Unpolished, live learnings from a small business coach part 4: How my brand is my compass for career and business growth
Hannah Ray at Stories Sarphatistraat
Hannah Ray is a therapeutic career, life + small business coach. She holds space for people who want to develop a greater sense of understanding, trust and belief in themselves so that they can create their own version of success.
Every month, she shares something that she’s learning about right now. The aim is for her words to be as live, from the heart, and unpolished as her perfectionist streak can deal with.
I work on the belief that the most satisfying form of a small business is one that is both an extension of and is in service of you.
This month’s column is a bit of an ode to that, as I’m learning just how valuable this has been for me.
I work this way because I believe that: when you work from the heart, you are in alignment with yourself and your truest expression. It will make growth and development feel easier, overall. It’s when you, and other people, will feel your uniqueness, motivation, mission, passion, whatever you want to call it, the most. It’s what will give your business and brand that special little rub of magic that no-one can truly copy, steal, or take away from you. It is YOU, it is YOURS.
This was a big deal for me as I both changed careers and started a business at the same time. There was the side of it that was very personal and required a lot of identity-shift work. Then there was the side of it that was very practical and required a lot of financial planning to allow for start-up costs, overheads, scenario planning, and spend budgeting etc.
There were so many questions, so many doubts, so many moments where I felt like I needed to look outside of myself at what other people were doing to figure out how to do it ‘right’. Maybe this would help me get things off the ground in the short term. However, having worked as a brand strategist for 10 years, I knew that creating something that knitted together all my own beliefs, experience, personality, and desires (so, internally-motivated, rather than externally) is what would stand me in best stead for the long term*.
*(Brands are known to be most effective for business in the longer-term - Binet + Field)
So, my start point was to create my own brand. The point of this was for it to act like a compass for my vision, mission, communications, business structure, business decisions, and more.
I spent time really digging into and articulating some fundamental building blocks:
Why do I do what I do?
Why do I believe in what I do?
What makes me good at what I do?
What kind of impact on the world would feel fulfilling?
How do I want to go about doing it?
What kind of people would be interested in working with me?
The answers to these questions led me to create my brand: TAKE; a brand born from the realisation that the best person to explore and create a life that fulfils, excites, and serves you, is yourself. And that the best way to do it is to be yourself, honour yourself, and allow yourself the simple pleasure of TAKING what is there, and always has been there for you.
My mission, as a coach, a therapist in-training, and a thinker, is to hold safe space for people to explore and create their own version of a successful life.
I believe the way to do this is to allow my clients to lead the process and for me to respond with methods and tools tailored to them; to believe fully and non-judgementally in their wholeness as a person; to hold space in a way that reminds them of their innate capability and resourcefulness.
This concept formed the brief for my branding: optimistic, calm, aligned - with an energetic yet dreamy colour palette with determined font, and a logo that communicated a sense of holisticism, balance and smidge of playfulness.
So, having a brand that is a blended expression of both me and my business has stood me in good stead for the past couple of years. It’s helped me with things like:
Deciding what kind of marketing strategies to invest in
Deciding and evolving what kind of clients to focus on attracting
Deciding what type of psychotherapy training I wanted to commit to (Human Givens Institute - if anyone reads this and wants to talk about it, contact me!)
Exploring how to articulate the kind of challenges I could support with via messaging
Financially structuring my business in a way that enables me to give + serve how I know I can give + serve best right now
Creating much needed space between decisions that felt too personal or sticky for me (i.e. ones where my own BS was getting in the way), and looking to my brand principles to help me make them instead
Anything that felt not in line with my brand was a no, things that felt like opportunities to nurture my brand were a yes.
Now, what I’m learning, is that my brand is coming in to it’s full glory and service of my growth once again.
I am mulling over what the next level looks like for where I want to take my practice and thought-leadership in the personal development and wellbeing space. I’ve been toying with more trainings, speaking on panels, corporate workshops or wellbeing days, yoga therapy, retraining as a full psychologist (although, academically, and at heart, I am an anthropologist!).
I’ll save sharing the outcomes of this thinking for another article (!), but it’s been so wonderful and deeply reassuring to know that I have my brand values, vision, mission, beliefs etc to refer back to when thinking about these things. It’s helping me find patterns in all of the experiences I’ve had through my career and work so far, and encouraged me to draw on, build on, and merge them in to a refined set of next steps.
In summary, what I’m learning right now, is that creating a brand for your business that is both an expression of and in service of you, is what will allow you to keep growing in alignment with your most ‘you’ powers. Which deepens your sense of capability, credibility, and self-trust. Which, in my eyes, are 3 of the most valuable assets you can have as a small business owner.
As ever, if any of this interests you, please do get in touch. I offer career + business coaching, brand creation packages for small business owners, as well as coffees and chats.
