Changing My Brand.

This has been a super difficult thing for me to do over the last few months. When I was looking at target audience and engagement numbers, I realized there was a need for change, coupled with the fact that no mainstream (outside the plus community) knew what “SSBBW” means, I couldn’t put it off any longer. Taking that plunge to rebrand after years and years, has been the hardest business decision I have had to make.

I have wrestled for months trying to find the “perfect” name that encapsulates who I am and what it is I am trying to do, which is hard, because I do a lot of things. The stress of it all, I was stuck in the mud, unable to move forward, work on a single thing and literally had to step away from working on it all together. Neglecting my social media and audience interaction almost completely. If I couldn’t find the perfect name I just couldn’t move.

This actually caused me a bit of depression and anxiety over not being perfect and the thing about it is, in everything in my life, I know I am not perfect I accept that, learn from mistakes and move on but this, this was something else. The biggest part of having a personal brand, for me, is being as raw and authentic as humanely possible, so I began to share these behind the scenes struggles with my followers. Telling them that I was struggling and trying to remember that I don’t need to be perfect. Easier said than done but at least I was staying true to myself which is the whole purpose of having a personal brand to begin with.

When I relaunched my website and YouTube channel six months ago, I did something that was new for me, I reached out for help and advice from a small “council” of friends that I trust more than anything. I don’t ask for help often but as I started to more and more, I also found myself wanting to make sure everyone was 100% on board and agreed to everything.

This is not good business. So when choosing a new brand name I wanted to appeal, not just to my audience and marketing purposes, but also to my “council”. Anyone in business knows this just doesn’t happen, not everyone is going to be onboard or agree with your decisions, and that was also another reason I was just stuck.

I was neglecting my own intuition and gut feelings. I knew all the ideas we were all coming up with, just didn’t feel right, but through this process I ended up with a TON of back up domains ;)

I am a huge GaryVee fan and one of my friends, who turned me on to him in the first place, send me a video from Gary speaking about this very thing.

Thats when shit all changed.

See Gary spoke about people who get hung up on a brand name and forget that the name doesn’t matter. One quote that hit me was “What does Nike mean? It means nothing and look at how successful they are. It’s the content, what they are selling that makes the name”

I make the name. The name doesn’t make me. After that picking my new name, getting logos create, new website remade is happening very quickly and I couldn’t be happier. This has taught me several lessons about listening to myself, remember to be true and authentic, no matter what, to everyone at all times, and lastly, everything I have/do is what I make out of it.

So stayed tuned for the new brand relaunch happening this month. I couldn’t be more excited!