to introduce a free resource that helps you see how to overcome these three obstacles (especially #3, because it basically shows you where and how to start!). 

It’s called the Ultimate Branding Checklist, and it lays out the 50(!) things you need to think about when building a magnetic brand.

You can go ahead and grab it here.

I know this is going to be a gamechanger for so many small business owners when it comes to demystifying the branding process, the ROI of branding, and where to start.

Questions, comments, want to chat? Email me at hello@craftedbycarly.com. I can’t wait to hear what you think!