How to Take Your Brand to the Next Level

You’ve been building your brand for a while now – wearing all the hats and doing all the things, but things are starting to feel slow and stagnant. It’s time to take things to the next level so your brand can keep on growing! But maybe it feels like you’ve already done everything you can to help your brand flourish. We’ve gathered five things you can start doing today to elevate your brand. 

01. Invest in Brand Strategy

The best way to identify what you can do to improve your business is by taking a step back and taking a CEO big picture look at your business. And maybe even get an outsider’s perspective. A brand strategy session is an opportunity to do just that – to be guided by a brand strategist to look at your business as a whole and assess what’s working and what’s not. Getting clarity on the gaps in your business allows you to create a plan of action to resolve them in tandem with your long-term goals. 

Investing in brand strategy may be just what you need to move your business forwards if you feel like you’re lacking direction or just taking messy action. Our past brand strategy clients report feeling refocused on their true purpose, inspired with new ideas from an outsider’s perspective, and a clear path of action to move forward. 

If investing in a professional brand strategy isn’t financially feasible right now, you can work through some strategy questions yourself. We’ve created a list of 30 questions that will help you clarify your brand strategy and messaging. Working through these questions will allow you to reflect on the core foundations of your business and might lead to just the ‘aha’ moment you needed. Click here to download the questions and get started! 

02. Ask for Help

Take a look at everything you do in your business. What could you outsource to an expert to save yourself time? By hiring team members to work alongside you, you’re allowing yourself more time to focus on what you enjoy doing (and what you’re good at). Outsourcing is essentially buying yourself more time. Then you can then spend more of your precious time on the big picture CEO vision of how to take your brand to the next level. 

When it’s time to outsource, create a list of all the things you do on a monthly and weekly basis. Group these tasks into four categories…

1. Things you’re bad at, hate doing, and that someone else could do
2. Things you don’t like doing and are good at but can outsource 
3. Things you like doing and are good at 
4. Things that only you can do 

Prioritize outsourcing the items in categories 1 and 2! By doing this exercise you’ll probably be surprised by how few things end up in category 4.   

03. Create Passive Income 

You’ve built your business this far – chances are you have developed systems that allow you to stay organized, book clients, and make your customers happy. Why not digitize these systems and teach your methods through a digital product that you can sell passively? Why not make templates? Or a course? 

Passive income allows you to increase your income without adding too much else to your to-do list. By creating something unique that appeals to a new audience, you’ll be able to reach valuable customers who can help you grow your brand. Some passive income products you could create include…

1. Artwork
2. Templates 
3. Systems 
4. Courses
5. Digital planners 

04. Invest in Brand Design 

A fresh pair of eyes and a new look for your brand might be just the push you need to take your brand to the next level. Hiring a designer doesn’t have to mean a complete visual overhaul. Sometimes it can mean subtle refinements to reach a target audience with a bit larger budget. If you have a logo you love, you may want to hire a brand designer to create a more well-defined color palette or fonts to increase consistency and brand recognition. 

Other options are to have a designer work to expand your branding design beyond just a logo. Incorporating some fun, personality-driven elements like patterns, icons, hand-drawn illustrations, and more can add tons of character to a brand. 

At Shelby Design Co, we are brand designers and brand strategists. We can help you take your brand to the next level with brand strategy, visuals, and clarified messaging. 

A few signs it might be time for a rebrand or refinement:

1. You’re attracting the wrong clients⁣
2. You’re planning to raise prices⁣
3. You’re changing or adding offerings⁣
4. You’re changing your business name⁣

Read more about the whole process of graphic design.

05. Analyze Your Website’s Effectiveness 

A professional website audit can be a great idea to identify where improvements could be made to your site based on your goals. Maybe it’s more traffic you need. Or perhaps your traffic is great but your viewers don’t inquire. Or maybe the offerings you really want to sell aren’t featured enough so people aren’t buying them. A professional website designer can help you identify the game-changing refinements that could make your website more effective. And it might be just the thing you need to take your business and brand to the next level. Apply here for a free website audit from Shelby Design Co.

Want to know more about what changes you could make to your website? Check out this blog post to learn about the perfect home page structure. 

Action Steps 

You don’t have to take your brand to the next level by yourself, we’re here to help you! If you’re wondering which of these five ideas is best for your business, get in touch. We’ll help you figure out what you can do to elevate your business! 

We can help you build a brand that’s beautiful and strategic. With our support, you’ll be able to confidently make a positive impact on the growth of your brand. Learn more about the services we offer by clicking here!