5 things that are more impactful than a new logo

Designing a new logo can be very satisfying because you get to see a visual, tangible representation of your brand that you can share with others. It's something you can check off your list and feel accomplished about.

That said, other things will make a much bigger impact on your brand and business growth.

1. Defining your brand vision

To create an aligned brand, you want to first give yourself a little space to dream. What do you want to create? Who do you want to serve? How do you show up differently than others?

You want to look at your business values, what you want to offer (more on this soon), who is a good fit for working with you and who is not... and don't forget to consider what you want your life to look like.

Often we're so busy planning only the business side of things that our lives become an afterthought wherever we can squeeze it in 🫣

If you want to make this a more visual exercise, you can create your brand vision's mood board.

2. Understanding your clients and their needs

You want to get clear not only on what your client is asking you for, but what they’re hoping this purchase will do for them both externally (tangible deliverable) and internally (emotional payoff).

It’s not about outlining whether they drink tea or coffee, but what keeps them up at night? What is the vision they see for their own brand and what is getting in the way of them achieving it?

The better you know them, the more directly you can create crave-worthy offers for them, speak in their language and help them feel that you’re the best solution to help them with their challenges.

3. Outlining a clear offer structure

Whether you provide custom services or have a signature package, you want to be clear on what ways people can work with you, what the process looks like and how much you will charge.

Even if you don't have a package listed on your site, you want to have a behind-the-scenes sense of what your offer needs to include in order to deliver something you're proud of and that will create the transformation you're looking to give your clients.

This makes it easy to say yes or no when someone is asking for a service or product outside of what you normally provide.

Plus, you'd be surprised how many people I've spoken to that have big plans of offering something, but can't communicate how they can help their customers. If that's you, this would be a great time to give it some thought!

4. Developing your brand message

What's your distinct point of view and perspective within your industry? Even if you offer a service in a "saturated field," you have unique life experiences and a perspective that might be different from other people.

Maybe you serve an audience that doesn't often get attention and you want to be able to deliver your message in a way that aligns with them.

Maybe you bring new energy to a typically humdrum field. You may incorporate different modalities (like tarot, embodiment or art journaling) into your process to add more spark.

Maybe you believe something quite contrary to the industry standard. Someone out there is surely waiting for someone like you to bring a new twist.

5. Strategizing an awareness plan

Once we have a better idea of who you are as a brand and who you're looking to help, it's easier to know where you need to show up to be found. It helps to know if your audience is on LinkedIn or TikTok or podcasts or if they are offline and you need to find them at in-person events...

With that in mind, you can select a few initiatives to gain brand awareness and start phasing out everything else.

✨Bonus✨ Establishing a unique visual style

You're not necessarily going to plaster your logo everywhere, so it's important to also have a visual style. A color palette, typography, imagery... those are all ways that people can recognize you even if your logo is not present. Often a lot of us use our headshots in social media avatars so a logo is not always the first thing that our audience will see.

I'm not saying a logo is never useful and that you're wasting your time creating one that aligns with your brand. What I do want to make clear is that a logo is not the be-all end-all. If you get some of these other things sorted first, your logo will have more impact. 

Let me know where you are with these points—which you're feeling confident about (and which you need a little support with).

Save this for later!

If you found this article helpful and want to keep it handy, don’t forget to Pin this image on Pinterest!