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Unlocking Business Growth: The Power of Brand Asset Sharing
Hey there, fellow entrepreneurs! Today, I want to dive into a game-changing tip that can seriously boost your business growth. It's all about creating a shared folder with your brand assets. Trust me, this simple step can make a world of difference when you're collaborating with others or working with the media.
So, let's talk about why this is so important. Imagine you're starting a new project or hiring someone to help with your business. You want to make sure they understand your brand inside and out, right? That's where a shared folder comes in handy. I personally use Google Drive, but you can use Dropbox or any other platform that suits your style.
In my Google Drive, I keep all my brand and media information neatly organized. This includes my brand board, logos, headshots, and even my bio. Having everything in one place makes it super easy to share with collaborators, whether they're helping with podcast editing or designing marketing materials. Plus, it ensures that everyone is on the same page when it comes to your brand's look and feel.
Now, let's talk about the brand board. This is a crucial element that enhances your brand's consistency. It's like a visual guide that showcases your fonts, colors, logos, and even a sample headshot. By having a professional brand board, you can streamline processes and ensure that your brand is represented accurately across all platforms.
But wait, there's more! Outsourcing tasks to professionals can be a game-changer for your business. When you delegate certain tasks to experts, you not only save time but also get better results. Whether it's hiring a graphic designer for your logos or a photographer for professional headshots, investing in quality work can elevate your brand image and make a lasting impression.
Speaking of headshots, let's not underestimate their power. Professional headshots can truly elevate your brand image and make you stand out from the crowd. I got mine done about a year ago, and let me tell you, it was worth every penny. These photos are now my go-to for profile pictures and marketing materials. Remember, you are the face of your brand, so make sure it reflects your professionalism and personality.
Now, let's wrap things up with a call to action. If you found this blog post helpful, I'd love for you to support my channel by liking, commenting, and subscribing. Your engagement means the world to me and helps me continue creating valuable content for you. Plus, it's a great way to connect with fellow entrepreneurs and share insights.
So, there you have it! Creating a shared folder with your brand assets is a simple yet powerful step towards business growth. It streamlines collaboration, enhances brand consistency, and allows you to focus on what you do best. Remember, your brand is your story, so make sure it's told in the best possible way.
Thanks for joining me on this journey, and I can't wait to see you next time. Until then, keep hustling and building your dream business!
#BusinessGrowth #BrandAssets #ProfessionalBranding #Outsourcing #BrandConsistency #EntrepreneurTips #SmallBusinessSuccess #BrandBoard #MediaSharing #DanaSchulte
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Dana Show where we BS about business and branding. I'm your host Dana. If you're new to my podcast, welcome. I'm so happy to have you. And if you're returning, welcome back. I love seeing return viewers. So today we are talking about setting yourself up for success. And I'm going to show you this one thing you can do that will help you any time you start working with
pretty much anybody in your business to help grow your business. And this is something that most people don't think of.
So I am opening and showing you right now my Google Drive. I use Google Drive as my shared drive of choice, but you could use Dropbox or probably like 100 others. So you're not, don't feel like you're limited to Google Drive. That's just what my preference is. Cause I find it really easy to share this. So I have a Google Drive where I keep all of my brand and media information. And the reason I do this is
If I start working with a new business, let's say I decide to hire someone to help me edit my podcast and I want to make sure they understand what my branding is, what my brand assets are, then I can share this document with them and it gives them my brand board. So this is a really, really easy thing to do that is going to set you up.
only for success and it doesn't even take that long to put together. It's almost a no-brainer but it's something that most people just don't even, doesn't even occur to them. So everything that goes in here are things that you want to share with someone you're working with on your business. So what I have in here is I have two documents and then two folders with more documents in them.
So I have all of my headshots in here. I have my logos, my bio, and my brand board. So first I'm going to pull up my brand board for you.
So this is my brand board. I show how to do this in a previous video, which I will link so that you can make this yourself if you need to. This is just a simple brand board I created in Canvas. Sorry, we use Canvas when I teach and Canva is for branding and design work. So sometimes I get the two words mixed up. I don't know why they're so similar.
But they are so in Canva we can do design work. And that's why I made this brand board. So the purpose of my brand board is to give someone all of my assets, my branding assets, my fonts, my colors, my logos, a sample of my headshot. I put all of this in one place, but it's also to give them an overall look and feel of my branding. So what I don't put in here that
could would be keywords that would help someone understand where my brand is coming from. Parts that are what my voice is things like that. In this case I'm mostly focused on the visuals because I handle that end of it. I handle the messaging. I handle the voice those kinds of things. I do that so I don't feel the need to include that in my brand board but you could for sure.
So my brand board has on the top, it's the name of my company. So I don't use that name in my branding generally, but that is the official legal name of my business Dana Schulte Communications LLC because I am a registered liability company. And you want to do that because it protects you, which I also talk about in another video.
So this is kind of my aesthetic. It's kind of this purple-y color, this almost royal-y purple color, and the gold sparkles. That is kind of my overall look. Now this particular image I found somewhere. I don't even remember where I found it. Probably on Canva, but it could have been in a million of other places. But this encapsulates my look and feel for my branding, and I love it.
And so I kind of use this in my brand board. use this, this is actually the background on my computer, but I don't use this image in my branding because it's not mine. But it is kind of helps set the mood for my overall look and feel of the brand. And then I have my fonts. I have two fonts. One is Amsterdam One and one is Artist Sans. And these are the two fonts that I use in the branding.
I also use monster at when Mont I always pronounce why that word is so hard for me. But I also use that one when I'm like on web and somewhere where there's a common fun. That's the one I use. And it's this one down here. But I don't have that right in here. So and then I have my colors. So I've got my four main colors. I've got three, three shades of purple.
and my gold, and then I also kind of have this extra gold color that I use that I do the numbers for, but I just put four on here because these are the main four that I use. And then I have my logo, my brand mark and my word mark and a headshot, a sample headshot that all just sort of works together. So when you look at this,
You're like, okay, I'm getting where her branding is. I'm getting the look and feel she wants. I want to make sure anything I'm doing is in line with all of this, right? So that's my brand board. It's really important to have this, even if you're someone like me who, who is, I'm not really working with many people who are going to need this. I am thinking of redoing my logos and hiring someone for that. So.
When I do that, I will share this with them. But in general, this is mostly for me, but it helps me keep everything straight as well. Because it's really easy when you're running a business to get lost in the weeds and to be completely overwhelmed with so many different things. And having all of this in one document is so helpful to have.
Even if it's, will, I also have a Google doc that I'll use that has like all my font colors and everything in here. So I can just copy and paste them, right? Cause it's a little bit, you can do it from here, but sometimes it's just easier for me to do it out of the Google doc. So I can copy and paste it if I'm, if I'm doing something new and I need to have those colors accessible. So this is your brand board. Please make one like it's so worth it. It doesn't take that long.
And the nice thing is if you don't like it, you can make it in one. Easy peasy, right? So then I also have in here my bio. So this is just a quick little one pager about myself, about my background, about my business. And it's kind of like my LinkedIn bio, but a little bit longer maybe.
It just puts us all in one place. And the purpose of this one is really more for media. If I do a speaking engagement, if I happen to be interviewed by a reporter for a newspaper or a podcast or a TV show, because you never know, I have this ready to go. So I can send this entire folder to whoever and share it with them. And in it, I have the brand board. But for a reporter or someone who's
introducing me for a speaking engagement, they have this right here, ready to go. And honestly, if I was doing a speaking engagement and I knew someone was going to introduce me, I would probably create a separate document that had, you know, Dana Schulte intro so that I can just send this to them and then they can maybe edit it because sometimes people like to, you know, write their own intro. But a lot of times they just want you to make their life is easy.
as possible. So you can just send this to them and they're like, thank you, that's amazing. And they don't have to do any work and they just have to read it once before and then read it live and you've made their life easier and then you become one of their favorite people. Yay, which is what we want, right? So I would have an introduction here as well. And that's another thing that's really great about putting all of these things in one place in one container, one accessible container.
is that you can add to it at any time, you can make changes to it and the link to the folder works regardless. So if you were to make a change and you're working with someone else, you don't have to be like, I have a new folder, I have to send you the new one, don't use the old one. You just say, hey, I did make some changes, make sure you're using the most current information and maybe you send them the link again, because it's convenient, but they don't have to go and do anything else.
They don't have to go and make changes to the link, delete the old one, try to remember people don't remember that stuff. Everyone has a million billion things going on. And so we want to make this super easy for them. So what else I have in here are my logos. So I have the logo, which again, I'm not in love with right now. So I don't, I think I'm going to change this and my word mark, which again, I'm not in love with either.
I don't think I'm going to change those too, but I have them. These are my current ones. And so I have this in here as PNG files. Depending on who you're working with, you might want to have different versions. You might want to have JPEG. You might want to have a vector version of it, depending on who you're working with and what they need it for. But for me, for these purposes right now, a PNG of each one is completely acceptable. And so that's what I have in here.
And then I had my headshots. I did get professional headshots done. I did these about a year ago. My hair was a little shorter and I had pink on the ends, which I'm thinking of doing again. But I got married this summer and I didn't want to have pink hair in my wedding photos. So I let that come out. But I might do it again. I don't know. What do you think in the comments if you think I should dye my hair pink again? Just on the ends, because I liked it on the ends. Anyway, I got professional headshots.
These were 100 % worth it. I use these everywhere. I use on my website. I use these as my profile pictures because I don't use my logo in my profile pictures on my social media because for me, I want people to recognize me. I'm the brand. I want people to recognize my face and associate my face with my name with my branding. So I use my face instead of my logo.
Now, if you're a bigger company, if you're Target, you're going to use the Target bullseye. You're going to use your logo. Walmart's going to use the little star thingy that they have, their logo. So it depends. But for me, I'm the brand, right? It's my business. So I'm going to use a picture of me. So this is I have six. So I have varying, varying ones of different.
different outfits, different positions. I have my photographer, her name's Dominique, she's amazing. I mean, look how good these look. I had my hair and makeup done at this location and it was so much fun. made me feel this way at all. They made me feel like a queen and like a just, it was an amazing experience. And so that part was just fun, getting a little pampering, getting my makeup.
done professionally done and my hair done. And then they have a stylist that helped me with my outfits. And then Dominique, the photographer, who was just so good and all of those things combined created six amazing photos that were absolutely worth it. That really helped me level up my branding from what I was doing before, because now it looks so much more professional. So this is all in one place.
So places again that you would use this for is if you're working with somebody on any of your marketing or your branding, if you are promoting yourself and someone needs a photo of you, let's just say you decided to do a YouTube series and you need thumbnails for your YouTube videos and you, you, you don't want to do it yourself. You don't know how to do it yourself. You know,
Regardless of the reasoning, you're not doing it yourself and you want someone else to do it. You can send them this folder and it tells them all of your brand colors, your preferred fonts, and then it tells them, it gives them headshots that they can use in those thumbnails if they choose to. So you've just made this person's job so much easier and they will love you for it because
Most people charge by the project, not by the hour, which is what I do as well. I don't charge you by the hour. And I do that for multiple reasons. One of them is sometimes you hit a stumbling block and I don't feel right charging a client for me to figure something out. Right. So if it takes me an hour to do it the first time, the second time it takes less, the next time it takes less. So the more experienced you are, the less time it takes.
So I don't want you to first of all have to pay for my learning curve if something just isn't going right or I'm trying to figure something out or I'm just having like a brain fog moment where for some reason I can't, it's just the creativity isn't working right then. I'm not gonna charge you for me to stare at my computer and try to figure it out. But I also don't charge by the hour because
the more experienced I am, the faster I am. And so you're paying for that experience. You're paying for the experience and the speed. So I don't charge you by the hour because it actually lose money on that end. And I just feel like that's fair for everybody. It allows me to focus on the project and not on the clock and feeling rushed or whatever.
If you're working with someone and they're making your thumbnails and they have all of this right here, they don't have to go find it. It makes it faster for them, which really usually, even though most creatives don't charge by the hour, they do have kind of a set time blocked for that project. So let's say I'm going to do a series of thumbnails, which isn't really what I do, but let's just say I did.
And I'm going to do a series of YouTube thumbnails and I'm going to block an hour out to do these 10 thumbnails. And that first 20 minutes is going to be doing the template, right? And kind of figuring out the general layout and all of the design work. And then that next 40 minutes is making the changes for the different parts of it. And that's usually how that goes. So that 20 minutes.
might now be 10 minutes because I don't have to go find your photos. I don't have to go figure what your fonts are, what your colors are. You've handed this to me. And then those, so that 10 minutes, I might actually then spend a little bit harder working a little bit more on the layout because I'm not now looking for other things. Everybody wins in this situation. You get better work.
providers happy, they're happy with the work, it's easier for them, and it takes such a short amount of time to put this together. So, what I do also for my thumbnails is I do take a picture every time I do, so my thumbnails are different, but you don't have to do that, and a lot of people don't do that, because a lot of people outsource that information, and sometimes your time is really worth outsourcing it.
You don't have to do it all yourself and you probably shouldn't do it all yourself because if you're in business, you're a professional and you want professional results and you're a professional in your field. Okay, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to go and lawyer because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to hire a lawyer. When I got divorced, I hired a lawyer and
She was worth every penny. And, you know, I'm working with a therapist right now and she's been amazing. And while I do other independent work for my mental health, having a therapist is a specialized skill that I'm paying her for a service. And I can't get that particular service any other way. So I'm willing to pay for that. That's her specialty. Now, if she wanted to
do a website and start trying to get new clients that way and needed help with her overall branding because she's never done that before. That would be something I would do for her. She would pay me for. So everyone has a specialty and I highly recommend if it's something you're not comfortable with, know, outsource it. That's, you know, I had Dominique take my photos because trust me, I took my own and they were not
They were like 10 % as good as what she did. And I would have never been able to do that on my own ever. And it was absolutely worth it to have that professional result. So this is this one simple way you can set yourself up for success, creating this shared folder that holds all of these assets in it that you can so easily share with anyone you're working with.
or with the media if you're being interviewed or for speaking engagement. It's versatile and you can use it in so many different places. I will link down below to do how to do a brand board because I do think that is something that's important to have and it's not super hard to do. My tutorial walks you through how to do it in Canva in the free version of it.
so you don't have to get the paid version if you don't need it. And I will link that below. Thank you again. If you'd like to support me, this is a new podcast, a new channel. I am growing. I'm really enjoying doing these videos. You can support me by simply liking this video, making a comment, subscribing, and or sharing this with someone else that you think may enjoy it or on your social media. And guess what? All of those things are free.
Yay. So all it takes is a few seconds of your time to support me, a small business growing. All I want to do is help people grow their businesses through their branding and to have, I just want everyone to be happy and successful. Right. I mean, I think that would be great. You know, it's all live our best lives. So thank you so much for joining me and I will see you next time. Bye.
