Stop Neglecting Your Brand

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned the hard way this last year, it’s to not neglect your brand.

And before you say it, I know, I know, I’m a designer so how did I possibly neglect my own brand? Building beautiful brands and preaching diligent brand maintenance is what I do. Right?

Well, you see, life happened.

I had a baby, I took some time off, we built a house and there were endless delays to deal with, my company launched its first online program (which is soooo much work by the way), annnd, of course, the heart of my every day was spent working down a long list of other seemingly important to do’s.

And while business seemed to be thriving the truth is that when I finally looked up from the keyboard about 8 months into the year, everything felt a little off. My business was good — but I knew it wasn’t growing in the way it could be, or should be!

While I had been consumed with pouring my vision and creativity into other projects, I had unintentionally thrown my own brand in the backseat.

Which is kind of like trying to get somewhere without a road map. I was getting lost in my business, and I was so distracted that I didn’t recognize that I was miles off my route.

I had prioritized everything else over the bigger vision for my business.

Luckily, I hired a great coach, committed to a fresh reset, and decided to practice what I preach.

The point is, building a great brand takes consistency.

We can’t just build our brand up and then let it ride, or sooner or later, we’ll step back from our never-ending to-do list and realize that we’re completely off track.

We need to be constantly checking in with our business goals and vision, and commit to consistently growing our brand.

Whether it’s investing in further education and training, updating our design and marketing campaigns, or even refreshing our website, we need to invest in working on our business, just as much as working in our business.