Member Highlight: Victoria of BrandWell Designs

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START YOUR BUSINESS?

I started BrandWell in 2018 after burning out in corporate and realizing I had a skill that many people needed — website design. It didn’t take long before I realized that the service I was delivering actually gave people so much more than a URL they could put in their Instagram bio. It gave them confidence to promote their business.

Once I got clear on my mission — to help women show up confident online so that they could stand out and sell more — BrandWell took off.

The designs we create are giving these already incredible women the courage they need to finally start marketing their business. As a result, people are noticing them. They are standing out from their competition, and in doing so, they’re selling more. Mission accomplished, if you ask me!

 

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST STRUGGLE WHEN STARTING OUT?

Niching down. In the early days of business, all you see are dollar signs. It can be difficult to get clear on who you serve best when you continually say yes to anyone willing to hand over their credit card info. It took me about 18 months to realize there was a specific segment of the market that I could make really happy. I’m talking, over-the-moon, tell-everyone-they-know-about-BrandWell happy. After a year and a half of serving men and women of all ages across all industries, I decided to hone in on the ones that my business was best set up to serve. Creative females in their first 5 years in business. Once I did that, marketing got easier and my messaging started to resonate on a deeper level with my target audience.

WHAT’S THE #1 THING YOU ATTRIBUTE TO GROWING YOUR BUSINESS?

In addition to knowing my target audience like the back of my hand, I would say giving up control has helped me grow my business exponentially. Since starting BrandWell in 2018, I’ve hired 8 employees and contractors to help me handle the increasing complexity of scaling a business and serving more people. By doing so, I’ve freed up both my time and my mind to focus on high-level tasks that a founder should be focused on! We’ve all heard the saying, “If you’re working in your business, you’re not working on it,” and this is incredibly true. I spend the vast majority of my time working on BrandWell, not in it.

WHAT MINDSET SHIFTS HAVE YOU MADE TO SET YOUR BUSINESS UP FOR SUCCESS?

I’ve had to dismiss the mindset that nobody can do it like me. In fact, I’m continually humbled in my business when I realize that the people I hire can not only do things as well as I can, but in most cases, they do it better.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST BUSINESS LESSON LEARNED?

I’ve learned a lot through hiring others. It’s incredibly important to hire people who care about the mission of your business and who will be good ambassadors for your brand. I’ve been extremely lucky to find some incredible girls to come alongside me at BrandWell but it hasn’t all been easy. Sometimes you have to recognize when someone isn’t a good fit and make hard decisions for the benefit of your company long-term. On the flip side, when someone is the right fit, do everything in your power to make sure they stay and that they love their time working for you.

WHAT PODCASTS OR BUSINESS BOOKS ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?

What I’m loving lately in the way of career development is actually Masterclass. It’s an online streaming service with hundreds of videos from incredible entrepreneurs and industry disruptors. So far, I’ve watched Sara Blakely’s class on how she became a self-made billionaire with Spanx and Diane Von Furstenberg’s class on building a fashion brand and a few others that are giving me so many ideas for my business. I do love The Marketing Rebellion by Mark Schaefer as a go-to business book.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC TO LISTEN TO WHEN YOU’RE CREATING CONTENT?

I love Elevation Worship, Taylor Swift, or any sort of Christmas music if it’s between November and January!

HOW DO YOU DECIDE ON WHAT IMAGES TO USE FOR YOUR BRAND?

Since we are brand designers, imagery is incredibly effective in how our brand is perceived. We want to make sure each photo is aligned with our color palette, our brand’s personality, and our overall style as an all-female team. We do frequent brand shoots throughout the year to capture the actual personality of our business but we love to supplement our website and socials with images from Haute Stock collections that we feel fit our overall vibe.

HOW HAS HAUTE STOCK HELPED YOU IN YOUR BUSINESS?

In the words of my senior designer, Libby, “Haute Stock has made my job so much easier!” We not only use Haute Stock to help build our own beautiful online presence, but we often use it to help inspire our clients for their projects as well. When someone works with us for branding, we start by creating a mood board and Haute Stock often provides the vast majority of the stock imagery we use on our clients’ mood board to set the tone for the project at hand.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVE HAUTE STOCK COLLECTION? 

How do I narrow it down to one?! Probably the stock photo and video collection I find myself using the most is The Agency. I have dreams of opening a studio someday and if I do, it will have a very similar aesthetic to the photos in that collection.

Want more business inspo, lessons learned, branding strategy, and motherhood stories from women entrepreneurs? Be sure to tune into Victoria’s much loved The Business Branding School podcast. Listen to Haute Stock Founder & CEO Rachel’s interview to find out how she went from hand-designing luxury chocolates to creating Haute Stock, the original styled stock photo membership for women entrepreneurs!

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