As some of you know, I’ve spent a lot of time this summer re-engineering my business. When I took a long look at what I had been doing, I realized that there were a mish-mash of different projects and none were REALLY what I wanted to be doing. So, in June, I took some time to think about the kind of projects that made me not only proud to work on, but made me happy.
I also took a long look at my website, blog, etc. – none of which represented my personality. They were too corporate and dull, and I think that I’m far from dull. =) So, here’s how I dissected by business and persona to figure out what I really wanted:
- I met with a branding consultant, Scott Davis, and gave him a brain dump of what I wanted to be. And he gave me some recommendations on how to get there as well as helped me understand what differentiates my business from the others.
- I did a personal branding assessment through Reach Branding Club which helped me better understand how other people perceive me and ultimately my business. Interestingly, I took this same assessment about a year ago and the responses were totally different. I’ve apparently really grown up over the past year.
- I thought long and hard about what kind of projects I wanted to work on and made changes to target those audiences. I noted what I liked and didn’t like about the projects I was getting and tweaked my message accordingly.
- I looked at companies that I respect to see what they were doing right. How could these ideas help my business?
- I talked to a lot of colleagues and friends about the direction I was headed to get their reaction.
And here’s what happened:
- I created a strategy to help me identity my audience, goals, tactics and measurements of success.
- I re-wrote all of my web content to include the persona from the personal assessment exercise, the message that I wanted to convey and new elements that I felt were important like core values and methodology.
- I redesigned my blog with a design and color scheme that represented my personality – earth tones with a touch of red. If you know me, you know why.
- I redesigned my website with a complimentary design.
- I redesigned my Twitter page.
- I redesigned my newsletter template.
- I am in the process of redesigning my business cards and marketing collateral.
- I am planning a re-launch.
Quite frankly, once I completed the assessment, the execution was easy. So over the next month or two expect gradual changes in my blog, website and overall company offerings. I am really excited about it and I hope that you will be too!
