3 Reasons Why You Need a Brand Strategy Now

Welcome to the Wedding CEO podcast, where we discuss all things marketing, sales and scaling so you can become the CEO of your life and business. I'm Elora Rochelle and I've been a wedding photographer for over a decade and now I'm sharing all of my secrets so you can stop sacrificing your time and make more money like a CEO. Hey guys, how are ya? Today, we're going to be talking about three reasons why you need a unique brand strategy now. So let's get into it. Number one you are nervous to sell without being salesy. Well, you're in luck, because having a strong, intentional brand will actually do the selling for you. This is what I like to call the attraction marketing strategy, but really it is attraction marketing. Your brand will be so compelling that people want your service because they're drawn to what you have. They're drawn to your online presence. They're drawn to the way that your brand is perceived. So once you're able to showcase this, the client that you're trying to reach with your brand is just going to be like I want it, shut up and take my money, and you're going to bring in those clients effortlessly. So that's the easy one. Number two you have no idea who you are or who your business serves and why you're even doing X, y and Z. The biggest conception about a brand, I feel, is that people think that they just need a font and a logo and a color palette and boom, I have a intentional brand. But it's actually so much deeper than this and it's fine if you think this way, because this is what has been taught to us and it's fine. It's marketed everywhere. Every time I feel like something is marketed a ton of places, it just becomes the online business law of some sort. Nobody knows where it came from or how it started, but it's so easy to go on Etsy and buy an entire brand suite and you're like, oh, this is my font, this is my font and now I'm a brand.

But the truth is there's actually a lot of components that come together, which is called brand strategy. That's actually going to attract the client that you're trying to reach, but also the right client for your company, your business, your photography business, whoever you serve. You want your clients to say to themselves oh, this is right for me, or I want to work with them, and no one else versus you just saying, hey, I have a brand and it looks nice, hire me. It's actually not that simple. So what does that mean? You want to have a business where I don't want to say necessarily like an ideal client avatar, but like you want to know generally the people you want to work with, think about their personality, think about their style if you have to, but I use my style and the way that I am as a person to create my brand strategy that I want to put out there and attract people that are like me, like laid back down to earth, whatevs, but also like pretty decent style, because it's important, the important things as well as knowing things like your mission statement that's the part that nobody ever gets involved in is like oh well, what's your mission? Like who do you serve? Why do you do this? What's your impact on the world? People are like, oh, I don't know that. I just know my font logo or I know my brain colors and I'm like, okay, cool, so you don't know why you do this. Okay, well then what is your core values? And my clients are like, uh, what? And I'm like, okay, so you don't know what's important to you or what your business stands for. Like this is the business brand foundation, but it's like the ugly backend. Right, it's not the stuff that's front and center, like ooh, colors, fonts, stuff like that. But this is important because you need to know at the end of the day, like why you're doing this, who you're doing it for, who you are as a brand and business, who you want to work for. Do they align with these things? Are they who they are and what they want? And it just I don't know. It gives you a better clarity and it's the foundation.

I believe in having a very strong foundation. First, knowing your prices, knowing your cost of doing business, knowing all those things First. That's like a non-negotiable how much money do you need to make to pay your business bills, to pay your home bills, anything Like how can this be a business that actually supports you, versus you putting out packages out there and you're like, yeah, I charge this much and it doesn't even cover your expenses, let alone your rent. That is the important stuff. Having just a nice fancy website and a fancy brand on the visual side is not enough. There's so much more and it's the ugly stuff that nobody wants to talk about. But that's why I'm here. I'm here to tell you you need more than just a font, a logo and a color palette? Okay, no-transcript.

You see someone who's killing it in your space or your niche and you decide you want to hire someone to replicate that. This is awful. You want something uniquely tailored to you, as I mentioned before, and your client's desires. You also need to figure out what lights you up, what doesn't light you up and, once again, who you want to serve, and the strategy behind this is why, like why did you start this? Why do you want to do this?

Why, in the Wedding CEO program, we have a deep dive guide that is about 10 pages long. I know it's a lot of work, but it's something that has to be done because it's going to help you answer all those questions in full detail, like why did you get started? What do you love about this? What don't you love about this? And you're going to realize, while you're filling out this document, that, wow, I actually don't like this and I sell this or I provide this as a service. I don't like engagement sessions, but I sell a bunch of them because they're on my website.

Why, though? You have to figure out why. You have to start with why, and if you really don't know what, why is like? People care? What is it? People don't care what you do, they care why you do it. Look up Simon Sinek. He has like some TED Talk on this. He has also a book on it, but the TED Talk pretty much summarizes the book based on the reviews that I was reading. Yes, I'm the millennial that's always looking at reviews to see if anything is worth my time, sue me. So it's important to even know what is holding your business together and people will connect with your, why. I promise you Watch that video.

Okay, and, like I mentioned, this is what I call the business foundation. Of course, because we all want the pretty stuff, but we got to have the backend stuff because once the pretty stuff falls apart, the backend is going to hold it together. So this is why I feel like I see all the time photographers having a new launch, a new rebrand, a new rebrand, and they have a completely different look every year. And I'm not calling anybody else, I'm calling myself out because I've done the same thing. I did not start with why, but what they're not doing is they're not understanding and looking inward to who they actually want to serve.

So I encourage you today to do the work figure out why you're even doing this who you're doing it for and I promise you the pieces are going to start to come together. You'll stop trying to copy what everybody else is doing because it's trending. You'll start trying to replicate exactly someone's business and tell a designer hey, I want this. First of all, just an FYI, it's their biggest pet peeve. Just do what is aligned with you and your brand and if you want more information on it, apply. We are definitely accepting one to two more people into the program before our huge launch, so apply. With the link in the show notes, it's LauraRachellecom slash Wedding CEO. We hope to see you inside. And it helped you figure out these things, because it's hard to do them on your own. But if you have me guiding you, if you have the homework, you have the trainings, you will get this down. It'll all be clear and will help you develop a brand that nobody else has. You know why? Because nobody else is you All right, that's my bite size podcast for you today.

Enjoy the rest of your week and keep killing it in your brand strategy. Bye, wait, don't go yet. If you loved today's episode, I would love if you took five seconds to leave a rating and a five star review. If you do send me a DM so I can give you a virtual hug and, of course, a shout out. Now, if you're ready to grow your photography business, I invite you to join the waitlist for the wedding CEO.

The wedding CEO is my signature program for wedding photographers who are ready to scale their way to 100K. You're finally ready to work less, make more and live your dream life. If you've seen my Instagram, then you'll know we have students making five bigger months, launching their dream brands, doubling their prices, taking vacations and more, which are lifetime skills that you can take with you even if you decide to leave the industry. Join the waitlist for when we open the doors on November 14th to the waitlist only, and you're going to get an exclusive, advanced, private training on how to scale to 100K, booking less than 20 weddings a year. And, trust me, you don't want to miss this Link in the show notes. I'll see you inside.