Brand Design Masters - Personal Branding, Creative Entrepreneurship, Small Business Marketing & Career Success for Designers and Content Creators

I like to say “Out of feed, out of mind” because content marketing is still very much a numbers game. The average life cycle of posts are shorter than you think so volume is still king. I myself have been developing content for 6 years now with a newsletter every 2 weeks, a video every Monday, I often go live, etc so I know how it is to sometimes come up a little dry and hit that content wall. Her...

Joining me in this episode is Jozelle Tech, CEO of The Rolling Media, with her inspiring life story of how her disability motivated her to rise up and roll into the world of brand strategy and creative entrepreneurship. We talk about: ● Dedicating a decade of her life working remotely from Manila ● Hitting rock bottom and getting up back on her feet for the reset chapter of her life ● Gaining the...

Do you think your design degree prepared you enough to survive in this creative economy? Can you confidently say that you have all the tools and knowledge you need to thrive as a creative professional? In this episode, I talk about 7 things they don’t (but really should!) teach you in design school. 1. Time Management ● They don’t teach how to manage your time working, being accountable to a sched...

Design and strategy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, strategy should be fuelling and influencing design. This is what Christine Mau outlines in her strong portfolio as Senior Director of Global Design at Kimberly Clark where she handled projects for Kleenex, Huggies, and Kotex. She currently sits as Vice President of Brand Strategy at Medline Healthcare Solutions. We discuss: ● Her career traj...

Building and maintaining a strong email list ensures that you own marketing real estate where you can engage an audience who is waiting to hear from you because they actually chose to sign up and subscribe to your content. Sharing tips on how to build and grow your email list, I talk about: ● Nurturing engagement with a warm audience part of an email list VS starting from scratch with cold marketi...

Jesse Showalter, a Full Stack Developer, sought-after mentor, and content creator, answers that question in this episode. In his view, any day that he's able to genuinely be himself, is a good day. He values integrity as a content creator and is on a mission to help every creative make an impact in the world by genuinely helping them and adding value to their lives. Jesse offers online courses and...

Networking is the key to landing your next client, project, or job. It’s the gateway to learning and professional development. Going over networking tips and strategies I wish I knew when I was starting out as a designer and creative professional, I discuss: ● Networking as an introvert ● How to use networking to grow your business and move your career development forward ● Why networking is as mu...

Joining me on this episode is someone who embodies this brand authenticity and literally walks the talk. Laura Pearman is the owner of Laura Pearman Creatives which offers brand strategy, creative direction, and brand photography. We discuss: ● How she lives as a vintage pin-up ● Adapting her services to respond to the demands of the creative economy and the pandemic situation ● How she approaches...

Does it present your brand and service well enough to get people to want to work with you? In this episode, I talk about the 7 biggest website mistakes that may very well be costing you warm leads and conversions. 1. Talking too much about yourself ● People who visit your website don’t want to know who you are, they want to know how you can solve their problem. ● State your service offering as a p...

Michael Janda is an award-winning Creative Director, agency veteran, and author. He founded Riser, his own creative agency, which boasts high profile clients such as Google, Warner Brothers, FOX, NBC, National Geographic, and Disney. We talk about: ● Having things you can be known for: the story of his thing with bobbleheads ● His career trajectory: from building a successful website that generate...

Writing is the #1 unicorn skill that will advance your career faster and make it stronger as a creative professional. I talk about: ● How so much creative work relies on writing and good communication ● My experience of finishing my first course —  Brand Strategy 101 and how that helped me realize that copywriting and the ability to capture nuances in copy is important in strategy ● Achieving mass...

In the branding space, it’s common knowledge and even canon to set up a solid market-centric brand strategy first before launching a product or service. This episode’s guest begs to differ. We discuss: ● His stepping stone into entrepreneurship as a creative at core ● Why the Amazon FBA model is the easiest to understand and how it gives creative professionals an advantage in the marketplace ● Usi...

These are the interesting questions Kathy Oneto, a renowned Business and Career Strategist, explains in today’s episode. A former colleague and a long-time partner of Verhaal Brand Design, Kathy is the Founder of Sustainable Ambition and the owner of The Agency Oneto. Passion sparks the fire, purpose keeps it burning. Learn more about these two key elements in creating a workable and a long-lastin...

While it’s true that some struggle to make ends meet, others are actually making great money. Brigette Callahan, a slide-presentation designer, turned her expertise in PowerPoint into a 6-figure business.. Brigette creates engaging slides to help speakers present with more confidence and inspire their audience. She has worked with some of the biggest names in the business like Xerox, Acura, Samsun...

Being a jack-of-all-trades has a negative connotation, but not in content creation. Do you want to be visible all over the digital world? Amy Woods, founder of Content 10x, will make your brands stand out on different social media platforms from Facebook posts, to YouTube videos, to Spotify podcasts, and more. An expert in content repurposing, she shares her tips on how to maximize the returns of...

The design industry is always changing and it’s changing fast! Businesses should be resilient with technology and creative people do just that. Joining me in this episode is an exceptionally talented designer with over 10 years of experience under his belt at just 26 years old.  Will Paterson, an expert hand-lettering artist and social media influencer who specializes in Logotype design, talks abo...

Oliver Duffy Lee, a copywriter slash salesman turned Account Director for superbrands like Volvo and Porsche, answers that question in today’s podcast. He runs a program called “Launch Pad”, a 10-week course with one mission: to help struggling start-up agencies scale-up sales from under £10,000 to £20,000 per month in monthly recurring revenues. We talk about: • Deciding what you want to sell and...

This episode's guest loves questions! Michele Ronsen, founder of Curiosity Tank, explains in detail how to understand your brand’s audience through really simple yet very effective probing techniques. While there is no substitute for firsthand data, according to Michele, secondary research can reveal a lot of information about your customers as well, without having to personally ask them. Listen a...

By being separated from each other, losing access to our places of work, and watching our networks shrink, we do not have the kind of feedback and input to our decision-making that we used to. This lack of confidence then becomes the biggest barrier for people to move their businesses, personal lives, and careers forward.   In today’s special episode, I talk about 10 ways to build confidence. Towa...

Anne LaFollette, a former colleague from one of the companies I used to work at, is now a (late)blooming surface pattern designer and the founder and CEO of AnneLaFolletteArt. In this episode, she opens up a bottle of old but gold wine-quality wisdom coupled with a fabulous gallery of new influences from a fellow creative entrepreneur in the industry. We talk about: • Why you don’t need to be 10 s...

Radio.co and Podcast.co offer full-service management tools for broadcasters and podcasters. Radio.co provides easy to use cloud-based packages while Podcast.co includes a hosting platform and agency arm that supports end to end production services. It currently has studios in Manchester and London in the UK and New York City in the United States. MatchMaker.fm is his most recent brainchild that i...

In this episode, I speak with Zach Hesterberg; a Sales Process Consultant who helps successful, owner-operated businesses increase profits while decreasing overwhelm. The pioneer of the “Lever Pulling Method” boasts of an $100k+ increase in revenue in as little as 8 weeks. Zach is a good friend and colleague who I’ve used as a Facebook ads expert partner working for some of my clients at Verhaal B...

In this episode, I’m joined by one of the leading pioneers of building the human cloud. Matthew is the Co-Founder and CEO of Venture L, a freelancer-focused platform that offers them efficient business solutions. He is also co-author of the HarperCollins-published book The Human Cloud which takes a  look at how changemakers use AI and the freelance economy to transform work.  During his previous s...

Joining me on the podcast today is Stephen Houraghan of the Brand Master Academy. He helps designers and brand builders learn the art of brand strategy to enhance their career all while better helping the people they serve. The Brand Strategist and Brand Strategy Educator shares his own journey of getting started with content creation, being comfortable with the discomfort of not really doing well...

Today on the podcast, I speak with one of the most decorated pillars of brand strategy, Marty Neumeier. Marty is a bestselling author, designer, and sought-after brand consultant best known for his books: The Brand Gap (2003) , Zag (2006) ,  The Designful Company (2008) , Metaskills (2012) , The 46 Rules of Genius (2014) , and The Brand Flip (2015) which served as the much-awaited sequel to The Br...