The Design Business Show 114: Breaking Down the Brandviduation® Process with Amber Brooks

Amber Brooks is the founder of Brandividuation® – a signature solution for evolving impact-driven brands and community builders who are here to take a stand and make a difference. She’s a Marketing Consultant for Where We Help, Content Director for Rebelle Con, former Marketing Producer for Singularity University, and previous board member for several non-profit organizations. She helps founders and teams share their big, meaningful mission in a way that gets people to care about what they have to say and create a ripple effect from the impact they bring to the world. Now, she gets to share her experience and expertise expanding brand impact through in-person and online workshops and retreats.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Amber and I were introduced by Kira Hug a couple years ago
After graduating college, Amber applied to 40+ jobs and was left frustrated because she had a degree but not the 5-10 years of experience the jobs wanted
Amber decided to open her own business, doing copywriting because her degree was in english/research and thought she could use this skill to help people make a difference
How Amber ended up working with clients who wanted a ton of copy but couldn’t tell her what their business was about, who their ideal clients were, or what their vision was
Amber started learning more about brand strategy, development, messaging and positioning to help her clients fill the gap they were missing, but discovered that’s where her zone of genius lived
Why Amber shed her copywriting identity after discovering her passion for branding and how she went completely in on brand messaging and marketing strategy
Amber shares how she started the process to trademark her signature service last year when she didn’t even have a name for it
How Amber knew she needed to go all in because she saw that her clients needed this service and the designers who were working with people like her clients needed it
Why Amber starts with brand dividuation because if a client doesn’t already have their branding clearly defined and articulated into some core messaging, there’s nothing they can do together
Amber explains that logos, colors and fonts are representations of your brand but they are not actually your brand
How your brand is the perception people have and believe about you and how you can influence that belief but you can’t force them
When Amber says brand, she’s talking about your values, the things you stand for or against, the core messages that represent those beliefs, and how you connect with your ideal clients
Amber shares that she helps people gets clear on what they care about and what their ideal clients care about and put those into some core messaging hierarchies in her marketing strategy
How Amber has a creative director who partners with her for brand dividuation projects but how she also collaborates with other designers
Amber explains the two paths for working with designers which are whitelisted services, where they can subcontract under Amber or they can refer their clients to Amber first and then start the project with their client after as the designer
Amber talks about the division she sees between the messaging, visuals and copywriting but says if you can marry all those things, the client and their audience will get the best possible experience
Amber gives tips for collaborating on a project and says you need a good relationship, see eye to eye and care about the whole experience and outcome for the client and their audience
Amber’s partnership toolkit for designers based on their decision to whitelist or refer that has a process mapped out for them and everything they need to make the project a success
How there are people making a difference and impact but no one knows about it so Amber and the people she partners with help them share their stories
Amber explains the difference between just having a website versus having a foundational platform that tells your audience the impact you’re making
After brand dividuation and after platform establishment, Amber does marketing VIP days and team trainings so they don’t only build a brand, but a brand culture
Amber shares when the best time to invest in branding is and how if you’re new you need to talk to your audience and see what they respond to because it takes time to learn how to show up and serve at your best level
Why Amber typically doesn’t work with anyone until they are in the 2 – 5 year range depending on how fast they grow because a lot can change within the first year
How Amber undervalued the branding service she offered at first because she thought people didn’t understand the value of it and thought they only wanted to hire someone for the copy
Why Amber kept evolving her branding service after working with more people who started to realize this gap as much as she did and started understanding that they can’t do the copy until the branding is done
Amber shares that her rates depend on the kind of business it is and how many employees because the amount of work it takes for the market research and development is different depending on the business
Amber shares how being a mother to kids with complex medical issues has taught her about planning for uncertainty which has helped her structure her business in a way that has allowed her time to do the things she needs to do
Amber walks us through how she schedules her weeks and blocks out her time in order to have time for research and writing and how she can shift and change her blocks of time if needed
How finding balance and knowing that you don’t have to be on all the time is key
Why foundational, core inner work needs to be done for every business and how it adds so much value to the clients’ experience and outcome
Reach out and connect with Amber on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn; she would love to hear from you