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Small Business Bestie
Entrepreneurship is hard, and sometimes we could use a friend to walk a mile in our shoes. Small Business Bestie is here to provide that friendship, support, and inspiration that small business owners need from time to time.
Small Business Bestie
Ep 48: Confessions of a Graphic Designer: Lizzy Wolfe tells all
Graphic designer Lizzy Wolfe shares practical strategies for creating professional branding on a small business budget, emphasizing the importance of consistency and thoughtful customization.
• Come to designers with your mission statement and brand strategy already prepared to reduce costs
• Balance your personal brand with your business brand, especially important as your company grows
• Customize Canva templates by changing colors and fonts to match your brand for a cohesive look
• Create a brand kit in Canva Pro to store your logos, colors, fonts, and custom templates
• Consider Squarespace or Wix for small business websites instead of WordPress or Canva
• Consistency across all platforms is the key marker of professional branding
• Invest marketing dollars in foundational brand elements, email marketing, and social ads with clear calls to action
• Marketing budgets can include time investment through consistent organic content creation
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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Small Business. Bestie, I'm Michelle, your host, and today I'm talking with a Louisville resident and I'm super excited to kind of expand our reach a little bit over into our sister city, and also because Lizzie and I connected really organically and I just instantly felt drawn to her. She's very approachable and very knowledgeable and I'm excited for all of the wisdom that she's going to share with us. So today's guest is Lizzie Wolfe with Big Bad Wolf Creative. And Lizzie, take just a second to introduce yourself and kind of tell us about what you do, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I am a graphic designer and I mostly focus in small business branding, so that can be anything from a full rebrand with, like the logos, the colors, typography, all the way down to implementing a brand. So sometimes small businesses have existing brands but they just need help with, like, a campaign or marketing materials, and we can do that too.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome. So, like all the way from full service branding to like a one-off, a la carte kind of thing Yep, absolutely, that's awesome. So I know that before we started recording, we were kind of talking about like ways that you can bring the most value to our listeners, because as small business owners, one of the things that we struggle with, especially in the beginning, is trying to figure out what is my brand, how do I create my brand and how do I do all of that really professionally that really captures who I am, and without a whole lot of money behind me, Because when we're starting out, a lot of times we just don't have it.
Speaker 2:So I know you've got some tips and tricks for us in that arena and I would love for you to share that with us, yeah, so I'd say, first of all, if you come to a designer with an existing idea or you have some of the research to back it up like if you already have your mission statement, your vision statement, what you want your business to be, all of those things already pulled together and kind of present that in a way that that cuts back on a lot of time that a designer has to spend on a brand and therefore it would be cheaper cost-wise. So there are definitely things that you want a designer to do. Like you, you want a good logo and you know, and if it's good, you want it will stick around longer. So it's it's kind of an investment in that sense. But there are still things that you can do on the back end to kind of take, take down that cost a bit, doing some of like the strategy, pre-work and everything like that.
Speaker 1:That's such a good piece of advice. Do you have any particular like books or authors or anything like that that you could recommend for people to kind of help them flesh out those ideas of mission statement, vision, things like that? Like I know I have a couple that I always like say, oh, if you're working on this part of your business, this is who I recommend. But I'd love to know if you have some people that you just really love to follow or recommend. It's a good question.
Speaker 2:I do. I read a lot of books and I read a lot of like things online and so I think, like HubSpot has some really good resources online, oh wow, that that can help out kind of getting an idea of what your target market is like, that kind of thing, from like a business mindset standpoint. There's a book, it's 10x is easier than 2x. Yeah, that helped me a lot when I first started my business.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Changing my mindset around. You know what is productivity and that kind of thing. Yeah so if you have other recommendations, I would love to know those too.
Speaker 1:Well, just instantly, when you started talking about like coming with your like mission and vision already prepared, it just brought me back instantly to building your story brand.
Speaker 1:And when I read that book, like how much of an impact it made on me, like making that real or that connection in my head between my brand and those those silly things that we do of like your mission.
Speaker 1:You know, like I don't know about you or I don't know about anybody else, but when I started my first business, I was like I have to have a mission statement, what you know, what is that about? And I just like put together some words that was like fluff and was like, ok, there's my mission statement. But then reading building a story brand helped me to realize that that mission statement really should be kind of the platform that everything else kind of grows from you know down to your branding, and that the feeling that you're creating with your mission statement is the same feeling you're going to take into your branding, whether it be your logo design or your color scheme or things like that. When you said that, I was like, oh yeah, it took me a couple of businesses before I realized that there's like real importance in that the mission statement, your value statement and all of that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and I also think it's difficult sometimes, especially if you're a solopreneur, to differentiate between the business and the purpose of the business versus who you are as a person and what like your own personal brand and how do you marry those ideas together. So it's it's always a fine line you know with with something like I, me as a graphic designer. I have a little bit more flexibility with that and I can I can kind of bring in a little bit more of my personal brand into my business brand. But you know, if you have like a where you're selling products or brick and mortar store, that of thing, it may be a little bit of a different story. So yeah, that's also a good exercise to figuring out like what is, what is my personal brand? What parts of my personal brand do I want to incorporate into my business and how can I stay true to myself while creating this brand apart from me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely need to do that exercise too, apart from me. Yeah, I definitely need to do that exercise too. It does become difficult, I think, as solopreneurs or even, you know, like with my accounting company, there are other people involved in the company. You know, my husband is my partner and we have team members and things like that. So even in a business that has more than just you in it, it still is difficult to kind of like find that line of like how much of this business is me and how much of it is its own? You know, breathing living entity over?
Speaker 2:there. So yeah, and especially like if you start out as a solopreneur and then you build the business in a way that is representative of you, but then you want to expand, and what?
Speaker 1:does that?
Speaker 2:what does that plan look like?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's such a good point. Is that something that you can help entrepreneurs with, like fleshing out those ideas I can?
Speaker 2:I do some marketing stuff and some strategy stuff. There are probably other people out there that are more qualified to do that.
Speaker 1:Don't sell yourself short. Awesome, All right. So one of the other things that we had talked about was like you could help us identify some of the common mistakes in marketing and branding that entrepreneurs kind of get themselves into. So if they, let's say, didn't think that they had the budget to hire someone from the get-go and they've kind of thrown spaghetti against the wall, if you will, which is what a lot of us do I'm one of them guilty of that. What are some of the most common mistakes that you see us doing?
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to bash on Canva, because I actually like Canva. I think it's a great tool and it makes design a lot more accessible, which is kind of an unpopular opinion in the graphic design world. So sorry, designers, but as a small business owner, I see the value. I will say, though, that templates are a great place to start, but I think not customizing the template to your own brand is a common mistake. So you know, you go through Happy New Year, right, and you see the same same Happy New Year post from multiple different brands, and it's because they just used a Canva template and didn't really change anything about it.
Speaker 2:If you take a minute in the beginning of your brand to identify these are the fonts I want to use, these are the colors I want to stick to, and then when you take those templates, you can edit the fonts and the colors. So you get the general layout but then you just switch out the colors and things to make sure that it's cohesive to your own brand. Then that kind of customizes it. So I'd say that's definitely a big thing is the templating, making sure that you're customizing it. It doesn't take super long just to change the colors. You can do like the select all and yeah, just just change it. It's it, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's a heavy impact, so it's something that people will notice, especially if you're consistent with your branding like a better option for people who are kind of going it alone, like, are there different subscription levels or things like that that can help you use it more efficiently?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'd say definitely. I'm actually doing a Canva webinar here coming up, oh nice. But so we're talking about this. If you get like the pro version, you can create a brand kit and so you drag in your logos, you can drag in your colors, you can drag in if you have like patterns or stock assets or like that kind of thing. You can have everything together so that you can just drag and drop it in and then you can also make custom templates. So that's a service I provide sometimes to brands. They want custom templates for it and they don't want to deal with it, they just want to have them. So I make them with their brand in mind, with the things that they like put on social media, for example. Or if they have like an event that happens every so often and they need a template for an event flyer, those can also live in your brand kit, and so it just makes the drag and drop process so much easier and faster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. So I have Canva Pro and I know I'm not using it appropriately. So I definitely want to jump in that webinar and see if there are things I can pick up of like what am I don't know other types of marketing like your print marketing and things like that other digital marketing, and how much of it is like strictly for social.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean Canva has a lot of capabilities, like it can even do video so you can edit videos in there. You can do all kinds of print media and they have like a direct to mail, like they mail you your prints and stuff.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:So they do. It's kind of Canva has become full service, but then they also have the scheduler in there where you can. It's a very like all-in-one tool. But one thing that I Canva does have websites, but I've recently built a website in Canva and I will not do that again. Okay, I'd say. As far as like investing in software, definitely investing in a different website platform is worth it, okay. So I typically for small businesses, I recommend, like a Squarespace or Wix site. You can do WordPress if you want, if you are in a highly regulated field, but it's just a whole lot. There's a higher learning curve and it's harder for people to do on their own. For me specifically, my philosophy is that I want to get people to a starting point and empower them to do it on their own if they want to.
Speaker 2:So, you know, if they don't want to continue to do the edits monthly to the website or whatever, sure I can do that for you. But if you just need a site to come up and you feel confident that you can make the edits ongoing, then I want to make sure you have the tools to do that. So I don't think that WordPress is suitable for that mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I think I've definitely experienced that with just chatting with people that WordPress is a little more. It has a higher learning curve to be able to create those edits and things like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's all kinds of plugins and yeah, it's, it can be done, and it can be done really nicely. There's some really obviously very nice WordPress sites out there. There's a reason it's super popular, but for a small business I don't think it's totally necessary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as a graphic designer, when you're looking at someone else's like social or their website or something like that, what are kind of the ways that you evaluate, like their success, like, what do you look at to go? Oh, they've done really good.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it all goes back to the consistency piece. I think that branding that is done well is consistent. Have you ever seen like a brand guide? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you create a brand guide and you follow it to a T, so you're only using those colors, you're limiting yourself to those colors, you're limiting yourself to the fonts that are in there, you are using your logo appropriately, then everything looks so clean and so nice. It's subconscious to people that are like designers or look at marketing stuff all the time but it's like this is pretty well done, like this looks nice, but then, as a designer, I can look at it and be like they put thought into this and it shows. So I think that that is again, you know, making sure that you're following your brand guide in social media. You're following your brand guide on your website. If you're using templates, you're changing them to follow your brand guide so that everything is just consistent across the board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is the easiest way to make your branding look elevated.
Speaker 1:Nice. Well, that sounds like a pretty easy way, but I know with all things it sounds easy until you're trying to do it and then you're like, oh gosh, okay. So if you had to give us a little piece of advice or words of wisdom as far as like how to, how to spend our marketing dollars as small business owners, you know we all have a budget. I saw the funniest reel. It was like someone taking a razor sharp knife and they were just peeling off the thinnest possible slice of any given thing. So, like it didn't orange, it was like this, the skinniest slice of orange they could get off, and then like a slice of fish and all these different things, and it was like this is what small business owners marketing budgets look like.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh, that's so funny because, it's true, it's hard for us oftentimes to willingly just devote money. It feels like a gamble sometimes. Right, we're going to put it out. We hope we're going to get a return on investment, but we don't know if we will. So for those of us who are slicing off that slice for the first time, or maybe making a decision to get a little thicker slice, do you have any tips or advice for us on like where should we be spending those marketing dollars in 2025?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, first I just want to make a little caveat that you also could budget time, and so if you put time into creating organic content on social, you're posting five times a week, you're staying really consistent, you're engaging with other accounts, you might see a pretty high return on investment there. Yeah, so it doesn't necessarily have to be dollars, but as far as dollars go, if you're starting a business, investing in a good brand, having a good logo, having a sound brand, I think is extremely important. If you are collecting email addresses, if you have some kind of like landing page where people could sign up for a newsletter email marketing is huge right now, so getting newsletters and getting out newsletters and interacting with people in that way too. If you are selling products, you know TikTok shop, instagram shop those are becoming increasingly popular platforms for e-commerce and you can put ad dollars behind them too, within the social platforms. So paid media is always a good way to go.
Speaker 2:You know boosting posts and that kind of thing, but you have to really think about what. What are you trying to get out of it? You know, if I'm hosting an event and I I literally did this today I boosted oh, I boosted a post for for the camera webinar that I'm hosting an event, and I literally did this today. I boosted a post for the Canva webinar that I'm hosting. Then I'm saying, okay, I want people to click on this link and I want them to go to my website and sign up and that's a very tangible return on investment.
Speaker 2:But if I just have a random post I went to an event and I just boost a picture and put $50 behind it I don't know what I would really get out of that. So making sure that what you're boosting, what you're putting ad dollars behind, is an actionable thing. You want people to go to your website. You want people to buy your product. You want people to reach out because you have this offer right now, your product. You want people to reach out because you have this offer right now. So just being mindful, I think, overall, of how you're spending your ad dollars and making sure that the creative is eye-catching and engaging, and making sure that you're also spending the time to monitor the success of those campaigns.
Speaker 1:Very good advice. I feel like excuse me, I feel like, for people like me, we need, like a graphic design police force. That's just out there Like, and when something gets posted, that's just hideous. They're like hey, we saw you posted this, that was cute, but we're going to need you to take it down. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, I definitely have no design sense at all, which is why I have a blank wall behind me, because if you guys saw my interior design, you'd be like, wow, that's, that's a lot. But I'm grateful that there are designers out there who can help with things like that. And I think that what I heard from you if I could recap everything and tell me if I'm wrong is basically that your brand is important. It should reflect who your business actually is, that consistency matters to continue to reflect that brand so people know who you are, and you have to give people an idea of what you want them to do. So some sort of call to action or thing with your marketing Is that kind of summing it all up. That's perfect.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds easy. We can all do this. Awesome. Well, Lizzie, I appreciate your time today very much. I'll be sure to link out to your website and all of your socials so that our listeners can follow along on your journey and reach out. When is the webinar?
Speaker 2:January. So it's a three days of lunch and learn. I'm actually partnering with another graphic designer to do like a little teaching segment and then like a little hands-on segment. So it's January, I think the 27th through 29th or 28th through 30th. Sorry, hold on, that's okay. 28th through 30th 1130 to 130 each day online.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I hope you guys have a ton of success. I don't think this episode will drop by then, but if you have one in the future, be sure to let us know and, as always, like, use the Small Business Bestie group on Facebook to post about that, and I hope that you guys have a ton of people that come and understand how to use their existing assets in a better way and find success. Through all of that, is there anything at all that you feel like we've left out or that you want to share with everybody before we cut out?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think we covered a lot.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I think we did too Well, lizzie. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and, like I said, I'll link to all of your sites and with that we will talk to all you guys later.