Andrea Nordling 00:00
Welcome back to the profitable nutritionist podcast my friend. Today’s episode is a continuation
of last week’s, which is episode 129, where I talked about the big picture content marketing
strategy for 2024. Here at the profitable nutritionist, I told you all about what it looks like what
we’re changing up around here and why we are doing the changes that we’re doing. So if you
haven’t already, you’re going to want to go back and listen to that one. Again, that’s the last
episode 129. So that you can get the 30,000 foot view of all of the content stuff that we’re
talking about. But today, we are going into much more detail on a big part of that upgraded
content strategy for this year, which has to do with the visuals in the profitable nutritionist
brand, which is what like I said, I’m going to talk to you about today. Before we get into that, let
me just make a quick invitation to you to check out everything I’m about to say, at the
profitable nutritionist.com/branding. There, you’re going to get all of the links, and a fun
screenshare video of me going through everything I’m about to talk to you about. I just don’t
want you to freak out if you’re driving or if you’re on a walk or something like that, and you
can’t get to the website right away. Don’t worry about it, it will all be linked up in the show
notes for you as well. But I did want to create more of a visual component to this episode,
which is an audio podcast because sometimes you just have to see what the heck I’m talking
about. So we did that at the profitable nutritionist.com/branding. You can go back and visit it
anytime after this episode. Okay. So like I said, today, we are talking about a topic that nearly
gave me hives for the first few years of my business, not even first few years, let’s be real the
first seven years, my online business, and that’s brand photos, brand photos Did you just want
to crawl into a hole and Hibernate, I shared it. Truth be told, it wasn’t just brand photos that
made me want to run away and hide it was branding in general. Branding, I think is a really
broad and vague term. But essentially how I’m going to define branding, it’s how your business
looks and feels. It’s the visuals, okay? The colors, the fonts, the logos, photos, videos, the
layout of your website, if you’re on social media, that includes your social media feed all of it,
the visual stuff, okay, that’s branding. I’m pretty sure that would be a definition we can all
agree on. But I don’t know, I didn’t get it from anywhere. But my own brain. That’s, that’s my
definition. If you are like me, by the way, and you have a strong preference on what you don’t
like, but it is hard to articulate what you do like, then you’re in the right place. Glad we’re
having this conversation today. Because I think that that’s a big part about branding and brand
photos and all of the visuals that really frustrated me for a long time, and still does frustrate me
A
to be honest, left to my own devices. But I have a solution for this now, which I’m going to tell
you all about today. So anyway, I think that that’s what’s really frustrating is I know what I don’t
like and if I see something like a no thank you, but I have a hard time figuring out what I would
want to improve or what I do like so I don’t know, if you’re in the same boat, then jump on in.
Here we go. We’re talking all about it today. Specifically, why do you even need to think about
branding your wellness business? Is this important? In the beginning? Should you even be
spending one single second? Thinking about it or talking about it? Or looking for colors? Or any
of those things? And honestly, I don’t know. For some of you Yes, for some of you know, but I
do know this, it keeps so many health and wellness business owners stuck when they don’t feel
like their brand looks professional or they don’t feel like it looks right. And so they don’t want to
promote it to the world until it does. I get that I understand. I mean, I see the error of the
thinking. Truth be told, as I see both sides of it. All right. I don’t want guests coming over to my
house when it’s not clean. And when it’s not decorated nicely. And it’s not inviting. Nor do I
want virtual guests popping into my website when it’s feeling cluttered and messy. So this, I
understand when your brand isn’t well thought out, meaning it’s like a little of this and it’s a
little of that. And the result of it is like a college apartment where all of the furniture is Hami
downs collected from family members and nothing goes together and it’s all mismatched. He
like it gets the job done, but it feels off. We don’t like that feeling. I understand that. Okay, but I
want to say that this keeps a lot of people stuck for way too long. Feeling like it’s never going to
be right. It’s never going to be perfect. And if you’re not that great at making it perfect. Like if
self admitted I’m not, then you’re going to be just tweaking forever, but not really knowing how
come it’s not getting better. Oh COVID still doesn’t feel professional, and it still doesn’t look the
way I want it to look. And if you are in Canva tweaking your logo incessantly, I’m looking at you
right, okay, best news of the day, is that you can make a lot of money with a brand that feels
off like that hodgepodge college apartment you can you really really can. I did it. I’ve seen
hundreds and hundreds of other people do it. You can so just know that you are your own worst
critic. It probably is not that off to everybody else. Don’t make this a problem if it’s not X really
a problem right now? You know you? Are you in Super perfectionist mode trying to make every
single thing amazing? Or does it really need to get fixed? And does it really need to get juiced
up a little bit only you know the answer to that. But if there are some tweaks that you can
make to your brand visuals to really up level them, then you should do that if you can do if it’s
low hanging fruit, do it, get it done, and move on, don’t spend too much of your bandwidth on
this, this is a slippery slope, you’re gonna hear me like but kind of back and forth on it. Because
for some people, they do need to just make it look better. And it could just happen quickly, and
they can move on and be done. And for others that same thought of I just need to make it look
a little better keeps them for six months or a year tweaking and never getting their business
out into the world. Okay, so know thyself, which camp are you in? Okay, if you don’t know how
to make the visuals look good. By the way, I am going to talk about a professional service that I
recently started using that made this incredibly easy. And the result has been incredible. So I’m
going to talk about that as well. But if you are DIY in the beginning of your business, like I did
for many, many, many years, there are still things I have to tell you that can make this process
much less painful and a whole lot more efficient for you. I’ve also seen the branding of
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wellness professionals at this point, probably 1000s,
actually. So I have some opinions based on that as well. First of all, we’re getting into it, are you
ready? Show your face, show your face, show your face, show your face, you have to show your
face, you’re going to sell more, if you show your face, your people are going to feel more
connected to you, if you show your face, if I go to your website, and the first thing I see is a
stock photo of an avocado or a lemon instead of your face, we have a problem that’s easy to
fix, we just need a photo of your face. Now I know your brain is exploding, saying but I don’t
have a good photo my face, I don’t know how to take a good photo of my face, oh my gosh,
taking a photo, I don’t want that photos. It’s so hard. Okay, I understand had all of these
thoughts. Still have them, sometimes I get it. So we’re going to get that. But you have to show
your face. So we’re gonna have to get over it. And you’re going to have to have some photos of
you to use in your marketing. And I’m going to say website a lot today because that’s in the
forefront of my of my brain because we’re redoing our website right now. So all things our
website in my world to me, but this is anywhere that you are showing up, you’re going to use
photos of yourself in any marketing, whether that is a printed flyer, that you’re hanging up at a
co op or a chiropractor’s office in your town or it is a website or is this social media, if you’re on
social media, wherever it is, you have to have a picture of your face. And just think about this.
As a consumer you know, you prefer to see what somebody looks like you feel more connected
to them, you feel it’s just it’s a human thing we’d like to see faces, okay, that’s the way that it
is. So you got to do a DIY photo shoot immediately. If you don’t have photos in your marketing
that you have your face. Even not the best photos of you are better than no photos of you.
Okay? Good very, very inexpensively hire someone on upwork.com or fiverr.com. To edit any
photos that you have that you take and take off the background. This is very, very easy to do. It
didn’t used to be it used to be a really cumbersome deal. But now it’s pretty easy. If you don’t
know how to do it yourself, you probably can do it yourself. But if you’re not techie, if you don’t
know how to do it yourself or you don’t want to mess around with it, you can probably pay five
or 10 bucks, and have three to five photos of you made usable for your website or for your
marketing just by taking a few minutes doing a little DIY photo shoot with an iPhone, and then
having somebody take out the background. What that allows you to do then is put a different
color background behind you and use it on your website. Right? There you go, boom, done. You
can do this, you can check it off the list, I promise. I’m going to repeat myself though even not
the best photos of you are better than no photos of you. So don’t be perfectionistic about this.
And just trust me if you want to make more money and help more people, you got to have
photos of you out in the world where people are finding you. Alright, secondly, so first photos of
you did show your face show your face did I get that point across first one show your face.
Okay? Secondly, commit to one to two brand colors and one to two fonts maximum in your
branding, if you are DIY and get yourself. That means if you are creating your own website, if
you’re creating your own visuals, don’t have a million colors don’t have a million fonts don’t
have a million sizes and bold and not bold and italicized. And that gets very messy. That’s when
we get into the college dorm hodgepodge or the college apartment hodgepodge furniture
situation where it’s all very eclectic, but not in a cool way. All right. If you have any more than
one or two brand colors, or any more than one to two fonts, your stuff is going to start to look
really cluttered. And there is a way to do that if you’re a graphic designer or if you’ve worked
with a graphic designer, you know that people that have an eye for this can pull together an
eclectic mix and make it look great. But if you don’t know how to do that, then and don’t do
that. I don’t know how to do that. So when in doubt, stick to one to two brand colors, one would
be even better along with black and white, and then just go to town with photos of your face.
How many times will I say it so many times sidebar, I see a lot of people’s marketing and they
use stock photos of other people, which is very confusing, by the way, because then your
people have no idea what you actually look like. And it’s just not cohesive at all. I’ve seen
people that have stock photos of someone that’s a completely different race than they are in
their marketing. And I it’s jarring as the only word that I can think have to then see that person
jump on a console call with somebody that looks completely different to what you thought it
was gonna happen. I just jarring is the only word so don’t do that. Okay? Use your own face,
have it all over. You want people to know who they are talking to, they want you want them to
feel connected to you. And that is the way that we do that as humans as we see faces. So could
you sprinkle in stock photo here and there. I mean, I’m sure you could. But I would just say that
anywhere you’re using stock photos, you could use a photo of your face. So maybe do that
instead. All right. And then as far as the colors, and the fonts, and all of that, and the logos and
all of that, keep it simple. Hire somebody on Upwork or Fiverr. To do this for you if you don’t
know how to do it. Or if it’s taking any more than a few hours of your life, then you just need to
hire someone to do this for a few bucks, get it done commit to one to two brand colors, one to
two fonts maximum and and that’s what you use for everything. Okay, all of its cohesive, all of
it goes together. And easy peasy. You don’t need to worry about it any more. Big, deep breath.
Usually, when you work with a graphic designer, or somebody that’s going to help you with
your branding, they’re going to pick one heading font and one body font for your website or for
your emails or for any work that you’re doing print, like any print copy, and they need to be
very easy to read. So if you want to DIY this yourself, or get some ideas of what you like, you
can certainly look on Pinterest for font pairings, they’re all over the place on Pinterest. And
you’ll find a lot of good options of things that look good together to get ideas for this to get
really specific. Usually there’s a serif font and a sans serif font and the two complement each
other. Don’t know what I’m talking about great, you don’t have to you are a nutritionist or a
health coach, to have to be a graphic designer, go on Pinterest, find something you like and
have somebody else do it for you amazing. You can also do the same thing for finding brand
colors, like a color palette that you want for your business, go on Pinterest search color palettes
in green, or whatever it is that you’re going for. Boom, Pinterest will give you all the answers
and done. Now, these are the only colors and fonts that you will use for everything, it will all
match and it will all look cohesive. And pretty much instantly, your brand will look a lot more
polished and put together. And then of course, you’re gonna splash your face all over it. And
we’re off to the races. In the first three to four years of my business, I did not do a great job of
this. Alright, because 2016 The Tech was not as easy to edit photos. And to make them look the
way that I wanted to combined with the belief that I had at the time, which is that I had to DIY
everything, I had to figure everything out myself. I did not have anyone telling me, hey, go on
these websites, save yourself some time spend a little bit of money instead. And let’s get this
done. I didn’t have that. So I wish I had had that person would have saved me many, many
months and a lot of frustration. So I will be that voice for you. All right, what I did do after I got
my feet wet the first three to four years of business. So this would be years four to seven ish is I
had photos taken at three separate times and I use those photos to death in all of my
marketing. Okay. So the first branch up Photo, photo photo shoot the first brand photo shoot
that I did, I didn’t give the photographer much direction. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t
even have the direction myself. So I showed up that day hoping she knew what she was doing. We actually I think that she shot me for an hour, hour and a half something like that was pretty
low commitment. She was a referral from somebody that I knew. And I was like, Okay, well,
let’s give this a try. So I didn’t have a lot to tell her about what I needed. I just hoped that she
she said she knew what I needed. And the results were mediocre. It was okay, there were a few
of them that worked out. I use those two to five favorite photos from that shoot on my website
for years, I made hundreds of 1000s of dollars on that website with those five or less photos
that came from that shoot. And it was not a big deal. Okay, so I just want to be totally
transparent with you. This doesn’t have to be a huge situation. You could even have your kid or
a friend or somebody do it with an iPhone and do just as good of a job just like I said earlier
because the editing is so easy to do to outsource to somebody that knows how to do that.
Anyway, the second photo shoot that I did in 2021 was in preparation of launching the
profitable nutritionist podcast. So this was when the podcast was just stating I knew the due
date and it was like okay, I have to get some good marketing going here. I want to do some
new photos for that. Shoot, I had some ideas that I wanted to execute. So at this time, when I
did the photo shoot, I actually knew what I wanted the aesthetic to look like I kind of knew what
shots I wanted. And the photographer that I hired was an uplevel, from the first photographer
that I had hired, not that she wasn’t great, but I had different parameters. Okay, so I was
looking for a photographer that was a lot more specialized in what I wanted. And that’s what I
got this time. So when I say it was an upgraded version, it was because she was more
specialized in brand photography. So she did a pretty comprehensive intake before the shoot,
we created a Pinterest board together of the things that I liked inspiration, the exact shot list
prior to us even doing the photo shoot, and we reviewed it, she said, these are the shots that
we’re getting, is there anything to add? So that was a much more organized and fruitful photo
shoot, I love those photos, they have lived on my website for two and a half years now, and
have also made over a million dollars on the website. So what I’m trying to say is you gotta get
your face on your website, and anywhere else that you’re showing up online, do it imperfectly,
do it yourself, do it with a professional photographer, don’t care what you do, but just do it, you
are going to be so grateful that you did. And then you can continually uplevel those photos over
time. So don’t stress about them being perfect the first time, it’s fine, you’re going to learn so
much just by actually executing this and doing it and if you’ve already done this several times,
you know exactly what I’m talking about. It gets better each time, instead of messing around in
Canva. Every week, making social media graphics or website banner images or any of that
stuff, I want to offer that you can hire a graphic designer on Upwork. That’s my favorite
contractor hub, by the way upwork.com to put together your existing photos and assets, just
like I recommended or you can hire an all in one photography and branding company like I
recently did, which I’m going to tell you all about. And they will do it all for you and completely
blow your mind. But either way, stop doing that yourself. Even if you love Canva even if you
kinda like the visuals and that kind of stuff in your business, and you can do it, you shouldn’t be
because your time and your energy is so much better spent serving your clients, creating
assets for your clients and ideas and processes instead of PDFs for them. Your time is so much
better spent networking with potential clients and future clients and referral partners and doing
the things in your business that only you can do. Okay, this graphic design stuff, the branding,
the visuals, that is something that is so simple to outsource to somebody else very
inexpensively. So just want to offer that as well, if this is something that you are currently doing
in your business, and your DIY thing, maybe you want to do that, but maybe you really don’t. Maybe you really shouldn’t be okay. The end of last year, I took my own advice on this to
uplevel the branding here at the profitable nutritionist which is part of this whole content
marketing strategy that we’ve been talking about. And instead of piecing together graphic
design from one designer and then having a photographer, take photographs, and then having
a web designer put it on the website and having somebody else help me with what to wear in
the photos and having so many different people that were contributing to the vision of this, I
opted instead for an all in one solution called Work play branding. So you may notice from the
title of this episode that I’m going to give you a review on workplace branding. This was
actually one of the best investments I’ve ever made in my business in the last seven plus years.
And I’m going to tell you all about this experience. Like I said, there’s also a video version
where I did a screenshare showing what it looks like at the profitable nutritionist.com/branding
If you’d like to look at that, too. Okay, so what is workplace branding? To steal copy directly
from their website, they say it’s the missing piece you didn’t know existed. And I echo the
sentiment 1,000% wordplay branding is an all in one branding and photography company that
basically plugs you as the business owner into their tried and true method for producing
beautiful branded high converting visuals for your business so that you can do what I just
suggested, which is focus on what you do best and stop messing around in Canva. Yay. Let’s
stop worrying. Stop messing around in Canva. I heard about workplace branding through a
friend of mine that was using them. And so then I decided to check them out for myself. Like I
said, I’m very, very glad that I did. Because instead of me having to figure out what fonts and
colors and photos and outfits and backgrounds, and video B roll and all of that stuff that I
needed that would look good for my brand visuals, work play branding did it all. For me. It was
honestly one of the most enjoyable and simple processes that I’ve ever experienced as the
business owner, there were multiple times in the last let’s see, how long has this been three or
four months, four months, in the last four months, multiple times where I have stopped and
taken notes for this particular episode and said I need to tell people about this because this was
such a great customer experience. And there have been points in the onboarding process or in
the content intake process. I’m gonna tell you all about that. Just multiple touch points basically
throughout this experience that I have thought oh my goodness, this was so enjoyable. from a
client perspective, how can I create this experience for my clients? How could my clients be
creating an experience like this for their clients so truly has blown me away. With over 100
episodes of the profitable nutritionist podcast at this point, my team asked if we could create a
podcast and roadmap quick guide to the most popular episodes, which I thought was a fabulous
idea. They’re so smart. We ended up categorizing 30 ish of the top episodes into a few different
lists and categories. So you can easily find the most useful content for exactly where you’re at
in your business right now. To get the podcast roadmap download, just go to the profitable
nutritionist.com/roadmap One word, you’re more than welcome to binge all of the episodes, of
course. But if you’d like the shortcut guide, this roadmap is going to be gold for navigating to
the exact episodes that you need right now. Again, download the PDF at the profitable
nutritionist.com/roadmap. All right, what else do I want to tell you about workplace just so that
you kind of understand what we’re talking about. They are a team of specialized personal brand
photographers first and foremost, and content creators that fly to you. So it doesn’t matter
where you are, they will fly to you or you can fly to a destination have them meet you there,
which I chose to do. And when you do this, they will execute a very efficient and fun quarterly
photo shoot for you. So you do this four times a year that produces 600 to 1000 photos in each
shoot. And then their content team curates 365 days of branded and beautifully put together
content using those updated photos, and the gorgeous branded graphics that they create in
Canva, not you. And they will put all of this in your social media feeds for you free of charge, if
you would like. Again, I did a whole video of what that actually looks like at the profitable
nutritionists.com/branding with the screenshare. Because I know I just said a lot of things. And
you’re like, what does that even mean? I did a screenshare I showed you. But first of all I have
to talk about why did I decide to hire them? And how does the process work? First of all, when
you hire wordplay, branding, you get a complete branding for your business if you don’t have it
already. So all of the things that we talked about at the beginning of the episode was figuring
out your fonts and your logo and your colors and what you want it to look and feel like all of
that, if you don’t have it already, you will create that with the professional designers at
workplace they have a really ninja onboarding process, like I said, kind of blew me away, where
you systematically download what you like and what you don’t like from your brain into their
intake forms. And then they create your brand board. And they and you can go back and forth
and you revise it. But basically, they are going to help you create the finalized version of what
your brand is going to look and feel like and what those fonts are going to be and what those
colors are going to be and how it’s all going to work together. And if you already have these
assets created for your brand, you skip that step. But I recommend letting the team there at
workplace if you decide to hire them polish everything up for you so that it’s super professional,
it’s cohesive, you get another set of eyes on everything. It was a great process, the time
investment for that part of it was about one to two days. After that you schedule your first
brand photoshoot with their content team. And this is where your mind will really be blown in
my opinion. Since your contract with workplace is for a one year term, you’re not going to be
thinking in terms of quarterly brand refreshes and quarterly photoshoots. So you commit for
the year. It’s super inexpensive, but you commit for the year in my opinion, inexpensive. And
then you have a quarterly photoshoot. What? Yes, my friend. And you’re going to be so glad
about this quarterly photoshoot. Even if you’re like me, and previously photo shoots made you
want to run and hide, believe me, they did for me, you’re gonna actually look forward to it and
you’re gonna be so glad that you get to do four of them in a year, because you’re not putting
all of the pressure for every single photo that you ever need in your business into one shoot,
and then kicking yourself when you miss something if you miss something. Instead, the
wordplay branding team is going to help you create a photoshoot experience for you based on
what you uncovered in the onboarding process that you need. Again, they have a great process
for this for figuring out what kind of photos you need. And where should we do the photos and
all of that jazz they they have a way of doing it. You don’t need to worry about that. They’re
trained photographers then fly to you, anywhere in North America, South America or Europe. So
your physical location doesn’t matter. And if there’s workplane photographer in your city, of
course, they wouldn’t have to fly to you. But even if you’re rural or somewhere where they
aren’t, they will fly to you. It’s amazing. In fact, you can meet your photographer on site at a
destination like I did and I’ll tell you about in a second. And then the workplace branding team
will find an Airbnb they’ll find rental options that would be great for the photoshoot or they will
find free options if you would prefer for them to do that they Scout all of the locations for all of
the shots for the photoshoot. Make sure it’s within your budget and your brand aesthetic and
figure out what the exact shots are going to be how it’s all going to work, the timeline all of the
logistics, which is amazing because I don’t know about you but that was a huge part of Any
photoshoot for my business that I really dreaded was having to spend any minute of my life
planning the location or the logistics or how it was going to look and all that that’s not why I got
into business. That’s not something I enjoy. In fact, like I said, the pressure of that had me
putting off doing updated brand photos for years, years years too long in my business, which is
why I wanted to record this podcast episode today. Honestly, many of you listening to this will
not have the budget for a system like workplace branding, but many of you will, or maybe you’ll
plan for it in the future and a year from now, you’ll decide that this is something you want to
invest in. So I just wanted to give you the information that it’s even out there. I’m so grateful
when I stumble on resources like this that introduced me to something that I didn’t know a tool,
or a company or something like that purchase, like, Oh, this is gonna make my life so much
easier in the future, even if it’s not for right now type thing. So anyway, as an aside, ultimately,
this is why I wanted to hire workplace branding for a year and TESOL their process. My friend
that referred it to me had told me it was completely seamless. And I wanted to trust her on
that. But I was like, Okay, let’s see. So far, it’s been four months, I have to say it’s been very
seamless. Like I said, their content planning team scouts locations, for one long day of shooting
every quarter. Okay, so this is like a 10am to 5pm photo shoot day, it’s a long day. But guess
what, my friend, that means that you only have to do your hair and makeup one time, you get
all of the photos done for a quarter or for me I mean, I could use these for like I kept six
hundreds of photos. I could use them for like the rest of my career probably at the rate that I
have been going but it is going to be kind of nice to be updating quarterly and adding to that
photo. Anyway, you do one long day of shooting, their content planning team scouts all of the
locations, and they create the shortlist for exactly what shots are going to be taken in what
place with what outfits all you have to do is show up with 10 to 15 outfits, and your hair and
makeup done ready to go. Now a note about the outfits because this is also a point of stress for
me. Like I don’t know what to wear. I never know what to wear. But for sure for something like
a photoshoot, I definitely know don’t know what to wear, I cannot be trusted to dress myself for
real. So I decided to hire the in house stylist at workplace to plan my outfits for the first photo
shoot that I did, which was a great decision. By the way, this was an added cost. So I want to be
very clear, it was not included in the rate that you pay to work late. But it was an added cost
that was not included in the contract. However, it was a great investment. So the stylist took
my brand guidelines, which was like the colors and the look and feel of my of my brand. She
took that. Well. First of all, she took the content plan from the content planning team for what
shots we needed in what rooms and what were the vibes of those shots. She married that with
my brand guidelines and the colors that we needed to use. And then she figured out exactly
what I needed to wear in each of the shots at each location. So she and I met a few times on
Zoom to go through what was already in my closet what new items I needed. Then she sent me
a fully linked up shopping list where I just had to click and purchase which was great. And I had
told her early in the process I said I need good clothes to wear in the shoot. Yes, but I also need
to upgrade my own wardrobe with some basics that are missing. And when I say some basics
that are missing, I mean like everything is so it’s kind of killing two birds with one stone
situation where I got lots of suggestions for things to buy for the shoot and for my closet
without hiring a personal stylist. I mean, I guess she kind of was a personal stylist but it was for
the purpose of this shoot. You do not have to do that. You don’t have to hire a stylist if you are
just going to be choosing your own clothes to wear for a photoshoot. Here’s what I’ve learned
from this process. Stick to bright solid color clothing in or close to your brand colors if possible.
Those options are going to really pop visually in your photos, so much more than neutrals, or
any distracting prints. So think bright, and think solid colors, especially on top, like a bright
blazer, a bright colored shirt with jeans versus a plain Brook black sweater or something that’s
just going to that. I mean, honestly, it’s like my normal wardrobe. But it’s going to kind of fade
away into the background. That is not what you want for your brand photos. You want bright
and you want solids. Okay, so when I showed up at my first brand shoot in Charleston, South
Carolina, I had flown there with two suitcases of clothes, and about 100 pairs of shoes. It felt
like I was very well prepared. I was ready. The great thing about this setup was that I was
already planning to travel to Charleston for an event that I was already going to. So I just flew
in one day early. And then I planned my photo shoot for that day. I mean we obviously had it
planned in advance. The workplace content team had already scouted three great Airbnb
options that fit my brand look and they had sent those to me to pick through. I pick the one I
like the best perfect booked it but I didn’t have to go find that I didn’t have to search through I
didn’t want none of that and the place was amazing. Absolutely amazing for the photos that I
needed. They also arranged for the very end expensive JetBlue flight for accommodations for
the photographer that was flying in, she actually flew into town in the morning flew out in the
evening to save costs. I don’t know how they do it so inexpensively, but they do. So if your
photographer is traveling to you, you pay for their travel costs. But the booking team somehow
makes those costs very minimal. I was amazed, not really sure how they did that effectively,
but they do. So the cost of the photographer if they have to come to you is going to be on top
of what you pay workplace the day of the shoot, we quickly went through every location of the
Airbnb, which and actually we went to a few places off site, every outfit change was already
mapped out. Like in the living room on the couch, we have these three outfits from 10am to
1020. Here’s what we’re doing. And then there was the next and the next and the next. And it
was so organized. I didn’t have to do any of this, the content team did all of it, because they
knew what I needed. It’s amazing. The photographer was also taking some B roll video 1000s of
photos, we had so much fun, we got so much done that day, by the end of the day at I don’t
know sometime in the afternoon, I think we started at 10. And I believe I was done by three or
four or something like that. But by the end of the day, I was exhausted, droopy tilt, I was
exhausted. But I was super excited. Because I knew there are gonna be so many fresh photos
for my team to use on our new website for rebranding the podcast anywhere else we wanted to
use them. And because of how many outfit changes I had done and how many different
settings we used, it looked like the photos were taken all at different times. And different
places. We did some of them in a grocery store that was super fun. We did a couple different
outfits outside, like in a park. We did a lot of them in the Airbnb, there were some in a kitchen,
there were some at a desk setup. I mean, they were all over and all in different outfits. So it
looked so varied. That was something that I have definitely experienced in past photo shoots is
when I had a few photos that I liked, but it was all in the same place in the same outfit, I didn’t
want to use them, because it seemed really redundant. So anyway, I was excited after the
shoot that we’re gonna have a lot of good options. And then less than a week afterwards, I had
all of the edited beautiful photos back for review, there were about 1200 to choose from, I
picked my favorite few 100 I spent like an hour going through and choosing the favorites that I
had saved those in a separate folder. And then my team started putting them to work in our
marketing materials. And if you’ve seen any updated photos lately, they came from that shoot.
You know, while behind the scenes, the workplace branding team was creating an entire
quarter of social media posts with all of those photos. Now, since my business is not on
Facebook, or Instagram, this part of the process wasn’t a huge selling point to me, but I’m
going to talk about it because it could be for you. If you are actively creating content on social
media know this, the workplace branding team will take all of your branded photos, and
optionally, they will create branded graphics for you that’s also included by their team and they
will schedule them on your social media feed free of charge for you. Your only commitment for
that process is you have to approve the feed and you have to add your captions so that they
can do the final scheduling for you. But that’s all included. Like that’s an entire job that people
hire for to have a social media manager that’s just included, as part of this process makes my
brain actually explode. I wanted to test that process out so that I could give you an honest
review of this whole experience. So I had their content team plan out an entire quarter of posts
from my LinkedIn feed. And I did experience this, it blew my mind. Not only was this a role that
I wouldn’t have to hire for in the future if I was on social media, but I now had hundreds of high
converting images at my disposal of my face. Remember, you want people to see your face,
people are going to connect with you so much better if they see your face. And now I have so
many photos of my face. So I know that so many of you think I would be much more proactive
with my marketing if I knew what to send or if I felt like it looked good. Well, this is one way to
do that you’ll have lots of options, and they will look good. But just another little reminder that
you need to show your face as much as possible. We are humans are programmed to look at
other people’s faces. Let the people see your faces so they can read your expression. And so
that they can learn to trust you and want to know more about you click around, follow your
digital trail of breadcrumbs and get on your email list to buy from you. Okay, all right. If you’re
on social media, get your face and your posts ASAP. If I mean just everywhere, doesn’t matter,
get your face out there, you’re gonna see so much higher engagement. The algorithm will
reward you for that, by the way, because people stop scrolling when they want to see what’s
going on. And we as humans want to see what’s going on. When we’re seeing people’s faces.
Remember, we want to see faces, this is just the way that we are we’re curious creatures in
that way. So you’re naturally going to have more people paying attention to what you’re
posting on social media. If your face is shown they will slow down and investigate what are you
doing? What kind of expression do you have on your face? How are you feeling? Are you
happy? Are you sad? What are you doing? Talking about. And those social media platforms that
be will notice that and the algorithms will reward you, they will say hi, if you are paying
attention here at Let’s show it to more people, this has definitely been the case with my
experimental LinkedIn content for the last couple of months that I’ve been doing. And it has
mostly included my face in every post, which is so easy to do, because I actually haven’t been
on social media for years. I don’t know what to post. So what do I do, I throw up a picture, and
an excerpt from something I sent in an email. And I post it. And I’ve just been so curious about
this process. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m like this couldn’t be simpler, but I really did
want to give it a go and use every component of what the workplace branding team will do, so
that I could give you this thorough review on if I liked it or not. And if I would recommend, and I
would wholeheartedly recommend, alright, although I will soon be outsourcing the LinkedIn
posting to someone on my team very soon. And I will just be batch writing the captions,
probably once a month, or every few weeks or something like that, I know that it will all look
very cohesive and professional, because I’ve now tested this process and every quarter, we’re
generating lots more photo options. So that takes a lot of pressure off of me in delegating that
to someone else. I will say that quite looking forward to it knowing okay, this is all gonna look
at, that’s great. I just have to figure out what to say. And someone else can handle that. It also
takes the pressure off. And I know I already said this, but I want to reiterate, takes the pressure
off of trying to get every photoshoot perfect. By knowing that you’re going to have a redo in a
few months. That’s a huge sigh of relief for me and my fellow perfectionist. Well, we’ll
understand that even if you don’t identify as being a perfectionist, because you’re not perfect,
guess what? Nobody’s perfect. So every perfectionist over here is shooting for that unattainable
goal. Oh, it is so fun, isn’t it? I know I keep saying quarterly photoshoots. By the way, I want to
make this little caveat that you can schedule your for photo shoots anytime during the year,
you don’t have to do them once a quarter, I am actually going to do my second photo shoot
next week at a live event that I’m hosting in Miami with some of my clients. I wanted to have
photos for this next shoot of me teaching and presenting and workshopping in a group setting
where I’m teaching my actual clients. So since I knew I was teaching this advanced retreat that
I’m teaching to some of my high earning students, I was like, this is a great time, we should
have workplaces fly in and take photos. And actually, they don’t have to fly in because we’re in
Miami and the photographer that I use the first time was from Miami, so I’m gonna have my
same photographer again, she’s just gonna be driving over and taking photos and video for two
full days of me teaching, including one on one photos of me, in addition to the group, and then
bonus mini sessions with each of my clients, which I’m so excited to give them because we all
need more photos of our faces, remember. So we need kind of a shameless plug here for the
profitable nutritionist program and the mastermind clients in both of those programs, get
private invitations to retreats and workshops that you will never hear about if you aren’t inside
one of those two programs. This one coming up in Miami is one of those examples is called
marketing in Miami. And I am going through four different marketing funnels. And we are
building those out together in person with material I’ve never taught to before a lot of it coming
from the content marketing that we are doing this year and our new website strategy. And
those clients get to be part of that in person in Miami and they get to get their photos taken,
which is so good. All right. So what are the results been so far and what I recommend using
workplace branding, I think that this is probably pretty evident so far. But I will say yes, I’m
about four months into my 12 month contracts, but it has been phenomenal, I would absolutely
recommend it for a certain type of person. Okay, at the time I’m doing this review and
recording this podcast, the investment is 497 a month for 12 months to get started with
workplace I have no idea if their prices will go up in the future. And if they do, then it is what it
is. But that’s what the investment is right now. So that investment includes your brand
creation, like all of your brand assets, your logos, your your whole brand board, okay, your
mood board, your brand colors, all of that that’s called your brand board. So your brand board
creation for quarterly photoshoots with 1000s of edited branded photos that are going to be
edited in the aesthetic of your brand. So mine look different than other photos from a different
brand that has a different look and feel by the way, but you have those branded photos that
you retain all of the rights to along with 365 days of curated and beautifully branded social
media posts created by expert designers in your exact brand aesthetic should you also like to
use that option. So the person I would recommend this service to is a business owner that
knows they will make that $6,000 investment back in the next year by up leveling their brand
visuals. That’s the person that this is going to definitely be a great investment for. Now I sell a
$3,000 program so it was a very quick hell yes for me To invest in work play when I asked
myself this one question I said, Do I think I would sign two extra students in the next 12 months
because the visual assets are going to be up leveled and better. And that was a no brainer
decision for sure. If you’re not sure that you’re going to be making more offers by having your
visuals upgraded or be reaching more ideal clients or customers as a direct result of having
better visuals or more consistent visuals on social media, if you’re on social media, or if
something like that, isn’t a heck yes, that’s going to definitely get me out in front of more
people, and give me more clients. And I would say skip it for now. Honestly, I made well over a
million dollars without having an endless supply of beautifully branded marketing assets in my
back pocket, so I know it is not necessary, this is a nice to have not necessary. But with that
being said, Had I known about workflow branding, or something similar sooner, I would have
jumped at that opportunity to polish up my brand visuals a long time ago. And I probably would
have been marketing much more aggressively in the meantime. So to see what my photos
turned out, like, you have to go to the profitable nutritionist.com/branding Because at the time
that this episode is coming out, as I’m recording this, our new website is not up and running
yet. I’m still waiting a few weeks for the reveal on that. So you can’t see the full I was gonna
say montage, I guess it really is kind of like a montage. You can’t see the full montage of
photos yet, but I did, like I said the screenshare where I showed what the content plan looks
like what the social media feed looks like and everything that workplace created at the
profitable nutritious.com/branding If you would like to look at that. And I want to end by just
saying this if you are going to DIY your branding for now. Totally fine, I get it and it’s going to
be a great decision. Do that. As long as you remember to do it quickly. Don’t overthink it, and
show your face as much as possible. Okay, limit yourself to one to two brand colors, one to two
fonts so that it doesn’t look like that cluttered college apartment and just get it done. And get it
out there with your face as much as possible. All right, my friend. I’ll see you next week.
