You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 189 about what people
fell. It's about what people think and also what people remember
the brand Attention gifters,
bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun whether
you have an established business or looking to start one now
you are in the right place.
This is gift to biz on rapt helping you turn your
skill into a flourishing business.
Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,
resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.
Here is your host gift biz gal Sue Mon Heights.
Hi there,
it's Sue and Thrilled that you're joining me here today.
Right off the bat I need to say if you are
not already part of the gift biz breeze Facebook group,
Oh my gosh,
what are you waiting for?
We have something super special happening right now in that group
for the holidays for you and I want you to be
a part of it,
to get all the details and to know what I'm talking
about. However you need to go over and join the breeze.
Joining is super easy.
Just go on to Facebook,
search for gift biz breeze and asked to join with it
being the holiday season and all.
I also have another thing to share.
I want to make sure you know about my newly released
free masterclass.
It's called how to turn your hobby into a business.
How do you know if this is for you?
Well, if you're starting a business right now,
you've gotten that dream but you're just not sure what steps
you should be taking.
This masterclass is for you if you're already in business,
but something just isn't clicking,
it's not bringing in the sales or it's just not performing
the way you think it should.
This masterclass is also for you to check it out.
Just go over to gift biz,
unwrapped.com forward slash masterclass I look forward to seeing you over
there and for now let's get into the show Today.
It is my pleasure to introduce you to Sal Coombs.
Sail is a branding and social media content specialist.
Wait, let me back that up.
Sal is my branding and social media content specialist.
I've told her before that I want to keep her all
to myself,
but that's not nice,
nor would that serve all of you.
Plus you've asked for direction in this area,
so I'm bringing you the best.
Salle doesn't call herself a graphic designer though because branding is
Oh so much more.
She escaped the corporate world in 2017 with the intention to
sell digital products,
so eBooks and courses.
Well, never thought she'd be designing brands and social media graphics
for clients.
This came about completely unintentionally simply by sharing her work with
her coaching group.
To her surprise,
everyone said,
I want that.
Can you do that for me?
Sail found her place in the social media space organically by
learning what she's best at and what people need.
Today. Sale has a content batching service and does custom brand
work for clients,
which is what she's doing for me.
In fact,
she's the genius behind the branding of my signature program makers,
MBA, as well as most of what you see online with
gift biz on wrapped.
It is my honor and pleasure to introduce you to Sal
coms. Sal,
welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.
Hello from Australia.
You didn't mention that line.
I didn't.
You mentioned that and I guess I should have,
so it's actually early morning for you and mid to late
afternoon for me.
Right. I know.
Isn't that crazy or like,
yeah, we're on different days actually Different days,
but it's so mind boggling how we can talk and we're
so far away from each other.
Where are you in Australia?
I mean Tasmania actually a city called Hobart,
so Tasmania is the little Island,
a little triangular Island at the bottom of Australia that is
still part of Australia.
It's just happens to be a small Island.
Got it.
And because I was in Australia visiting before you and I
even connected unfortunately,
but I know that there really are such things as Tasmanian
devils. There really are.
Yeah. I saw one in real life.
We don't have kangaroos hopping around the street,
but I do actually have an a kid.
Not in my backyard here.
Sorry. No kidding.
Yeah, That's crazy.
All right,
well we are going to dive into the content here because
I know everyone is just biting at the bit waiting to
learn all about branding and graphics and how that all could
possibly fit in and help them to present their brand better.
But before we do,
you know,
I like to start this a little bit differently and that
is by having you describe yourself through a motivational candle.
So if you were to tell us what color and what
quote would be on a candle that speaks all you,
Sal, what would it be?
Okay, so this was actually a really hard question for me
because the shades of pink that I love and there are
shades of pink that I do not love.
There's shades of yellow I love and shades of yellow I
hate. So you know,
for me to say one color is really difficult.
So here's what I came up with.
My color would be a lilac and that reflects me because
I have trouble deciding on one thing.
I get bored with one thing very easily.
So I Laila,
it's like a happy medium between a pink and a purple.
I'm not a crazy pink person.
I'm not a crazy powerful person.
So my lack is halfway kind of in.
So that's the color.
And the quote is never underestimate your strength,
never overestimate your weakness.
And that really kind of brings home to me because I
have found that it is so important to just focus on
what you're good at and not get bogged down with what
you're not so good at,
Which is kind of what you talk about in your bio
too. You know that you found your place because you found
what you were good at and then that people also needed
it. So it merged together beautifully.
Exactly. Yeah.
So I hope you liked that one.
I love it.
Okay, so,
and I've always felt that way also about you because you're
so just authentically you and gift as listeners.
This is the first time that Sal and I are actually
talking via phone or Skype as the case might be because
we've been going through emails so much.
But it was really interesting,
Sal, that we bonded so quickly.
Like you really got my brand right from the beginning,
you know,
except for just a few tweaks we had to make and
I felt so comfortable with you right off the bat.
So I think by you being uniquely who you are and
me doing the same,
that's when you really find good connections and the right people
to work with for your business.
Absolutely. I agree.
Your strength can be another experts weakness,
well, not so much weakness,
but just,
you know,
not their specialty area.
So yeah,
it is all about complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses.
Right. Perfect.
Okay, so talk to us a little bit about your backstory
and how you got into liking graphics and branding and all
that. Yeah,
sure. So I've been working for myself for about a year
now. I come from the corporate background,
which I think is a common theme actually amongst your audience.
And what were you doing in corporate?
What was your expertise there?
I've always been in an old rounder kind of position,
like a digital strategy online marketing,
which has always been very broad.
So when I was out,
came out on my own,
I kind of really struggled to find where my specialty was
going to be because these days it's not like social media
is a niche that you really have to find your sweet
spot. So at the beginning I was very much focused on
strategy and what I wanted to do was to sell an
ebook, teaching businesses how to do social media.
But what happened was that I designed that ebook and I
shared it with my coaching group I never on was like,
Oh my gosh,
you know,
you're really good at the design stuff.
I want that.
Can you do this for me?
I mean they are a little bit interested in the April,
there were more so interested in the design side of it
and it all just happened organically from there.
And I was getting,
you know,
private messages saying,
can you put together a quote for this,
for this?
And it all just fell into place.
And so now today,
my focus is on both media,
content creation and brand design.
But as I said at the beginning,
I don't refer to myself as a graphic designer because I
think branding is so much more,
there's definitely a heap of strategy involved.
There is,
and I have to say before you and I started talking,
you know,
I mean,
yeah, I had a logo for my first business,
the ribbon print company.
I have a logo for the podcast,
but I never really had any type of imagery or branding
apart from colors.
You know,
I pretty much claimed my colors,
but I really didn't have,
I mean I felt like I had a brand because I
had a name,
I had a font I was using and I had a
color, but I was nowhere compared to where we are now.
So talk a little bit about what branding encompasses and when
you're saying branding,
what that really means.
Yeah, sure.
Well, branding is so much more than a logo and encompasses
the words you use,
the colors,
the fonts,
the imagery,
and photography,
icons, patterns.
It's everything.
So it's not just about what people see,
it's about what people fell.
It's about what people think and also what people remember of
a brand.
So when I was working with you,
we started with at the beginning of what we are actually
trying to achieve.
That was to reflect the strategy and what you teach in
your course.
The maker's MBA,
right. We actually started backwards I guess because we started with
maker's MBA and then I'm like,
okay, if this is the case,
then what do we do with the rest of the brand?
So we I think started backwards,
but that's okay.
We're all good now.
Thanks to you.
Well, reverse engineering is definitely a strategy and you wanted to
reflect like the phases that you teach in your course,
which is plant.
You're going to have to refresh my memory here.
Plant, grow,
bloom and blossom.
Exactly. Yeah.
And mind you,
and I think this might be important for the conversation.
I had already changed the graphics on that program twice.
Nothing. I just wasn't landing.
What really felt good to me and what I really felt
proud to present out to the market.
Right. Okay.
I don't know why,
but I didn't.
So anyway,
so carry on.
Okay, so we're talking about branding and why it's important,
but it's just not,
you have font,
you have colors,
you have images,
you have photos because many people have all of those,
but they still really don't have a cohesive brand.
Yes. And that's a very important word,
cohesive. So what you want to achieve with your burning is
that if you could show someone five pieces of your branding
without even having your name attached to it,
they would be able to recognize that it belongs to you.
So that happens to me all of the time when I
do posts and maybe I don't have my name on it,
I get people saying,
Oh, I can already tell that you design that because my
style. So that is definitely one thing that you want to
achieve with cohesiveness in your branding.
So you represent a unique visual out to the market so
you don't look like just like everybody else.
Right? Yes.
But everything that you do put out to the market should
be consistent.
You know,
once we figured out the branding,
we've gone as far as making sure that the Facebook pages,
Instagram, everything looks similar.
So everything used that word again,
cohesive. Yeah.
Everything kind of matches throughout.
It doesn't mean it doesn't change and get tweaked and look
a little different.
And certainly sizing is different,
but the imagery and all of that is the same.
Yes. That's exactly what you,
what you want to achieve.
So it's a seamless experience from one platform to another.
Okay. And I think that's really important too.
You know,
I've heard somewhere,
and we've talked about this a little bit before on this
show, that if you look totally different in different places,
you confuse your customer first off.
But then there's also an unconscious question about trust.
Because if you're expecting imagery in a certain feel,
if you're expecting one site and you see something and you
kinda feel good about it and you want to know more
about them and you go to another site and it looks
completely different,
then there's that doubt of like,
wait a minute,
what's this all about?
Are they even professional?
Who are they?
Are they this one imagery and feel or are they the
second imagery and feel so it starts to bring up doubt
when you're cohesive with your branding and your colors and everything
you're developing and solidifying trust with your customer even on a
subconscious level.
Yeah, definitely.
You want to avoid that feeling of disconnect.
Disconnect. Yeah.
That being said,
you don't have to be really straight because for example,
you asked me the other day that you wanted to tweak
some of your posts to reflect autumn.
Now just because awesome isn't in your brand colors.
That doesn't mean that you can't use awesome colors.
It's a fine balance between portraying your brand and portraying the
mood and message of what you're putting out there.
So if your brand happens to be pink and green,
that doesn't mean that if you want to do something that's
awesome themes that you can't bring orange in,
that's totally fine.
And that's not what we're talking about by disconnect.
Right. But we still had some of the same elements that
are consistent throughout my brand,
even with the orange colors there.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Okay.
So let's back this up then.
So this is kind of an umbrella picture of what a
brand is about and the importance of a brand.
Would you add anything else before we start diving in deeper
about how you would start figuring out your brand?
So anything other on the top line that you think we
should talk about?
I just want to emphasize the importance rather than asking what
do I want my audience to see?
You want to ask,
what do I want my audience to fail?
What do I want my audience to think and what do
I want my to remember?
So there are three very important questions that you should prioritize
over what do I want them to see?
Okay, so think,
feel and remember.
Yes, exactly.
So I'm thinking what you would do is start with that,
define what that should be,
and then you get into starting to build a brand.
So let's say we have someone who's brand new here listening.
They're just starting their company.
They've done all the preliminary things that I tell them to
do before you start building your brain,
because there's a lot of other things to do first,
but how does one start?
What's the first step for building a brand?
You've got your company name,
let's say,
but what about colors?
Is that the first thing you start with this?
Figuring out your colors?
Yes. I often start with colors and I've often start with
the question,
what are five words that reflect your brand's personality?
And also there's three questions that I just mentioned,
the deal,
think and remember,
that's what I would also start with.
Okay, so you write those down and you have all of
that figured out.
Then how do you figure out what colors you would use
to match this?
Now, obviously if you have a very light feminine brand,
let's say you're not going to be using dark Brown or
something. I mean that's pretty obvious,
but how about with all the colors that you have?
Do you start choosing colors?
You just like yourself?
Kendall absolutely does a lot of experimentation involved and I would
often start with gathering some inspiration.
So gathering other graphics and branding that you love and then
using that as inspiration,
not imitation of course.
And yeah,
so the initial phase is really just about experimenting that it
has to be a fine balance between,
okay, what reflects my personality and what I like as the
brand owner combined with what's actually going to appeal to your
target audience.
So just because my favorite color may be pink,
that may not appeal to my target audience if I'm targeting
men. That being said,
I've seen plenty of men use a hot pink burn color
to appeal to a women.
So it works both ways.
Right? But I would say based on just my experience,
what we talked about just a short time ago is you
still have to really like the colors that you're gonna be
using because you're going to see them a lot and they
have to resonate with you in some way.
Yeah, absolutely.
You've got to love your brand.
Like if you're going to do something creative and put it
on show,
you've got to own it and you've got to be proud
of it and love it.
Otherwise, the energy for it is just going to fizzle out.
It's so true.
Absolutely. You have to love it Because I think it comes
across in the way you speak,
the way you represent your brand,
everything. If you don't love it,
so, okay,
so how many colors should you have?
What's too little and what's too many?
Okay. I love this question and I have a annoying for
you. Don't you hide out when someone says those?
No right or wrong answer here.
However, I am going to give you a guideline.
So they're really,
I recommend choosing one or two primary colors and then a
handful that may be three or four secondary colors that you
can mix in with your primary colors.
So one or two primary and then three or four secondary
colors. Okay,
but this does not mean that you put all these in
your logo.
This means that you're using them for graphics throughout all your
sites, right?
Yes, exactly.
It's very rare that you probably just use one color alone
Unless you're black and white,
I guess.
Yeah, and another step that you want to take when designing
your brine is to list all of the brand touch points
where you're going to be having your brand on show.
So are your business cards,
your website,
your social media platforms,
any merchandise.
If you have a physical store,
the window signage,
everything you want to list all the brand touch points where
someone is going to see your brand,
Why is that important?
So you can design for it.
By sizing you mean Not so much background.
You want to know,
okay, well it's the logo or is the branding going to
be featured on a busy background or a white background.
All of those things matter.
What you need in your branding is flexibility and the versatility
because sometimes your logo and your branding may be on a
white background or it may be on a busy photo background,
so you need different formats and versions of your brand assets
to be able to work in with different backgrounds and various
environments in which your brand is placed.
Completely understand that and give biz listeners if you want,
you could go over to my Instagram account and see it
in play.
Gift biz on wrapped and sale.
Yours too.
Yeah, absolutely.
And since we're talking about that,
we're going to get back to all of your touch points
later in terms of where people can contact you,
but what's the name of your Instagram account?
South Francis sell Francis on Instagram.
So at sale Francis.
So go take a look at that.
And I think there is also where you're going to start
seeing when sales talking about how people can just look at
an image that she has and they know her tours.
I totally do Sal.
When I open up my phone and I'm starting to go
to Instagram,
I can always tell which ones are yours right away.
Yes. Back on the colors.
I just wanted to talk about there really no had strict
rules here because you can not a brand such as Coca
Cola or Cadbury chocolate or Starbucks,
they have,
you know,
you think of one color for them.
Coca-Cola's red,
Starbucks, green Cadbury is per home.
However you have other brands such as Google and eBay,
Brits, Instagram that have multiple colors combined into them and they
both work.
So I just wanted to emphasize that,
that there are no strict rules when it comes to color,
But I think there are strict rules.
Once you decide on colors,
you want to make sure that color is consistent everywhere it
goes, which gets to hex codes.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay. Share with everybody just in case people don't know.
I want to make sure we,
everyone gets to stay on the same page as we're going
through here.
What are hex codes?
How would you find your hex codes,
et cetera?
Okay. The non technical answer here is a hex code is
a six alpha numeric code that defines exactly what color it
is. There are 50,000
shades of paint.
There are 50,000
shades of yellow.
So what the hex code does,
it actually stands for red,
red, green,
green, blue,
blue, RGB,
which when you're designing for the internet,
we work in RGB.
As I said,
there's 50,000
shades of paint.
So a hex code is going to define exactly what shade
of pink So that when you are designing for one thing
and then you go to design for something else,
as long as your colors are the right hex code,
then you're going to get the same shade of pink.
Yes, exactly.
So I know that you can go online and you can
look on a monitor and choose hex codes,
but is that the best way to do it?
Yeah. So if you're at the beginning phase of designing your
brand and you kind of have an idea of what colors
you want to use,
I just say you want to use like a kind of
a mango type orange color.
What I would actually do is just Google mango,
Pantone hex codes,
and then you're going to come up with a heap of
images showing mango colors and they're going to have the hex
codes. That being said,
I wouldn't copy the hex code exactly.
What I would do is I would tweak it slightly so
that you've got that color mango that you're after,
but you've just tweaked it slightly.
Got it.
Okay, so you mentioned Pantone here and I know Pantone very
well because that in the printing field where I come out
of, could you then just go to let's say a paint
shop, get some paint chips and get a feel for kind
of the Pantone color that you like and then bring it
into the computer and then tweak it?
Yeah, absolutely.
You could do that.
What I would actually do is I would take a photo
of it,
take a photo of the sample,
and then there is a tool called color dealer that is
a browser extension and allows you to kind of hold the
Joppa. Yeah,
the dropper and it brings the code.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and it's called color Zilla.
Z. I.
L. L.
A. Yes,
that's right.
Color's Ella and I'll put that you guys in the show
notes for you.
Okay, so now we have a business name.
We've gotten our colors,
a couple of the colors we're going to be using for
a logo,
and then we've got our three to five secondary colors.
I don't know what we're going to do with those yet
because we haven't gotten there,
but we've got all our colors and we have our hex
codes, so we know specifically what tones and we like how
they all fit together.
I mean,
I think that's important too,
because you don't want to have light lime light,
lemon light orange and deep,
deep purple grape.
I'm thinking you want them to kind of all work together.
Yeah, exactly.
That really just does take experimentation And I guess you could
ask opinions from other people,
but let's say,
okay, we've gotten to the point where we've got all the
colors. Then what do you do next in terms of making
it a real brand?
Okay. I would next probably look at funds and I would
choose probably two or three funds that are going to work.
Again, you want to achieve this versatility and flexibility so that
you have a set of funds that you can rely on
for your wording and language that you use and what you
want to achieve is a font hierarchy so that for when
you're using bold,
strong words that you want to stand out.
Do you use this font when you're doing a softer quote,
you use this font and what you want to do is
kind of try and match your funds with the mood of
your message,
so if you're doing a cheeky little quote posts,
then you're going to want a font that kind of portrays
that cheekiness as well.
Got it.
And then you always stick with those fonts?
Yes. Again,
say for the most part as a rule with exceptions.
Yes, exactly.
Yes. You definitely want to have a set of fonts that
you use consistently that achieved that hierarchy of,
right. This is the font we use for bold and strong
words. This is the font that we use for body texts,
like smaller details and this is the font that we use
for quotes.
Okay, perfect.
Now with me,
the next thing that we did was we started figuring out
what imagery,
I don't know,
do you call my flower or an icon or a brand
symbol? I don't know if you know what the word would
be. Icon or symbol?
Yes, I would use that.
Probably an icon.
Okay. Does everybody need something like that?
No, not necessarily.
Not necessarily.
It comes down to what we were trying to achieve and
we were trying to reflect the plant phases that you teach
in maker's MBA,
but at the same time we didn't want to make brand
look like a gardening business or a flower shop,
so it was important to kind of bring the flower in
as a representation of those phases,
but not too strong.
Yeah, and that's the problem I had with my prior two
rounds of branding is they just look too like I was
selling garden flowers or something.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Versus phases like it looks like now.
Yeah. Okay.
So I think for the sake of conversation,
so you might have an icon that you would continue to
use or you might not.
Yes, it kind of depends and I would guess also it
will depend on your logo.
If you have a busy logo that already has a graphic
attached to it,
you don't need to add more to the puzzle.
Yeah, exactly.
Some logos are just texts,
so it might be a name in a particular font.
Some logos have a graphic or an icon.
Those cases.
Some logos may just be a graphic.
There's all kinds of scenarios,
but again it comes down to,
you know,
what are you trying to reflect?
A question comes up to me that I really never thought
of until we've been talking about this.
One of the things that I didn't like when I continued
to try and brand gift biz on wrapped is what I
kept hearing and seeing in terms of samples coming back to
me, not from UCL but from other people were like bows
and a gift or like that type of thing.
And that wasn't what I was trying to do because it's
the gifting industry,
but I'm not talking about necessarily a gift.
So now the flower does have grounding because it's part of
my signature program and we agreed that on the gift biz
unwrapped portion,
we're not going to show everything the plant grow bloom like
all of the icons because people wouldn't even understand that.
So we just pulled one icon that's the one that represents
gift biz,
but it's a flower,
which in a little bit disconnects from gift biz.
But I'm getting to the point where people really do know
those images are mine,
just like you're talking about before.
So is it okay to have an image that's separate really
from your name like we're doing?
Absolutely. Most definitely.
In fact,
I would actually recommend that because what you want to achieve
is to have something that is memorable so that when your
audience sees a yellow flower as they're going about their day,
they may not even be on social media.
They're going to think immediately of you.
So that is a strategy to be top of mind,
you know,
get in your audience's head.
I know that if I was at a market and I
saw beautiful yellow flowers,
I would probably take a photo of them and then tag
you. Oh,
yay. I like that.
You can do that anytime you want.
Yes. But when it comes to the imagery,
if you guys look and see my flower,
it's still very simple,
right? Well,
it's got some shading there,
but in terms of the image,
it's actually very simple.
Okay. Is that intentional?
Yes. You always want to have clean,
uncluttered imagery.
And also let's talk about consistency.
Again, it's not just a white or black flower.
We incorporated both colors so that the white,
yellow and black all tie in together and we kind of
keep that style consistent through across all of your touch points
and then we can play off that flower too.
Like sometimes it's lighter yellow.
Exactly. Yes.
You know,
coming in like from the background as if it's like shaded
out or something.
Yes. Different angles.
Yeah. Sometimes we use it once,
sometimes we create a cluster of flowers.
So it really has that versatility,
but it's still consistent.
Wonderful. Okay.
So then as our listeners are building up their brand,
so then they can decide,
am I going to have a symbol or icon,
am I not?
And so they make that selection,
so now they've got,
I'm thinking all the elements that they need and they understand
that you need to have a similar presence across different platforms.
Now what do you do with all of this?
What do you even post on social media and how does
all that work?
Sure. In a professional way,
not haphazard like most of us have done for so,
so long.
Okay. So one thing we haven't touched on yet is actually
what tool or platform you would use to design your brand
and create all your graphics and some of your audience may
find it interesting,
but I am actually team CAMBA.
I'm sure most people know what Canberra is.
That Canberra is like the most simplest version of Photoshop that
you can possibly use.
Yes, it does have some limitations,
but I think the simplicity of it far outweighs those limitations.
So I do all of my branding,
all of my graphics,
everything in Canberra.
So I would create my color palette,
create my front set,
the icons,
the logo,
everything is all set up in Canberra And what you did,
and I didn't know you could do this now I'm a
big Photoshop girl because I was doing graphics way before Canva
was even around and I didn't really gravitate to it fully
until you and I started working together.
But everything that you've made for me is now in Canva
and I absolutely love the platform.
So what you did is you separated out like all my
brand colors are sitting there,
right? And you've separated out templates that are right there for
me to access anytime or my virtual assistant or whoever we
have working in the account can go in there and grab
whatever they need.
It's all sitting in one place.
Yes, you just said a key word there.
So, and that is templates.
So once you do have all your brand elements together,
the next step would be creating templates,
incorporating those elements.
And we come back to that point of in the beginning
listing out all your brand touchpoints.
So now you can create templates for all of those touch
points. So you want templates for your blog post templates for
your social media banners,
templates for your social media posts,
templates for your website.
So yes,
templates are definitely the next step after you have your brand
elements all together.
Perfect. And all of the templates then are stored there.
And the great thing about Canva too is that you don't
have to go figure out what size those templates should be.
They already have everything sized right inside the Canva app.
That is correct,
yes. I don't think I Googled in like the last year
or so.
What is the size for a Facebook cover or,
yeah, it's all sitting there for you.
Beautiful. And I think it's worth mentioning here that a Facebook
post sizing is different than Instagram is different than Pinterest,
et cetera.
Even if you're looking at putting the same message and virtually
the same imagery,
you still want to have it sized for each platform onto
itself. Oh yes,
definitely. And that's the additional bonus of Canberra is that you
can do that with the press of a button.
You do need to have the CAMBA for business version to
be able to duplicate and resize your graphics.
It's a small price to pay for such a huge time
saving benefit of having that flexibility.
Absolutely. Yeah,
for sure.
Okay, so,
Oh, the other thing I just want to make mention to
people who have not been familiar with Canva,
and you're hearing this for the first time.
It is available on mobile and desktop also,
so you've got both play no matter where you want to
go. So it really is the perfect solution.
I'm loving it more and more and I'm being really bad
because I can just spend a whole lot of time there
when I should be doing something a little more challenging because
just I want to go in there and play around,
you know,
I just showed and I need to be doing some other
things. It is a lot of fun and I encourage all
of you to go in and look at it.
It's really,
really well worth it.
And they've got ready-made templates too that you can use.
Yeah, absolutely.
What do you think of those?
They're ready.
My templates are a great start.
However, I've seen a couple of clients struggle with adapting the
templates to what their message is.
Oh, you can sway away from your branding.
That I think is what you're saying if you're not careful.
Yeah, exactly.
But I think that would all be lost without the templates.
They are a great start,
but my biggest recommendation with Canva is to just practice and
experiment. Any tool that you use in your business,
it takes a little bit of time to get used to.
So yeah,
just setting aside a couple of hours for yourself to just
play in CAMBA,
you know,
without any pressure of having to have a graphic out in
10 minutes,
just have fun and play with it.
I'm sure they have tutorial videos if not on YouTube.
I'm sure there are tutorials of how to use canvas.
Yeah, exactly.
So how many templates,
let's say for a starter business,
how many templates should they create just to get started to
have a presence online?
Okay. If we're talking about just online and digital platforms,
I would probably say around five to 10 so you want
templates for your social media posts,
you want templates for your social media cover banners,
and then any website graphics that you have.
Every business is different depending on those touch points.
But I think kind of five to 10 is a good
starting point.
Okay. And could some of the template versions be just changes
in the color changes in maybe a border or how do
we make the different templates look different yet stay within brand?
Yeah, so the templates can be different.
And again,
it comes down to thinking about,
okay, where is this graphic actually going to be placed?
Like what environment is it going to be placed?
Is it going to be on a white background?
Is it going to be in the feed where it's,
you know,
amongst a heap of photos.
And this is relevant through when we were designing your brand,
we had to consider that your logo and thumbnail was going
to be on the podcast,
on the Apple podcast feed.
Right. So we had to design for that,
which it already has a border around it.
When you upload your thumbnail to Apple iTunes,
it automatically places a faint border around it,
I believe.
So it wouldn't have made sense for us to have a
border on that graphic.
So you really need to see the big picture of where
each graphic is going to be placed and designed for that
environment. Perfect.
Wonderful. Wonderful.
Okay. So I want to just summarize where we are up
to this point because I think from start to finish,
this gets us to all of the elements of the brand.
You're going to,
correct me if I'm wrong.
Okay. This is a little test Sal,
so jump in any time if you need to.
The first thing is to just think from the audience's perspective
what vibe,
that's the word I like to use with connecting with a
brand. What vibe are you trying to portray?
So you want to think of five words that give your
brand personality and then you also want to say how will
this make your customer think,
feel and remember.
So that's number one.
Number two then is colors one to two primary colors,
three to five secondary colors.
Make sure to get your hex codes,
make sure they compliment each other.
I guess I would say they'll,
they'll end up going together.
So you do all that.
Then you also look at your fonts and your fonts are
going to be two to three styles and you'll use them
for bold words,
lighter words.
So whichever font you,
you keep them consistent when you're actually putting the verbiage down.
And I think I need to slip in a little bit
before that,
maybe at the very top,
what are all the touch points of where all of this
needs to land.
Then after you've got all of that,
then you do your five to 10 templates and you have
at least the visual aspect and all the elements of your
brand then ready to go.
Is that right?
How I do,
You did brilliantly.
One thing I will just touch on is that when you
are doing your templates and that your placing your text and
your fonts over your brand colors,
you want to make sure that there is a high contrast
between the font and the background.
Otherwise the text gets lost.
So for example,
sometimes white text on pale yellows can be very hard to
read. So as a general rule,
having dark fonts are going to stand out on light backgrounds
and of course light fonts are gonna stand out on dark
backgrounds. Perfect.
Okay, so moving on because we have to,
and I'm not going to let you go sell without talking
about this because I think it's so important.
Some of your genius is in the Holy Bible and that's
still available,
isn't it?
The Holy Bible is still out there.
The Holy Bible is still available,
however, that it has a different name.
So last year I released the social media Holy Bible that
was old donut themed and I ended up changing the name
because donuts just weren't resonating with me.
It was great in that people loved the donut graphic.
However, it just,
it wasn't me.
So that comes back to the point of,
you know,
if you're going to do something creative,
you have to own it and you have to love it
and feel really proud and comfortable with it.
So yes,
the resource is still available.
However, it has a different brand name now,
and that is the snackable content guide.
I didn't know that they were one in the same,
actually. I thought the Snapple guide was a second freebie,
but that makes sense.
And Oh my gosh,
you guys,
I've had a chance to see actually both of them.
And if you want to have some serious content delivered and
such valuable advice,
you absolutely have to go and grab the guide.
Tell us where they would go to get that since we're
talking about that right now.
So Yeah,
so they can find that on my website,
which is South francis.com
Could not be easier with that.
Okay. And what's in the guide?
Do a little pitch,
tell everybody why they want to go and they want to
get it immediately.
Yeah. Shaw.
Okay. So the snacker will contact guide has over 100 social
media post ideas with actual visual examples.
So I'm really focusing on this concept of snapper content,
which is you know,
those small quick,
easy to digest graphics that stand out on social media and
immediately trigger engagement.
So the guide runs you through kind of 10 categories of
these posts where you know,
a hundred specific post ideas of topics.
And I think the most valuable thing in the guide that
really helps is the visual examples.
So it's jam packed with visuals.
It is jam packed.
Jam packed for sure.
Love it.
Yes, absolutely.
If there is one freebie of all the podcasts we've done
that you absolutely want to be grabbing,
it's this one for sure.
Hands down.
You've done a fabulous job with Excel.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
So let's give a message from you to anyone who's just
starting out.
Just reinforcing why going through and doing all of this is
so important.
All the things that we've talked about with Browning I believe
are most important for staying top of mind with your audience.
So the consistency,
you want to be easily recognized when people are scrolling on
social media,
you kind of,
the goal is to get in their head all the time.
So when they see things as they're going about their day,
they're reminded of you because that's what your branding has achieved.
Perfect. I love the goal is to get in their head.
I'm writing that down.
That's perfect.
We may need to use that as a quote.
Just apply and you can attribute it to you.
How about that?
And I can create it for you.
I know.
So give his listeners,
you'll be seeing that on my Instagram page at some point
here. Oh my gosh,
Sal, I am so,
so happy that you agreed to come on and you have
given us such valuable information.
I know for sure just in talking to several of our
listeners here that this is exactly what they need at exactly
this time.
So it's so perfect and you've been so wonderful.
Now what I'd like to do is reverse this on you
and allow you to dare to dream.
I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.
It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.
So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable
Heights that you would wish to obtain.
Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.
What is inside your box?
Okay. Tough question,
but a good question.
I don't know exactly what the business nodal would be,
but it would be something along the lines of learning and
creating at the same time.
So if I could spend my days achieving both of those
things, learning and creating,
that would be my ideal world.
So I have this kind of vision of perhaps my day
would be spent listening to inspiring influential business women talk about
their journey and how they got to where they are and
then me creating all those sound bites and golden nuggets into
visual graphics.
That would be my ideal out.
I love it.
Oh my gosh.
And that's exactly the business that you have morphed into,
right? Yeah.
Because you're saying that you just left corporate pretty much a
short time ago and thought you were going to do one
thing and now you've kind of changed the landscape based on
the reactions that you're getting.
I mean,
it's kind of brand new for you to be doing this,
but it's exactly what you just described.
I mean,
I just love this concept of taking soundbites and just one
sentence kind of lines from inspiring words and then turning them
into a visual graphic that then just instantly resonates with the
audience. Like,
you know when you just say a sentence or a quote
or a line and you just go,
ah, yes.
And that applies to so many different areas of your life,
your personal life,
your business and people just,
yeah, get it.
They're getting it,
they share it,
they comment on it and that's exactly what you want is
all that engagement.
Exactly, yes.
So you get to listen to everything and then also work
at the same time.
Yeah, that sounds pretty much the best of both worlds if
you ask me.
Learning and creating.
Wonderful. Yes.
Okay, so Sal francis.com
is the website.
You know there'll be a show notes page,
gift biz listeners,
so you'll be able to also see all the links to
Facebook, Instagram,
anywhere you want to see.
Sal, is there one place in particular besides your website,
Sal, that you would suggest they go just to see a
demonstration of the different templates and the different ways you can
make your font bold and not bold and the snackable and
all of that?
Where would you send them for that?
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love for people to come and visit me on
Instagram. My Instagram handle is South answers and come leave me
a little yellow flower or a yellow heart so that I
know that you came from Sue's podcast.
I was going to say,
leave me a yellow emoji,
but they're all yellow,
so leave me a yellow or yellow flower,
so I know.
Perfect. I love that.
I'm going to send you a bunch of hearts as I
always do.
Yes, I appreciate all the way across on the other side
of the world,
us being able to coordinate this and I know on behalf
of all my listeners,
we've gotten so much out of this.
Thank you Sal.
Thank you for having me and As an additional holiday gift
to you.
If you've been listening to the sponsor of this podcast,
you know that we promote custom ribbon printing.
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to learn more about your very special holiday offer.
This promotion is only available through November 30th,
2018 if you're listening right as this show goes live.
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That's a wrap wrap For today.
Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you
next week on the gift biz unwrapped podcast.