171: Timeless Branding: The Strategy Behind Building a Brand That Works 10 Years from Now

Hey guys, welcome back to the show Happy Wednesday. I am so glad that you're here. Before we get into it today, I wanted to share a review that came in from Kate, Kate titled this review, "Fave Part of My Wednesday Morning routine." She said, "Victoria and Brandwell are hands down my favorite podcast. It's the perfect blend of practical and encouraging. I look forward to my new download every Wednesday morning. There's always a solid takeaway to help me strategize and build my business to grow and be better. This makes me so happy. Thank you, Kate. I'm so glad that you've made this show a part of your morning routine. If you guys have not already done so, please take a second to rate the show and leave a review. I mean it with all of my heart when I tell you that it is the DMs and the reviews like this that come in for the show that keep me coming back season after season. The podcast is incredibly time consuming. I've got three kids, a business that demands a lot of me and a team and you know, I'm always like, is this the best use of my time? And then I read something like this or I hear how somebody implemented a strategy that they learned on the podcast and how it produced growth in their business. And I'm like, yeah, it's worth it. I'm going to keep coming back and keep showing up. So if you want to make sure that we come back for another season, just take two seconds to either shoot me a DM or more importantly leave a review for the show. All right, today we're talking about one of my all-time favorite topics, which is of course branding, specifically building a brand with longevity. This is the branding business school podcast, the go-to business and marketing podcast for ambitious women, looking to start and scale profitable businesses. Learn from your host, Victoria Marcoulier, how to build a powerhouse brand in this online era without sacrificing your sanity, or misplacing your priorities. We support the dreamers and the disruptors and are showing up weekly to teach you practical advice on what it takes to become the go-to in your industry. Operating an online business as a female entrepreneur looks different these days, and thanks to us so does business school. Welcome to the branding business school podcast. Anyone can chat GBT a logo or grab a pretty color palette off of Pinterest, but how do you build something that you're going to be proud of five years from now, or even 10 years from now? Because a brand that lasts is not just about the fonts and the colors, it is so much more about strategy, story, and scalability. And my goal is to help you future-proof the brand that you're building right now so that it grows with you instead of holding back and you have to continually re-brand your business. So let's start by talking about why brands age poorly. First and foremost, it's because we naturally build our brands to reflect where we are today, which makes sense, you know, we design around our current season, our current offers, VBR current favorite colors, but the problem is when you do that, you usually outgrow it within a year or two. The brand that you loved at the beginning no longer fits the vision you're stepping into. So maybe you're like nodding along right now because this has kind of been what you've been doing for the last few years. Another big reason why brands age poorly is because we chase trends simply, but as women, we do this all too often and honestly it's hard not to. I have a brand design agency and I still have to check myself and be like, oh, I really love that trend, but I have to honor my brand, right? If you spend five minutes on Pinterest, it does not take long to have this whole vision of what you think your brand needs to look like in order to be considered beautiful, but trends are like fast fashion. They are fun while they last, but they date themselves very quickly and your brand was never meant to be treated like a seasonal wardrobe where you're swapping out elements all of the time. Like your brand is the foundation of your entire business and when that foundation is built on what's hot right now instead of on what is strategic and what is timeless, it starts to work against you. Trends attract the masses. That's quite literally what makes them a trend and because of this, when you build your brand around what's trending, you inevitably will start to look like every other coach, every other designer, every other service provider who jumped on that same bandwagon. And that's the exact opposite of what a brand is meant to do. Your brand should differentiate you. It should not camouflage you. And that's why chasing trends is such a dangerous trap because it creates this temporary beauty at the expense of long-term relevance. And then finally another reason why I believe brand age poorly is because we often confuse our personal taste with strategy. Or maybe we're not even confusing it with strategy. Maybe we're just putting our personal taste ahead of strategy. Just because you love blush pink and script fonts doesn't mean it's going to communicate premium trustworthy or authoritative to your audience. Like it's the difference between something that turns heads today and something that earns trust for years to come. So now that we know what makes a brand age poorly, let's talk about three essentials for building a timeless brand. Number one, being clarity of message. Your words matter every bit as much as your visuals. A clear message about who you serve, why you're different is going to outlast any design trend. If you haven't listened to my recent episode with Robin Spangler on how vulnerability builds brand authority, I suggest that you do so right after you listen to this one. But a good question to ask yourself is if I stripped away my logo, my fonts, my colors, would my brand still be compelling? Your story really matters here. And I would challenge you to hone in on your brand story before you prioritize your brand visuals. Essential number two is making timeless design choices. And I need to be really clear here because timeless does not mean boring or even simple. Some of my favorite brands like Starbucks or Coke, they don't have simple logos by anyone's definition. And I'm trying to think of some other ones, Burberry, Versace, Ralph Lauren, Harley Davidson. Like their logos are not simple, but they are timeless. I think people hear the word timeless and they immediately think safe or vanilla. And that's not at all the case in branding. Timeless design is about creating a look and feel that isn't shackled to whatever is currently trending. So it means choosing legible typography, yes, typography that will always communicate professionalism, no matter the decade. But it also means building a logo system that's versatile. So no more one size fits all logos that we make in Canva guys. Timeless design works in black and white. It scales beautifully, whether it's on a business card or a billboard or an Instagram story. And it means choosing a color palette that has both staying power and flexibility. Like the best palettes give you a strong foundation while still leaving room to add or adjust accent colors as your business grows. So for example, when we rebranded at the beginning of the year, we added a pop of green to our color palette, but our anchor colors remained the same. So that allowed us to elevate our brand a little bit to add in something fresh and new without confusing our audience. Because when you're constantly changing the colors in your palette, like you're killing your brand authority. But if you have a palette that is built to grow with you and there's a little bit of flexibility while still being anchored in the root of what your brand is really meant to convey the perception that you're trying to create for an audience, that's going to help you to establish that brand authority. So you can absolutely layer in personality and playfulness. Maybe it's through textures or patterns or those accent colors that I just mentioned, but your core brand identity should feel like the little black dress of design. Like it's classic, it's flattering, it's always in style. That's what makes your brand recognizable and relevant year after year, even as everything around you is changing. The third essential to consider when building a brand for the long game is to ensure that your brand can keep up with your business's growth. Our brand, well, we ask every client what their bigger picture vision is and no matter who you're working with and especially if you're DIY, you need to ask, does this brand fit the business I want in three years, not just the business that I have today? For example, you might have a $500 offer right now, but would your brand work if you had a $5,000 offer? What if you had a $15,000 offer? Would it still feel aligned? Like you need to build for where you're going, not just where you're at today. So let me give you a few practical things that you can do to build a brand that you will love 10 years from now. Number one, run your brand through what we're going to call the 10-year test. So imagine your business tripling overnight. Would your current brand keep up? Would it feel legit at that next level? Step two is taking a good honest look at your design choices. So fonts do the fonts that you've chosen only look good in one setting. Like do they only look good in a big bold Instagram graphic or do they also read well on your website and in your emails and in smaller formats? Like the right fonts should be versatile enough to look great everywhere. Number two in terms of looking at your design choices is your logo. So your logo should be able to shrink down, fit on a tiny business card. It should be able to scale up for a billboard or a banner without looking awkward. If you only have one logo, there's a good chance you're not going to pass this test here because this is why we build brand kits for our clients. This is why we give them a primary logo, a secondary logo, a submark, sometimes two submarks. It's so they can show up professionally and confidently, no matter the medium, no matter the platform. Also looking at your colors, a smart color palette, it's going to give you that flexibility. It's not so trendy that you're stuck in a corner. but it has an up-depth that you can pull out different combinations as your business evolves. You want your colors to support your new offers or your sub-brands without feeling like you have to start over every single time. And then number three, revisit your brand voice. Does the way you communicate sound like something you would be proud of in five to ten years? Or does it already feel dated or disconnected from who you really are? Now this one I want to talk about for a second because you are not going to be the same woman ten years from now. I think about the way that I talked when I started brand well seven years ago compared to the way that I talk now. My life has changed so drastically. I got married. I had three kids. I hired a team. I hit different stages of growth in my business. I experienced new challenges and overcame new obstacles. And so the way that I talk and my message of course sounds different but it's authentic to me. I've always been really authentic. So if you have developed a brand voice or maybe you're currently trying to develop your brand voice based on what you think is kind of trendy for your industry but you feel like it's not 100% authentic to you. Then I promise you five years from now it's really not going to feel authentic to you. And ten years from now it's really not going to feel authentic to you. So make sure that your brand voice is authentic and allow it to evolve as you evolve but still staying true to who you are and the core mission at the heart of your business. So here's what I want you to remember. Building a brand that you will love in ten years does not mean finding the perfect shade of blue or the trendiest font. It means you're building on clarity. You're building on strategy and you're building with some flexibility knowing that yes your business is going to change in ten years. But can we build a brand that for the most part can grow into the changes that we're going to experience over the next five to ten years. Maybe we make some subtle adjustments but we don't have to rebrand every three years as the business pivots. Trends will fade, your offers will evolve but when your brand is rooted in something deeper you will always feel proud to show up to raise your rates and to serve people with confidence. So if this hits home for you I would love to hear from you. Come DM me on Instagram @brandwelldesigns. Tell me what part of your brand you think will stand the test of time. Ask me a question about any parts of your brand that you think might not. And of course if you know it's time to build a brand that's actually going to grow with you that's exactly what we do over at Brandwell Designs. Feel free to head to our website and schedule a consultation with me there. Thank you guys as always for tuning in today. I will see you next week on another episode of the Brand new Business School Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to the Branding Business School Podcast. If you're looking to take your business to the next level, subscribe to the podcast and we'll continue to cheer you on week after week by giving you practical advice on how to build your brand for show notes or to learn more about what we covered in today's episode. Head to the Branding Business School.com/podcast and remember you don't need an MBA to be the CEO. [Music] [Music]