My Recipe for a Rebrand

“Is it me and do I love it?”

This is the simple yet powerful question that led me to the eventual complete rebrand of my business that launches in just five days on March 20th, 2018.

Once posed to me, I couldn’t help but begin to ask myself this question about everything in my business: my website, messaging, logo, company colors – even my business name.

The answer to all of these questions was, quite frankly, very difficult for me to face – for the answer was “no.” But in the face of discomfort comes discovery, and in the face of discovery comes evolution and positive change – which is exactly what I needed.

What does one need exactly for a rebrand to be successful? After having been through the trenches of it myself these past six months, I’ve got a recipe to share with you. There are, of course, countless ways to get there, but this is the path that worked for me.

Ingredient #1) An amazing business mentor and coach.

I met Kevin Suboski when I was looking at referral groups around Ann Arbor. I liked his group’s vibe and had an instinctively good feeling about the people in the group, so I joined. Being in the group itself has been a wonderful experience for which I’m very thankful, but the real gem I got from meeting Kevin was participating in his “Grow a Brilliant Business” program, a 6-month journey that I took alongside five other entrepreneurs looking to get more of what they love in their business. It was within Kevin’s program that I was able to find real clarity on the constitution of my business – something that had always felt fuzzy and vague. I found that once the big, important questions surrounding my business were answered, it allowed all the more minute details to fall effortlessly into place. Kevin is the best – you simply won’t find a better partner in defining your business and what you want it to be.

Ingredient #2) Some good old-fashioned soul searching.

Why do I design websites? Why do I really? Who is my ideal client? If my business were a person, what sort of person would they be? What values does my business stand for? While not at all easy to answer, it was these questions posed to me in Kevin’s program that got me to do the soul searching I needed to do. If you want a business name and brand that’s totally authentic to you, you’ll most likely need to do some soul searching too. These questions can’t be answered by working diligently at your desk for a few hours. Rather, they need to rest in the back of your mind for a longer stretch of time until the answers eventually (and they will) become clear to you.

Ingredient #3) Branding help!

Once I figured out that I needed a new business name, I hit a total roadblock. I didn’t even know where to start. Enter the other partner in my rebrand journey, Mr. Dave Murray from Mayniax Branding. This guy knows branding like no other. He can talk about it all day long (and hold your interest!). Dave showed me a wonderfully creative and unique process for coming up with a new business name that I would love and that would differentiate me from the million other web designers in the world. Dave is the person to talk to if you want a brand that people will actually connect to and remember.

Ingredient #4) Inner courage.

Was there self-doubt in this process? Was there hesitation? Of course. And while my first instinct in these moments of doubt was to ask someone else, “What do you think?” – I quickly figured out that I was never going to please everyone and I just needed to listen to my inner voice and do what I felt was true to me.

Just yesterday I was looking over everything I’d created for my new brand – the name, logo, colors, website, print materials, and everything else – and I again posed that question to myself: “Is it me and do I love it?”

A smile spread across my face as I found that answer was a resounding “YES!”