The Design Business Show 219: Vision and Purpose-Driven Rebrands with Tiffany Tolliver

Tiffany Tolliver is the founder and CEO of The EmmaRose Agency®, based in Washington, D.C.

Tiffany has a deep passion for helping women of color see their true value and not compromising the true vision they have for themselves while scaling their brands to 6 & 7 figures. She believes that revenue is just a resource to help others in need and that by putting your brand in a category of one, through strategic branding – you can serve your community WITH LESS stress knowing that your digital presence is working for (and not against) you!

Tiffany believes that the key to creating an eye-catching and intentional brand is recognizing that your company cannot flourish solely based on your logo; there must be an experience cultivated that organically taps into the pain points of your target audience – ushering them into a digital home created solely with them top of mind.

Through her dynamic designs and out of the box messaging and sales strategies, Tiffany is creating her own lane in graphic and web design. With her mission rooted in income-generating service offerings, she has worked with brands in creating unique and innovative websites that have allowed her clients to see $350k+ launches.

Showing up is serving and Tiffany commits herself to being present and future minded in order to help her client realize their true greatness and build brands that stand the test of time and create bigger profit.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Tiffany Used Her Talents to Create a Business

Tiffany used to work as a communication director at a hair salon, and after yielding 10 – 15k from a Black Friday sale based on their email list and in salon sales, she realized she was doing something right and had a gift given by God
Everything in Tiffany’s life aligned to where she was able to quit the salon but, at the time, had no clients or income
In the beginning, Tiffany was only offering logos and got her first client through her then mentor, whose husband was a chef and needed a logo and media kit
The Emma Rose Agency, Tiffany’s company name, is a combination of middle names Tiffany and her daughter both got from their great grandmothers
Tiffany shares that in the beginning, she started saying she could do things, like creating websites, before she even knew how and would teach herself – she still does this today but with more confidence
How Tiffany grew very quickly because she realized the gap she wanted to fill, which is helping women of color stand out online so they can fulfill their passions and help the people they want to
We talk about being overlooked in the design industry based on experience, and Tiffany shares that she is thoughtfully transparent with clients if it is her first time doing something but works her hardest to get the client what they want
One of Tiffany’s goals was to be sought out for her aesthetic while creating a unique design that fits each unique client’s style
At the end of 2022, Tiffany had a mental breakdown due to doing too much in her business and realized she needed to pay more attention to her greater vision
Now she revisits her greater vision every week to keep it top of mind so she can focus on the things in her business that truly align with it and says that defining her core values has also helped a lot when she’s questioning anything in her business
Tiffany is thankful for her breakdown because she realized her business wasn’t working for her, it was working against her, and it led her to her vision

Using the Marketing Ecosystem for Branding + Marketing Tips

The clients Tiffany serves are established business owners who have a professional service-based brand – they are tired of how they look online and how they are running their business and want to build a personal brand
Even in the beginning, Tiffany understood that strategy needed to come before the design
Tiffany prefers to work with her clients long-term in their rebranding process because one thing she’s tired of in the industry is people having to hand their brand off to multiple people and having it be inconsistent
The way Tiffany is situating her agency to grow is by not only helping with strategy but also developing and executing the vision for the brand through marketing and branding
Tiffany explains how she looks at the bigger picture for clients because when you look at their marketing ecosystem, it’s not just the website, so in her proposal process, she outlines what a partnership service (retainer) would look like
How having a mindset of collaboration is important to Tiffany because her clients have teams that she will be working with
Tiffany shares some marketing trends such as developing a community, looking at the marketing ecosystem as a whole, and making sure you have consistent evergreen content and not relying solely on social media
When developing a personal brand from a professional brand, Tiffany says it’s important to establish a clear and authentic perspective first, then decide if you want the two brands to complement each other or be different
For strategy and design, Tiffany likes to identify what unique story her clients are telling and then create a focus plan, 6 months at a time, looking at what she can do and what the client needs to do to make the partnership and brand work
Tiffany realized during her breakdown that she was putting the profit of her business over her purpose and was carrying herself differently because of it, which was not aligned with who she truly is
The people you surround yourself with are important because they can distract you from your passion and purpose if you aren’t careful
There is no shame in taking a break to recover from burnout, but you don’t want to repeat those same patterns
Connect with Tiffany on Instagram