5 Things You Must Do Before Hiring a Branding Agency

Today we want to talk to you about the holistic branding process, how to get started for your own company – before hiring a Branding Agency. So whether you’re looking to create or revamp a personal or business brand, we want to help you get clear on the essential steps that you need to take before even thinking of diving into this process.

We hear so many stories of entrepreneurs hiring graphic designers or branding agencies before even doing in this work, and in the end, the designer turn out a logo and some brand assets, but the founder just doesn’t love what they see, and they’ve invested time and money into this work, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Now, it goes without saying that to get quality results, you need to invest in a quality team. So, we only recommend working with qualified experts when designing your brand (Don’t try to DYI this)!

Beyond that, approaching branding from a holistic perspective means that we dive deeply into who you are, your values, your dreams, and also understand those of your ideal clients. And we understand the intersection between these two things. The role of a great designer is to ensure that your brand story is told in complete integrity and alignment, while helping the brand cut through the noise and the competition, by being truly and authentically unique.

So prior to investing in any form of branding or design, here’s 5 things you must do on your own before hiring a Branding Agency!

1. FIND YOUR UNIQUENESS AND YOUR POSITION IN THE MARKETPLACE

The very first step is to ask yourself the following questions so that you can start developing your unique position and offering. Before you hire a branding agency, you should have a clear understanding of what you’re offering your clients and what your unique position in the marketplace is, and how you’re gonna transform your clients’ lives. Your brand goes far beyond just your brand name and logo…So ask yourself these questions:

• What are my strengths?
• What am I incredibly good at? And I could do this all day.
• What struggles and adversities have I overcome?
• What problems do I solve for my clients?
• What is the main transformation that I can provide my clients?
• And what makes this concept that I plan on offering different from and unique from other brands out?

Now, keep in mind that this is something we help our clients go through during our brand strategy sessions. So if these questions are a little tough for you to answer, we do get it. For some people, they’re easy because they have the clarity, but for others, it’s difficult to nail down those core answers that fully resonate, and you might need some guidance.

We suggest this work is done before doing any form of brand design as holistic branding is all about understanding the brand’s position in the marketplace.

2. CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER AVATAR (WHO ARE YOUR DREAM CLIENTS?)

The number two thing that you need to do is to know your dream clients, understand your target market and what their needs, challenges and values are.

I want you to imagine your ideal clients, close your eyes and think about them as if they were standing in the room with you. Think about who they are, and try to create a group as clear as possible in your head, right down their age, where they live, their income level, their values, and also their struggles.

Here’s where you can determine how this offering (product or service) is gonna serve your ideal clients at the highest level. Serve your ideal clients in a way where you are showing up in their lives and providing them with a perfect solution to their struggles.

Essentially that’s business in a nutshell. The purpose of business is to serve others. So your mission here is to determine who you are serving with your brand. It’s really, really important for you and your branding team to fully understand this so that the final brand identity is going to emotionally connect with who your ideal audience is and what they resonate with the most.

3. WHAT IS THE KEY TRANSFORMATION YOU ARE OFFERING YOUR CLIENTS

You see how it’s important to do these steps before even designing a logo? Let me tell you. The third thing is to be clear on the transformation you’re offering your clients. We touched on this in in the first point, but I really wanna hit this home. This leads us to the main transformation that you will bring your clients through once they work with you or they buy from your brand.

Determine your real clear transformation. It can be as simple as two or three words or a small sentence. It needs to be as concise and precise as possible so you know exactly where you’re heading and how you’ll be serving others through your business. Keep in mind that we are usually best positioned to serve an audience that is looking for the same solution, the same transformation that, we once were.

So think of who you were in the past, maybe five, 10 years ago, and the transformation that you overcame or that you experienced. Where you came out on the other side, and perhaps what you’re planning on offering is actually the transformation that you lived. This key transformation piece will often end up in your brand messaging or even a slogan – another reason why this step is so important!

4. DETERMINE YOUR BRAND AESTHETIC (MOOD BOARD TIME!)

This is the creative part. Allow yourself to dream. It’s time for you to start compiling visual inspiration that you yes, resonate with, and which is in alignment with you and with the inner work that we’ve done so far. Allow yourself to dream big.

Look at various photography, logo styles, inspirations, fonts, print graphics, labels, business cards, colours, packaging, even pictures of the type of ideal clients you’re dreaming of. Anything that reflects what you love most. A simple way to do this is actually to create a board on Pinterest.

Putting this aesthetic board together in one place will help you to visually see the patterns and the styles of what your brand could eventually feel like. You’re gonna begin to see these repetitive color palettes and styles, fonts, and different details that it’s actually gonna help you and your brand designer to go in that right direct.

So this is key. Before doing any sort of design work, you need to create that mood board, that inspiration board to really give the feeling of the aesthetic direction of your brand. 

5. WRITE OUT YOUR COMPANY’S MISSION & VISION STATEMENTS

Now, the fifth thing is to have a strategy for your brand and a long-term mission and vision. So now that you have so much more clarity because you followed those first step, the next thing is we invite you to take the time to write out your brand mission and vision statements.

Now, we actually did an entire podcast and wrote an article about this, so we’ll make sure to link it in the in the show notes because it’s gonna help you with the step-by-step process of actually writing and. Having your brand’s mission and vision statements clearly written and outlined will help you have certainty in your project and will also provide that boost in confidence you are going to need, I promise you to get these next steps done and really building your brand and growing your company.

You can’t create a successful business without a clear purpose to push you through those tough times. So as you can see, a brand is so much more than a logo and colors, fonts, or even a website. We’re just scratching the surface here of how we help our clients in developing a holistic brand identity. But these five tips are definitely crucial for you to do before working with any brand agency.

You as the business owner, need to know your business from the inside out. And it’s incredibly important to find a creative team that will take the time to understand your full vision and bring it to life in complete alignment with who you are.  Our mission at Bloom Virtual Co is not only to holistically create brands that represent you, but to create a brand identity that even goes beyond what you’ve even dreamt up so that your brand is so unique, so strong, that it helps to inspire and propel you to show up in the world as the best version of yourself and as a business owner. So feel free to reach out to us if creating a successful brand and company is part of your goals this year. We’re absolutely here for you. 

If you felt these tips were helpful and you have a friend, entrepreneur who may need these two, please take a minute and share the article so we can help inspire amazing business owners to grow. As much as we possibly can. Thank you so much and wishing you a great day and week ahead!

The Bloom Team