Why I’m going back to personal branding
So this is kind of my announcement that I’m going back to being a personal brand instead of being a small business.
For context, about 6 months ago I changed my business from Jack Mohr Photography to Creativs Group. Now I’m changing to Jack Mohr.
I’ll answer the elephant in the room first.
Why am I going back to being a personal brand “Jack Mohr”?
All of the work I used to do was photography related, and it was my full passion and it was all I really did in terms of my business and my branding. Since about 12 months ago I have wanted to expand my business into something more than photography, I wanted to build a team and grow into a small marketing and production agency. It was a great idea, I truly loved it and still do. I’m 20, I work full time as a real estate agent, I want to hustle, I look back on my life 2 years ago and think how much that past version of me would hustle, how he would work for what he needed, partly because it was my main income source but also because the passion for commercial work was so much higher. Anyway, I went off and got a casual job at a camera store for six months which originally was going to help fund Creativs Group and that time would also give me a chance to really establish a proper plan and just figure out a lot of things in my life and the direction I want go. Anyway, none of that ended up happening, well sort of. I came up with a fantastic plan which was absolutely reasonable, but I didn’t factor in the possibility of other aspects of my life that needed more time and attention. One of the factors was I got comfortable with a consistent income stream and shift work, the second was at the time I was doing my certificate four in Photo Imaging at the Canberra Institute of Technology, which honestly sucked the life and passion out of me. As time went on the plan started change, I took an opportunity to work as a marketing and communications specialist/leasing assistant at Ashby Partners Real Estate, which was a great change because by this point I was getting reasonably sick of the industry and my motivation went straight down the drain — plus I had no time as I was working 7 days a week (which went on for 2 months).
I re-evaluated the plan, then I decided that I just needed to make a start.
So in April of this year I started to recreate my brand, I had a plan, I had funds, I created an online presence and got to work, but once again I didn’t factor in how much time I would have to spend elsewhere and how that would drain so much energy from me — mentally and physically. I kept on giving about 25% of myself to this brand. Social media didn’t really get any traction and I started to get really busy in other aspects in my life but I was also starting to take on other projects such as Thoughts Collected.
Let’s flashforward to my decision to go back to being a personal brand.
I realise that giving 25% to each project isn’t enough, especially when there are so many different projects and types of work I am doing. I saw Creativs Group as an outlet to do many different types of creative work (eg, graphic design, website design, social media management etc) and I wanted to build a team to help me do this. Realistically, the motivation, time management and energy were not there, the passion died. There was also no branding consistency, I would continue to put energy and time into Jack Mohr Photography, and try to work on Creativs Group plus everything else,
I would like to think that I have established a name for myself as a photographer in Canberra, and it’s been a while since being at the front of my client’s minds and that’s okay. But much like before I want to expand my skills and I truly believe I am capable of doing everything I wanted to with Creativs Group just as my own name brand.
My vision for my future has changed, and it only makes sense to adapt my brand and my business with it.
I’m doing such a diverse range of different projects and work, and I truly believe the best way to tie it together with my name, so everything I do works as one big portfolio/CV for my future.
What am I actually doing? What are all these projects?
As I said earlier, I’m a Real Estate Agent at Ashby Partners Real Estate, my role consists of being the marketing and communications specalist as well as leasing assistant— both things that are a massive learning curve for me. This takes a lot of my time and energy — as any full-time job would.
- I run a car community called Drivegap, we have members on all sides of the world and a very active community.
- I’m starting an online publication/podcast called Thoughts Collected, this is something that is in the very early stages of operations, but it’s something that I am really passionate about and want to push for as I love writing on a casual basis and the topics we talk about are important and a lot of people wouldn’t have these kinds of conversations in everyday chit chat.
- Then on top of this, I was trying to start Creativs Group.
So what’s actually going to be changing?
I want to tie everything together, so there is some proper branding consistency and there will be a more consistent stream of content, but also a more diverse range of content. The best way to sum up the change that a lot of my followers and clients will notice is the type of content I choose to publish. It will be more personal, currently, on my JMP social media, I am sharing some of my favourite images I’ve taken recently. I want to make the content more personal and display more of what I do on a daily basis, so I will share some of the stuff I do as a real estate agent, hopefully, more photography content, and all of the other creative projects I’m working on. Obviously, I don’t want it to become an advertising board for Ashby Partners or Drivegap or Thoughts Collected or whatever other projects I am working on, but more as a display of the things I am working on and I will do my best to have a balance.
Speaking of creative projects, I’m working on a few courses to expand my skills in different areas apart from photography, which will help me grow in the future and it’s also apart of my personal and professional development.
You may have already noticed a couple of small changes I’ve made to my online presence, for example, I have changed my URL on my website to www.jackmohr.com.au and I have updated my category on social media and I’ll be changing my username and doing a minor re-design of my website to help with the brand consistency of who I am and what I do,
This is the start of a new chapter, and I hope you’re excited as I am. Cheers to the future and thank you all for staying with me through this journey!
